Slaanesh Summoning

[whispersofblood]

26 minutes ago, Grailstorm said:

That is a niche situation in a 3-Thirster list fully geared around combat.

It will be interesting to check back in here in a couple of months when we have some more tournament results in. 

Not really that niche Tyrants of Blood is probably the default bloodthirster set up. And we want to compare real examples of these objects.

You haven't really addressed my analysis of the Blackout results either. 

Also Depravity and Summoning are literally just an allegiance abilities.

[Lucky Snake Eyes]

9 minutes ago, Grailstorm said:

This is the basis for the whole game. If there is no attempt at balance, there’s no point in playing. I never said anything about summoning not being included in the strength of an army as a whole, though. It plays a huge part in the strength of an army as a whole.

Surely there is no need to point out how summoning is an additional layer on top of an army?

All armies with an allegiance get abilities, items, and traits.

Armies that summon get abilities, items, traits and summoning.

Some armies have it, some don’t. It wasn’t originally a thing. Now it is a thing. Points haven’t been adjusted to cater for it. Therefore it is an additional layer on top of the base game.

There is no situation in which summoning is disadvantageous. Armies do not lose anything for having summoning. Their other abilities are no lesser (see Slaanesh for one such example). Their units are no more expensive.

 

I mean, summoning is one of those allegiance abilities, where slaanesh gets locus, summoning and exploding 6s others get a different set of abilities. Whether that be graveyards, 6's to ignore wounds and reviving units or the runes and lodges of fyreslayers or the myriad of tools sylvaneth can gain from their allegiances and groves. Summoning is one of the allegiance abilities, considering it separate from the allegiances list of abilities is treating it like isn't taking up the place of what could have been a different ability.

[Grailstorm]

13 minutes ago, Lucky Snake Eyes said:

I mean, summoning is one of those allegiance abilities, where slaanesh gets locus, summoning and exploding 6s others get a different set of abilities. Whether that be graveyards, 6's to ignore wounds and reviving units or the runes and lodges of fyreslayers or the myriad of tools sylvaneth can gain from their allegiances and groves. Summoning is one of the allegiance abilities, considering it separate from the allegiances list of abilities is treating it like isn't taking up the place of what could have been a different ability.

They get locus, exploding 6s, and then 2 of their choice when they choose their host. So 4 distinct abilities before you factor in summoning.

Sylvaneth get 3 abilities, 4 with a wargrove. And no summoning.

And that’s the high end. You’re hard pressed to find another army with 4 abilities (although Nagash hosts do). Free Peoples have 2. Daughters have 2, or 3 with a Temple. Ironjawz have 2. Stormcast have 2, or 3 with a Stormhost.

So this is my point. Slaanesh have 4. And they’re great. And then they also have summoning.

29 minutes ago, whispersofblood said:

Not really that niche Tyrants of Blood is probably the default bloodthirster set up. And we want to compare real examples of these objects.

The fact still remains it’s one niche situation.

On average, one Keeper will always kill one Thirster (they do more combat damage on average than all three Thirster variants before factoring in abilities).

30 minutes ago, whispersofblood said:

You haven't really addressed my analysis of the Blackout results either. 

I don’t think there’s really much to address until we see more results. I think it underscores their power, you obviously don’t.

Personally, I think any army with an >70% win rate has something overpowered about them. Tzeentch did. Daughters did. FEC did. And now Slaanesh do. Slaanesh were in a solid place before their book and now they’ve exploded.

[whispersofblood]

5 minutes ago, Grailstorm said:

They get locus, exploding 6s, and then 2 of their choice when they choose their host. So 4 distinct abilities before you factor in summoning.

Sylvaneth get 3 abilities, 4 with a wargrove. And no summoning.

And that’s the high end. You’re hard pressed to find another army with 4 abilities (although Nagash hosts do). Free Peoples have 2. Daughters have 2, or 3 with a Temple. Ironjawz have 2. Stormcast have 2, or 3 with a Stormhost.

So this is my point. Slaanesh have 4. And they’re great. And then they also have summoning.

The fact still remains it’s one niche situation.

On average, one Keeper will always kill one Thirster (they do more combat damage on average than all three Thirster variants before factoring in abilities).

I don’t think there’s really much to address until we see more results. I think it underscores their power, you obviously don’t.

Personally, I think any army with an >70% win rate has something overpowered about them. Tzeentch did. Daughters did. FEC did. And now Slaanesh do. Slaanesh were in a solid place before their book and now they’ve exploded.

What isn't niche about a set up though? All set ups are niche until they are mainstream. 

I feel like I've already outlined the underlying factors for why HoS are exceling. You haven't I'm curious about what actual mechanic and impact you can point out to show that the winrate is based on something other than HoS not playing the heavily trade/alpha meta game that exists. 

DoK were over powered for mechanical reasons. They were tough enough, hitty enough, immune to battleshock, could rerolls the only spell they needed to cast, with the best specific blocker piece in the game (Morathi), had the best board manipulation AND high numbers of models. The game has come a long way since then and while few armies are as tough, many are as or more hitty.

HoS are winning games because you can't alpha them off the board and everyone has built their army to deliver game ending combat phases. It's really not more complicated than that.

HoS would have a much lower winrate if DoK hadn't vanished off the face of the earth, and I expect CoS to be a hard match up.

If you want to beat HoS start by building your army to play 10 turns. If you want to slam your army into a HoS player's prepared defences you're probably not going to do well.

[XReN]

16 hours ago, Grailstorm said:

Personally, I think any army with an >70% win rate has something overpowered about them. Tzeentch did. Daughters did. FEC did. And now Slaanesh do. Slaanesh were in a solid place before their book and now they’ve exploded.

I will happily tell you what pushed FEC so high - ability to amplify power of GKoTG 4 times, their summoning, however, went down in effectiveness with the new Battletome and it is also factored in point costs of units that can do summoning and ressurecting models.

[Captain Marius]

For what its worth Jervis says that summoning is costed in, so in theory the Slaanesh stuff costs more points than it would without being able to summon. In that respect i think its pretty similar to stuff like plague monks being undercosted for what they can do.

[Dead Scribe]

If its true models are costed higher because they can be summoned then the issue is probably the same as it is with everything: the points are bad.

[5kaven5lave]

On 8/18/2019 at 2:15 PM, Captain Marius said:

For what its worth Jervis says that summoning is costed in, so in theory the Slaanesh stuff costs more points than it would without being able to summon. In that respect i think its pretty similar to stuff like plague monks being undercosted for what they can do.

Yeah, had a similar convo with him at Warhammer Fest where he basically explained the WD article in more detail. Have a lot of time for the fella and I think this issue highlights the impossible task he’s up against. Pointing the army for Captain Fluffsalot who names every Daemonette and probably brings 12 Fiends and the top table player running 3 Keepers is a tough thing to balance.

Even with the risk of coming up against the KO clown car though, I think we can all agree that some units need to cost more or that summoning points costs need to be higher. 

[Dead Scribe]

When they put summoning back in the game I think everyone knew that it was going to be imbalanced.  Most fans of the game just don't care about that kind of thing though so its a wash.

[The World Tree]

20 hours ago, Dead Scribe said:

When they put summoning back in the game I think everyone knew that it was going to be imbalanced.  Most fans of the game just don't care about that kind of thing though so its a wash.

I'm not convinced it is imbalanced in any situation except Slaanesh. Unless I'm forgetting something.

Slaanesh would have been so much better designed if it was solely based on wounds inflicted on them. Then the depravity points aren't so variable and can be better baked into unit costs. It still retains the fluffiness of paint infliction.

Edited August 21, 2019 by The World Tree

[Xasz]

21 hours ago, Dead Scribe said:

When they put summoning back in the game I think everyone knew that it was going to be imbalanced.

At least strongly concerned.

I remember the summoning disaster from my 40k days all too well (was it 6th or 7th edition? or one of the .5s? everything between 5th and 8th is kind of a mush tbh), partly the reason why I lost interest in 40k.

All things considered, I think GW did an ok job with the summoning rework in AoS.  There were some extreme spikes (e.g. FEC) but they got "fixed" or people learned to play around them (e.g. LoN). 

Slaanesh currently stands out by a huge margin. As others already pointed out, you get rewarded for nothing i.e. you get rewarded for doing what you would do anyway (arguably the same for Khorne or Tzeentch, but generation is limited) or play overly reckless without "a risk" (having an army designed about taking risks is fine, although not my favorite, but there should be an actual chance of failure involved)

I was expecting a similar rule for Slaanesh that was (for some reason) implemented into, and only, Khorne summoning. Ergo, you can only summon a single unit per turn but neither the Battletome nor the FAQ brought such a change for HoS. Which is still weird to me, why have one of four factions that share a design concept work fundamentally different?

I think capping HoS at 5 summons a game would be significantly easier to balance and might lead to less frustrating game play, while still retaining the summoning theme (you would still get big units or a KoS, just not all at once)

On 8/18/2019 at 2:15 PM, Captain Marius said:

For what its worth Jervis says that summoning is costed in, so in theory the Slaanesh stuff costs more points than it would without being able to summon.

By the grace of lord Archaon, I don't even want to imagine what their non-allegiance prices could be...

 

Edited August 21, 2019 by Xasz

[TheCovenLord]

I am usually not very negative but Slaanesh have become the rising star in the current store meta near me. Most of the more competitive players have sold out of their daughters and FeC armies for the new hot Slaanesh forces. They are very strong. Not unbeatable, but I would place them near skaven in terms of sheer power which I do not believe is healthy for the game as a whole. 

 

As far as summoning being factored into the cost I have to laugh. I believe that they (GW) like summoning as it promotes more model purchases outside of the 2000 point range (often a point of  purchase stagnation especially within the competitive scene) and to collect the entire range for niche summoning applications (a tool purchased for every single job, just in case). I doubt they are factored too heavily into the costing of the units unless they are still working on making non-summonable units on par with the likes of Witch Aelves and Plague monks. I see it as more of a smart business decision than a game balancing factor. Attrition and free teleport placements are very real issues and both very powerful and as @Dead Scribe has mentioned, I find it funny that anyone thought the mechanic would be balanced when re-introduced. 

Edited August 21, 2019 by TheCovenLord

[Tizianolol]

guys but when you summon a new unit for free( for example slaanesh depravity points) if you are going for a minor victory,  opponent gain points for this unit? Like if he kill a 300 points summoned unit, it counts at the end of the battle too see who player killed more enemy points?thx!

[ACBelMutie]

18 hours ago, Tizianolol said:

guys but when you summon a new unit for free( for example slaanesh depravity points) if you are going for a minor victory,  opponent gain points for this unit? Like if he kill a 300 points summoned unit, it counts at the end of the battle too see who player killed more enemy points?thx!

No. You don't earn points for killing summoned units (Slaanesh, Tzeentch, Legions, Flesh-Eaters...).

Greetings

[Slayerofmen]

Even if you did it only matters if its going to come down to victory points, which it wont

[Sagittarii Orientalis]

I do not usually post comments on threads that were recently "revived" via threadomancy.

But I must say it is very amusing to read those comments defending HoS so fervently.

Especially with the wisdom of hindsight, knowing what nerfhammer HoS took last December eventually.

Edited July 6, 2020 by Sagittarii Orientalis