Wordy9th

I think hard NPEs are mostly based on player interactions, or player interactions can turn soft NPEs into hard ones. Nothing leaves a more bitter taste in your mouth than a player running roughshod over your army or playing with rules that prevent interactions, but that can become far better if your opponent is an understanding and empathetic person. Or, conversely, far worse if they're a smuglord about it. From my perspective the NPE's I've experienced because of my armies are: Soulblight resurrections and Slaanesh summoning. What I've learned is absolutely no one enjoys seeing a unit of 30 skeletons come back, or resurrecting 6 at a time before that. With Slaanesh if the game is going even then out of nowhere a Keeper turns up gets a lucky charge does 15 mortals and makes sigvald fight twice then you're likely to get frowns too. Lack of explanation or understanding of game winning rules. If Mannfred's ability to teleport is not properly understood, or an artifact which reduces all rend by shooting was skipped over until the shooting round you can expect understandable discontent. Witnessing an uneven power balance. Especially outside of a tournament setting if your opponent is playing a BEER AND PRETZELS list and you've brought out the 2x Gladiatrix 60 Witch elf Morathi list then the human instinct to feel unfairly done by immediately comes to the fore. I once played another person's DoK army and the opponent player absolutely did not enjoy just watching an army list that was simply far better than his in every way demolish him. The NPE's I've experianced from other people's armies are: 1) Long turn times. This is a player factor but also an army one. Last night I witnessed a good friend of mine drive their opponent up the wall trying to measure every millimeter for a Sloppity bilepiper's song, asking far too many questions and generally just running down the clock. This of course has to do primarily with knowing your own rules, but armies such as Lumineth or any highly 'Johnny' focused player army which requires perfect execution to win absolutely affects this. Interactivity or lack thereof is an issue when you're stuck with someone for potentially a minimum of three hours, waiting an hour to use your redeploy or unleash hell doesn't quite cut it. 2) Debuffs. Even -1 to hit can feel bad, but -1 to damage because of a cruciator or DoK Invocation that I cannot dispell? My Corpse Cart giving out a -1 to wound aura has given conniptions plenty. I think what's worth really emphasizing is that the social contract part of the game is extremely important for all participants to follow, and make the experiance as best as possible for all parties. Not to sound cheesy but with great power comes great responsibility, and the better you are at the game, the more you know and the more powerful your army is I think, the bigger the onus is for you to make whatever tricks and abilities up your sleeve as palatable for the opponent as possible. Be aware of what is in your army that can cause NPE, explain it properly, and use it in accordance with the context you are given. That said, your opponent needs to be aware of these abilities, and if they aren't, think positively and take it as a learning exercise. One tournament I went to I had no idea the Engine of the Gods could summon Saurus warriors for free, that was on me for not knowing it and now I know! If you're playing a casual game and you know what your opponent is taking, be aware of what their army can do as much as you can, because if you're signing up to play against your friends Lumineth fox list, well, you have no one to blame but yourself x).

ODT is an old Latin term meaning: Ossiarchus Determinus Trebucheta Roughly translated it means “obr will get bowmen soon”

I think the psychographic profile of those who play LRL has the same effect of playing against an old school Blue Deck magic player, and as such players tend not to like sitting there listening to how they can't do x and y, usually in a tone of condescending villainous smuggery xD. Is this all LRL players? Absolutely not, but it takes just one game against someone triumphantly telling you total eclipse has gone off before explaining what his foxes do in the shooting phase to make someone get their Opinion For Life. This combined with LRL player turns usually taking absolutely ages doesn't make for a great average experience. But the post above that mentioned content creator hot takes should be taken into consideration, and yes the hate can get a bit much at times. I hope a new tome can make it a more pleasurable experience for everyone all-round.

No Lurid Haze Sigvald, meet the Quicksilver Swords endless spell. But yeah without Lurid Haze his 6 inch move is a serious problem, though I'd like not being forced into the god awful LH artefacts and command traits. It limits my cool list building.

These look great, I've been thinking about ways to convert more Symbaresh. It makes complete sense to do so, instead of the uniform painbringers, Symbaresh value their independance and having them with different converted looks makes a lot of sense. Keep the ideas coming!

I once thought as you do, I was once innocent. it’s a 4+ per slaangor, not enemy model sadly.

In the meantime this is probably going to be my go to list: Army Faction: Hedonites of Slaanesh - Army Type: Invaders - Army Subfaction: The Lurid Haze - Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs - Triumphs: Inspired LEADER Sigvald (205)* - General The Contorted Epitome (245)* - General - Artefacts: Oil of Exultation - Spells: Flaming Weapon - Bonding: Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur Shardspeaker of Slaanesh (135)* - General - Command Traits: Feverish Anticipation - Spells: Dark Delusions BATTLELINE Blissbarb Archers (140)* Blissbarb Archers (140)* Blissbarb Archers (140)* BEHEMOTH Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur (400)* ENDLESS SPELL Purple Sun of Shyish (70) OTHER 1 x Symbaresh Twinsouls (260)** 1 x Symbaresh Twinsouls (260)** CORE BATTALIONS: *Battle Regiment **Bounty Hunters TOTAL POINTS: (1995/2000) Feels weird all of this fits after so long with the old points, but time to get painting I guess! I’m not happy with how it prioritises painting spam units, but from a competitive standpoint (and not a hobby one sadly) this is great.

This is my issue, the internal balance has suffered believe it or not. Not reducing blissbarb seekers or slickblades raises the question now of why ever take seekers over blissbarbs on foot, or as previously mentioned, slickblades over symbaresh. The points changes are good and well changed, but feel unfinished and thus encourages warscroll spam.

After my tournament game I haven't been thinking of SBGL much, but these new changes and what they've done to MY SKELETONS have caused me conniptions. I've long been an advocate of the 30 skeletons, Necro and CC combo and it's done me very well in the past, but the new bounty hunter concern has me thinking of the route to go with SBGL now, in regards to its prolific battleline horde options. My initial thought is that when building 30 skeletons as an anvil, what hammers would I have to deal with in the game? The fear of the 4 fulminator charge, maw crusher etc was always there, and I think that a bounty hunter regiment would have to be on that tier of damage to completely delete a skeleton unit. The question of how prolific these units will be and if they have the damage potential to get in relatively unmolested and non-debuffed into the anvil and wipe it off the table is up in the air, but the likelyhood at this juncture is yes, and that skeletons might not be the choice. In which case, what is? Min battleline in SBGL still does work, especially if they count for 3 each, and that might be the go to being backed up by the big hitters, grave guard and blood knights. I've never been a fan of Blood Knights and their lacklustre damage, but with the new bounty hunter batallion and the ability for them to gain from Kastelai buffs (incuding the on demand +1 to damage artefact for the turn) can put them quite easily on 4 damage on the charge. Here's my conceptual list of what might do well in the meta: Vengorian lord / Radukar /the beast bomb of Rousing Commander and +1 attack for wherever you need to apply damage on the baord. GV batallion for the battle line to hold objectives for lots of bodies and very little points. Blood Knights hunt down GV (or anyone really) and the GG are there to take out non GV targets that the BKs can't deal with. Oh Radukar also summons 10 wolves for GV battle tactics where needed too. Mannfred's there because he's a great dude, nice guy really. The list feels like it hits the notes of what the season is "supposed" to be about. Whether the meta shakes out that way or not, time will tell!

Yeah the purple sun's application giving blissbarbs -2 rend, or twinsouls -1 rend(!) is amazing on paper. It's an 8 casting value, which is why I took an Epitome for the reroll casts and the Krondspine for the +1, though I was against Arkhan who has a No Fun Allowed policy on spells so I didn't get to see it in action :(. I wouldn't take them in 15 for a couple of reasons. 1) too many points in one place, Slaanesh likes to have lots of min sized units running around for more depravity generation 2) Overkill. You will be very hard pressed to get all 15 in combat, on who you want and where you want. I also rarely use any command points on Twinsouls. I usually just rely on their reroll hits to do work and save those command points for else ware.

Had a game last night with the new GHB rules, on the battleplan Gallet Prize (I think that's the name, it's the first one in the GHB anyway). Due to the Battleplan AND the realm rules, the person going second could choose two objectives to mess around with, it felt very strategic denying my opponent an objective he controls by making it GV only. Bounty hunters was strong, but probably didn't 'decide' the game. More testing required! We both tried to use the new purple sun but it got dispelled every time. Sad times! First glance review is it seems really fun, but I can't really make predictions without playing a bunch of games. The battleplans and realm rules / battletactics are huge and it'll be fun to see what the meta shakes out of all of this.

Managed to win a game against OBR this weekend as Slaanesh using all the new GHB accouterments. The Krondspine roared his squad of 30 mortek and without hunters that was the deathknell. Some of the battleplans heavily incentivise big old squads of GV, and I can see OBR doing well on those. his 30/20 Mortek were coutning as 90 and 60 on objectives respectively, so good luck removing that if you can't get roar off (I charged his squad of 20 mortek with a bounty hunter unit and they just bounced off for 2 turns in a row as usual). If you can protect your MG from being roared you should be fine. But monsters are a serious threat now and need to be dealt with for the boney boys.

Had a game on the first battleplan with all the new GHB and points last night. Took Contorted epitome and Purple sun, Siggy, blissbarbs, krondspine, all in battle regiment with Slickblades and 10x Twinsouls in Bounty Hunters. This was against a 2k OBR army which had 30 / 20 Mortek guard and all the usual. It was a hilarious game. Purple sun was dispelled every time (he took it too) by both of us so we never got to see it. The highlight which won me the game was managing to get the krondspine in on 30 Mortek after Arkhan failed his mystic shield (!), getting the roar off so he couldn't reroll saves, and managing an 11 inch charge with the twinsouls which walked right past his screen and ended up killing 22 Mortek Guard with their 3 damage each bounty hunter bonus. Without that roar or 11" charge I wouldn't have counted on me winning the game, but it sure demonstrated the damage they can do now. My slickblades managed to charge the other 20 Mortek Guard but with reroll saves they didn't do a whole lot, even with the Keeper I summoned making them attack twice and their +1 damage from bounty hunters. Being able to summon Daemonettes to drop GV units anywhere you need is useful, and Hellstriders with whips are still always overperforming for me.

Not sure but a question I did want to ask is if I take chaos warriors as Hedonites it says they must have the mark of Slaanesh. Does that mean they get exploding hits?

I can imagine the strategy will be: take out the opponents bounty hunters and have your battle-line hold objectives. The risk reward of where you allocate your points will be the interesting part. Do you go for more battle line and hope you can tie up / take out the bounty hunters while you completely dominate objectives? Or do you go for a Hunter kill strategy while holding out with minimal objective scorers. it’s an interesting tactical quandary that’s for sure

Sigvald is down from 265 so it’s a 20 point decrease :-). in the light of some other changes, like the Mortisan Soulmason going from 140 to 115, It feels a little dissapointing. Fiends going from 200 to 195 points feels very strange, Glutos still feels awfully overpriced and daemonettes surely still cannot be serious at 15 points more expensive than witch elves.

Interesting stats - provided points remain relatively similar, I'm very interested in seeing how units of 10 painbringers develop with the new GHB. I've quick-fired a list here: Allegiance: Slaanesh- Host: Lurid Haze Invaders Host (Host of Chaos)- Mortal Realm: Ghur- Grand Strategy: Hold the Line- Triumphs:Glutos Orscollion, Lord of Gluttony (475)Sigvald, Prince of Slaanesh (265)11 x Blissbarb Archers (170)11 x Blissbarb Archers (170)11 x Blissbarb Archers (170)10 x Myrmidesh Painbringers (290)- Reinforced x 110 x Symbaresh Twinsouls (330)- Reinforced x 13 x Slaangor Fiendbloods (130)Total: 2000 / 2000Reinforced Units: 2 / 4Allies: 0 / 400Wounds: 106Drops: 8 With the blissbarbs as GV, hopefully staying out of harms way, while the Painbringers, Twinsouls and Slaangors (look, I had 130 points left and I'd love to see them do two damage xD) are in the new Bounty Hunters batallion gaining +1 damage. Quick and dirty, but the concept of using more 'elite' infantry in slaanesh, backed up by Glutos' aura and a strong ranged component appeals to me. Of course we don't have all the information yet, but I wonder if the theme will turn out workable. -Edit- Plus it's nice to create lists without the Krondspine, which I've been using more or less exclusively in my slaanesh lists lately!

Looking forward to seeing the outcome with this list! I’ve been tempted by the dreadful visage. I found in my previous game I couldn’t risk sending in multiple units sometimes because of the strike-back in my opponents activation. I’d love to hear how it works out. what’s your game plan with the list?

Played against a nurgle list last night which contained a Great unclean one, their giant mercenary, some blight kings plaguebearers and blight lords. used this list Army Faction: Hedonites of Slaanesh - Army Type: Lurid Haze LEADER Bladebringer, Herald on Exalted Chariot (265) - General - Command Traits: - Artefacts: - Spells: Hysterical Frenzy Sigvald (265) BATTLELINE Blissbarb Archers (170) Blissbarb Archers (170) Hellstriders with Hellscourges (135) BEHEMOTH Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur (400) TERRAIN Fane of Slaanesh (0) OTHER Slickblade Seekers (230) 1 x Symbaresh Twinsouls (330) TOTAL POINTS: (1965/2000) I won and it ended up doing rather well, the Krondspine seemed necessary to deal with the gargant. Everything else needed to work in tandem to finish things off, with my blissbarbs managing to keep alive all game by running away from his slower units. Sigvald didn’t do much except kill 3 blight kings, but I was able to summon a keeper and two more exalted chariots and through speed and summons maintain objective control and whittle him down to his GuO and 3 plaguebearers. Meanwhile I still had 18 blissbarbs, 2 exalted chariots and a keeper on the field. It’s certainly fun to have nurgles disease tick away for one mortal wound every round to get that depravity up! But killing big targets feels difficult and the great unclean one was a constant terror the whole game who I dealt with by simply keeping away from it as much as I could. The new rally bonus netted me two crew twin souls back, and the movement bonus was pretty useful in the one turn I had it. I need to keep practicing with the list to see if I need any tweaks. The Krondspine feels so useful for an army like slaanesh and covers it’s weaknesses fairly well, and you don’t pay the summoning point tax for it either!

Finished my fane of Slaanesh to completion. The March of Slaanesh continues!

Yeah man I feel you, there's some good points here (unlike in the battletome hoho) which reasonably sum up my own issues with the army. So far, I've had more than 10 games with it, (I've won my fair share too) and my issue is that nothing seems to 'do' anything. There is virtually zero synergy across the army and everything is pointed on the assumption that you're rolling out an exalted chariot every turn and you're pushing mad exploding sixes every round. Here's a few bullet points that summarises my main issues with the army except the obvious such as points and bad warscrolls. Locked into the lurid haze subfaction. Sigvald is such a powerful piece that almost requires you to take this subfaction, which then locks you into some insultingly bad command traits and artefacts. You can't even take warlord without sacrificing the one drop which feels so essential to surviving and getting that potential double turn with summoning. Missing out on choosing artefacts and command traits isn't a feel good moment. Locked into taking non-Slaanesh options. Be'lakor, Cockatrices, the Krondspine. All units I didn't get into the faction for. Non-congruent rules. Keeper with -1 rend and 7 average damage,, Daemonettes on 4s and 4s. This isn't so much about the warscrolls being bad but not making sense or having any satisfaction in what they do. No synergy. Taking units with acquiescence to give reroll ones to both ranged and allied units is about the extent of it. Sigvald and the Keeper being a very expensive missile option. Stale gameplay: farming depravity forces a gameplay style that acts against the instincts of a strategy game, namely destroying units so they don't kill you. I still enjoy Slaanesh and these points aren't meant to hate on the faction, but rather bring to light some design issues that lie outside of the power/tier dynamic which I hope will be addressed in the coming book. I'm really interested to know if having more units on the board as a result of lower points will make the experience more of a satisfying one, or if pushing around an extra 150-200 points will help to alleviate some of the core issues with the book (likely not!)

Sounds like you had fun at least! What was your list?

Yes, anything in your army does including allies and incarnates.

Slowly working my way through the slaanesh army that I excessively purchased in March. started with a shardspeaker and the leader of the dread pageant warband, then tried my hand at a squad of ten daemonettes.