CeleFAZE

Anyone read the newest short story? Spoilers:

Slaanesh is the only army I tend to go with a fairly traditional paint scheme for, I do hair with magos purple, alternate cloth with shyish purple and magos purple, and do metal with either silver with a purple wash or gold. For daemon skin I do the standard pale purple-grey, and for human skin I actually do a base of a pale skintone and then take about 6 different army painter brown washes and do two random ones for each model so I get a pretty broad range of skintones represented.

I'd fully expect both ogres and chaos dwarves as DLC factions. I'd also be rather surprised if Araby doesn't make an appearance too at some point.

The exalted steeds are a great direction, I feel. They seamlessly bring together a number of the more recent design cues from the range, like the armor, jewelry, hooves, and flowing cloth, while still keeping a recognizable silhouette that immediately reads as a steed of Slaanesh. My only real disappointment is the lack of a daemonic cavalry version of the exalted steeds, but considering the sheer scale of this release it would be a bit greedy to demand more than we're receiving at this point. As for the narrative, I think we'll see the plotline of the Newborn spread out a bit more across the grander direction the game's story takes. Considering Tzeentch's involvement with the imprisonment of Slaanesh, and the prophecy from the last short story, I imagine this will open up the opportunity for some godly politics within chaos, which is always a treat to see. As for Sigvald marching into Shyish, it seems a little lazy at first glance, but it does make our faction relevant in more conflicts between the grand alliances, which can only do good things for our foothold in the events to come. While there currently doesn't seem to be any BL books coinciding with the new release, I think with our increasing relevance to the overall narrative we could see something sooner rather than later.

I think that's the symbaresh unit leader on the cover.

This would also suffice. I mentioned strength and toughness as things that the system would have to rebuilt from the ground up to reflect, and as you showed that wouldn't be in the spirit of the game as it stands. That's precisely why I wrote that a - to wound would be an optimal compromise, since it would be a unilateral way of ensuring that there is something to differentiate a monster with a 5+ save as more substantial than its woundcount in grots, which is becoming increasingly apparent as the meta moves more towards shooting. Your suggestion for the wound penalty for attacks from non-monster to monsters would work well enough, and be easier to incorporate than warscroll updates.

I'm really interested to find out what kind of buffs it provides to the unit. I'd love for them to be a battlefield control element for us, handing out targeted debuffs like a malus to movement, hit, wound, etc., but I have a sneaking suspicion it will just be something boring like mortal wounds. Don't get me wrong, MW from archers can be a powerful mechanic, but it's so prevalent that it would just seem like lazy design at this point.

If they don't want to introduce strength and toughness for 3.0, at the very least they could introduce a mechanic where certain tougher monsters and units have a malus on being wounded. Call it something like "resilience" and make it a thing that can allow for larger models with worse saves to still be a challenge to take on. For instance, a mancrusher gargant could have resilience 1, resulting in a -1 on wound rolls, and a mega-gargant could have resilience 2, providing a -2 to the wound roll. This gives them some of the benefit of the Str vs T system without having to rework the whole ruleset to compensate, and they could retroactively apply it to units with a warscroll update. I imagine that resilience 1 would be the most common, with 2 being rather rare and limited to things that can't be fielded en mass, and go no higher than that. The only possible downside is that much like rend, I can see the distribution of this being rather uneven and certain armies getting more or less of it on a fairly arbitrary basis.

I can't believe I missed that. Also considering the extreme height difference of the daemonette compared to the archer, I'm no longer nearly as certain as I was.

Based on a comparison of the rim size in the overlap there, I'm fairly certain they're on 25mm, though there's a chance they could be on a weird new base size that's close. I think there's at least something on a 28mm, maybe in Warcry?

It would be pretty easy to convert the bow arms to shield hands, and a good deal of the archers are bow/ccw equipped already, so I think it'd probably be a rather straightforward conversion.

That would be amazing, but would be a pretty hefty release to come out all at once.

Since the aesthetic of the minis is kind of a Middle Eastern mishmash rather than historical Persian, I've been printing these for my marauders: https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-arabian-nights-warriors-145636 They fit pretty well.

If nothing else shooting is the least balanced factor in AoS at the moment, so as long as blissbarbs are decent we'll at least be competitive.

That's the hope. I mostly see GW's rules to be more of a case of incidental incompetence when things are overpowered however, if they were attempting to drive sales selectively via rules they've done a poor job of that with a number of releases. Apologies for being a wet blanket on the hype train.

I suppose I can go with one last round of (pessimistic) predictions, just for fun(?): Depravity will change to work on our units, but will otherwise be unchanged aside from point rebalancing. Keepers will go up to 75 points. Most of the abilities will be keyed to the hedonites keyword, though nearly all of them will be changed to mortal or daemon hedonites The keeper will be largely unchanged, except its command ability will be changed to hedonite daemon units Syll'Esske's command ability will be changed to affecting hedonites rather than chaos slaanesh. Most of the daemonic units will remain untouched, including fiends. Blissbarbs will have an ability to reroll 1's to-wound as long as the haemonculus is alive, and will not generate depravity. Myrmadesh will basically be chaos warriors with a 5+ damage shrug. No rend, 2 attacks each. Symbaresh will have a standardized spread of weapons with no real synergy between them, some with rend, some with reach, some with no rend but 2 damage. They'll be about 20-40 points overcosted for what they do, but will be battleline with Syll'Esske. They will have the benefit of both the daemon and mortal keywords, which would be great on something more focused to a specific role than they'll be. The blissbarb seekers will just have the same ranged output as a similar model count of blissbarbs, but with the added benefit of the exalted fiend attacks, which will probably amount to 3 attacks with no rend. They'll probably be relegated to the shelf for most people, but may end up seeing use as objective camping harassers. The spear seekers will outperform chaos knights per model though not on output per points, but be mostly the same in terms of role, defensive stats, and offensive punch, with the exception of baseline -1 rend on their spears. They'll be priced around 240 points for 5. Hellstriders are exactly as they are in the shadow and pain box, and will not have the option to become battleline. Glutos will have some kind of ability that allows him to gain from a set of 3-4 abilities after he kills a set number of models. They'll mostly be rerolls for himself, and he'll be outperformed by a keeper in most cases. He'll potentially have some weird corner-case use that people figure out how to abuse a month or two in, due to a bizarre wording of his abilities that do not work at all how they would intuitively appear to. The shardspeaker will have some kind of defensive ability for themself like -1 to be hit by ranged attacks and a debuff spell, but no access to bonuses to cast or to unbind, with one of each per turn. Slaangors will basically be hedonite bullgors, without too much to differentiate them. They'll lack the mortal keyword, which will create some frustrating breaks in synergy, but they'll have -2 rend on the leader's weapon, and turn out to be fragile though effective beatsticks. Their claw attacks will be identical to fiends. Locus will remain a 5+, keepers will lose their bonus, and it will be a daemon-only ability. The hosts will be largely unchanged, with no inclusion of the Syll'Esskan host, which will be removed with this book. Sigvald will be a beatstick character-hunter, but his weapon will only have -1 rend and 2 damage with about 5 attacks, rerolling to hit and to wound against characters and troggoths. He'll have a command ability that allows hedonite mortals to reroll wounds in the combat phase. Marauder hordes will be amazing with our book, and continue to outshine most of our other units. I really hope they knock it out of the park and everything here massively undershoots compared to what we actually get, but the slaves to darkness book and the last few revisions we've received have tempered my expectations severely.

Yeah, the wait is killing me. There really isn't anything to contribute to useful discourse beyond speculation, and I think that's pretty much played out about as far as we can reasonably take it without any solid rules previews to go by. Once the Deathguard release comes out I'm holding out hope that the hype train will go into full gear for us.

Not gonna lie, this has made the drought of rules previews just a little more bearable.

Archaon was the Chaos general that destroyed the Old World and put in motion the events that led to Age of Sigmar. He was a former Sigmarite priest that lost his faith and turned to the chaos gods, though he never had any real love for any of them and managed to become marked by all four as the only current everchosen, effectively playing them all against one another while never devoting himself to any one in particular. He's basically a demigod at this point, and is the unified head of Chaos as a military faction in the setting.

1. Cultists can benefit from the prayers, just not the bonus effect of each prayer from having a mark. You can actually use the god specific prayers on any unit, you just get only the first effect unless you have that mark. 2. Mark of chaos gives bonuses from shrine prayers and you gain additional bonuses in radius from same mark heroes and the general. However there are no inherent bonuses to the mark, it simply "activates" the potential for other abilities. 3. You can mix and match however you choose, but you want at least one hero of each mark you've marked a unit with so they can benefit from the aura abilities. 4. You're correct, it only moves in one direction and does not pivot. 5. I don't use mutiliths, so I'm not sure about that, but on average if you're using its ability each turn of a game you'll produce one chaos spawn. As for heroes turning into spawn, it's really not super common. Having a couple on hand for that is probably fine barring weird corner cases. 6. You can probably use a suitably "chaosified" model conversion of similar size if you're not a fan of the current models.

I think vampires are going to shape up to be more of a powerful, elite, finesse army with this new look. Death currently has tanky elites in the form of the Ossiarchs, fast aggressive tricky hordes with Nighthaunt, and hordey meatgrinders with Flesheaters. What's missing is a more tactical elite army with good mobility, and rapier-wielding vampires (pirate-themed or no) would fill a gap in the current lineup. I can imagine they might also be the first death army with archers.

I get the notion that marauders are in place for a fairly significant nerf, whether with this FAQ or a later update, I don't expect they'll keep their cost, charge buff, and/or rend. While I'd prefer GW to simply increase the rend of other S2D units and maybe alter marauder's charge rules, they seem to only be capable of heavy-handed or laissez-faire changes. Without changes they'll still have a role as a large damaging tarpit, but I'd prefer they not be our only viable option in that regard. I have a feeling we'll be fairly powerful as a stand-alone force with this new book, and I really hope that daemonettes will have their time in the sun as our massed melee infantry choice. Personally I'm most looking forward to fielding massed archers and mobile hellstrider chaff, but my 120 demon ladies (seriously, it seems like every box we've received has a unit and they just keep piling up) need a good opportunity to see play too.

I think it's fair to assume that there will be at least some changes. I expect we may actually see a rebalancing of the KoS's secondary weapons, as the hand right now is so much better than the others that there's really very little comparison. If you can magnetize it I would highly recommend it, as we really have no way of knowing at the moment. As for what kind of changes? I don't expect we'll see a huge shuffling of roles, as most of the new stuff looks like it would be fundamentally different from what we currently have. We already have a horde-y close combat unit with daemonettes, and I think they'll still be a fast, blender-y battleline, seekers will remain the fastest non-flying cavalry in the game, and chariots of all varieties will probably not change significantly from where they are now. Fiends could likely change somewhat, as right now they're kind of an unfocused unit that just does a lot of really different things and not particularly well. I'd venture a guess that the updated warscroll cards from Shadow and Pain are identical to what's in the new book for all units involved, so hellstriders will still function as targeted chaff or combat support as they are now. As it stands, I think the roles as they are for existing units aren't going to drastically change, though I'd be very surprised if there wasn't some option that unlocks hellstriders as battleline. I think we'll probably see more host-related battleline unlocks, and with both Sigvald and the symbaresh touching upon the theme of mortals and daemons I think the Syll'Esskan Host will be renamed and rebalanced to exist as a new baseline host. As for the new units and what roles they'll be adding to our repertoire, we can only wildly speculate. As nothing more than a guess for all of these, I think the myrmadesh and symbaresh will both be heavily armored with a 4+ save, and from the underworlds warband I think we can extrapolate that the myrmadesh will have either a 4+ or 5+ damage shrug, while symbaresh will have a number of different weapon profiles which will prove either tricky and strange, or they'll be a garbage option that's unfocused and outclassed. Nothing to go by on this but what we've seen in the past in other forces. The archers are self explanatory and while I think we'll probably have some kind of mechanic based on the homonculus, it could either be as simple as providing re-rolls, or something as robust as the stances that the big ossiarch infantry can use, with multiple options that could prove interesting. Slaangors can presumably act as monstrous infantry beatsticks, likely with -2 rend, which we don't have terribly much of at present. The large cavalry with spears will probably be 3-5 wounds apiece, with some bonus to damage/rend on the charge (making them basically stronger hellstriders), while the archer cavalry will have roughly the same base stats (presumably with less armor due to the lack of shields) and the same bows the foot archers have without any of the homonculus buffs. I imagine the shardspeaker will be a debuffing wizard, possibly with some kind of ability that affects enemy units in addition to whatever warscroll spell they get. Sigvald will probably be mostly an anti-hero beatstick with some kind of interesting command ability, while Glutos is probably going to be a really weird unit that has some kind of strange buff and/or debuff mechanic in addition to his warscroll spell.

Less bookkeeping and less complication is something I'd be glad to see, personally. We need to lose the "but didn't die" aspect of depravity, as it doesn't even really make sense from a background perspective, as numerous sources note that killing and dying both are sensations Slaanesh followers derive extreme pleasure from. If I were to redesign it, we'd gain a point the first time a unit deals damage in a phase as well as the first time a unit receives damage in a phase. This gives us extra generation from chariots, spellcasters, and archers, and encourages aggressive play and tactical sacrificial use of chaff. Buffs for depravity should be on multiples of six, and be something like: 6 - 5+ damage shrug for a single friendly Slaanesh unit for a phase 12 - re-roll hits for d3 friendly Slaanesh units until next your next hero phase 18 - Until your next hero phase all friendly Slaanesh units can run and charge, if they already can do so they automatically roll max for their run rolls 24 - Euphoric killers occurs on unmodified 5+ for all friendly slaanesh units until your next hero phase. (if ranged units don't already have access to exploding hits they gain it on unmodified 6's). 30 - All friendly Slaanesh units can be chosen to attack first before enemy units until the end of the combat phase. 36 - D6 friendly Slaanesh units benefit from all of the above. It's not perfect and probably far from balanced, but I'd be thrilled to see options like this.

With the spectrum of changes we've seen in other books, I'm wondering if we'll end up actually keeping our exploding 6's or not once the new tome is out. We're kind of unique in regards to daemons at the moment, where our locus isn't really a buff from daemon heroes as much as a debuff to enemy units, and I wonder if they'll be changing our locus effect to instead enable euphoric killers on our daemon units. It would strictly be a nerf, and I'd hate to see it happen, but with the multitude of kneejerk rebalancing we've experienced since the last book I'm bracing for something like that. I'd really love to see at least some kind of rules reveal to go with all the new model previews; this dripfeed approach is pretty agonizing.