CeleFAZE

When you say all-mortal, do you mean all mortal starting on the board, or completely forgoing summoning?

Wish me luck, fellow hedonites. I just sent in a submission for Black Library's open call that's from a Slaaneshi perspective, with a bit of a twist.

Sign me up.

Absolutely. Seasonally themed gifts intended for Christmas just strike me as the most short-sighted thing. It's festive for the day you get it, and then go immediately out of season a day later until you pull it out the next year as "the Christmas squig". Granted I'm 100% on board for the Christmas squig to eat the elf on the shelf and replace it within the holiday hierarchy, but I would be so much more on board with a normal squig I can throw a Santa hat on 1 month out of the year.

I'm unfortunately not going to be able to get to tournaments for awhile to test this, but I came up with a list after considering what has worked well for top players (and re-evaluating my opinions on depravity-farming): List Name: Step on me Cyclops-Daddy Allegiance: Slaanesh - Host: Godseekers Host - Grand Strategy: Prized Sorcery - Triumphs: Inspired LEADERS Synessa, The Voice of Slaanesh (260)* Viceleader, Herald of Slaanesh (140)** - General - Command Trait: Master of Magic - Artefact: Arcane Tome - Lore of Slaanesh: Born of Damnation BATTLELINE 1 x Seeker Chariots (130)* 1 x Seeker Chariots (130)* 1 x Seeker Chariots (130)* UNITS 5 x Blissbarb Seekers (220)* 5 x Blissbarb Seekers (220)* 5 x Slickblade Seekers (230)** 5 x Slickblade Seekers (230)** 1 x Fomoroid Crusher (110)** - Allies 1 x Cockatrice (95)** -Coalition ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS Emerald Lifeswarm (60) Chronomantic Cogs (45) CORE BATTALIONS *Battle Regiment **Battle Regiment TOTAL: 2000/2000 Drops: 2 Gameplan here is to make use of the Fane as a nexus point for depravity farming by keeping the fomoroid next to it, swinging potential d3 MW into all of my units on my first turn, and using the 3 starting monsters to begin the game by immediately going for ferocious advance. The viceleader spends turn 1 casting emerald lifeswarm and probably born of damnation to heal up or arcane shield if neither of my heroes are hurting much, and Synessa calls up the cogs in the direction she intends to head over the next 2 turns. If I'm not in imminent danger and can place my fane well enough I'll shoot for going 2nd and hoping for a doubleturn in my favor, either saving for a 30 'nette drop turn 2, or seekers turn 1 if there's an objective I need to peel off towards and then whatever is appropriate turn 2. Then I'll proceed to play a bit cagey with Synessa and the cockatrice, working to get them into enemy territory by turn 3 for savage spearhead (though if I see an opportunity to cherry-tap kill a viable target for slay the warlord, bring it down, or broken ranks with their combined mortal wounds I'll jump on that first), using monstrous takeover with the fomoroid turn 2, hoping to keep it either within 6" of the fane or another piece of terrain as appropriate. Depending on the matchup I may just toss a keeper into enemy territory with depravity if the cockatrice bites it. My main weakness here is going to be shooting, however I'll have the movement to dance at the edges of ranges for a lot of potential dangers, and the cyclops can be easily zoned out of melee danger with the seeker chariots. Unbinding won't be as much of an issue, since I can guarantee the location of my initial fane-pain-train I can make sure I'm out of range of all but the most overextended casters, and the core depravity generation isn't spell-based like the burning head would be, so the only thing a magic dom would stop is my ability to sustain things over 3 or more turns. With average luck I'll ideally be managing 6-10 depravity each turn (potentially more) as long as my designated-dom cyclops sticks around, and that's only from my own units being damaged, any unfortunate enemies that want to get stuck into that mess are only going to add to the fun. The only thing that has a decent chance of killing the fomoroid is concentrated ranged fire, and I can keep it out of LOS by hiding behind the fane in a number of cases. Ambushing ranged units will potentially be an issue, but beyond zoning them out using the other units I can accept that I have a solid counter to my strategy and switch to a more mundane strategy if my fomoroid gets shanked fairly early. Against SOB I will probably try to utilize Synessa to Slothful Stupor strategic pieces to keep them from getting into melee, then descending on them individually to try and kill them one by one as quickly as I can. I could try splitting the points from the exalted seekers into other smaller units to increase the yield, but I like the seekers for the tactical flexibility they offer, as well as being very wound dense with a small number of models. Not a single unit will risk battleshock from the first turn of wounds, and at 5 models they can be maneuvered quite easily to toe into the 6" radius of the fomoroid's ability. I would love to run 4 units of blissbarb seekers so I can switch to hellstriders instead of seeker chariots, but I'm limited to what I have on-hand and slickblades are still a solid offensive linebreaker/countercharger, so I'm not terribly upset.

Beyond the issue of his high bravery, Khorne has multiple sources of +attacks, meaning you may only end up reducing it down to 1 or 2 attacks, rather than 0. Far better to keep him bogged down with chaff as others have suggested, as we have a tough time doing enough damage in one go that we don't just make him angrier.

I'd love it if they expanded on this concept. There were so many cool ideas introduced with Silver Tower and it's odd that they never expanded on more than the chaos bits. Spiderfang grots on foot like this would be a wonderfully weird addition to GSG, and really help to make it like more of a warclans style book with 3 more fleshed out factions.

Hm. I'm wondering what the best choice would be for Euphoric Killers. I know I want it to work with ranged attacks, but I'm stuck at whether or not to open it up to all chaos slaanesh units or keep it hedonite only. I think it might be a good solution to include a host option that opens up EK to all Slaanesh units, so that the whole book doesn't become the Marauders & Friends situation that we were in with the first tome, but still allows for those who had a primarily S2D or BoC Slaanesh army to play something close to what they had before.

To change up the hosts, as I feel the current ones don't really work as well in a post discovery-of-Slaanesh's-prison era, I'd like to explore an idea for a sort of "custom allegiance" in a similar vein to flesheater courts. Allegiance Ability: Excessive Obsessions: A Hedonites of Slaanesh army not belonging to a named host may choose up to 2 obsessions from the list below. If two obsessions are chosen, one vice from the proceeding list must be selected as well. Speed: Add +1 to run and charge rolls for friendly Slaanesh units. Deception: Friendly Slaanesh units may retreat and charge in the same turn. Pain: Friendly Slaanesh units gain a 6+ ward. Delicacy: Friendly Slaanesh units gain +1 to the roll to determine if a combat elixir draught is empty. Arcane: Friendly Slaanesh Wizards gain +1 to casting, unbinding, and dispelling rolls. Revelry: Friendly Slaanesh units gain +1 bravery. Vices: Craven: Friendly Slaanesh units suffer -1 to their bravery score. Avarice: Friendly Slaanesh units may not retreat if they are within 3" of a model bearing an Artifact of Power or a unique character. Recklessness: Friendly Slaanesh units must declare a charge if otherwise allowed if there are any enemy units within 12" at the beginning of the charge phase.

Combat Elixirs: All Mortal Slaanesh units in a Hedonites of Slaanesh army begin the game with a draught of combat elixir. In the hero phase any units may imbibe this elixir to add 1 to hit rolls for their attacks. After using this ability roll a dice, on a 3+ additional doses of combat elixir remain and the ability may be used again in subsequent hero phases, otherwise the draught is empty and cannot be used again during the battle. A unit may instead add 1 to hit and wound rolls for all attacks, if they do so the draught is not emptied on a 5+, and if this roll is a 1 the unit takes D3 mortal wounds and instead receives no bonuses from using the draught. Sweet Sorrows: In your hero phase, instead of summoning a unit using the Feast of Depravities allegiance ability, you may spend 3 depravity points to refill one unit's empty draught, and allow that unit to once again use the Combat Elixir ability. You may refill up to 3 draughts in each hero phase, spending 3 depravity points for each.

My thought is that the dances will be restricted only to the Viceleader and the Masque, to give the former a clearly defined role. I took inspiration from the sloppity bilepiper, flipping the balance of effects from 2 buffs and 1 debuff to 2 debuffs and one buff. I agree it's a bit oppressive as it currently stands, I'll likely change it to halving run and charge rolls, as my initial premise was for a defensive debuff that increases our chances of getting the charge, but I could definitely see it becoming heavily abused with multiple viceleaders in a list creating large zones of reduced movement. On consideration I also feel that Ballet of Lust's radius may be too large, so I've reduced it to keep it largely contained to combats the dancer is very close to. I'm liking the direction of all the dances doing something to movement, so instead of Waltz of Sloth affecting retreat distance, Tango of Vainglory will also keep enemy units from retreating, which I feel is thematic for that style of dance. Here's the first revision: Beguiling Dances: During your hero phase, each Viceleader may perform one dance from the list below. Such is her skill at the art that the Masque may instead choose two different dances to perform simulanteously. These dances remain in effect for these models until the beginning of your next hero phase: Waltz of Sloth: Enemy units within 12" of a model performing this dance halve (rounding up) all run and charge rolls if they are within range when the movement is started. Tango of Vainglory: Friendly Slaanesh units wholly within 12" of a model performing this dance add +1 attack to all weapons in the combat phase. Enemy units may not retreat while in combat with a unit benefitting from this dance. Ballet of Lust: Enemy units within 6" of a unit performing this dance must roll a dice when they are chosen to pile-in, on a 4+ they may not make a pile-in move, but may still attack as normal. Envious Primadonnas: No two friendly models may choose to perform the same dance in the same turn.

I agree that the list should be pared down, if not made into a single bonus, though I'm hesitant to go with the latter. I was inspired by the old combat drug rules from the 3rd edition dark eldar codex for the mechanic, and I'd like to keep some semblance of doubling down at a significant risk. Perhaps one dose is +1 to hit, two is +1 to hit and attacks, but carries the risk of mortals and no bonus? I'd like to keep away from +1 to wound to allow for good synergy with the Beguiling Dances ability above, though I could definitely change the dance to +1 attack instead to shuffle around the bonuses. Using depravity to refill the elixirs has both a thematic and mechanical reason. On the mechanical, I want to give mortal-focused armies something to do with their depravity in lieu of summoning, to allow that choice of list to be able to stand on its own. Thematically, it would be a special property of the draught bottles, able to distill the pure essence of depravity into something that can be tasted at one's leisure.

Beguiling Dances: During your hero phase, each Viceleader may perform one dance from the list below. Such is her skill at the art that the Masque may instead choose two of the dances below to perform simulanteously. These dances remain in effect for these models until the beginning of your next hero phase: Waltz of Sloth: Enemy units within 12" of a model performing this dance halve (rounding up) all normal moves, retreats, runs, and charges if they are within range when the movement is started. Tango of Vainglory: Friendly Slaanesh units wholly within 12" of a model performing this dance add 1 to all wound rolls in the combat phase. Ballet of Lust: Enemy units within 12" of a unit performing this dance must roll a dice when they are chosen to pile-in, on a 4+ they may not make a pile-in move, but may still attack as normal.

Revised Locus (to be in line with how other Locus abilities work): Locus of Precision: Increase the rend of melee attacks made by Slaanesh Daemon units by -1 while they are within 6" of a Slaanesh Daemon Hero, or within 12" of a Slaanesh Greater Daemon Hero.

WIP rules for combat elixirs: Allegiance ability: Combat Elixirs: All Mortal Slaanesh units in a Hedonites of Slaanesh army begin the game with a draught of combat elixir. In the hero phase any units may imbibe this elixir to gain one of the following 6 bonuses until the beginning of your next hero phase: battleshock immunity, +1 attack to all weapons, +1 to hit, reroll charges, +1 save, or +1 to casting and unbinding rolls. After using this ability roll a dice, on a 3+ additional doses of combat elixir remain and the ability may be used again in subsequent hero phases, otherwise the draught is empty and cannot be used again during the battle. A unit may instead choose two of these bonuses, if they do so the draught is not emptied on a 5+, and if this roll is a 1 the unit takes D3 mortal wounds and receives no bonuses from using the draught. Drink Deep and Descend into Depravity: In your hero phase, instead of summoning a unit using the Feast of Depravities allegiance ability, you may instead spend 3 depravity points to refill one unit's empty draught, and allow that unit to once again use the Combat Elixir ability. You may refill up to 3 draughts in each hero phase, spending 3 depravity points for each.

That's a part of the current Slaanesh design philosophy I'd prefer to move away from, the abilities that are "win some, lose big" or "play a separate minigame to unlock what should be baseline". The risk is built in to the ability being linked to a hero that it will be points-restrictive to run multiples of, and only benefits one unit with an ability that's baseline on the stormcast chariots and annihilators. I plan to add an element of "win big lose big" with rules for combat elixirs for the mortal hedonites, that will allow multiple buffs to be stacked with a detrimental risk associated. I always felt that should've been something we had once the new mortals were unveiled with all those potion bottles on their belts. So as to not clutter the main thread with homebrew shenanigans, I'll start a new thread for brainstorming:

To avoid cluttering the main thread with non-canon rules, this thread will be a place we can discuss ideas for fan-made rules that better represent our forces on the tabletop. I'm in the process of creating my own fan-tome, but I encourage others who'd like to discuss mechanics and themes with rule-making to use this as a sounding board for input and critique. I'll start off with a couple of warscrolls I've created to represent the "boobsnake" lords and sorcerors from WHFB:

I derived it from the background in the Paragon of Depravity command ability from the foot version, where mortal followers of Slaanesh are inspired by the Lords of Pain to push themselves further to emulate their example. I felt that seekers would strive to charge more recklessly into enemy lines for the same reasons. It would make the most sense to restrict it to mortal seekers and hellstriders, but mechanically I felt it was also something that should benefit daemonic seekers too. For the background of the mounted lord I was thinking back to the stories of how one has to pass through 6 different temptations to reach the palace of Slaanesh. Lords of Pain are so dulled to sensation that for the strongest among them the only thrill left is to seek out the throne of their missing god and take in some lingering essence that remains. What they find is the exalted seeker wyrms, writhing in mourning, desperately tasting the air for any trace of their absent master's affection.

And here's the shardspeaker version, tentatively 250 points. Feel free to test these out in friendly games. I know it probably won't amount to much, but at least it gives use something fun to use with our old models on boobsnake until GW throws us a bone.

Here's a rough draft of the mounted LoP. I would tentatively point it at 240 points. I did not give it a native 3+ save as I feel that would be a bridge too far considering the other abilities, especially the built-in ward that is thematically necessary for a Lord of Pain. I also did not give it a command ability as GW seems to be phasing out the idea of command abilities on warscrolls as we've seen with the new tomes, instead opting for the pseudo-command buffs that we've seen more of. I tried to stick closely to paradigms that we have already seen as core to the Slaanesh identity, and a buff that provides something that already exists in the game but is not currently a granted ability. I used the Chaos Lord on Karkadrak as a rough skeleton to base this on, bearing in mind that rend is trending upwards in recent releases (though I tried not to go overboard).

At this point I'm tempted to just write my own battletome for us and submit it to GW with a proposal for freelance rules writing. They obviously need someone who's interested in exploring background-oriented rules for our next update. The only problem is that they could run into issues with work-for-hire if they are already working on similar rules, so I'll need to include language that gives them permission to do so even if they don't have any interest in bringing on more writers, which is the most likely outcome. I'm also in the process of writing warscrolls for a lord of pain on Exalted seeker-wyrm and shardspeaker on Exalted seeker-wyrm for fun to give us a mounted hero option. At this point I just want our rules to feel like they really represent our force as it stands in-universe.

Something like: Vainglorious host: Sadistic Strikes: Attacks by friendly Slaanesh units that roll an unmodified 6 to wound gain an additional -1 rend. Mirror Guard: Myrmadesh Painbringers and Symbaresh Twinsouls may be selected to pile-in within 6" of enemy units and may pile-in an additional 3" in the combat phase Exemplar of Excess: Sigvald may be your general in addition to your chosen general. Martial Depravity: At the end of your battleshock phase you gain d3 depravity points if any enemy models were slain by attacks from friendly Slaanesh models during the preceding combat phase. In addition, instead of summoning a unit in your turn, you may spend 6 depravity points in your hero phase to provide up to d3 friendly Slaanesh units one of the following bonuses until your next hero phase (different units may select different bonuses): +1 attack to all weapons, +1 to wound, or +1 to save Debauched Host: Masochistic Glee: During your hero phase any number of friendly Slaanesh units may take d3 mortal wounds. If they take damage in this way this unit may select one of the following bonuses until the beginning of your next hero phase: +1 to charge rolls for every mortal wound received, immunity to battleshock, or +1 to casting and unbinding rolls for every mortal wound received. Pleasure from Pain: Slaanesh units in your army have a 6+ ward. Lord of Debauchery: Glutos Orscollion may be your general in addition to your chosen general. Gorge on Depravity: At the end of your battleshock phase gain d3 depravity points if any of your units received wounds that were not negated this player turn. In addition instead of summoning a unit this turn you may spend 6 depravity points in your hero phase and select d3 units, you may heal these units for d3 damage, or if no wounds have been suffered by these units your may return slain models to these units with a combined wounds characteristic of up to d3. You may select the same unit multiple times. Prodigal Host: Dance of Death: Slaanesh daemon units in your army may retreat and charge in the same turn. In addition Slaanesh daemon units in your army do not need to pile-in towards the closest enemy unit when they make a pile-in move. Grandiose Entrance: Slaanesh daemon units in your army may be set up in reserve in the realm of chaos instead of set up on the board during deployment. You may set up one unit in the realm of chaos for every unit that starts on the board. At the end of any of your movement phases you may set up a unit from reserve anywhere on the table outside of 9" of an enemy models. Any units set up this way may change the lowest die rolled for any charge rolls made that turn to a 6. Any units not set up by the 4th battle round are considered slain. Progeny of the Divine: Dexcessa and/or Synessa may be your generals in addition to your chosen general Avatars of Depravity: Gain d3+1 depravity points at the end of your battleshock phase. When summoning a unit using the Feast of Depravities allegiance ability, if you choose to set up the unit within 12" of either Dexcessa, Synessa, or a Keeper of Secrets you may deduct 3 from the depravity point cost of the summoned unit.

Also, the shield annihilators are almost a completely separate role, in my opinion. With shields they're largely a harassment and disruption unit, meant to slam down, do enough damage to weaken a key target, and then remain a hard-to-shift nuisance in your opponent's lines. Being that they cost so much less you can afford to potentially run a couple units to scare your opponent into spreading thin to zone your drop radius out while the rest of your list capitalizes on concentrating force. The two-hander version is more of a scalpel, meant to trade with high-value lynchpin pieces in your opponent's backline and are too costly to serve as anything more than that.

Judging from the current design philosophy, I have to agree. With a decent points revision (and a slaangor makeover) we'll be in a serviceable spot for sure.

Got in a local one-day team tournament today, which was actually a lot of fun. I tried out a list using two large squads of foot blissbarbs, which while rather swingy were still exceptionally good at removing or diminishing key targets. The Contorted Epitome continues to be an unfortunate disappointment, and I don't foresee including it in my list again any time soon (though as a summoning piece I can see some value). Sigvald always surprises me with his resilience, but it's so critically important to be careful with your target selection, and line up your charges to minimize return damage. Also a word of advice while using him: do not get greedy with your charging. If he can make it in with what you rolled, keep it. In my hubris I rerolled a 7 to a 2, missing the charge by less than an inch and eating a countercharge from phoenix guard and a frostheart anointed the next turn. From a combination of finest hour, heroic recovery and mystic shield he survived long enough to tie up more than double his points for enough time to clinch the win, but I would've preferred he tore apart half the squad before they got to strike in the first place instead. I definitely missed the +1 charge of godseekers, though the ambushing from lurid haze was so critical to the scalpel style of play we center around that I'm not sure I'd be willing to switch back from it any time soon, unless I needed the extra few points that seeker chariot battleline would afford me. While the event itself was not a great test case for our faction as a whole (my partner ran SoB, which gave us resilience and capturing power that we really can't achieve one our own), it definitely gave me insights into potential routes to build towards in the future. I may explore using a mercenary gargant in future lists, but the lack of the amplified objective presence their own allegiance provides gives me some pause.