Yoid

Wards saves make sense to me too, the heralds have it since forever (and all daemons have it in 40k, so is not that rare). Daemons of Slaanesh are mostly naked seductive warriors, the KoS is obviously using his body to look graceful in battle. Even in the 300 movie spartans were depicted as mostly naked perfect warriors. something like having a 5+ ward save but a - (none) armor save would be quite cool and thematic, and different enough from Nurgle as a mechanic, making nurgle still the king of resilience. Twinsouls already explore this concept too, but only when the daemon side is in command with the supernatural reflexes. I don't see something like this happening because I don't believe in the rule writers being so brave and smart, but something like the Mawtribes rule about being eating or hungry could work. While not in close combat our troops are "moving at daemonic speed", while moving at daemonic speed they have a 5+ ward save. When in close combat they are "figthing with unholy precision", while figthing with unholy precision they have -1 additional rend.

Im positive about a new book coming soon. As mentioned, we don't even have Dexcessa/Synessa in our book. DoK is coming soon wich means the rule of having a recent book dosnt apply. It would be a perfect chance to release a plastic herald as the single new model. Im worried about such a book being written too early tho, beacuse I hope they got the time ro receive all the feeedback of the players, I want to see summoning greatly nerfed so we can have the core units greatly buffed. By reading the recent books (IDK and FS) our book seem clearly underdesigned and our warscrolls seem utterly undertuned. Making Slaanesh a "Prime Hunter" or wathever they called it is the prove of GW acknowledging the state of the army. Im hoping for a book coming soon (maybe even the next Chaos Battletome already anounced) and changing every single Daemon warscroll. Remember that our Battletome was more of an add-on with all the Daemon stuff copy pasted from the previous one.

I see. I believe if you give +1 to hit to Painbringers and Slickblades they deal exactly the same number of MWs on average than MWs to hit because you average the same number of hits than dices you roll to hit (with the potential of doing less or more sometimes). That is because mathematically exploding 6s equall to +1 to hit, so they get the same average as an autohit unit (a 1+ to hit unit). If you roll exactly the same number of dices to hit and to wound, then you perform the same number of MWs in both rolls.

I don't know how you did your math, but 18 attacks 3+/3+ with MWs to hit do 3 MWs, while 18 attacks 3+/3+ with double hit on 6s and MWs on wound rolls of 6 deal 2'48 MWs. This is simply because you roll less dice to wound than to hit. The moment you go to 4+ (Blissbarb Seekers) the formula go even worse because you are loosing more dices in the hit roll, doing 1'5 MWs instead of 3. And im all in with Slaanesh having exploding 6s, we don't need more MW spam (we can play chariots if they are correctly pointed). Will not mind MWs to wound becoming an allegiance ability tho (lovely for Daemonettes)

I think the problem is the Snowball effect of our army. You start with 1500 pts in the table and you rely on summoning 1000 pts to get the upper hand later. Most competitive armies are made to destroy and melt high value of points in a single turn. The game is explosive and rely on a thin balance to work. If you both start with 2000 pts and 2000 pts can destroy 500 pts in a turn, then you both need to play that turn correctly so next turn is 1500 pts vs 1500 pts, thats because points is your tankiness but also your damage output and your score (mostly bodies) capability. The moment you start with 1500 pts and the enemy with 2000 pts there is a high chance he erase 500 of your points and leave you with 1000 pts to retaliate. It is not imposible to generate 1000+ points and take the upper hand, but is extremely uphill. If you are erasing enemy threats then you are not generating enough DP. This force you to play anvils and scatershots to generate the DP at the cost of not erasing enemy threats. It works the other way too. If someone got a really good game and summon 30 Daemonettes/1 KoS a turn, then he snowballs too hard and end in a really good position. But the chance of doing so are few, and as tested, even BoC can win tournaments in the hands of the best players in the world. Most people would like to see the cost of summoning going up and the cost of basic troops going down to make it more akin to the other 3 chaos gods. None of them are paying extra tax for summoning. They play 2000 pts armies and summon like 500 pts and thats it. We got MW spam (specially in exalted chariots) and ranged attacks (both kinds of Blissbarbs are good) anvils (Painbringers, Glutos) and hammers (Twinsouls, Sigvald, KoS, Fiends) and even screens (Daemonettes, Hellstriders). The problem is this roles are measured by points per value, so we got the worst anvils and hammers in the game compared to any other army. Slaanesh design is not perfect, but the only "musts" that i see to fix it is cost of summoning going up, cost of troops going down, rewrite of Slaangor warscroll (they currently do nothing). The rest is just wishlisting for the following battletome.

Well, cost change every year in the GHB, who knows.

I think as a good addition a question like "What do you think should be the core feature of an Hedonites of Slaanesh army? As in wich rule must be pushed to be core to the HoS army identity?" Because even if currently is summoning and that is already a question, i read some really good ideas over here in the past (like someone thinking combat drugs should be the focus). Me personally, i think high rend was a core identity of HoS 1.0 before Battletome (our battleline having -1 rend was the envy of battlelines) and would like to see it pushed to a theme again. Slaanesh is not specially punchy and that can change if we become queen of rend (but not raw damage). The spam of mortals wound would also make high rend somewhat unique. Imagine Daemonettes with -2 rend (maybe only in the charge or something but you get what i think). Slaangors and Fiends with -2 rend base. KoS with -3 rend... Of course a lot of people think speed is enough to be the core. I like the idea of some form of invulnerable save too, an expansion of the current rule in Viceleader/Masque. Simply having a ward save is too much like Nurgle, but maybe something like "Before rolling an armor save you can choose to use your Ligthning Reflexes, if you do the armor save cannot be modified (not even by rend) and becomes 5+"

Another plus on Dexcessa over the Bladebringer (even when Bladebringer is awesome) is that she count as 5 models, while Bladebringer only count as 2 models. You can easily take a point that is camped by another non-monster hero or an elite unit of 5 guys (you only need to kill one) while capturing it with a Bladebringer is harder (need to kill the hero or kill 4 guys in the elite unit)

So they made Painbringers strictly worst than Twinsouls at tanking too... uh. The design of Slaanesh is all over the place in 3.0.

I think Synessa got some added value now with all the point increases, as she is relatively cheap. Someone said that he is not sure about her because he prefer to have more bodies, but she is a monster that count as 5 bodies even when damaged, she can be as low as 1 wounds and still count as 5. That mean she can easily steal a point camped by a 5 bodies elite unit from a safe spot killing one with the ranged attack. Also, she is probably the better support for Twinsouls. Our army dosn't have buffs to rend, but the monstrous rampage roar is effectively the same as -1 rend because it prevent the use of All Out Defense and stacks with the use of All Out Attack on the Twinsouls allowing a better combo. She can self-heal with heroic actions and spells, and unleash hell more effectively than a unit of 11 Blissbarb (unafected by -1 to hit) If you perform her full combo she is not a bad damage dealer either. We got better choices for damage, but she can win some duels on her own if needed later in the game (1d3 from spell + 1d3 from stomp +1d3/6 from shoot + 2.78 from claws agaisnt 4+ save)

I wrote this in the points thread, but I think it got a place here too: At this moment is clear that Slaanesh points are a placeholder waiting for the moment GW choose to really test and give the army real point costs. There were suspicions (and even confirmation from some playtesters) that this was the case even in the battletome (at least mentioned about Slaangors and Hellstriders). Is gonna be a rough year for anyone wanting to play with his Slaaneshi toys. But im ready to pay the extra points, play my understrength army and be removed from the table on one or two turns. Im ready to move some big monsters around the table and roll some dices. Now we don't play to win, we play to party as hard as possible and go out in a big wave of depravity.

At this moment is clear that Slaanesh points are a placeholder waiting for the moment GW choose to really test and give the army real point costs. There were suspicions (and even confirmation from some playtesters) that this was the case even in the battletome (at least mentioned about Slaangors and Hellstriders). Is gonna be a rough year for anyone wanting to play with his Slaaneshi toys. But im ready to pay the extra points, play my understrength army and be removed from the table on one or two turns. Im ready to move some big monsters around the table and roll some dices. Now we don't play to win, we play to party as hard as possible and go out in a big wave of depravity.

In Slaanesh there were cases of 50% increase overprize in points. So don't hold to a 10-15-20% as a maximum. (Hellstrides going from 100 to 150)

Someone said this image is part of an old GHB that offered an alternative way of listbuilding for open play. I read that section some time ago, but cannot remember if this exact table was there (probably yes). I remember the other part about rolling the units at random using the criteria of this list to describe them. It was the Open War Army Generator or something like that. So may be an old pic sneaking as a fake leak.

I think you need a monster (Dex/Syn/Shalaxi/KoS) simply to roar into him, then he cannot +1 save. Even if you hit with twinsouls or wathever other unit first that change a lot. If you do so he will probably use finest hour the next turn (other way of having +1 save), but at least that turn you catch him offguard. Exalted Chariots are not a bad bet either. 1d3/1d6 MW from charge + 1d3 MW from blades + 1d3 MW from spell. Synessa can 1d3 MW from spell + 1d3/1d6 MW from shoot and then roar to set other units into atacking him, is a risky spot for her but everything is in danger near a Maw-Krusha. Monsters also have the bonus option of +1 to hit with Titanic Duel just in case you figth him with two (Lets say, Synessa doing what I said before and a KoS being the one that attack with Titanic Duel) If Synessa survives to punch, the -2 rend put him into 5+ save wich is a decent chance to hit 2 or 4 more wounds (the -1 to be hit can help her survive) I just noticed you can use Finest Hour with the summoned KoS, is somewhat close to having unlimited Finest Hours with the Keepers (unlike other heroes like the Maw-Krusha that can use it only once).