[The Rumour Thread]

Those leaks are suspicious, I have read about them claiming that Alarielle goes up in points but the warscroll is mostly unchanged, something that is not impossible, but weird.

[AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion]

1 hour ago, Enoby said:

Alleged leak on twin points:

"Slaanesh twins 260 and 280 in their cost apparently."

I don't know if these are accurate at all, mind. 

We don't know if that is legit yet. But I can see a regular KoS being 280 and Shalaxi being 260 if they remove the overcost of units, so maybe the twins are KoS powerwise after all. If they come as Sigvald/Exalted Chariot power level im gonna be somewhat disappointed.

[The Rumour Thread]

3 minutes ago, Grimrock said:

It would make sense though, they're probably priced to try to get people to buy two kits and run both at the same time. If you think of them like a packaged deal then 540 points for a god tier model sounds about right. Plus you have the flexibility to only take one or the other instead of always sinking a quarter of your army into them. Could still be pretty interesting. 

But in practice it mean to loose half your combat profile and warscroll abilities to any little amount of power projection, a downside other gods dosn't have. And paying a premium amount of money to have a god in the table compared to others.

And other gods cost 700-900. I think everyone expected each twin to cost 400ish points (800 combined).

Is not the end of the world, but not what we hoped for. And we are the target audience after all.

[The Rumour Thread]

Remember that we cannot have good warcom articles for Kragnos because Slaanesh is not allowed to have pretty things.

We all wanted the twins to be as beastly as our god incarnated. If they cost that... meh, a little letdown.

[AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion]

4 minutes ago, Third said:

You forgot to mention broken artifacts, missing subfactions (in the battletome), a really weak spell lore and just a huge lack of command abilities and synergies in general..! (And I'm really trying not to mention how broken the Azyr app is in regards to Slaanesh (and a lot of other stuff)).
God I hope the Twins and 3.0 is awesome!

 

PS. I STILL prefer the new playstyle to the old one we had, so there is that

I was trying to mention that as "Overnerfed warscrolls and sub-factions". With the sub-factions that make no sense in the current story and pretenders traits and artifacts being nerfed to the point that sub-faction got no purpose at all. It is weird that they nerfed Strenght of Godhood, Sliverslash and the KoS CA, whoever did that was unable to see how all the three things add into each other making a super-keeper build completely useless. And that was a non-competitive sub-faction even before nerfs.

It is what it is. We are lucky with the change to summoning and locus because the old way of list-building and playing was awful. But that was the only change-nerf needed, and they simply overnerfed everything else too for no reason.

[AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion]

Well, our Daemon size was not updated with the new tome at all (just minor changes like Syl'Eskke and a bunch of nerfs). So most of our Daemons warscrolls including Shalaxi are actually pretty outdated. It sucks because we are gonna be stuck with this battletome for years and people is gonna say "Other armies need a new battletome more" without thinking that Daemonettes/Seekers/Chariots/Heralds/Fiends/KoS were all untouched. This was not an update to the old range, just an add-on of the mortals. Arguebly the real update for Daemons are Dexcessa and Synessa (we still don't know if warscrolls gonna change, Contorted Epitome, Fiends and Seekers are confirmed to be in a new battalion, that may include a warscroll rewrite for someone)

I can see them baking the summoning points with the intention to compensate for some AoS 3.0 summoning limitation. Im agaisn't that because at that point it simply look like deploying your troops in reserve instead of a fun in-battle minigame of generating points. But since every unit is overcosted by 50% aprox, I can see summoned troops costing 50% of their full value (points ending in 5s now would allow this even better) to keep a mix of both systems.

I highly doubt it, because then they would kill SBGL, and they dosn't have the summoning baked in their points. Slaanesh is a weird case with many mistakes (overcosted units, overnerfed warscrolls and sub-factions, slaangors). The most probable reason is still the internal conflict in design philosophy and the rush of certain products to work in others.

[AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion]

3 hours ago, Grimrock said:

Yeah it's really hard to tell the size at this point. They look like they're on an oval base, but it could be the contorted oval, the chariot oval, or even a knight oval for all we know. I'm hoping they'll be the same size as the void dragon in 40k since they're the same price, but that might be too much to ask. 

Also I agree GW never admits overpricing or lower prices on a given box, but if their sales are bad enough they might retreat and make subsequent boxes more reasonable. Just compare chain rasps and skeleton hordes for an example. Both are monopose undead hordes but the skeletons are 30% cheaper even though they released 3 years later. Maybe they've noticed a huge drop in greater daemon sales after they hiked the prices up and need to compensate.

They are really big, as can be seen in their reveal video: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/04/19/quiz-which-of-these-new-slaaneshi-daemons-are-you/ The Daemonette head only reach to the tip of the feet, the top of the Daemonette banner barely reach the hip, plus Daemonettes are in front closer to the camera wich make them look sligthly bigger.

It is known that the main body of the twins would be somewhat smaller than the KoS because they are floating, but the model is gonna be around the same height, maybe even taller if you count the wings that go up high compared to the claws of the KoS that are resting down.

Edit: Estimated size scaled around the height of the bases done by some math-guy.

Second Edit: A Daemonette seems to reach to the tip of the feet in the twins, and to the knee in the KoS, wich is somewhat similar to this image comparison in size.

[AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion]

8 minutes ago, Arzalyn said:

I wonder how different they are in size compared to a keeper. If they are more or less equal they can be a cheaper alternative for those on a budget.

We play budget armies in my group and are used to proxy things, my customized Fiend is usually a Daemon Prince and I use a Daemonette with extra arms as an Herald or Masque. My friends do the same using one of the regular troops of a unit as a hero. I'll probably buy one box of the twins and use it as both twins or the regular KoS in different games. One cool thing may be to play she as a named character and if she die summon her as a regular KoS. My group dosn't care too much about base sizes/shapes.

[AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion]

22 minutes ago, Grimrock said:

The price for the twins is very interesting, much lower than I expected. I wonder if they realized they overshot the mark with the new greater daemons and are reeling it back a bit? Or maybe they're just hoping most people will buy two kits and this is the best price for that. Either way I'm much more interested in them now, hopefully we get their full scroll soon like kragnos. 

Im pleased with the price of the Twins. They cost the same as Glutos here. I don't think this is because they are small as Glutos is quite big too (wide instead of tall, a lot of plastic). I think it got something to do with named characters being cheaper due the lack of alternate options. Even if it is a dual character, the only changes are the hands, the heads and the tip of the fin, not a lot of extra parts. It may be something related to the sprue design process. In any case they are quite affordable, lucky me. Even adquiring two is not that crazy (a little, but not that much).

Kragnos warscroll was exciting, I hope they reveal Dexcessa and Synessa stats soon too.

[AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion]

2 hours ago, JackOfBlades said:

How much should the Soulfeaster Keeper cost?

The current warscroll is probably not legal, as it refers to DP in ways not intended by the new battletome.

But if it were somehow legal (and DP generation removed in a FAQ or something) probably around 250-280pts. This opinion may change if every other warscroll in the army go down in points. She hits a little less than an Exalted Chariot but have more wounds, is a double caster, and degrade with damage.

I think right now is more of a proxy for the regular KoS. Unless they update her warscroll again soon.

[AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion]

3 hours ago, Enoby said:

That said, they very very rarely (if ever) give absolutes in AoS - everything is "among the most powerful" or "one of the most intelligent" or "in the highest ranks of the Stormcast" etc. I think it's so they don't deal in absolutes and remove a fan's narrative; it's one of the strength's of AoS's lore that there's no definitive answers so no one can ever say "yeah, you might think your original character is the strongest Slaanesh daemon that had to be sealed away, but cannonically it's Dexcessa, so your narrative is wrong".

For example, Sigvald is "one of the vilest soul to have ever lived", or apparently there are "few as repugnant as Glutos" (from the battletome). They rarely if ever make definitive claims about someone's power or status, unless it's a title like "Grand Marshall of the Apocalypse".

Don't get me wrong, I'm also concerned that their rules won't be fitting, but don't take the wishy-washy language to mean much

Yeah... but one don't simply say "Morathi is among the most powerful Daugthers of Khaine" or "Alarielle is among the most powerful Sylvaneth", it is weird to say that Dexcessa and Synessa are "Among the most powerfull Slaanesh servants". I know it may not mean anything, but it may also mean something, like they trying to tone down all the lore implications they raised earlier, how the mortals could barely handle the birth of the newborn and so.

Like, imagine for a second "Morathi finally ascended to godhood becoming one of the most powerfull aelves in the Daugthers of Khaine army" Like... who else is at that power level to say such a thing? It sounds quite stupid to me, even if is just a vacuum of words to promote the model.

[AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion]

Something there dosn't seem right. "Among the most powerful of Slaanesh’s daemonic servants." Not Slaanesh incarnations, or childrens. Not even "The most powerful of Slaanesh's daemonic servants" simply "Among the most powerful" like... the same can be said about Shalaxi.

They seem to be going further and further from the lore about the newborn being something new and special never seen before within the chaos gods. I hope is just WarCom promotional wording, because I want them to be something more special than simply two new KoS.

[The Rumour Thread]

I love that female Chaos Warrior, don't find her unattractive or anything, she is both cool and attractive for a big badass warrior. I like her design the same I like the female Stormcast Eternals Designs, that body proportion and armor design look so nice to be the standard of new female Chaos Warriors. I don't like that she is limited because I fear about they making the other new warriors intentionally not as cool.

My theory is that with the new StD battletome they will remove weapon choices for Chaos Warriors so they can sell you the same ones that are currently in the Start Collecting. I hope im wrong and we see more female armors like this.

[AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion]

I'll be fine with them removing the "horde summon discount" at the same time they drop the points of our overcosted units. Most people fear about summoning becoming OP seems to rely in the 12DP DaemonettesX30/KoS that are obviously priced that way as a reward for saving points. I won't be sad if that goes to 15DP to match the rest of the table while units go down 20-30pts.

[The Rumour Thread]

26 minutes ago, RetconnedLegion said:

But you know Bonesplitterz literally have Witch-Doctors right? 

I actually didn't know that.

Anyway, as I said, it may be a thing of perspectives and mine being distorted, but I still can imagine a different and unique way of representing voodoo witch-doctors/tiki mask cannibals in the new range and that being an innovative thing in AoS.

[The Rumour Thread]

51 minutes ago, RetconnedLegion said:

Got to disagree again. Bonesplitterz are quite clearly inspired by “voodoo” movie stereotypes, with their masked shamans wearing voodoo masks, snakes, warpaint and Juju sticks. The only Native American influence I can see is feathers.

The reason I am referring to it as “Hollywood”voodoo and using quotation marks is because voodoo is still a religion practiced by people and I don’t want to cause offense by suggesting it’s the distorted version tv and films portray it as.

It may be my personal perception, or somewhat influenced by how native american indians are depicted in my foreign country, but this to me look like your archetypical native shaman performing the rain dance. The warpaint in the range of the bonnesplitterz follow native american patterns too.

This shaman looks like the stereotypical american shaman, and not a voodoo witch-doctor

About the living mask for the rumor engine. I start to believe it. It is weird that in the head-like pic showing three faces each of them got an intentionally empty mouth (instead of something sculpted behind the teeths). And zombies/dead manipulation is a strong voodoo theme (in fact i believe is the real origin of the modern zombie concept if im not mistaken). It would make sense for the mask made of decaying living pieces to be animated/enslaved into a living state. The eyes may also be an organic decoration, not necesarily the eyes of his wielder.

[The Rumour Thread]

3 minutes ago, Loyal Son of Khemri said:

I agree with the slaaneshi daemon here.

I somewhat feel accomplished after finally ascending to Daemonhood.

[The Rumour Thread]

41 minutes ago, RetconnedLegion said:

Not that unique, Bonesplitterz already have the Hollywood version of “voodoo” influence and totems.

I disagree, Bonesplitterz got an old somewhat generic design. They are quite more "Native american indian" than "Voodoo".

As an example, I won't say that Ossiarch Bonereapers aren't a unique new aesthethic simply because regular skeletons already exist. I think this is gonna be the same for the new breed of greenskins compared to the old shamans that already exist.

[The Rumour Thread]

I think the maggot is simply there because the tongue is a real flesh tongue stick to the mask and nothing nurgle related. Parts of real corpses decay if you use them as decoration without the proper taxidermy.

The design of the mask in super cool. It seems to depict Kragnos, wich match the other totem we have seen worshiping him.

The nose holes and mouth hole seems like photoshoped out, I think this may be a mask that someone actually wears and not simply a totem. If these are creatures "pretending" to be Kragnos people, I can see them attaching masks like these to their skulls (maybe using a hole as a socket that later become the "skull with three eyes" that we have already seen)

If that is the case, this faction may have a little of a voodoo aesthethics, wich usually fits swamps in most fantasy settings, and that match with the description we have of a voodoo pot being one of the models too. They may even be inspired by the WoW trolls, as they look kinda like a half-orc half-goblin and match what we have heard.

I think these are voodoo greenskins now. That would be a fantastic unique new addition to the world and aesthethics of AoS.

[The Rumour Thread]

I cannot be excited for animation day, simply because they seem to ignore AoS in that regard. All the promo in the article is 40k related. Im not watching this show. I hope they reveal something AoS related and I hear of it later proving me wrong.

[AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion]

1 hour ago, Enoby said:

Hey, I don't think I was clear enough in my previous post

You're totally right that, at the moment, Painbringers don't have a place because they're too expensive compared to warriors and don't do as much as twinsouls who are only a little more expensive. 

You're also totally right that, currently, buffing painbringers up to be that much better than warriors is a much higher investment. Both Nobles of Excess and a Lord of Pain just to buff these rather overcosted models? No thanks.

My point was that, if Painbringers come down by a significant margin, this all changes. That's doubly so if the LoP comes down to his original 120 points. 

Imagine if the Painbringers were 110 points - only 20 more than warriors. As we've seen, they're a considerably better recipient of buffs. While the Lord of Pain and Nobles of Excess together are more pricey than just a Sorcerer lord, they would no longer be tax - who wouldn't want to put down a battalion that gives you a single drop of all of your battleline and heavy hitters at once, or spend some points on a hero that would make two actually good units battleline (and we have access to a host that could make him the general but give command traits to another)? 

My point was more to show the potential of Painbringers if they just got a points drop. Their average damage is actually really good for our chaos warrior equivalent (compare it to blood warriors especially), we're just priced too highly

So at the moment I'm optimistic about Painbringers because I see they have potential within their warscroll and within the book. They will likely always be a worse screen than chaos warriors, or dedicate tarpit, but in general will be better because they have a bite, and a tarpit usually needs to win a fight (I'm not sure if anyone has used mass chaos warriors, but they usually end up like a speed bump - they keep something in place for a few turns and die without leaving significant damage).

My point was something similar, just in a negative way instead of a positive. I mean, my point on exposing Painbringers weaknesses while compared to Chaos Warriors is to justify a bigger point drop in them. Realistically they gonna go down 10 to 20pts but that is not enough because they aren't that good compared to other choices, and that is something to keep in mind while talking about their potential in a positive way, otherwise there is the risk of finding them "good enough" or "almost there" and GW interpreting that as "a 10pts - 20pts drop will suffice".

It would be different if somehow StD didn't exist, because then we would simply accept "Slaanesh is designed to have overcosted anvils and cheap *otherthings*", but that is not the case.

[AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion]

14 hours ago, Enoby said:

I do think there is some sort of resentment towards Slaanesh in the wider community due to our previous battletome, and some people think our current battletome should be weak almost as a punishment. The logic is really faulty, but hopefully the notion dies off quickly. 

On an unrelated note, I've been looking at painbringers again because I really want to find way to use them. I decided to compare them to Chaos Warriors, not just because they have a similar role, but also because I think most people are hoping that painbringers will be more closely costed to Choas Warriors. 

Regardless of points, chaos warriors and painbringers have access to rerolling hits and wounds. Chaos warriors get this from the chaos sorcerer lord, and painbringers get this from nobles of excess and the lord of pain. The Lord of Pain will likely be used much more if painbringers get a drop to make them battleline, and the nobles of excess may be worth it with the drop because the ability is pretty nice and fewer drops is great. 

As you can see, fully buffed 5 painbringers offer twice the damage of chaos warriors at everything but a 6+ and 7+ save, and importantly do a very respectable 6 damage against a 2+ save unit. This could be very important for later because more and more units seem to be given considerably better saves (look at those new big stormcast as an example), and +1 save is likely to be a charge reaction. 

Looking at twinsouls, they do provide much better damage with the same buffs against most saves, but I think painbringers will be nice for heavy armoured units and the twinsouls will be nice for low armoured hordes. 

To be honest, these stats do give me another perspective on the painbringer unit. If they get the points drop they need, I think they'll actually be amazing. Comparing them to chaos warriors with the same buffs, they out perform them so much there's no comparison. Chaos warriors would still have the use as the cheapest battleline, but if Painbringers could be 110 points (with the 'tax' of a LoP for battleline status) we could make a really solid list with them as the core. 

There are some things to account tho. Full bufs for Painbringers/Twinsouls require a bigger point investment (A hero and a battalion) than Chaos Warriors (Just a hero that is also 40 points cheaper than HoS heroes). Lord of Pain uses CP (more reliable) while Chaos Sorcerer Lord use spell (less reliable). Although you can use a Viceleader to reroll 1s as a spell and you only loose rerolling 2s with the Painbringers (since they hit on a 3+), while Twinsouls already have a situational built in reroll all hits. Battalions may be out of matched play soon, we don't know.

A buff that i think you didn't account is fighting twice for a CP. Chaos Warriors have it in a 110pts 7w 4+save hero while HoS got it in a 340pts 14w 4+save hero that is also summonable for 12DP

And it is probably not fair to compare 5 Painbringers with 5 Chaos warriors due to point disparity, since 10 Painbringers cost 300 pts and 15 Chaos Warriors cost 270pts, even if Painbringers go down 20 pts this is still your best comparison to do, so you need to account x1.5 times the damage and tankiness value of Chaos Warriors in that chart (ignoring some other factors like bodies to capture objectives)

In the Painbringers vs Twinsouls comparison,  notice that Painbringers are still cheaper, and that high saves (2+/3+) with rerolling saves are way way more effective in reducing Twinsouls damage output than Painbringers. We don't know if the generic CA of rerolling save rolls of 1 stay, but if it stay, Twinsouls cannot even damage opponent with 2+ save (as rerolling gives them 1/36 chance of being hurt) while Painbringers get a good chance of still do something. Also Twinsouls are better defending vs -2 rend or MW, while Painbringers are better defending vs no rend and -1 rend. Except vs shooting, because Painbringers only reroll save rolls in mele, while Twinsouls got an additional 5+ aftersave vs shooting half the time.

Now that I think of it, maybe that is why Painbringers are seen as unworthy right now but Twinsouls are seen as working well, because their defense work vs shooting in a shooting meta.

Both Chaos Warriors built in reroll saves (while 10+ models) and Chaos Sorcerer Lord Oracular Visions (free buff each turn that make you reroll saves) work vs shooting. This make Painbringers clearly loose the comparison as a worthy anvil.

[AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion]

For Kragnos I expect chaos to "Loose the battle but win the war" in a similar manner to Be'Lakor. And I think this may be related to the new cover of the edition that show the Stormcast lady fighting the chaos unleashed in the realms. Like, there is no way for chaos to score a major victoy vs order. I bet Kragnos beat both Order and Chaos, but in such a way that accidentally unleash even more chaos into the realms (and the beast himself end in a bad spot). This will fit the new narrative of "Age of the beast" but also "A bigger focus into chaos inside the realms and fighting it" that they talked about in the new edition reveal.

Also, in BR, there dosn't seem to be clear winners, is a always a bitter win with some salty downside. Morathi become god but unleash Slaanesh. Teclis sacrifices countless lifes just to do a pointless flex in front of Nagash. Be'Lakor fail to impress the Chaos Gods but deeply wound Stormcast existence. I can see Kragnos crushing his enemies but accidentaly unleashing something bad in the process.

I don't expect the twins to play a big part in the story, but I may be wrong, we know almost nothing about them yet.

[The Rumour Thread]

According to the teaser these guys sneak on groups of people to murder them. I don't see stinking/smelly monsters being able to do so like the water troggoths. I can see some kind of Gitz being smeared in dirt to smell exactly like the swamp as a form of camouflage tho.

[AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion]

Painbringers are fine lorewise. 2 wounds 2 attacks 3+ 3+ -1 rend with 4+ rerollable save, exploding 6s and mortal wounds into 6s, there are few ways to make them even more elite. The main problem is their point cost and lack of good synergies.

Is not like the Slaangor Fienbloods, wich are extremely unnacurate to their lore.