LeonBox

How utterly underwhelming. If the rules for both twins end up the same as the leaks, I think I'll cheerfully pass on picking up the kit. I already own two Keepers and it sounds like they'll be better options than the twins.

I wonder how good their melee profile is going to be. They lack both impaling claws and elegant greatswords, and that goofy little sceptre doesn't look like it's bringing the hurt. I'd assume they share the Keeper's Locus on a 3+ rule, too. Gonna be pretty hard to keep them alive to benefit from that +1 attack per turn.

Where did you see these rules, out of interest?

In fairness we haven't seen the warscrolls yet and we know nothing about Dexcessa's stats save for one person saying the rules are bad, so it may be worth withholding judgment for the time being.

Well... if that leak is true, how very disappointing. These are the literal children of Slaanesh and that's it? Knowing all the spells is nice, I guess (awful mortal lore notwithstanding) but one cast and only 9 wounds? Deeply hoping this isn't the case but if it comes from the same source as the Kroak leak, chances are good that it is.

I have a soft spot for Shalaxi and field them much more than I probably should. I love the lore and model, even if they're subpar compared to a vanilla Keeper. I almost always give them Paths of the Dark Prince to help them get into combat, which has been a very nasty surprise for my opponent on more than one occasion. If they're up against a hero that gives minuses to hit, though, it really hurts when Soulpiercer doesn't get through.

Shalaxi is our only source of -3 rend, which has its niche uses (she's the only unit who can get through the LRL mountain faction's "ignore rend up to -2" rule, for instance). She's even swingier than a normal Keeper, however, unless you can get her warscroll spell off.

They absolutely should have had run and charge at a bare minimum, and probably had their MW ability changed to dealing them on the charge on a 2+. They have a truly baffling warscroll.

I finally got a unit of Blissbarb Archers (mostly) painted up and fielded them for the first time, and I'm a big fan. They're great at both focus- and split-firing, and something that I hadn't realised is that Acquiescence works with ranged attacks, making them even better with an Epitome/Herald variant. They're expensive, sure, but all our stuff is these days.

Oof, that LRL match sounded like an exercise in frustration. Teclis lists are extremely difficult for us; I think we can forget about getting any magic off for the whole match, and a properly protected Teclis is super hard to kill off too. How did you find using Hellstriders as battleline? I've been defaulting to 3x5 Chaos Warriors largely for screening and camping objectives. As for summoning: I'm finding it very powerful for us, almost always netting 25-30 DPs per game. I switched back to Tzeentch (my first AoS army) for a battle against Teclis LRL last week (I was very frustrated by my last Slaanesh battle against a similar list) and even with all his magic, I struggled to get enough fate points to summon anything useful. Our DP generation is very generous compared to fate points.

I think it's a real shame we didn't get alternative uses of depravity points à la BoK's blood tithe abilities. We're so locked into a particular playstyle (using mortal units to generate DPs so we can summon our daemons in) that it penalises you heavily for wanting to play a thematic list like mortals only or daemons only -- the former is impossible without completely ignoring your DPs and the latter is just too expensive. Also the more I use Keepers the less impressed I am with their change this edition. They're big, scary, fast melee monsters, or they're supposed to be. Why, then, are we encouraged to now use them as a support piece? With the Fane change they're also swingier than ever. I had one inflict a measly 5 wounds on a unit of swordmasters the other day, and this was with the +1 to hit from the Fane. They're so crushingly disappointing now.

I always prioritise his archers with seekers, and they do a fantastic job of keeping them busy from turn 2 onwards. I was pretty low on bodies (3x5 Chaos Warriors, 2x5 seekers, Glutos, Keeper, bunch of small heroes) which doesn't help too much, but I don't see the point of paying for daemonettes. Maybe running marauders or something for a horde unit would help? Regarding Teclis: my opponent has gone LRL for like the past 4 games and I find them fine without Teclis. They're just extremely overpowering with him, though. The ward save, plusses to cast for everyone, scary ranged attack and autocasting is just so oppressive.

I just had my first battle against Teclis LRL, and ******. I could use some advice on dealing with LRL because they seem to have no remaining weaknesses with their new teleport spell. They have: Excellent saves available across the board: Aetherquartz plus Teclis and his 18" 5+ after-save bubble means even archers are tough nuts to crack; Potent offence with bucketloads of mortal wounds all over the shop and most things hitting on 3s. Swordmasters auto-hit, wound on 2s and have -2 rend which basically negates anything we have except Glutos; I cannot stress this enough: INSANE magic. With Teclis and the right faction everything within 18" of the big man gets +2 to casting, unbinding and dispelling. Every wizard with Aetherquartz can use it to re-roll in the unlikely eventuality a spell doesn't go off. On top of this, the terrain piece can be used for one free re-roll per turn. This isn't taking into account Teclis' abilities, which my opponent used for 4 spells going off on 10s every round. Basically the LRL can comfortably cast 6-7 spells a turn unopposed. The shooting. Oh my God the shooting. With their unstoppable magic, LRL have 30" no-LOS MWs on 5s +1 to hit re-roll all misses shooting. With 2 units of sentinels, even Glutos melts to it -- especially if his after-save has been knocked off. Command ability shenanigans: 1 free command point per turn from the terrain piece (and speaking of this terrain piece, I fondly recall the days when my opponent claimed the Fane was overpowered) and the eclipse spell means the LRL dominate when it comes to CPs too, The one weakness they had was movement, and even this has been solved with their new teleport spell. I charged Teclis with Glutos and got a double activation off using the Keeper, putting 10 wounds on him (I didn't roll great). Next turn he teleports out and kills Glutos with shooting. Teclis lives to fight another day and there's nothing I can do about it. TL;DR: super frustrating army to play against and I'm not really sure how to go about countering them since they have an answer for just about everything.

I don't know why they'd bother with them at all, weird reproductive stuff notwithstanding. They're simply an awful design -- as someone mentioned upthread, they look like 80s D&D monsters. I very much hope it's Beasts. They're an awesome faction way overdue for some love.

...well. I thought the bit about the priestess feeding bits of herself to her brother was messed up. Then I got the flayed womb. Twisted in the most delightful possible way, and fantastic painting/converting as always.

Fairly disappointed the last big reveal was more SCE. They're such a thoroughly boring faction as far as I'm concerned -- I would have much preferred a Cities of Sigmar update, as the Oldhammer Empire was so much more flavourful than the SCE. Also very much hoping that the Fimir are not the new destruction faction. They're a relic of a misbegotten era rightfully consigned to the dustbin of problematic fantasy tropes.

How on earth would they ever find the budget for a 40k TV show that would actually do justice to the setting? Even something fairly grounded, like Altered Carbon, cost so much that they drastically reduced the budget for season 2, then cancelled it. They'd need Disney/HBO money to make a proper 40k show.

I was thinking about this. If you split shots evenly between 2 4+ save units, you should hopefully sneak a wound through on each unit. Definitely enough to help with early DP generation, which can be on the low side. I always make sure to have every hero take a wound from the Fane in order to help with early DP too.

That base looks great! How are you getting that effect and what are the bigger boulders made from?

Absolutely on the Enrapturess and Epitome -- I only run them because that's all I've got painted up at the moment, and will be replacing them with mortal options as soon as they're ready. My only other options right now are a Keeper and Shalaxi, neither of which seemed worth running.

Just had another battle against Lumineth Realm Lords. I had: Lurid Haze (Invaders) Leader x5 Glutos, general, Dark Delusions The Masque, general Contorted Epitome, general, malfunctioning Rod of Misrule, Born Of Damnation Infernal Enrapturess, amulet of arrow attraction Bladebringer on Hellflayer, Soulslice Shards Battleline x3 Chaos Warriors x3, shields, all the bells and whistles, wondering why they're wearing Tzeentch colours in a Slaanesh army Others x3 Fiends x3, Blissbringer Seekers x5 Seekers x5 His army, roughly: Stupid Giant Stone Mountain Cow Thing, named, basically unkillable Weepy weepy sorrow-face lady with veil, strong desire to sit up in her bonsai meditation garden the whole battle Light of Eltharion, also basically unkillable unless you're Tzeentch Stone Mage, inability to case a single spell all battle Lore-seeker, deployed with army and so lost most of his cool stuff Stone mountain hammer guys , 2x5 10x pike guys 2x10 annoying irritating LoS-ignoring MWs-on-6s-having archers 5x Auralan knight dudes Scenario was "Knife's Edge" I believe it's called -- 2 objectives diagonally opposite each other, need to take both to win. Very tough to do so against LRL, but also very tough for my opponent to take mine since his average movement was 6". My job was further complicated by both of his flanks being protected by terrain -- one by a bunch of rocks and the other by a tower. It was next to impossible to bait any of his units out of position. Theoretically, all he needed to do was march straight up the middle of the battlefield and take my objective whilst ensuring his backfield was protected. Some thoughts: Fiends + Glutos are really, really good. Though only a unit of 3, they held his named Cow Mountain up for 2 turns with their -2 to hit. They even put four wounds on him, despite him having 2+ unrendable re-roll 1s for a turn (and 3+ unrendable re-roll 1s the other turn). The -1 debuff to spellcasting was instrumental in shutting down his 7-8 casts per turn once I got them in range. Glutos more than pulls his considerable weight. He's the tankiest unit we've got and only gets stronger as the game goes on. He took 7 mortal wounds in a single round of shooting (2x10 sentinels, one buffed to MWs on 5+) because I failed his 5++ on turn 2, but between the Epitome's healing spell and his gorge on excess, I managed to pull him back. He held the line and stopped any of his units breaking through to my objective. The list sorely lacks stopping power. There's sadly nothing Slaanesh can do about this LRL faction ability, which ignores rend up to -2 and doesn't have much in the way of mortal wounds. Even a Keeper would have fluffed against the Mountain Cow/his hammer dudes. Seekers continue to represent, shutting down a unit of his archers for a couple of shooting phases. My opponent has started to focus them quite heavily. Chaos Warriors are unimpressive but sturdy. 4+/5++ for MWs is nothing to sniff at, and they held off all of his rank and file for the whole battle. Depravity point generation came late in the game (I generated almost none for the first two turns) and so I was left with more than I could spend. I summoned 30 daemonettes in turn 4, but couldn't really do too much with them as his objective was blocked off by a bunch of rocks and Eltharion. I had like 20 DPs when we called it. We had to call it turn 4; we didn't sort out secondary objectives, so we just called it a draw as there was no way he was breaking through Glutos + warriors in a turn, and I was going to summon reinforcements again my turn 5. Unfortunately, his objective was too well-defended for me to make it through either.

I don't think it's a rumour but it would be a massive change from the way things work right now, as well as complicating the ruleset even more when their whole thing in AoS has been simplicity.

Absolutely. There's no way they'd overhaul things that much. Also, given how much they've tried to distinguish AoS from Oldhammer, it would be a pretty retrograde step. Stand & shoot is a great idea as long as it's accompanied by shooting nerfs (e.g. being unable to shoot at all once in melee, no shooting at a unit locked in melee with a friendly unit). The flee reaction is a bit too random for my taste -- imagine being at 3"from a unit of dwarfs and your opponent rolls a lucky 6 to put you at an unlikely 9" to make it in.

I don't wanna be Mr. Negative Ninny, but I'm actually not all that blown away by the Twins. Not only are they heavily drawing from existing Keeper assets, but they don't look all that different. I know, I know, they're twins. But the main difference between the two seems to be one has a slightly longer staff.

I would love to get a closer look at your take on Glutos!