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It is based around horrors/flayers (as battleline) with a Varghulf (the smashbat itself, using the Bilious Decanter) and various combinations of other characters. This is but one of many variants : https://thehonestwargamer.com/aos-list-rundowns/breakfast-battle-1-2021/ but the concept remains the same, get in fast, Hulk smash and never (well, unless you need to snag an objective) let up the pressure. Depending on your meta you might feel Flayers is a better base for your army in which cause you just make your general a Crypt Infernal instead.

Hollowmourne FEC. Ultra-fast and loves to double punch (check out the smashbat list). Blisterkin is another speedy option. Or going vanilla with Feast Day delusion for even more double punching. IDK eels list also gotta go fast and hard... But in terms of aggression I think FEC got them beat. For the King/Queen!

The way I'm approaching it is how to create kill zones to effectively make all that movement, if not useless, not as impactful. Baiting is another tool. I believe Sevireth is 300 points too, so if we can reduce his impact then that's a sizeable chunk of points not making back its value. How can we turn all these rules against them?

Yeah, Yoid alluded to it earlier too. Abilities which is a guaranteed, always-on, or player choice in other armies isn't for HoS. We have to work around it whereas they don't. I kind of like this kind of design but then it needs to be consistent and come with more options like more fleshed out host rules, and so on. I still like the book though but it does have some glaring flows. Thankfully most of them can be sorted with point reductions, which would alleviate the randomness and over-costed units. I've been leaning more and more toward Glutos too. Though have gone down the Godseeker + NoE route (+1 charge and re-rolling wounds is TIGHT!). Not an ultra-competitive choice but I want to see how I can make a balanced list with a refused flank setup. At this point though I cannot possibly see a world where we don't get a point reduction in the future. I've never really seen a source which claim the book is fairly costed. They definitely got ways to fight back. All I'm saying is that we can match their speed and do it with both ranged and melee units. Though with the way Enrapturing Circlet is worded it seems the Hurakan rule can ignore it since they are piling out of combat not retreating. Pavane would be hilarious to land on one of their wind heroes though (24 on a 5+ MWs, 🎼 'you spin me round round round, like a record, baby, round round round' 🎼 ).

Blissbarb Seekers are just as fast, can run and shoot, twice the wounds, more shots (4s/4s though), 18" range (as opposed to 12"), cause MWs on 6s. The Hurakan rule is also inferior to Seeker Cavalcades as they have to have charged to get the extra pile-in. We get to summon units to box them in. If you have access to Pavane of Slaanesh you can control where your opponent try to land with some of the speedy characters too. We also got access to Seekers if we really want to catch someone. All in all, them goat riders look really weird. A lot of their abilities suggest a combat unit yet they're armed with 12" bows which put them in an awkward position. All that movement yet has to get all up in their opponents face at a very chargeable distance. I can see why LRL players aren't terribly hyped about these guys. It will come down unit cost which can see them being either a gimmicky unit or useful flank harasser/objective stealer. However, I think the 'Teclis castle' list will be even tougher to face than before with all the movement abilities and spells. So in terms of the tournament meta, I think it will look much the same for LRL. With the disclaimer that I haven't had a deep dive in the LRL book yet. So I'm not really saying yay or nay yet, just making observations/speculations.

This is also where your local meta plays a huge part. I'm hoping we'll be able to get more insight in what works and what doesn't in particular tournaments as we get more detailed data (from the platform which was presented in a recent TheHonestWargamer YT video). We generally have an idea what works but is always nice to have empirical data. It also needs to be said that is incredibly hard to balance WHFB/AoS/40k because there are tons of armies out there. With that comes a lot of different ways of doing the same thing and it virtually impossible to make all of the work the same. Add in the shift into new editions and the sequential release schedule and you got a large number of armies in addition changing conditions. Aim for your rule of cool, sometimes your army will be on top, sometimes at the bottom. The rule of cool, however, endures. That said, sometimes it is ok to be salty about change. - As for balance, the main thing I want to see is more advantages/options for the player who's on the receiving end of a double turn. I don't mind the random factor but against many of the top armies it is a game decided on a dice by roll T2. Though a significant reason for this is just how brutal the shooting/magic phase have gotten. If they can't come up with a way to improve this drop the priority roll entirely or make it an optional extra. Few things are so disheartening than to move up the board, lose the priority roll, and have nothing left because of losing a roll-off. This is only true against some armies though. Another option is to make terrain more relevant and useful against shooting/magic attacks which would make shooting less brutal and allow for more consideration over who takes priority. This change would not be too drastic and if it is combined with more strategic battleplans and objectives lessen the reliance on killy units.

On another note as we've started to get more experience with the army, what is your favourite combinations or synergies so far (both competitive and personal)? Anything from host combinations to units, relics and traits, and so on.

Fair point. I guess there was an element of salt which spurred my reaction but even so, it is a bit... much. On the other hand, this is what makes different books interesting to different people.

Add some hooks and wicked blades (think Dark Elves/Drukhari) stuff and have them be seekers of torment or something like that. I think their serpentine forms would be very well suited for something like that (poisonous bite) + mobile torture rack.

Tyrion was also "off fighting a far larger threat" (than Nagash) hinted at i BR:Teclis, which could suggest Belakor or the newborn Slaanesh.

I suppose I have some explaining to do then. Back in fantasy elves were seen as a tactical army. It had rules to make the player feel special or rewarding for playing cleverly. The rules were set up like that, i.e. having layered rules and synergies which made great plays quite devastating (but they were earned). The opposite is true for LRL as units can just stack their own buffs on themselves. So the superior nature of elves was better represented and that was the "special"-ness I was referring to. English is not my primary language, I suppose the word 'special' was poor choice of words.

You raise good points. Much of what you bring up makes me think of GSC who went from having a very strong book to receiving multiple nerfs and increased unit cost to the point where they became a F tier army who had to work tooth and nail to reach synergies other armies take for granted. Now HoS still can work competitively but much like IDK it comes down to a single build. The reason I mentioned IDK is that both armies competitive builds are so similar, IDK spam eels and HoS go with seeker cavalcades and slickblades. Thankfully, we're not nearly as screwed over as GSC and our book can be fixed with a blanket points reduction. The LRL tome is on the other end of the spectrum on poor design, introducing tons of warscrolls bloated with special rules and exceptions. It just screams "complicated for the sake of being complicated." Then again, that is what elf players want, i.e. to feel special (and I do not mean that is a bad way, it is just elves being elves.) What is bad is how it was achieved.

Power level being a rollercoaster has been true since I joined the hobby back in 1999. AFAIK they've never had single team working on all the books but a good mix of writers. Had HoS been released with a points reduction I think the overall reception of the book would have been much much better. Suddenly battalions wouldn't be such a pain to include, units wouldn't be taking up too much space in a lists, our more squishier leaders wouldn't feel like such a gamble, and you could more easily work with the new DP system (which is a huge improvement IMO). Furthermore, when we see a release it has long since been finalised and sent to print (I've heard up to 6 months). A lot of moving parts from books to models to be ready. The most likely scenario is they overcompensated for the previous book. We've seen it happen in WHFB/40K/AoS before.

MWs are fine. There are just some instances where they are a bit overused. Some armies even rely on them to have any chance of chewing throw 1+ saves. Rend could be used as a stand-in but then we'll just complain about saves being useless and/or ending up pushing the power creep into a direction where 40k is, i.e. you need a 2+ save with a 4++ and a 5+++ and preferably 3 stratagems to play just to be sure. In that instance, we'd wish we had access to MWs. Most examples where MWs seem to come up is LRL. The issue when you get at its core is not MWs, it is the shooty/magic meta + being able to ignore mechanics which makes their shooting so oppressive. If 3:ed is around the corner with a supposed fix then I do not think we'll give MWs, or their presence, a second glance. It'll just be a thing some units have. So reign the shooty meta and people are not only going have better games but we'll also see different kinds of lists (since support/mid-level heroes won't just be blasted off the board T1-2).

If they did expand on the going-ons in Slaaneshi warbands and such it could be really interesting. They can't always be rolling around in a full set of armour or constantly fighting. I'd imagine something like that would get really dull for a hedonite. Politics and drama, sharing more stuff pertaining to the structure of cults and war bands, that kind of stuff. If they'd use someone like Sigvald or Glutos as a vehicle for that it could be neat. 2+ tough made a video of an interaction between Siggie and Glutos too which (story-wise) left some to be desired though there were hints of some interesting intrigue and banter. Love the idea of a converging storyline.

Glutos, in a way seems like a character with a completed character arc. He's eternally damned to be Slaanesh's hungry boi. A tale of his becoming might be more interesting unless they could come up a way for his to have a rivalry towards another character from another realm/faction. I could see Nurgle being a potential threat, tricking him with particularly nasty new meals angering both Slaanesh and Glutos. His hunger could also bring with a story of a particular obsession towards X or Y. Everything I've heard of Sigvald so far has gone too far into being a pretty one note character. His response to everything seem to be "how dare you speak to be in this way?!" That said, there are ways to making him more interesting and expanding on his relationship with Slaanesh. Perhaps one day elevating him to true daemonhood. He's already already on that path, after all. That would require more attention than GW probably is going to bother with (new mini for one). Another take is having sort-of-named daemons interacting with mortals and established characters alike. The Infernal Enrapturess/Contorted Epitome got that Hellraiser-vibe going on.

If a model could be placed in a manner where it is hidden I wont target it. Ultra-pedantic placement slows the game down and I rather my opponent is focused on placing their models correctly that meticulously placing models so each tiny little detail remains hidden. I play to win but I am allergic to "gotcha" moments and winning through a technicality. It sours both wins and defeats. That said, if I enter a setting where everything is measured down to the millimetre I'll accept that's how they like it. Besides you can play TLoS and still be lax when it comes to things like a tiny feather or spear-tip sticking out. Like if my opponent is obviously trying to hide a model or stay out of range of X unit I will inform them if I can still see them or allow them to move into hiding/OOR. The only exception is if they're trying have the cake and eat it too, as in getting both the benefit of my sportsmanship and getting advantages mechanically. Thankfully those kind of players are a rarity in my experience. The most important guidelines for me is to establish expectations, how you're going to deal with terrain/LoS and inform your opponent of any "gotcha"-mechanics. Good communication and flow leads to a good experience (and hopefully a few laughs on the way).

It is a good unit when it hits, I just think their relative frailty warrants them becoming slightly cheaper. It is true though they do got useful modifiers and a nasty sting for multi-wound models. It is how I landed at -20 points because doesn't make the unit overly cheap and to get the full benefit of -1 to hit/wound we're still talking at minimum of 320 points for 24 wounds with a 5+ save. Had the -1 debuffs in melee applied to a unit simply for being in contact with them it would have been a different deal (as they would be able to tag-team units and play a support role). But like you say, they're good they're just not 60ppm good. I really like their concept and style but it is hard to look past the Slickblades, especially with seeker cavalcade which just made it more annoying that fiends doesn't get any benefit from being in the Epicurean Revellers.

In addition what's been said about our mortal footsloggers I'd like to see Fiends drop in points as well. They're competing with our arguably best unit (with seeker cavalcades) and while they do add utility and their own special rules so do the Slickblades. I'd like to see them go down to 160 (-20) and have daemonettes drop down to 100 (-10). At this point most players are arriving at the same conclusion. The book is not bad it has just over-costed units. Being able to toy around with more of the battalions and points not running away with basic units such as blissbarbs would go a long way in levelling up this army by making a wider set of builds viable.

Hah, yeah, I went from a Godseeker based Seeker Cavalcade to Lurid Haze with an elite mortal presence (led by Syll'esske) to Godseeker list with Noble of Excess base (making use the Scarlet Cavalcades command trait/relic to increase morale for the mortal segment). Quite neat how you can make pretty big changes to the army without making huge changes to your unit selection just by switching your host. Lurid Haze is probably our most competitive choice (redeploy, re-rolling runs, and a stellar CA) but I also want to explore NoE (re-roll wounds on the charge) with Godseekers +1 to charge since if I can get that to work that's going to increase their output significantly. Let's see how long it takes before I start going, "hmmm, maybe a Pretenders list would be more my thing..." The ever slippery slope of theorycrafting and list-building.

From my point of view I get the impression that you're trying to get too much into one list. A big reason for the LoP is making our elite battleline. The other is his CA re-roll ability. With him + the keeper though you will find your command points will dry up quickly. From what I'm seeing your aim is to augment your mortal units into hammers (slickblades and twinsouls) and using Siggie as a double hit though double charge. Given the nature of your faster list you might enjoy a unit of Hellstriders with spears over the Masque. That would still leave you with a relatively solid backbone (twinsouls) and some units to hold the backline + your faster elements also have a battleline unit to frustrate your opponent. They would also benefit from Seeker Cavalcade. Another way to go with to combine the Masque and LoP into a Bladebringer on seeker chariot (bit more magic and retains speed) which leaves room for another warrior unit. You lose battleline on your twinsouls but on the flip side they can go on the hunt and support the other elements (and they're quite fast). Not a big fan of Supreme Sybarites, I'd rather pay the points for a guaranteed extra 3 CP. Far too random with 4 heroes. Hope this helps to narrow it down somewhat, if not, you can always make several lists with a different focus!

To flip the script, where would the tension be if Nagash could just roll into Hysh and win? In the story he was winning over Teclis and, ironically, probably would had won if he had stayed at the location Teclis took the fight to protect the mountain spirit. It was is the OBR and Mortarchs who failed him where Teclis' forces paved the way for victory. There's probably a lesson on humility in there for both Teclis and Nagash. Besides, if the villain has the motivation to end all conflict and become an omniscient ruler he kinda has to lose at some point. He is the equivalent of the "Death Beam from the Sky"-trope in superhero movies which means the good guys have to win. The interesting part was always going to be what comes next. Teclis appear to be seriously ignored, for example, and the cost so far is unknown. Moving forward I'm hoping the Soulblight characters will bring forth a more interesting form of Death than Nagash did.

Perhaps addiction was a poor analogy in this case. The more I hear about her she seems like the anti-hero who's wrapped up in a world of bad yet she consider it best that she maintain control because of dreading what a more corrupted individual might do in her stead. An archetype could someone like Raymond Reddington from The Blacklist. Connected and powerful yet show restraint, in part that she might think she's better than everyone but she still does partake. Adding in layers and motivation is a good idea, i.e. she did X to achieve Y but ended up with Z so now she has to... and so on. Love how this thread turned out. More is more, as the Yngwie Malmsteen said. A great Slaaneshi worshipper, indeed, because you can always go faster and with more strings on your guitar.

I've approached the Nobles of Excess (NoE) from the Godseeker perspective, using the 1+ Bravery and re-rolls to improve the morale from Scarlet Cavalcade (and is less vulnerable to LRL shenanigans and other abilities which shut down CAs). +1 to Charge has obvious synergy with NoE. Bladebringer pops cameo och sacrifice the item to Fane for permanent +1 to hit. I have considered Glutos as well (but I can't build everything all at once!). I'm also thinking if it might be better to drop one of the Painbringer units for Seeker Cavalcade. Love to hear your thoughts, tips, and ideas. Thanks! Allegiance: Slaanesh - Host: Scarlet Cavalcade Godseekers Host (Host of Chaos) - 2k (on the nose) LEADERS Lord of Pain - General - Command Trait: Embodiment of Haste - Artefact: Helm of the Last Rider Bladebringer, Herald on Seeker Chariot - Artefact: Cameo of the Dark Prince - Lore of Slaanesh: Hysterical Frenzy Shardspeaker of Slaanesh - Lore of Pain and Pleasure: Judgement of Excess UNITS 10 x Symbaresh Twinsouls 5 x Myrmidesh Painbringers 5 x Myrmidesh Painbringers 5 x Myrmidesh Painbringers 1 x Seeker Chariot 5 x Slickblade Seekers 5 x Slickblade Seekers BATTALIONS : Nobles of Excess ENDLESS SPELLS : Wheels of Excruciation

Yeah, I'm looking forward to new creative ways the undead hordes who "make the world tremble when they march to war" to keep up the fine tradition of losing. Then again when you write them as characters who have no real motivation other than "I need to take over the world for some reason" they have to fail spectacularly over and over. I hope the next Soulblight tome describes them as this intrigue at court type of deal where the immortal political game is far more important than world domination. We might actually get some interesting stories and characters that way! If a character manage to manoeuvre their way to the top they at the very least have a good reason for being there. They've already unveiled som really cool characters so I hope that translates well into the book.