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That was in no way the core of my argument. It was an example of what could be great design and then I gave several examples of how the book create synergies and is tied together. The point is you do not need to have a series of special rules to create a deep army. That's how sharing opinions work. You said your piece and I didn't agree with it (and you're posting this on a Hedonite forum so you should expect a reaction). To me, LRL does not seem like the hardest army to master or that HoS has a low learning curve. It has very little with being a tough guy and more to do with what's actually going on in the game. We can already tell that it isn't a straightforwards army and that simply going all in on DPs while avoiding removing units is a bad idea (but not always). + more besides (previous posts). My point on personal preference was more towards if you see something in an army others do not, you run with it and don't look back. I still enjoy discussions about it and I assure you, it is all good. It would be hecking boring if it it all fit neatly into a pre-arranged box.

Completely disagree. LRL is for the most part fairly straightforwards and self-sufficient. Command/magic is about buffing units and there's very little interactions between characters and auras. Teclis adds easy and reliable magic and then shooting/MWs does the rest. In a tough spot, pop an aetherquartz. MWG do well with LRL so it can't be that tough. You can create more complex lists but most people won't. Those who chase the meta rarely wants something complex, after all. Since complex and/or swingy tactics doesn't win consistently and make a poor/unexpected match-up more likely. Striving for reliable lists in a dice game in order to get 3-5 wins in a row versus a wide range of opponents creates a player who think and play different than most of us. Indeed, for the vast majority of players the local meta will dictate choice and army over the wider tournament meta. Which is why I disagree with Vince on what he defines as good design. Not all army books have to be obvious what they want you to do. I would even argue that if you are able to tell the story of a unit without bloating the warscroll with tons of additional rules then that is great design. Currently I think we have enough, for example, the Twinsouls. A fairly simple warscroll but using them successfully will hinge on your ability to maximise their alternating abilities. Glutos is another unit which plays into the sequence of game to max out potential. Then there are plenty of debuffs and tricks you can pull to further make you army either tougher or even faster. Finally there's summoning which is the 1st trap I think most new players will fall into, namely, to farm DPs for the sake of DPs and at the expense of their battle plan. The theme is controlling the tempo through speed or abilities (-1s, locus, summoning, Glutos, Sigvald) over the course of the game. Most people who's actually went in and tested the army have come to a similar conclusion that it always feels like we lose out on one or two units or that battalion being just outside of our reach. That can be easily solved by shaving some points off our units. I really cannot see how people reach the conclusion that the entire battletome is a poorly designed mess and require a total rewrite. TL;DR: We all end up preferring different armies and like with most things in life we will find a way to decide for X and Y reasons that the army we prefer right now is either 1) the most awesome 2) super tactical 3) etc etc. I am probably wrong in the eyes of another who consider LRL to friggin' perfect and HoS a piece of trash. I still won't switch over to LRL. I think there's lots of interesting synergies and variants to figure out for HoS. If you don't, then you shouldn't. You should play with the army you enjoy, no matter what I or anyone else say.

Yeah, I also think a points reduction will do us a world of good simply by how more units/bodies contribute to DP and summoning. Fiendbloods are just confusing. They don't add anything new to the army, they're inefficient against other units, and could have just been left out to be put in the BoC book whenever that arrives.

It is worth considering that a lot of the cool stuff are from leaders, which means if a LRL player wants it all the army will be tiny. Not ideal in a game about scoring objectives. Sevireth the wind dude is 300pts, I think, which is a big investment in utility and harassment (which is something the army isn't lacking in). Same deal with the rest of the army, if you try to do it all you quickly run out of points. Initial impressions can be misleading before we actually see some lists. Looks solid though. It also be funny to land a Pavane of Slaanesh on him. 24 on a 5+ MWs. Dance, dance, like the wind! It is also interesting to ponder what might be in store for us when the Broken Realms relevant to Slaanesh hits. Could it even be something relating the newly awakened shard of Slaanesh? It is very much a part of Morathi's ascension and the on-going story, after all. I doubt it'll be the next one up but it could be a part of its climax and launch us into a 3rd edition. Or one of the two, or neither. Could the Shard of Slaanesh be our next super-unit? GW do seem to like to release those centrepiece units lately.

Yeah, I imagine it would. Vainglory and zealotry masquerading as righteousness and purity. Who could abide by such corrupted false prophets, after all? Solid motivation for taking over and converting other hedonites to their cause too. I like your concept. "Evil" is not always so clear cut. I'm drawing parallells to substance abuse, as in she knows she should quit but the spiral she's on is ever steeper and downwards. Eventually she might fall completely but even then I find characters with a flaw, relatable/tragic story behind them more compelling. Basically if we can empathise we can become invested. Who's to say she can't to a little good here and there, for example.

To me Slaanesh stands out among the rest. You could create a person who take "end justifies the means" way too far. That person wants to do good but end up working only to that specific good at the detriment of all others (which creates enemies and competitors). As this behaviour develops you can imagine all kinds of dark deeds "for the greater good." Slaanesh can also be quite subtle, i.e. have an outward appearance of beauty and adoration for X or Y reason yet is ugly as sin underneath the skin. With your idea of piety, the followers of your Slaaneshi sect could very well view them as glorious angels and righteous avengers made manifest through their purity of heart and belief. Taking it further, this could send them on a crusade where they forcibly bring people in (it is for their own good!) because how could you not see the glorious and righteous message? ONLY THE HERETIC! and so on. Kind of makes me think of the Shadow over Innsmouth and the esoteric order of Dagon (H.P Lovecraft mythos). Like Enoby suggests, a messenger of the gods bringing new fortune. Why else would they be sheltered if not because of our faithful hearts? I like to toy around with positive traits and great deeds and then how could this be corrupted into something wicked. Dark Eldar (or Drukhari) is an example of this being turned up to 11 and an interesting approach. How far will you push yourself to get what you desire while silencing the voice of your conscience? How long till it stops talking and you become someone you never could have imagined.

I'm holding out for more data. Two games, for example, is not enough to sway me either way. There are channels which are excited for Hedonites (Tabletop Titans, Meta Slayers, and thete made a good case too). The negative bat reps I've seen has thus far has forgotten key rules or played unoptimised lists. That said, I agree, it isn't S-tier, and thank Slaanesh for that because further we get into that territory we more extreme the power creep gets. A point reduction could be pretty big though since it will have a cascading effect on DPs and Summoning. If the opponent has to deal with 1-2 more units then whatever you summon in will be that much more impactful. Speaking of summoning, I do not think we've seen or figured out the best way to use it yet. Not just in terms of what to summon (that's the easy bit) but how to optimise plays to get the most of it. Stuff like that is going to take much more than a couple of games.

On the flip side, the rules preview for Hedonites we did get was a larger article with several units have rules shown. I'm thinking for this article (https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/02/12/discover-the-new-rules-that-make-the-hedonites-of-slaanesh-even-more-gloriously-despicable/) which previews multiple units at once + Siggie. Surprised they slept on Glutos though, his rules and entire model is awesome. Hedonites did get a good amount of model spotlights too. The Lumineth articles address the Vanari bladelords, the horsie bois, and characters separately. I fully concede I might have missed something but the marketing sure worked on me. The Battletome hooked me like a pair exquisite silvery flesh-hooks.

Yeah, weighing the benefit of getting fewer drops versus versatility. I'm also a fan on the Herald spell 'acquiescence' and combining it with the bigger version (aptly named 'overwhelming acquiescence') on the Contorted Epitome to try and get at least one of the spells through. Works with shooting too since the re-rolls of 1 isn't restricted to melee. If both spells go through you're getting 2-4 enemy units to put that effect on. As it stands I'm not expecting to out-drop many armies anyways unless I decide to commit on the Seeker Cavalcade and Godseekers some day in the future. It is a cool concept, I just want to do more than build chariots!

If it is interesting I'll leave to you but the cliff notes are like this: Noble named Ashir D'velve (the name I gave my Dark Eldar Archon, now Drukhari, back in 1999 and I just like it) raised with a passion for writing plays/performances and spread it to the lowliest commoner and royalty alike. He wants to be a man of the people and recruit servants and staff from beggars, the homeless, and orphans. He prides himself in raising them up from the gutter, bringing them into his plays and performances. Gradually, his pride, ego, and teetering on the edge of a messiah-complex catches the attention of a certain deity (or daemon) who start to whisper suggestions in his ear. Ashir now starts to move towards more extreme ways to find out new stories, objects, and other tools for inspiration. Slowly but surely he withdraws from the public claiming to be working on his greatest work yet, eventually letting his staff go abruptly. Outwardly this is the last the world know of Ashir, presumed dead, his estates fell into disrepair. The derelict building became a place of superstition and fear. The truth is the staff never left the estates. Some also heard the whispers also and serve him still. The rest were fashioned into gruesome costumes for ever more sadistic and extreme performances. His entourage now tour the realms, selling their services to those willing to taste forbidden pleasures and experiences. Anonymity and damnation guaranteed. The only mark of their passing are sickening displays of art made from the bodies who simply were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Preying on the same kind of people once tried to shelter, using the underground and secretive societies to ensnare new souls and victims alike. Trading the public stage for exclusive shows for the twisted and wealthy. Good intentions twisted by obsession turning into the darkest possible mirror of what he wishes to be. His vanity and pride pushing him further, much to the delight of the dark prince. Mostly a mortal warband for now but as the lore behind this merry group of performers grow, daemonic forces will start to be included in his clientele and eventually as performers themselves. I love to write and expand with the army I make, makes me care more for my plastic figures.

If objectives gets a bigger focus and non-behemoth characters get harder to target with shooting/magic HoS could come out as a winner. We're fast enough to pick fights and get at important leaders, leaders like the shardspeaker would be easier to place without getting shot up, and summoning is going to be (and already is) great for objective grabbing/holds. If "look out, sir" ends up being like a 2+ shrug over to the next unit it wouldn't just be good for protection but to feed depravity to different units. Combining something like this with the fane means we'd get DPs rolling quick. This could be why we're paying a summoning tax on our units. I also like how the new Locus ability has panned out. I'm not disagreeing on the general perception that HoS are over-costed as a result of overcompensating from the last book. Either there needs to be a slight points reduction or there's something we don't know about in the upcoming 3rd edition. Maybe both.

Yeah, I was particularly frustrated with MWG for this reason. I really enjoy their content but it does seem that the sheer volume of armies and games they play causes them to lose track of the finer points of some armies (they can also appear quite nonchalant and handwave rules away "as not making an impact anyway"). I think Tabletop Titan's game has thus far been the most accurate. Adrian (the HoS player) used summoning to his advantage and played to the army's strength. I've deliberately sought out players who talk about what and how to solve it as opposed to bemoan X or Y. 2+tough for getting pumped on lore and I think Thete and Meta Slayers take on HoS was good too. Then mirror this towards the criticisms and formulate my own opinion on it. I am INCREDIBLY happy that HoS isn't some crazy S+ tier meta army because AoS needs to keep those down to a few not increase their number.

Yeah, just some points here and there and I think we'll hit the spot. The tactical impact of our summoning cannot be understated. Generally speaking when creating an army list right now it feels like I'm always one unit short (or cannot afford a battalion to make it all click). If the overall points gets lowered to accommodate such a change then I think the army would sit comfortably as as strong finesse army without dipping into being frustrating to face. For now I'm just going to bite the bullet and, hopefully, be pleasantly surprised when I am all of the suddenly able to add another unit or two to my army with the points update later this year. Having to maximise the value of certain units now it is opportunity to prove ourselves worthy of Slaanesh's attention and favour. What's a bit of pain, after all?

Seeker chariots in a Seeker Cavalcade battalion in Godseekers could be an interesting variant with similar output. 2 per unit at 260 points, very fast, can retreat and charge (more DPs cause Godseekers + more objective control), battleline in Godseekers, and that wonderful 6" range activation/pile-in. Better yet, how about 3 Bladebringers on Exalted seeker chariots and a beefed out Seeker Cavalcade with Seeker chariots? 3 Bladebringers on exalted chariot, 2 x 5 slickblade seekers, 3 x 2 seeker chariots comes in at 1930, 106 wounds (most on 4+ save). Leaves a bit of room for another CP, bound spells, or some cheap backline unit to keep back objectives clear.

Looking at it from the perspective of an opponent I think summoning can be far more than utility. 20-30 blobs of daemonettes can stake ownership of an objective, a keeper can prove invaluable for dealing with a certain threat. However, the added utility is something that is really interesting as well. Friends as you mentioned could appear as monster hunters but also inflict debuffs on tougher units. In other words, being able to have such immense flexibility looks game changing to me. For example, I think 30 daemonettes in the mid/end game will win you games and when the game ramps up those DPs will come rolling in. Closest comparison I can think of is FEC (daemonettes = ghouls, twinsouls/painbraingers = horrors/flayers, and so on) since they also pay a summoning/healing tax (starting to think there's a pattern to the type of army I'm drawn to). Doing some list comparisons we did have similar amount of wounds but have stronger summoning over the course of the game. My thinking is that they got to be really careful in lowering the cost too much, assuming they do, cause right now HoS looks more finesse than before and I like that. That said, there is something that feels off in the list building, e.g. when picking a battalion warscroll you have to remove a key unit to make room (ironically making the battalion itself quite meh). New to HoS though, so take this as an outsider looking in.