swarmofseals

That Kemmler fluff is awesome. I wish they had worked that into the Kemmler campaign in TWW.

I could see that if you're going Hagg Nar, but if you're Khailebron you've already got plenty of access to teleports and this list won't be very CP hungry. Mirror Dance might be enough as is.

just another ally thought: pink horrors.

@Peegee I'd probably go with a 20 block of stalkers and cut the 20 Witch Aelves for 5 sisters or stalkers and Lauchon. So it'd be 20 stalkers, 10 stalkers, 5 whatever. That'd bring you down to 1 drop and give you the option of double shooting on turn 1. The lack of screens is absolutely a concern, but then again morathi, your heroes, and your two smaller units are all screens. Caveat: I'm not 100% sure you can fit 20 snakes on Lauchon, and if you can't then that's a problem. Either way I don't think this is the strongest DoK shooting build. I'll need to test it but I think my other build is better (hag cauldron, 3xshrine, 9x5 stalkers). It has no single target that you can take out to cripple the list, has nearly as much firepower, and can be all over the board at the same time. It should work a lot better against Idoneth as you will have a greater ability to not waste shots. I think it's almost certainly better in the mirror match even though you can't dictate the turn order. Assuming average rolls, Vyperic Guard shooting first will kill 12 snakes. 33 snakes shoot back and kill 9 snakes. The problem is that Vyperic Guard is now down to 2 units of 10, and thus only 60 shots next turn while the 33 snakes have 66 shots and the chance to pull off the double. Even without the double VG eventually loses. That's an oversimplification, but there are a bunch of factors that I'm ignoring which help the distributed list.

You don't get DP if you wipe out a unit or if your unit is wiped out. This fact makes Slaanesh's playstyle very different from the usual.

If you look through my post history you'll see some more in depth thoughts. In general though I think that very heavy ranged damage is probably going to be Slaanesh's toughest matchup, and such lists are quite popular right now. There will be certain enemy faction + battleplan combinations that will be very difficult to win. So if your entire goal is to 5-0 a major and nothing less will do, then I probably wouldn't play Slaanesh right now. But that doesn't mean that Slaanesh is bad. If the metagame shifts toward melee then Slaanesh will be very good, and even now I think Slaanesh can do very well if you get the right opponents. I looked at all of the 3+ round events on tabletop.to for February that had lists available and checked all of the lists that had one loss or fewer and found that only 11 out of 47 lists were heavy shooting. There were some moderate shooting lists in there too, of course, but I think those will be less problematic. It's hardly a guarantee that you'll run into a gunline at the top tables even in this meta.

Tried out an Archaon list against KO today on Focal Points. It wasn't a full on zilfin list but still pretty solid. Ironclad, 2 frigates, 3x10 arkanauts, typical suite of heroes, warp lightning vortex + pregame move, 2 drops. I took Archaon, KoS, sorc lord, warshrine, 8 Iron Golems, 5 Chaos Warriors, 2x11 blissbarbs, and a Plague Priest. I had above average save rolls and his shooting was a bit below average and I was pretty far ahead going into bottom of 3 when he conceded. He took the first turn and won both priority rolls. Not sure if it was really a representative match at all, but at least a little more evidence that Slaanesh is quite solid. Not sold on needing to take a Keeper to start with Archaon. Might be better to summon one in and start off with a bit more on the board. Plague Priest was great and was responsible for like half of my depravity.

@Nasrod in fairness actual gameplay has been showing Hedonites to be waaaay better than people are giving them credit for.

Avatars of War Marauders of the Apocalypse aren't bad but good luck finding them. These guys from mierce are good, but you'll want to get them when they are on sale as otherwise they are very expensive. Perhaps your best bet would be to use warcry models and convert them.

@meatpipeline Lord of Afflictions is certainly interesting. He's a lot more expensive and I don't think he'd contribute a ton more, but a 2+ is a lot more reliable than a 4+. 130 extra points is a hefty price though. Certainly worth testing.

@Peegee @Blitzd I'd take allopexes with melee snakes moreso than with a gunline as the nets only work during your turn. That said I think they could be very good with large blocks of melee snakes. I was wanting to try them pre-book but didn't get a chance to get any games in with them.

@AngryPanda I think that's about right. Fiendbloods are very overcosted. Twinsouls and myrmidesh are closer to being reasonably costed (especially twinsouls) but there just isn't much reason (competitively) to take them when there are other options that do the same job but are also faster. _______________________________________________ One interesting thing about Archaon in a Slaanesh shell is that summoning can potentially overcome one of the major weaknesses of Archaon builds (the lack of board presence). I may have to try him out.

I've played a ton against sentinels and honestly they don't bother me much. Granted I'm mostly used to running into ~40 sentinel + Teclis lists. IMO the problem with sentinels is that while they are very good at assassinating characters they aren't nearly as good at killing troops. Power of Hysh isn't guaranteed, even with Teclis and Zaitrec it fails nearly 1 in 10 times before unbind attempts. In terms of absolute offensive efficiency sentinels and stalkers are roughly even, but sentinels are very biased toward mortal wounds. That means that they are good against really hard targets but they kinda suck against low save targets and ward saves. 20 sentinels lofting only kill 7.38 Chaos Marauders or 3.56 Phoenix Guard, for example. They are ideal against heavily armored foot heroes and the like, dealing 6.33 damage to a 3+ save hero with -1 to hit, for example. Blood Stalkers have a more even distribution of mortals and rend 1 damage, which makes them effective against a wider range of targets. They kill 9.33 Chaos Marauders and 4.08 Phoenix Guard. Not amazing, but 15% more damage against PGs and 25% more damage against marauders. They will deal 5.83 wounds against that lone foot hero, an 8.5% advantage for the sentinels. With Morathi's double shoot that damage literally doubles, of course. Sentinels are probably a little better on defense at base, and of course their defense is strong with Teclis. -1 to hit is typically around a 30% damage reduction, giving Sentinels a defensive efficiency against rend 0 of about .214 with Teclis' 5+. Fully buffed Stalkers are on another level though: .317, and that doesn't require nearly as much investment to attain. Sentinels also have more bravery problems. Perhaps the biggest thing for me is build efficiency. Lumineth builds nearly always take Teclis and a cathallar, and on top of that you need at least 2 units of wardens. So even if you just spam sentinels after that the absolute most you can fit is 60. With stalkers all you need is a 100 point hero and you can put the rest in stalkers if you want. You may not want to do that, of course. But you can make a list with 4 behemoth leaders and still fit 45 stalkers (equivalent to 90 sentinels). You can take Morathi and still fit 45 stalkers. So yeah, just warscroll to warscroll I think that stalkers are sentinels are pretty similar in terms of oppressiveness. But when fully buffed stalkers are better on both offense and defense, and DoK army restrictions make them dramatically more spammable than sentinels. Not that it much matters but I found that head to head stalkers win easily. When I was testing morathi + stalker builds or 40 stalker builds I was undefeated against Lumineth, and when I played Khailebron I basically won on turn 1 in every game. That doesn't exactly work anymore, but the same effect can be achieved with Lauchon.

I think you misunderstand my point -- the question isn't whether slickblades are better than a keeper, it's whether 2 keepers is better than 1 keeper and slickblades. In theory the point of 2 keepers is that they can use their command abilities on each-other, but I have found that this is impractical as you usually don't have enough CP to sustain that. 5 slickblades provide just as good a target for the CA as another keeper does, therefore I don't feel much reason to run two keepers.

@Brother Mayhem I tried a double keeper list and wasn't a fan. Too CP hungry, and keepers are just less efficient on offense than other stuff. For example, a keeper activation with hand will do an average of: 3.17 mortals 4.44 rend 2 4.11 rend 1 Meanwhile, 5 slickblades deal an average of: 2.22 mortals 8.89 rend 1 5.56 rend 0 Against a save of 4+ the keeper will do 9.61 unsaved wounds while the slickblades will do an average of 10.93 unsaved wounds. Considering the slickblades are cheaper by 140 points I know which I'd prefer!

Nice! Is that colorshift paint? I think it'll be more oppressive than sentinel spam. Blood Stalkers are more efficient and have almost as good threat range.

Here's my first draft of a fat man invaders build: Glutos The Masque Contorted Epitome (glory hog, rod of misrule) 2x11 Blissbarb Archers 2x5 Slickblade Seekers 2x8 Iron Golems 1x5 Plague Censers 1x5 Chaos Warriors 2x1 Chaos Spawn Geminids + Cogs

@Golub87 if those are fixed as your options I'd take the slickblades for sure.

This list is super dumb but I also kinda expect that it might be broken: Bloodwrack Shrine (general, mindrazor) Bloodwrack Shrine (mirror dance) Bloodwrack Shrine (the withering) Hag Queen on Cauldron of Blood (either Blessing of Khaine or Catechism of Murder depending on subfaction) 9x5 Blood Stalkers Extra CP I'm sure others have proposed this list or something like it already. Could also just do 2 Bloodwrack Shrine, drop the CP and go up to 12x5 Blood Stalkers. Can either be Hagg Nar or Khailebron. It's just a ton of shooting and four behemoth leaders that are reasonably tough. There's plenty of movement shenanigans, the threat ranges are very good and there's no "weak link" in the list where if it gets sniped the list falls apart. You don't really worry about battleshock because you are MSU. Melee armies will have a hard time because they can't shut you down easily like they can when you are using one big block of snakes.

IIRC the reroll cast is a command trait, in other words useless as you can't have it without forgoing a subfaction. I've already done the math on success rate for rerolls vs bonuses. If you are looking at just straight cast percent, generally speaking rerolls are better than +1 but a bit worse than +2. Against unbinds bonuses are going to be slightly better as they are more likelynto result in a high success rather than a low to mid success. Overall I'd pick reroll over +1 but +2 over reroll.

Like most of you I really enjoyed the preview. I even don't mind the new Lumineth tome, so long as the original tome + broken realms will give a complete set of rules. If you need the new tome for updated battle traits or whatever that aren't in Broken Realms then I'll be peeved by that as it's way too soon for a forced battletome purchase. All that being said, there was one very bittersweet moment in the preview for me. Ellania and Ellathor feature a component that I have been wanting for years: a realistic normal scale flying owl. There are plenty of perching owls in the various Sylvaneth kits and plenty of flying hawks, but no flying owls. I even went so far as to commission a known sculptor to make a couple for me for the purposes of casting. Sadly he took my cash and never delivered. Now I am super happy that such a bit exists, but depressed that it's a one-off piece in a hero kit that will therefore be all but impossible to get in quantity XD

@Enoby Figuring out what characters to include is really hard. Really really hard. Aside from Archaon builds (which are their own animal), I see several categories: The big guys: Keeper of Secrets, Glutos, Kairos -- I think we can afford to fit two of these in a list but probably not 3. It's really hard to give up the Keeper. In Godseekers he's just the best chassis for Speed Chaser + Enrapturing Circlet, and in Invaders you really want one for the CA (although you can perhaps summon in one for this purpose). Glutos brings a lot to the table but no one thing that he does is particularly essential. The medium guys: Bladebringer on Exalted, Contorted Epitome, Syll'Esske, Be'lakor -- Bladebringer could be a poor man's keeper in Godseekers, I guess. Epitome have good speed and a small enough base that they can be a real help with summoning and add a lot of good magic and anti-magic. Overwhelming Acquiescence should be great. Syll'Esske is meh but the command ability is really good for MSU slickblade builds. Be'lakor is Be'lakor -- doesn't specifically further our plan much, but is such a powerful piece in some matchups. The little guys: Chaos Sorcerer Lord, Shardspeaker, The Masque - CSL is only for builds that take at least one large StD unit, of course. Shardspeaker is a nice support piece. The Masque is interesting as a very fast hero on a small base that is pretty resilient. They can zip through the enemy line and summon someplace difficult for the opponent to deal with. I think builds that don't start with a Keeper probably want to start with the Masque. I don't think that we can afford to overspend on characters. The primary weakness of the faction is going to be getting overloaded before we get a chance to start summoning, and the less defensive efficiency we have on the table at the start the more vulnerable we will be to this. That's why I don't think we can realistically spend like 1000+ points on leaders except for Archaon builds. I need to try out some Keeper + Glutos and Keeper + Contorted Epitome builds as well as some Keeperless builds. Godseekers seems so clutch for the improved ability to charge off the summon, but maybe that can be compensated with by using cogs. Glutos plus cogs is a spicy meatball. Start with the defense mode, and then when you start summoning you speed up time to get your summons in easily. I could see an Invaders build that starts with Glutos, Contorted Epitome and a third hero and aims to summon a Keeper as the first summon being really good. The more I theorize and play with this book the more that I think it's a solid A-tier factions with multiple competitive approaches. I think it's going to be a more difficult faction to play than most, so list performance in tournaments is probably going to depend a lot on who is playing the army. I suspect players who aren't already quite good will fare badly with the army if they don't bother to train with it before jumping into a tournament setting. I think the book is a solid triple, and if the internal balance (particularly with the new units) was better it'd be a home run.

Yeah, I think Seraphon might not be such a difficult matchup. They tend to have a lot of small units which should be great for Depravity, and a lot of their stuff deals chip damage (particularly Kroak).

Also, we might want to consider Kairos Fateweaver as an ally option. He eats up the entire allowance, so no self wounding shenanigans, but he's a super powerful piece. He provides strong countermagic and Gift of Change is really good. It should reliably generate 1-2 depravity and slow the opponent down, it's great against gunlines, and in magical christmas land it can even generate 3 depravity by itself. Kairos can also cast Geminids quite reliably. I bring this up because the more I think about it the more powerful Geminids seems as a tool for Slaanesh. I think our lists are more often than not going to be high drop, so we often won't be in control of the turn choice. If the opponent chooses to go first we tend to like that as it gives us a real jump start on DP. If they force us to go first we need ways of making that useful, and Geminids are a great example. They let us deal damage and debuff on turn 1, and provide some protection against the double turn.

@Mutton a +1 caster has a 58% chance of resolving Mindrazor overall. Here is the breakdown by roll: 16.67% chance of an 8 13.88% chance of a 9 11.11% chance of a 10 8.33% chance of an 11 5.56% chance of a 12 2.77% chance of a 13 Chances of it NOT being unbound on a flat unbinding roll, +1, and +2 respectively: 8: 72.23%, 58.33%, 41.67% 9: 83.33%, 72.23%, 58.33% 10: 91.67%, 83.33%, 72.23% 11: 97.23%, 91.67%, 83.33% 12: 100%, 97.23%, 91.67% 13: 100%, 100%, 97.23% So overall with a +1 caster you have the following chances: 58.33% against no unbind 50.22% against a flat unbind 44.82% against +1 unbind 37.8% against +2 unbind Assuming you have a +1 caster then no, Mindrazor isn't reliably resolvable on any particular turn but over the course of the game you should be a solid favorite to get it off at least once even against +2 to unbind. Against anything less than +2 you're pretty likely to get it off multiple times in a game. Note that rerollable unbinds are probably a bit less effective than a +2, but better than a +1.