swarmofseals

I'm not sure I would go so far as to say that Marauders aren't up to snuff. They are still quite good, I just think that slickblades may be better. Marauders with support from a CSL have higher top end potential, but it's quite tough to get all 40 into range to strike. When you are hitting with only half the unit they have lower offensive efficiency even with Daemonic Power. They are better on defense though with rerolling saves. The slickblades have a major speed advantage in any situation where you aren't deepstriking or teleporting. Slickblades have an average threat range of 21" plus a built in charge reroll while marauders have an average threat range of 16.5". Slickblades also have synergy advantage with stuff like the KoS command ability. But then again Marauders are battleline, which is a pretty big deal. I think it depends on the matchup, but overall I think that depravity is a major part of Slaanesh's gameplan. That said, I don't think one should go so far as to dump points into a bunch of stuff purely to generate depravity. I think it is worthwhile to spend a little to generate depravity, but most unit selections should also have a real purpose. The two Chaos Spawn in that list were there not just to generate depravity but also to bulk the list up to 12 units so I could take 3 ally choices. The Iron Golems are excellent screens as well as being ideal depravity generators. Small units of Chaos Warriors are the cheapest way to fill battleline, but also generate depravity nicely. I think depravity isn't going to do a whole lot to help against true gunline armies, which I suspect will be a major weakness of Slaanesh. It will be good against melee armies with some ranged support and decent against high octane offense armies. It will win games basically by itself against grindy melee armies. It's that middle category where providing some self-generating depravity will make a huge difference. It also makes a big difference on battleplans where there are no central objectives. Against opponents who don't have a ton of ranged firepower, being able to generate depravity without the opponent's "help" will give you the initiative in the match as if both sides simply sit around, you will accumulate a board advantage. I really don't know. It would depend on the rest of the list.

Would have been 120 if we had played the final turn XD

Just wanted to report in on another game that was a ton of fun. I took the following list: MY LIST So this one was a bit heavier on Slaves to Darkness units than my previous version. My opponent was a typical Maggotkin PBK list with a Great Unclean One, a shedload of Putrid Blightkings and a Lord of Blights in a Blight Cyst battalion and Gutrot Spume and geminids (slightly unusual). The battleplan was Total Conquest. SUMMARY Overall I felt really good about how the list played. I don't think luck was a huge factor this game. We both had some good and bad combat rounds. He won all of the priority rolls, but I did get off two out of 3 9" charges with my summoned Daemonettes. I definitely think I'd drop the second keeper. There just isn't enough CP to justify two. I'd probably try to replace it either with Glutos or with a Contorted Epitome. Marauders are sweet, but I'm not really sold on them vs 10 slickblades. Iron Golems continue to impress. I think that having a small DP battery with either Plague Censer Bearers or a Plague Priest is a good idea, but going over the top on it doesn't seem great.

GUO isn't a bad idea, but he's really expensive and would eat up most of your allies budget. I think other options are better bang for buck personally. Glottkin's spell is pretty unreliable. You have to have an available target, resolve the spell with no casting bonuses, and then be in a position for that unit to take a big attack. It's going to be great when it works, but I think this warscroll is too expensive (380) for it to be worthwhile for us. Plague Priest is very tasty and an interesting idea. The censers have a bit more area coverage to help them hit more units, but the added value of the Plague Priest prayers is quite nice. It's also useful to have another leader, even if a crappy one, for some battleplans. I'm starting to wonder if the Masque might actually be worth considering. The model isn't going to do much of anything in combat, but having a fast hero on a small base is something that I've really wanted in some games. Being able to summon behind the enemy and threaten the backfield is really powerful, and while Keepers can often accomplish this sometimes terrain and enemy models get in the way. The Masque could get around this problem for a relatively small investment. The Contorted Epitome could also fill this role, albeit on a bigger base and with more added value.

Its an interesting idea, but it will be very unreliable as it requires beating bravery scores and resolving two separate spells with no bonuses to cast. There's certainly plenty of room for reasonable people to disagree, but I can't help but wonder why more people don't see what I see in this book. I've been playing with a couple of lists now and have found the gameplay to be very satisfying and very thematic. Just to respond to a few of the points raised: If your balanced "correct" way to play list is solidly mid tier then isn't that a sign of a pretty well designed book? If a hodgepodge thematic list is busted isn't that a bad thing? I've found the "power gamed" versions of Slaanesh to be in many ways more thematically on point than the more normal lists. I think the power gamed version of Slaanesh is a build that uses mobility to pin and torture enemy units without killing them outright, plays cat and mouse with objectives, and eventually uses all of the depravity built up to build an overwhelming advantage before finally finishing the opponent off -- all while actively looking for ways to cause pain to your own units to generate even more depravity. How is that not utterly Slaaneshi? I think you may be right that there will be a high tier depravity focused build, although I think it will have some natural predators as well. There should be enough bad matchups to keep it honest. Boring is the absolute last way I would describe the games I have played with this tome so far I also play DoK, and I find it strange that people here are so jealous of the DoK book when so many in the DoK thread are complaining bitterly about that tome being terrible. Personally I think it's a solid tome and I do worry about the shooting a bit, but DoK did get some very significant nerfs. The old Witch Aelf/Sister of Slaughter spam playstyle is substantially weakened. I'm 100% sympathetic to some of the disappointment in the new Slaanesh mortals units. Slaangors are an absolute mess, and I think the Myrmidesh also miss the mark. The Twinsouls and Sigvald are both OK -- good enough for mid tier play for sure, and they won't cripple more competitive lists that want to include them or anything. Glutos I'm really not sure about. I think he is at least in line with Twinsouls/Sigvald and very possibly better. The same goes for the Blissbarb Seekers. The Blissbarb Archers and Slickblade Seekers are both very strong. I think the Shardspeaker is solid and will be quite good if the meta shifts away from shooting some. I'd love to see some of these warscrolls brought up to snuff, but I also can't say that I agree with those of you who are saying that all of the new models are terrible on the table.

That's pretty gross and creative. It wouldn't in any strange way. You'd run 2d6 +2 and then charge 2d6 +2.

@Carnith I agree with that, and what you propose could work as a solution. I personally like allowing people to use the Slaves/Beasts models in a wide range of factions. The problem comes when they are undercosted because they are being used in a faction with a much better set of allegiance abilities (like we see now). So you can either limit their access to the allegiance abilities (in which case you probably don't take them at all) or you give them their own profile for each faction (my preferred solution, albeit more labor intensive).

I half agree with you and half disagree. It's definitely not baloney. Points costs must factor in the value of the allegiance abilities or else whatever faction has the best battle traits will always be superior. That said, I agree with you that there is a problem whenever there are pseduo-allied units that can be taken from different battletomes where the pointing on those units is tuned to a different set of allegiance abilities. You see this in Order with Cities of Sigmar/Stormcast, and you see it in Chaos with Slaves To Darkness and Beasts of Chaos. The best answer would be for each faction to have its own set of points costs for every warscroll that it can take and just let StD and BoC units have the relevant keyword. I agree with some of your points suggestions, but Slickblades at 170 would be way too low. They are already quite good at 200.

It's hard to tell. I think he might have deployed differently but I'm not sure that this would have gone better for him. He would have needed to spread out his heroes in addition to his units, which would have allowed me to generate a lot more DP more quickly as everything wouldn't have been buried in a corner and I could have spread my archers out a lot more. I think the VP would have been a lot closer this way, but I also think I would have had a lot more play in the combat side of things. I think that they dynamic I noticed was that Slaanesh is going to have a much easier time against "rock" armies (Orruk Warclans, Fyreslayers and the like) on battleplans where the whole table is active and a harder time on battleplans where the objectives are concentrated in a condensed area. This isn't a new dynamic at all, but it's something people should keep in mind when analyzing results. It's totally OK for a competitive build to have tough matchup + battleplan combinations! Archaon could definitely be good. I probably wouldn't go that way personally as if I wanted to play an Archaon list I'd probably play Tzeentch Archaon as that build is very strong and very consistent. Slaanesh Archaon could do some solid work though. In this particular game I didn't really feel the need for anything specific except possibly more screens. I would definitely have liked to have more Iron Golems or other throwaway units to block charges and/or teleports.

Got a game in today with the following list: Godseekers Keeper (general, speed chaser, enrapturing circlet, progeny of damnation) Syll'esske (born of damnation) 2x5 Slickblade Seekers 1x10 Slickblade Seekers 3x11 Blissbarb Archers 1x8 Iron Golems 1x5 Plague Censers Extra CP My opponent took a classic Big Waaagh Ardfist list with 2x20 ardboyz, 3x10 ardboyz, an allied fungoid with cauldron, 2 warchanters, and a weirdnob shaman. This isn't an S tier list but it's definitely very competitive, and it prevented significant tactical challenges for me. We played Scorched Earth, and I ended up with a close but convincing victory. He conceded going into round 5 with the VP totals 24 to 13 in my favor and with me in control of 5 objectives to his 1. Batrep Overall the army played essentially as I expected it to. If I had gone in headlong and tried for a straight up fight I would have lost decisively, but as it was even though I didn't really kill a lot of my opponent's army I was able to play a very strong objectives game and patch my losses with summons. I wonder if this number of slickblades is overkill and whether I should perhaps find a way of fitting more Iron Golems or other StD units. Syll'Esske was decent and all but I wasn't impressed, and reducing the number of slickblades would also reduce the need to run Syll'Esske.

Ahh I had forgotten it's both 400 points and 1 in 4! I use allies so rarely XD

I think Slaanesh may be the first army in a long time to really, really want to use all 400 points of allies. I want: Be'lakor 1-2 units of Plague Censers as many Iron Golems or Untamed Beasts as I can manage Iron Golems/Untamed Beasts are the perfect unit to tank chip damage from Plague Censers. Unlike Chaos Spawn they can actually do some work and they can take 1-2 wounds before losing a model and thus worry less about battleshock. I'm probably going to try something like 2x censers and 4x warbands to start and see how much I wish that the warbands were Be'lakor.

I can say for sure that I will be providing this feedback directly to the design team!

Ohh that's clever, and it even works because they are Nurgle. Only triggers on a 4+ though, but it should still turbo charge your DP generation. That's a lot of points worth of Chaos Spawn though. Not sure it's worth spending 660 points on absolute garbage in order to get an extra 330 points of summons XD. But I don't think it's necessary to fully commit to Chaos Spawn. Could just as easily tank the wounds on your regular units, or use somewhat useful StD or BoC units for MSU.

Looking at StD units has me wondering about Chaos Warriors either in MSU or blocks of 15-20. They are so defensively efficient (especially at 10+ models). Should be able to hold up most enemies whilst grinding out DP. Syl'Esske is definitely interesting now and I might well consider taking them over a Bladebringer on Exalted Chariot. I think it'll be tricky to trigger the +1H/+1W but even without it and without Deadly Symbiosis their offensive efficiency is already better than the other hero options. Also don't forget about allied Be'lakor. Be'lakor remains really good, and he fits perfectly into the delay and grind strategy.

@Are Verlo unfortunately you still have to end a charge within .5" of the enemy, so unless your opponent charges something else and ends up within 3" of the Slaangors you can't set up situations like the ones you described.

I think Slaanesh is going to have a weird playstyle now. Basically what you want to do is trap and harass the opponent, tying them down with precise charges, strategically preventing pile-ins, and dealing chip damage to as many units as possible in order to summon a ton of extra daemons to eventually overwhelm the opponent. It's absolutely finesse and it's very sadistic. I see it as being extremely in line with the lore. I think if you try to brute force it you are going to have a bad time. I think it's a nerf (and a necessary one) compared to the post-Morathi previous book, but that once people figure out how to play it it will be very good. I'm not sure if it will be "A" tier or "S" tier, but I think it will be one or the other. I've been playing a LOT of DoK recently and I think it will require some adaptation for sure. I don't think Witch Aelf/Sister of Slaughter spam is going to be the go-to anymore, although they may still see some play. Shooting lists have a chance to be oppressively good, but I'm not sure. I played a lot of heavy shooting lists with the old tome under Morathi rules and found that a mix of shooting and melee worked best, but I also may not have tried the optimal shooting strategies. So I think it's possible that a snake "gunline" will be the top build, but I also think a hybrid melee and shooting build could be better. Some will depend on how the meta shapes up, of course, and I think both versions will be viable.

I strongly advise against emailing GW without any actual play experience. If you take the time to test and send them thoughtful and well detailed feedback there is a good chance they will listen. Some of you may not know me, so I'd like to point to one of my older posts: I can't give a lot of detail, but my involvement has increased since then and I can say with a great deal of confidence that the team is very open to and is eager to receive well thought out feedback. I encourage all of you to give this tome some time before judging it. I don't say this out of a desire to blindly trust GW or to push the idea that we should just shut our eyes and assume everything will be OK. I say it because this battletome has very powerful mechanics that are completely unique. No other battletome has summoning potential that even comes close to what Hedonites can do. I acknowledge that not everyone may want to play a summoning army, but for better or worse that is what Hedonites are right now. No other faction can realistically summon 1000 points of reinforcements in a game like Slaanesh can, and as a result the warscrolls must be overcosted to compensate for the summons. Personally I think it would have been cool if the book had been designed with two major subfactions and two hosts per subfaction like the Seraphon book, one built around summoning and the other more traditional. That way Slaanesh players could realistically choose either playstyle. But we've got what we've got and a straight analysis of the warscroll efficiencies that ignores the summoning just isn't going to give a realistic picture of how the faction plays on the tabletop. The power of the summoning is also very difficult to predict conclusively just based on looking at the numbers. We're going to need to play a lot of games before we get an idea of how it plays in practice. Crunching the numbers shows clearly that some of the warscrolls are not good enough compared to other options within the faction. Slaangors and Hellstriders are probably the most obvious culprit. I'll definitely be passing along this feedback quickly because it's clearly not an external balance problem. But before we conclude that everything is overcosted we need to play a lot of games and see how the faction works in practice. I crunched the numbers in the old battletome when it first came out and found that everything in that tome was overcosted relative to the rest of the game as well, and yet the faction ended up being at the absolute top of the heap for an extended period of time.

@Enoby, @Overread basically already gave my reasons for taking a 10 block. It's a good target for the KoS command and provides the list with something that can smash into the enemy and perhaps hope to survive a turn or two. It's all about buying time for the summoning to kick in and take over the game. Also @Yoid The main reason for taking a Keeper is not damage but utility. If it does some damage that's a nice bonus, but what you really want him for is the following: Scoring on objectives that give bonuses for behemoths and/or require leaders for capping Pinning the enemy. You want to look for big units that you can clip and then prevent from piling in. You can prevent the enemy from retreating with the godseeker artefact, and if needed you can retreat and charge and hit a different target with the proper command ability. When summoning you have the same dilemma -- a keeper or 30 Daemonettes. I think that most of the time you will want the Daemonettes and completely agree that they are more efficient than a keeper. I'd rather start with the keeper and summon the Daemonettes, however, as the keeper is basically the best chassis for the artefact and command ability, best hero for keeping up with slickblades, and most survivable leader/behemoth for turn 1 scoring. ____________________________________________________ As an aside, are there any reasonable alternative sculpts for Daemonettes? The current GW models are among my least favorite kits in the game, and I also dislike the Raging Heroes and Ghamak alternatives, which are just pinup babes with claws. The Raging Heroes Flesh Eaters and Death Dancers are kinda OK. The Flesh Eaters have some cenobite flavor to them and the Death Dancers at least have incredibly weird and dynamic posing to make up for their oversexualization. I still don't love any of these options. No doubt there are some good conversion options in the GW range, but I wonder what else is out there from non-GW sources.

The Iron Heart is an "invocation" and not a prayer, so it wouldn't count against prayer limits even if there was one. Who knows if that will get FAQ'ed or changed though.

I've done a review of all of the underlying combat efficiencies in the battletome. The clear winner for the best warscroll is Slickblade Seekers. They have among the highest offensive efficiencies in the allegiance (beaten only by twinsouls in their offensive mode) and among the highest defensive efficiencies as well (beaten by myrmidesh in melee only, twinsouls in their defensive mode only, and Blissbarb Seekers). They are also super fast. The other standout warscroll is Blissbarb Archers, who have OK offensive efficiency for a ranged unit but are very good at generating depravity (as many of you have noted). On the hero side of the coin I think there are a few noteworthy options. The Keeper of Secrets and Bladebringer on Exalted Chariot are probably the two best combat daemons. Bladebringer is more offensively efficient on the charge but about the same when not charging (and much more efficient if hitting multiple targets. Both are about the same defensive efficiency. Keeper is faster and has more utility (command ability, better spell access, self healing). I think any list is going to want one of these two to harass the opponent and pin large units with locus. Seekers are probably the best host, and the combination of retreat and charge and enemy can't retreat are perfect for this role. My instinct is to take the keeper first, but I don't think it would be completely crazy to consider the Bladebringer if points constraints require it. Glutos and Sigvald are noteworthy in that both are reasonably defensively efficient. Sigvald is a bit more offensively efficient (and moreso than a Keeper), while Glutos brings some pretty solid utility. The main problem with both of these guys is that they are slow. The Lord of pain looks good on paper but I expect that he won't be very practical as he can't keep up with the Slickblade Seekers. Shardspeaker is more interesting and definitely merits consideration. Slickblade Seekers definitely need to worry about battleshock, so Battle Rapture could be a real help. Infernal Enrapturess and Contorted Epitome are both worth thinking about for anti-magic, but I think both are something of a longshot. Overall I think the most competitive builds will have the following components: 3 units of 11 Blissbarb Archers to generate depravity and fill battleline requirements. Should be enough shots to tag most if not all enemy units. At least one big daemon hero general, either a Keeper of Secrets or a Bladebringer on Exalted Chariot probably a single Shardspeaker most of the rest of the points in Slickblade Seekers I'm not certain that any of the battalions really work. Exalted Speed-Knights doesn't provide any battleline, so it'll still be a minimum 5 drop army and has a lot of tax (regular Seekers, Blissbarb Seekers which I don't think you want if you are taking Blissbarb Archers). Depraved Carnival similarly requires a lot of tax and only cuts drops by 3. The gameplan will usually be to try to use your Slickblade Seekers and general to hold the opponent back as much as possible while generating maximum depravity and eventually flooding the board with Daemonettes. My suggestion would probably be something along the lines of: Keeper of Secrets (general, Enrapturing Circlet, Speed-chaser, Progeny of Damnation) Shardspeaker of Slaanesh (Battle Rapture) Bladebringer on Exalted Chariot (Born of Damnation) 3x11 Blissbarb Archers 2x5 Slickblade Seekers 1x10 Slickblade Seekers +1 CP I don't think this build will be top tier, but I think it could be reasonably competitive and if the summoning is better than I think it could actually conceivably be at least high tier if not top tier. It's got decent damage, excellent mobility, good utility, and the summoning could provide really good staying power. I think 30 daemonettes a turn starting from turn 2 is not at all unreasonable.

Clearly the old crystal touch ability (due to attack scaling) or an evocator style ability would be superior to the current crystal touch, but the current crystal touch is still really good. It takes some finesse to use, however.

For sure there are some opponents against which the ability is useless. But "useless in some matchups" is not the same as "completely useless" _____________________________________________________________________________ This build is extremely obvious but I suspect that it'll have some serious play: Bloodwrack Shrine Ironscale/Hag Queen 2x20 Stalkers 15 Sisters 5 Khinerai/Iron Heart Scathcoven Can be Khailebron or Hagg Nar. If you go Hagg Nar you take the Hag Queen and Iron Heart, Khailebron takes Ironscale and Khinerai. Sisters can be taken in any configuration -- not sure what the best bet would be to start. 2 drops and terrifying shooting, weakness in battleplans where only leaders can score. An alternate build would be to drop down to 5 Sisters and take 2 units of 10 Khinerai. Here the plan would revolve much more around wasting your opponent's time with speedbumps while you shoot.

Yeah, the Khelt Nar thing is more powerful as a threat than an actual ability. It makes your opponent think twice before sending in anything with mass attacks unless they have spare CP for all out attack. You'll probably only use the ability very rarely but the mere fact that you can affects your opponent's decisions. Basically, the ability is most powerful when you don't even have to use it. That said, this ability is still on the weaker side. Retreat and Charge is much more important for Khelt Nar.

@DantePQ the one problem that really holds Doomfire Warlocks back is that they can't cast anything other than their warscroll spells. If they could cast endless spells or faction spells they'd be much more worth considering!