Grimrock

I think the list looks solid, I've been tinkering with something similar in Godseekers but I'm probably not going to want to pony up the cash for a second keeper any time soon. You could try dropping the seekers battallion and cogs to upgrade one unit of Helstriders to 30 daemonettes if you're really worried about bodies, or just make sure you focus your first summon on grabbing as big of a unit as possible. The speed keeper is definitely swingy, but I've found double piling usually helps even it out. Haven't had a ton of games though so it might turn out to be too risky in the end. You could always do the reroll hits to the keeper on the first turn and the bladebringer the next turn since she might have issues charging turn 1 anyway.

One of the best units I've used in the new book. One shotted an enemy keeper in the mirror match, and consistently puts out enough damage to take down most regular sized units. If you can, giving them permanent rerolls from the Fane is huge with all their attacks. It really kicks them up a notch. They definitely have their weaknesses though. They are a little dicey with the wheels, and if you miss the soul scent roll they'll feel pretty sluggish. Also the wheels not giving depravity hurts a lot when you charge something big.

I'm assuming the 'start of'/'end of' phase rules will be written into the next GHB. Hopefully they'll make sense when written directly into the rules rather than a random document that has been subsequently buried on the community page. FAQ looks fine otherwise. Too bad about the endless spells, but otherwise I'm just releaved nothing was nerfed into the ground. We should have at least 6 months until GW decides they don't want anyone playing hedonites anymore.

The army seems to have a very specific counter to FEC: tyrants of blood with the halo of blood artifact. Use your entire army as a screen, then hope to get the charge in and tag team the nastiest stuff before it gets to attack. Otherwise whatever goes into the terrorgheist will probably just die. A dark feast could conceivably work by creating two layers of buffer around the army but you'll probably still need to get lucky. Not ideal, but not much else to do. As has been said FEC is bonkers at the moment.

@Grailstorm I think you might be overestimating the attack twice mechanic just a touch. A slaanesh player can use it to double daemonettes attacks from 2 to 4 for a single unit. A Maw Crusha can add 1 to 2 attacks as well, except it does it for every unit within 14. Also keep in mind the quality of attacks coming from the two armies, brutes have some of the best attack stats in the game (with buffs), and daemonettes are 4+/4+ rend 1, 1 damage. Sure it's nice to double that, but adding +1 attack to brutes will make a much bigger difference most of the time. You may be thinking of how big a deal double attacks would be for ironjawz and then porting that impression to every army, but the models, and importantly available buffs, are wildly different. I'm not saying double attacks aren't a big deal, they're awesome, but the ironjaw command ability has been having about the same effect forever. It's absolutely bonkers how strong it is.

I've had some good games with a wrath of khorne thirster regardless of composition. It's a good general and hits like a truck, especially with reapers or bloodlords. Kinda squishy though so you need to be careful with him. Insensate should be good too, but I've never run one.

That would be a tough call. I think having a single enrapturess sitting on the fane is pretty foundational for a summoning point and consistent depravity, but I would definitely take the masque over a second one. The increase in damage, consistency, and mobility are pretty huge.

Pretty well actually. Speed 10 with run and charge got her around a screen and into the back line at the start of turn 2, and the extra attacks with rerolls did 4 wounds to the enrapturess in cover. The flying pile in could've allowed her to land close enough to the keeper for a double activation if I had thought of it at the time. I've tried her a couple times now and she tends to be good for her cost. She has a big tool kit of abilities, but her damage is a touch low. Good at clearing out chaff or basic heroes. Seems to definitely beat out the viceleader and worth the 120 if you have space in a list.

Got a game against another slaanesh player last night. He was pretty new to the book so hadn't had a chance to tweak his list yet, but the mirror match was pretty brutal. He ran pretenders with two keepers, exalted bladebringer, enrapturess, in the sybarites and 2x20, 1x10 daemonettes in the revelers. I had a keeper, exalted bladebringer, epitome, enrapturess, masque, in sybarites, 1x30 daemonettes, 2x5 hellstriders and 2x5 seekers. Scenario was knife to the heart. He chose to go first to try for the alpha and moved half his army up (general, chariot, 20 daemonettes) while keeping the other half back to defend the objective. Unfortunately for him due to scenery and deployment he failed his chariot charge and the daemonettes were too far out. That was the only turn he got. I charged his general with a keeper and chariot, killing it with just the chariot. His chariot and forward daemonettes died to a contorted, daemonettes, and a unit of hellstriders. Locus and mirror meant he only got to attack with his damonettes and kill a few of mine. The masque and one unit of seekers started to flank. I got the double, hit his enrapturess and 10 daemonettes in the backline with my masque and seekers, charged my keeper into his and sent my other heroes into his last unit of daemonettes. Locus whiffed on both sides so my keeper went first and one shotted his, and my masque and seekers killed his enrapturess. He had 46 depravity but no heroes left so we called it there. So for anyone planning on running fewer heroes make sure you have at least one that's extremely well protected. He could have come back that round and done some real damage but losing that last hero clinched it. Also when a glass cannon hits a glass cannon, stuff dies shockingly fast. Go figure haha.

I like it. My only thought is maybe drop the viceleader and use the points for cogs and upgrading the bladebringer to an exalted chariot. I think they're both worth more than the extra hero in this case. Oh and what Carnith mentioned about moving the sword to the epitome.

For sure, it makes perfect sense for narrative and it'll add some great fun, but for matched play it just seems to add needless complication. They seem to be in this weird state of trying to keep allies a part of the game but continually eliminating anything that would make allies appealing for matched play. Why not keep mercenaries as Narrative only? There are 3 ways to play, it's not a sin to make rules specifically for one of those ways. Yup, and I think it's awesome. Books like gloomspite that include a variety of different units and make all of them viable are fantastic. By far my favourite part of their rules work recently.

I'm really curious about the use of mercenaries actually. GW has been rigorously obliterating any desire to take allies for quite some time now, and I rarely if ever see them in the 15-20 people in my play group. Moving the best rules into the allegiance abilities just means it's pointless to bother. I wonder why they went through the trouble of making a mercenary system if they were just going to toss even more restrictions on them.

I was under the impression that they shoot for 2 weeks, but I think khorne was 3 so it's not set in stone. I imagine it depends if the need to do much playtesting or many changes, khorne had at least one significant change so that might be why it took longer.

Played one last night. My army was pretenders, bladebringer on exalted general, infernal, contorted, hellstriders, 30 daemonettes. Up against khorne. In the beginning I was rolling really poorly so some combats just took forever. Highlights include a summoned unit of 3 fiends doing a single wound to a 4+ save hero, and a unit of 9 bloodreavers lasting 2 turns (not rounds, turns) in combat with 10 daemonettes. General also blew a critical locus roll and died early. It really hurt not having the keeper there to help the daemonettes and give the better locus. I would have had to drop the enrapturess to get one though, which was clutch for generating the last few points for a big summon or two. Also the contorted was fantastic, the mirror was huge even if the combat was a little lackluster. In the end we played out to the full five turns and it came down to scenario which I won because of the hellstriders launching across the board and just barely grabbing one of my opponents objective. Still could've gone either way if my opponent had made a couple clutch run rolls. Slaanesh feels very... Unfinished at 1000 points. Definitely missing some important synergy without the keeper. Needing a 4+ on a majority of rolls is also really crippling sometimes and you need something to help mitigate that.

For range, the bridge is wholly within 6" which is pretty easy to pull off. Even the boat being wholly within 3" should fit a unit of 30 daemonettes easily enough as long as you deploy them for it. You'd definitely have to plan for it, but not terribly difficult. For movement, I think the bridge can move a unit something like 28" (assuming the bridge model is 4" long, which looks about right, you start at the 6" line, then 4" for the model, then 12" to the edge of the next bridge, then another 6" away from that). The boat just adds a flat 12" to movement. Obviously not needed to get in combat if we're deploying 18" away from the enemy lines, but I'm thinking of a situation where you need to shift laterally to an objective or to get around a screening unit. Considering the army is usually light on bodies it might be useful. Might help the exalted chariot too, they're a touch slow for a turn 1 charge in the 24" scenarios.

Either that or they decided that the alleigance abilities, spells, artifacts, and support available to the BoC and DoT were close enough that any discrepencies didn't warrant having to wade into the extremely confusing territory of having different prices on the same unit (and different warscrolls to keep the keywords separate). I'm sure GW considers a number of things when assigning points, including allegiance abilities. Of course they don't usually do an amazing job of it... but it must factor in to at least some degree. Back to slaanesh though, does anyone have any thoughts on the new endless spells? I could see the bridge being useful to get a summoning hero into just the right spot, and the gheist might make some sense for the slaanesh spell list. Maybe even the boat to give a unit of daemonettes an absolutely ludicrous threat range?

Depending on how big his base is you should be able to fit quite a lot in that 3 inches. I think a unit of 30 plaguebearers or 40 rats is definitely within reach, and a unit of 10 blight kings might even be worth considering. You just have to deploy them as if the boat was already in the middle of the unit, then first turn summon him into the gap. I don't think nurgle really needs it considering we have the bell, wheel, tree, and cogs already, but it could make getting an alpha a little more reliable and save on a command point to get the 6" run. Bringing on a unit of 10 kings on the back line with spume and teleporting another unit of 9 on the front could be fun. Definitely a nice tool to have. edit: Also, they might change our speed bonuses to 'wholly within' whenever we get an update, so it could start to get far more useful then. The bridge could be helpful too, as long as you bring cogs you can send multiple blightkings over the bridge at once and give them a +3 to charge on the other side. Not too shabby.

Yeah the boat can be used for some units to alpha strike that couldn't before, but the armies themselves generally already had some access to an alpha. Skaven and daughters could both teleport units before this, but had to get around the 9" issue with rerolls/cogs. The boat helps but doesn't completely change the game for them. Not to say it's bad at all, it's really freakin good, just that it may not have a huge impact on the game. The problem for the shards is that 18" range is so limiting. Sure you can tag a unit that's already in 18", but that leads to a few problems. If you're that close there's a good chance you can be dispelled, and if the enemy is that close (keep in mind you'll have to be able to place the second shard, probably behind the enemy unit) the movement reduction won't matter much. -1 to hit is still great, but with how difficult they are to use it likely won't work in most games. Imho anyway. The ghast... Well I can think of some things working off bravery like a slaanesh spell or two, but there have been bravery bomb options in a number of armies for a while and I've never seen it make a splash. Even if you're using it to make spells work better, bravery 10 is pretty ubiquitous and will likely still be immune to whatever ability you're trying to use.

I'd say totally worth of all of our anti magic bubbles were enemy only. As is it'll be really difficult to keep the casting wizard away from the altar, bloodsecrator, skulls, and still be able to benefit a unit. Not impossible, but not easy either.

I'm not really sure how I feel on these. The boat is pretty strong, but I can't help but feel like any army that would really benefit from the alpha strike already has good ways of doing it. I suppose it makes the alpha more reliable for most, but still not super crazy. If khorne didn't mess with their own magic as hard as everyone else's then I'd say it would be huge for them. The bridge is nice and the 'wholly within 6' part means you can get some bonkers movement. Good for summoning armies when you want to reposition to summon on a particular spot, and good for armies that have a lot of charge bonuses. Combo with the cogs for extra fun. The other two are... Yeah not great. Bravery doesn't really matter in a game where any unit can just be immune for a command point, and the shards are too short range and too easy to dispel before they have an effect. Interesting note, there's no duration for their effect so if they do go off I think it lasts for the rest of the game. I'm sure that'll need an faq.

Depending on the size of the model (it looks pretty big) it'll pretty easy to work around if you deploy your unit specifically to take a boat ride. 30 small bases should be viable.

I think mortals are definitely a core part of the army because we lack speed and make up for it with overall resilience and synergy, which the mortals have in abundance. I'd say the first thing you need are some bodies to help protect the fragile daemons until they're ready to fight, so some bloodwarriors or a dark feast would be a good idea. If you don't have them already grabbing a bloodsecrator and slaughterpriests are essentially mandatory for the army. After that it's up to you, a slaughterborn battalion is rock solid and a great front line, gore pilgrims has all the required parts in a neat package, bloodforged works amazingly as a second line.

I'm really curious about the terrain and spells, but a little concerned. I'm not a really competitive player by any stretch, but I also prefer to have useful tools available to me when I build a list. If one or two of the items in the box end up being universally useful (like the terrain being free and always being Arcane or the bridge allowing you to teleport units in the hero phase) then I'll want to pick the box up. That price point makes it really difficult to justify a purchase for one or two models though, and I'm extremely unlikely to ever use the campaign book. I'm also a little annoyed that they're putting these models in a campaign supplement along with universal matched play rules. It's yet another thing news players need to pick up (rule book, generals handbook, malign sorcery, forbidden power, army book) just to have everything needed to play. All the good we got out of a simple rule set for trying to introduce people to the hobby is being gradually beaten to death by all of these releases. I don't even want to suggest friends try the game out anymore because I can't imagine anyone actually being willing to get over the initial hurdle. Edit: I should apologize though, I'm a bit of a pessimist and the way that they changed a few of the endless spells from malign sorcery really ruined the purchase for me. Hopefully this one goes better.

Not a bad idea. If you can tarpit them with single wound models it helps keep the depravity numbers down, much safer than blood warriors. One thing to be cautious of though, they do have an artifact that grants flight and of course the thermalrider cloak. With one host they can also get a command trait to allow retreating and charging. You'll have to be careful about tarpitting a keeper if it can just retreat over the tarpit and charge your backline. Edit: which is also a really scary proposition if they get the double turn. Keeper flying 18" from the cloak, charge the front lines, then double turn to fly over and kill a couple slaughter priests or the bloodsectator. Having a backline 'just in case' screen of reavers might be required.

Hey, I never noticed but there are rat teeth and whiskers in the bottom right of the chaos image. I wouldn't be surprised if we see Nurgle and Tzeentch come out with new books. Tzeentch is the prime candidate since half the physical book is useless due to FAQ's/erratas and they're missing endless spells (especially egregious for tzeentch) and scenery. Nurgle is in a good spot balance wise, so it's less likely, but they've got a lot of '6 or more' rules and a bunch of 'within' auras which the devs seem to want to crack down on.