Enoby

Happy new year!

Is there a general consensus on the book? It seems to have just passed by and feels a bit forgotten at the moment!

++ Mod Hat ++ Gentle nudge back to the Winter FAQ as the topic at hand I'm happy to set up another thread for discussing the place of battleline in AoS if that interests people?

I think it does stop coalition units using host artifacts as I think enhancements are part of an allegiance ability, unfortunately. However we're okay to summon from them still:

It does seem like, for the God of Bloodshed and Violence, Khorne has some of the most limp wristed warriors around. I used to play Khorne, and knew three others who did, and every single one stopped playing Khorne because of how poor the warscrolls are, and how it felt narratively disjointed to have the red tide so easily beat back. In fact, one of the ex-Khorne players said the book made them go off AoS in general it was so disheartening. They had a narrative army in mind of a one man army cutting through hordes as he got stronger and stronger, but good luck doing that with a Mighty Lord of Khorne. It was very disappointing to see his lord crumble to basic threats, and it's totally understandable how they'd be put off the game. Losing S2D is a big blow, but we can only hope that it spurs the next rules writer to give the Blood God's warriors some actual damage without five cheerleaders giving them encouragement. It was said before (but I can't find who said it), that it feels like Khorne is playing the "bad guys" as if they were an NPC faction designed to make someone else look good. In all honesty, Khorne in early AoS's narrative was written abysmally, and their rules have really reflected the theme of tides of chumps ready to die to a stronger opponent. It's a massive shame because BoK should be an easy faction to get right (they did with Warclans), but they've consistently been disappointing. I'm really hopeful for a new battletome that will reignite some of the passion for Khorne.

The Battlebox is a really great way to start the army - even if you never use the Slaangors, with a Lord of Pain you have a complete and pretty decent 1000 point HoS army With your daemons, you can bring that up to 2000 with leftovers for summoning.

They're in a really weird position - I think all models have a role when they're first designed, and should be judged on that role. For example, no one says Pink Horrors are bad because their damage is low, they're good because they hold an objective really well. Slaangors are meant to be a glass cannon, but fundamentally fail at this role because of their very poor damage. To take another example from our book, Slickblades are also glass cannons but actually have decent damage (but perhaps not worth the cost). Something like Slickblades could well be worth it should their points be reduced a little because they have the opportunity to be successful at their role. Slaangors on the other hand will never be a good glass cannon because of their pitiful damage and middling speed. Even if Slaangors cost 100 points, they may do okay damage for their points at that level on a charge (and better with a LoP buff) but realistically they wouldn't complete their desired role and would just be non-battleline cheap chaff that can sting a bit. So I think the answer to "when are they worth it" is "when do they beat out the other forms of cheap useless screening chaff"? To give you a greater look at my reasoning with some numbers: unbuffed, their average damage vs a 4+ save is 3.8. On a charge it's 5.3. On a charge when rerolling all hits (an extra 150 pts investment), their average damage is 7.3. To compare, 10 Daemonettes have an average of 4.67 against a 4+ save. That's not to mention they are faster, battleline, and much higher bravery. They have 5.83 when on +1 to hit. In the most common cases, daemonettes are better in all ways including damage. As such, Slaangors can't really be "good" at any level for their role of an offensive unit, but rather "good" in that they can become about as cheap as gors and we use them for the same purpose - chaff. I have no clue how they messed this warscroll up that badly. It's one of life's great mysteries...

Think it was all of the Hedonites (barring Glutos, Sigvald, Painbringers, and Twinsouls). The latter three were announced before, and Glutos announced on New Years Day.

I think this is why a commentary after each change would help - if the designers said "we tried X, Y, and Z for Nagash and only found Y reasonable" then I think people would be more understanding and receptive to the changes. Currently a lot of people are left wondering "why did they do this and not this? Do they thing this army is okay now after a tiny points decrease? Are the rules writers incompetent/just don't care about AoS?" - this likely isn't true (there's a very good chance that the rules writers are good at their jobs, but rather their jobs are often done under wraps and we only see the confusing end result).

Like a lot of people, I think I'm in the 'right direction but not enough camp'. On one hand, it's very understandable why they don't want to make massive earth shattering changes just in case it causes more problems than it solves. On the other, I doubt these changes will do much to help the weakest armies, who'll likely struggle to make use of the extra 10 points they've saved. I do think this is another case where we'd have benefitted from a designer insight next to each change (so each Warscroll rewrite, rules change, and points change). At least then we'd know why certain changes seem so small or large. Not a huge fan of the direction they're going with for coalition units in Chaos. S2D/BoC are hard to balance in god armies, true, but I think they'd be much better with different points values rather than just a blanket 'you may have bought Khorne BoC, but you'll now not want to use them'. Overall, I would have preferred to see more effort working on the weakest warscrolls - I know they're a lower priority, but I think it's what a lot of game systems get wrong with balancing (they allow poor factions to languish as they're not as troubling as strong factions).

Yeah, I think if they really wanted to push the battleforce box, they'd have just rewritten Slaangors rather than giving them a points decrease.

Potentially yes, but it's also not as if it's hurting the army either - or forcing you to buy the box. It's better than nothing and the drop on Twinsouls and Painbringers is welcome.

The points:

At least we see some updates - still wouldn't take Slaangors for that amount, but it shows they're looking into it at the least

While the points changes aren't out yet, I am a little disappointed there's no warscroll rewrite for Slaangors

The FAQ thus far has had pretty minor nerfs to us as an army (when considering all of the changes effect coelition), which isn't a big deal but is disappointing that we didn't see any changes to Slaangors (especially with their quote about bringing up poor units). But the main thing we need to look for is points changes, so hopefully we see them soon.

I think the Leadership bonus has always worked on us, but the By My Will ability is a nice change

Quite a big nerf to us tbh:

The changes to the hosts were... a bit pointless. Besides Marauders in Lurid Haze, nothing really benefitted loads anyway so it's a shame to see them changed.

Slaanesh, without a points adjustment (yet), has been ever so slightly nerfed again. Basically the hosts are Hedonite only rather than Slaanesh (so even less synergy with Slaves and Beasts)

If we don't see changes, I do really want to know their reasoning - not that they'd be wrong, but I'd just be curious as to why they think we're okay. I understand games companies are hesitant to share their reasoning as it can be met with even more backlash, but it would be nice to know where so many players are going wrong. I don't expect large changes (I don't think GW really do that), but I'm hoping for at least a nod in the form of a small decrease to acknowledge we're struggling.

I'm not sure how true this is - definitely, I think model appearance and theme are bigger selling points than rules, but at least looking at the number of people online who have said "I'd like to get into Hedonites" only for someone to say "They're pretty rubbish so I wouldn't recommend them" (and then for the asker to thank them for the warning and move on to another army) would suggest it has at least a measurable impact. People speaking online is obviously a minority, but I do think a strong negative reaction around rules does have an impact on sales (but I doubt a positive reaction has much of a positive effect). I think, from my job, it's very easy to persuade someone not to buy something (much easier than persuading someone to buy), so bad rules likely do have an impact. If someone is on the fence, being able told "you won't enjoy playing them" is a great way to knock them to the "don't buy" side.

Not sure where this was found, but I do think Sigvald makes a good Christmas tree

This is surprisingly gory for a Gitz comic!

Fiends of Slaanesh are, at least in Total War, a lot bigger than I thought.