Enoby

To be honest, if I know Warhammer Community, them being "hard hitters" could mean anything from 2 attacks at 4/3/-1/1 to 5 attacks at 3/3/-2/2

I don't think BoC will get a big release this year, but I do think there is some chance of them being a much larger antagonist rather than the NPC faction. The movements in Thondia would suggest BoC are moving towards something more grand.

(Sorry, I thought I hit send on the post but apparently not!) Please don't post leaked images

I think Festus may be, unfortunately. Twinsouls are in a weird spot, sometimes they perform amazingly (like my game), sometimes the opponent shrugs their attacks like they don't care. I'm hopefully going to a 1.5k tournament in a couple of weeks; I'm thinking of swapping 5 twinsouls for a Lord of Pain. I could swap 5 painbringers instead, but I like the two I have for holding an objective while being tanky enough to need attention to take off the objective. I suppose one thing to note is that I never felt weak in this game; twinsoul luck notwithstanding, I felt like my army helds its own.

Just had the game, this was my list: - Army Faction: Hedonites of Slaanesh - Army Type: Invaders - Subfaction: The Lurid Haze LEADERS Sigvald (265) BATTLELINE Blissbarb Archers (170) Blissbarb Archers (170) OTHER Myrmidesh Painbringers (145) Symbaresh Twinsouls (330) Slickblade Seekers (230) Myrmidesh Painbringers (145) TERRAIN 1 x Fane of Slaanesh (0) TOTAL POINTS: 1455/1500 Unfortunately I can't say loads about the game; I can say that the rally on a 5+ brought two painbringers back (out of 3 dead) which was nice, and the +2 move got the Slickblades in. The reason I can't say much is because it was a massive stomp in my favour due to amazingly good luck on the Twinsouls where they killed Brutes, Megaboss on foot, and a Warchanter and then made every save on 9 6 damage attacks (and kept saving everything else too). They annihilated the core of his army with only three deaths due to some ridiculously good rolls. So the abilities did seem useful, but I didn't need them because the Twinsouls went to work and the rest of the army (besides Sigvald) did well too.

I'll be doing a 1.5k point game tonight with the new rules - no clue what I'm bringing yet, but I'm hoping to go for a tankier list. I'll be against Warclans. I care less about whether I win or lose and more about seeing how these buffs feel, so I'll report on that!

+ Mod hat + Please don't post leaked warscrolls

I know a few people have complained about the lack of battleshock immunity on the Screaming Bell, but to be honest I think getting rid of most battleshock immunity is best for the game - especially on armies where one of their key traits is cowardice. I think Skaven's common access to battleshock immunity was quite unthematic and felt as if the designer was more concerned with shoring up the weakness of the faction than giving them a thematic way to use their bravery. I hope they get other things in place of battleshock immunity - I don't want to see Skaven nerfed - but it wasn't thematic to have clanrats be so stalwart.

I definitely agree here - I think if we had a large reduction, we would be a much stronger army. Like you've said, a 5+ army wide save is really good; if we can get this to happen early and regularly (by having more units) then we should be at least tanky enough to last longer into the game. It's quite nice too because if you've got a large amount of your army left, keeping the 5+ ward save is a good idea if there's no plan for a summon. If your army is struggling, you can get 30 daemonettes and still have enough DP to rally better next time. I think the rally will be important for ensuring we don't crumble too early on; units of 10 twinsouls will benefit quite nicely from this early on should they be shot.

After sleeping on it, I'm more happy with the update, and will be happy if/when we get a big points decrease in the GHB. At the moment, we can quite comfortably get 12 depravity on the first turn of the second round, and 18 at the end of turn 2 (to be spent round 3) isn't unusual even without trying too hard. With points decreases this should be even easier, so we may end up being able to get a 5+ ward early on in the game. While summon-less Slaanesh may not quite work at the moment because the ward takes too long, with points decreases this time could be considerably reduced and we could easily obtain a 5+ ward save and summon later without losing it. Fingers crossed for the GHB...

I'll past what I said in the HoS chat: "I've been having a look at these and initially I was a bit "meh" on them, but actually I am optimistic for one reason - certainly much more than I was with Khorne. Why? Well the big thing is the reason for the design. So for Khorne, people had been saying for ages (longer than us) all of the issues with Khorne. They wounded on 4s, had no rend, Bloodtithe is awkward to use, cheerleaders are needed to be average in combat... basically everything you didn't want the God of Blood to be. And what did they do? Gave him a 6+ spell shrug and slightly altered the altar. Not only was this weak in game, but it didn't fit the narrative of Khorne at all. More than that, it told everyone that the design team didn't know/didn't care/didn't agree with Khorne's issues. This is possibly the worst news Khorne fans could have because not only is the new rule bad, but there's little chance it getting better because the designers don't seem to know the problem. --- Enter our new rules. They're okay - they provide options to non-summoning Slaanesh which is sorely needed. I very much doubt these will change our place in the meta. I think they are undertuned and they could have done more with them. However this is not a Khorne situation. In this case, the designers have identified a problem (summoning being such a focus in Slaanesh) and tried to fix it. Even if not fully successful, they have identified an issue and we know that they know and so we may see further improvement in the future. In our new book, whenever it comes out, we can be more confident we'll get something like this but hopefully more advanced. --- So I'm happy with these - they're not amazing and won't massively improve us without a points change to match. But the reason I'm happy with them is because they now give some sort of option - a way to play without needing to summon. It's not a fix, but it's a step in the right direction." So I think it's nice update and one that shows the designers are on the same page as us in some respects, so this will hopefully be a good sign of things to come. Though this could be much better with a GHB points decrease too.

I've been having a look at these and initially I was a bit "meh" on them, but actually I am optimistic for one reason - certainly much more than I was with Khorne. Why? Well the big thing is the reason for the design. So for Khorne, people had been saying for ages (longer than us) all of the issues with Khorne. They wounded on 4s, had no rend, Bloodtithe is awkward to use, cheerleaders are needed to be average in combat... basically everything you didn't want the God of Blood to be. And what did they do? Gave him a 6+ spell shrug and slightly altered the altar. Not only was this weak in game, but it didn't fit the narrative of Khorne at all. More than that, it told everyone that the design team didn't know/didn't care/didn't agree with Khorne's issues. This is possibly the worst news Khorne fans could have because not only is the new rule bad, but there's little chance it getting better because the designers don't seem to know the problem. --- Enter our new rules. They're okay - they provide options to non-summoning Slaanesh which is sorely needed. I very much doubt these will change our place in the meta. I think they are undertuned and they could have done more with them. However this is not a Khorne situation. In this case, the designers have identified a problem (summoning being such a focus in Slaanesh) and tried to fix it. Even if not fully successful, they have identified an issue and we know that they know and so we may see further improvement in the future. In our new book, whenever it comes out, we can be more confident we'll get something like this but hopefully more advanced. --- So I'm happy with these - they're not amazing and won't massively improve us without a points change to match. But the reason I'm happy with them is because they now give some sort of option - a way to play without needing to summon. It's not a fix, but it's a step in the right direction.

I think, regardless of how strong this ends up being, the best news is that the rules team are moving away from us being the "summoning faction". Even if these new rules are a load of rubbish, it will hopefully mean they'll take us in a less summon focussed design next time. But fingers crossed they're good, and they change our playstyle.

I'm pretty excited for this month's White Dwarf, hoping Slaanesh get's the BoC treatment...

Well this is promising - "new things to do with all those depravity points" sounds like we might not be summon only.

We must be close to WD leaks soon...

++ Mod Hat++ Just a quick reminder to keep it civil. Also, I totally understand why there's a discussion about the Imperium, but please make sure to keep it on topic about the new humans (I understand it's a fine line with the worry/hope that the new CoS will be Imperium 2, but just be aware)

I quite liked what was shown, especially the Syvaneth, though admittedly I'm not a big Skaven fan (though I do feel sorry for their players and think they should get a release). I agree about the reused tome art - it's quite odd really, all things considered. They often have new art for their new models, so it's odd they can't go the extra mile and extend the artist to a new cover. I'm not sure the philosophy behind it when 40k gets new art (on both normal and LE books) - either they don't think AoS fans care about new art, they don't think the books are profitable enough to warrant new artwork, or they think the current art is the best it could possibly be. I don't even think it can be attributed to laziness as getting art designed isn't so time consuming it would impact the release schedule. Just from an optics point of view, it suggests to the customer "this is the same book as before with little to no changes inside", which isn't a good selling point. Even if it isn't lazy, it looks lazy, which is almost as bad. If GW's reading this thread, I'm happy to offer my services...

I believe the biggest hint was Whitefang posting a picture of a rat on a leaf when asked what's coming up

I've had some luck with Sixth Circle Varanguard, but you'd likely be running Archaon then so I wouldn't count that. Outside of them, Chaos Knights when rerolling hits and wounds can pack a punch but only on a charge, which leaves them weak to screening. They're also terrible if they get charged first, so they're not the best pick when your opponent knows how they work. I find Chosen pretty great, again mostly if they're rerolling hits to get more MWs. They are pretty slow though, and expensive. The Chaos Lord on Kakadrak can be good, but the unexplainably dull axe means they don't get through high saves that well. I wouldn't say we currently have a one size fits all unit (besides Archaon) that's always good at punching through walls. Thankfully the new Ogroid unit looks to change that, but they're not out for a while.

Is that a daemon prince or a possessed? It's hard to tell without scale.

I really hope so! The other warscrolls look good, just a shame that the immortal champion of the gods is a downgrade in some cases... Really wonder what the design philosophy was for that warscroll. I understand why GW would never do it, but I'd really appreciate it if they went over the complaints and worries people had over certain battletomes and warscrolls, and explaining why they made their decisions. There's a good chance it would just start people complaining about their reasoning, but I'd find it really interesting.

It does seem like the other leaked units are a step above the daemon prince, so that's good news (Though the prince was what I was hoping would be the most improved ruleset in the book )

I wonder if there's a disgruntled employee/play tester who doesn't care about losing their job. Considering how far in advance these leaks are and how few people will have their hands on the book right now, if this isn't intentional (and a full battletome leak isn't likely to be) then the leaker is likely known and has lost their job. It would be one thing is this was just the Nighthaunt leak - that could be shops getting sent stuff early and it's harder to find who's done it, but only a select few will have the S2D book.

Piggybacking off your comment, I do think it's really interesting to see just how far a book can be written in advance. Not only did we see the rules, but also this book has been printed in what looks to be its final copy (judging by the quality). While this is interesting in some ways, I do worry that it makes the game very slow to adjust. It's one of the worst parts of print rules that things are set in stone up to a year in advance and come into play without much ability to change. I know they won't go full digital for a long time, but the game would have a lot of room to make improvements if they did use digital rules more. The big thing is that new books can't be written with current criticism in mind. So if by winter everyone complains about unkillable troops, and it turns out that's what new S2D are really good at, then they can't edit it and they add more problems to the game.