Klamm

Oh cool, great to hear! I'm trying to modulate my feelings about the battletome. Definitely a bit disappointed but I can have fun in another allegiance, and then there's a chance points/warscroll adjustments (looking at Slaangor with that one) could happen. Also, can't fault the models! This is a very egopomp move, but I did call my Slaanesh warriors Hedonytes... in 2018. So I'm gonna do whatever weird vision board thing I did last time in hopes for a Bloodtithe-style Depravity table.

Thing is, I'm a Timmy not a Spike. I'm not disappointed because the new Hedonites book is bad (there seem to be some effective summoning tricks). I'm disappointed because it doesn't seem fun (for me). The points costs and lack of interesting buffs might be balanced with summoning in mind, but that's little consolation for someone who wants to build an effective mortal force without a Daemon sideboard. I like the lore behind the three Hedonite hosts, but the main tactical change they offer is how you generate Depravity. Pretty much the only benefit the allegiance gives mortals is Euphoric Killers, which is the same as S2D's aura of Slaanesh anyway. So I'm not saying S2D is a more powerful book, just that it seems more interesting The four legions are much more mechanically distinct than Hedonite hosts and there are varied character auras/command abilities. I'm glad I already started a Slaanesh S2D force, originally intending it for Hedonites. The thing I want more than points changes (Shardspeaker/LoP are 150 points but Sorcerer Lord/Lord are 110? c'mon) is an alternate way of spending Depravity. Even if it's less competitive than summoning, if I can spend depravity on buffs (like Khorne Bloodtithe) it'd go a long way. I doubt that's happening soon, though.

Between placing an order for a box of seekers, 2 Painbringers/Twinsouls and a Shardspeaker, I worked through my disappointment about the release and have just decided to play them as Slaves to Darkness. Like, a mortal army isn't making use of Locus or Depravity, and at that point the only thing I'm getting in Slaanesh allegiance is Euphoric Killers, which I can get through mark of Slaanesh in an S2D force anyway. It actually works out, the only Daemons I wanted to run were Princes, so I think I'm doing a Despoilers list where everything has mark of Slaanesh: In terms of Proxy, I need to make chosen and the knights. The Twinsouls as Chosen proxies, I'll probably use the slickblade heads to make them look a little more uniform and make one a musician. Turning the Slickblades into Knights looks a little trickier. I want to convert their wargear to match that of chaos knights, which means shields (painbringer spares) and either swords or lances. It's hard to know without the kit in front of me, but it looks challenging to repose. I'll probably have to forego my preferred lance loadout as well, just do sword and shield. I guess I can always use them as slickblade seeker allies, since aside from euphoric killers they weren't benefiting that much from the Slaanesh allegiance anyway.

I didn't know Morathi were providing anaesthetic, the god of murder is getting soft under new management. Sorry, seriously, I'm also in the camp of wanting to make mortal heavy, summon light Slaanesh work. There are some decent mortal units but are maybe expensive for what they do and you have limited buffing capabilities compared to DoK. From the mathhammer people are doing, it looks like Slickblade Seekers are an alright attacking unit. Shardspeaker has some useful abilities, and Blissbard Archers are decent battleline (though their main strength is generating depravity). So you could definitely make a list out of mortals, I'm gonna do that. Dipping into Slaves to Darkness is valid, you won't benefit from euphoric killers but you can get some survivable units. 30 Daemonettes is generally going to be better for objectives than a Keeper but they are good fighters with solid command abilities so yeah, don't see why not. Oh btw for now ignore Slaangors, they're not good. Maybe one day.

I appreciate that the overcosting of units might be offset by summoning potential, though it sucks for people who were planning mortal armies only. What I would like to see (forlorn wishlisting here) is changing depravity into something akin to a Khorne blood tithe system, where you can spend it on summons or bonuses. That way you're either making up for expensive units with additional summons or getting buffs that will allow them to fight as well as the cost implies. I'm cool with a mid-tier army I just don't wanna be forced to do Daemons lol.

Yeah, I'm also mixed on the release. Certainly happy not to be playing a notoriously powerful faction, but I don't like that it only seems good when geared toward depravity summoning. The units I want to play are overcosted but have mostly alright warscrolls, which gives me hope for future points decreases. One thing I've decided I don't like is how bare the warscrolls are. I remember the Warcry preview that first mentioned Slickblade Seekers, it talked about them being arrogant knights that didn't like getting upstaged. I thought maybe they gain an extra attack if there's another mortal slaanesh unit in combat within 6" or something. Instead, the warscroll is just reroll charges and the same mortal wound on 6s ability that two other units have. I'm not complaining we have mortal wounds, but it's kind of weird that all the mortal units have 1 or 2 abilities which are generally good but commonplace. Where's the uniqueness? Where's the excess? They managed to do that with some of the Heroes. Gluttos and Sigvald have a lot of flair, but the one I really love is the Shardspeaker. Great model, interesting lore which is translated well into rules (good spell, fun buff, flavourful conditional melee ability). Sure, a little overpriced like most of the mortal Hedonites are, but once she's dropped to 100 - 120 points she'll be in every list (maybe for S2D as well). I'm also heartened by how universal the panning of Slaangors has been. They're probably the worst on-release new unit of AoS 2nd edition, a 140 point scroll with a slightly better output and survivability than 70 points of Spire Tyrants. Considering a BoC update is likely coming this year or next, I'm hopeful for a full Slaangor redraft. I don't mind the 3 wounds with a 5+ save, considering the seekers have a surprising wound pool it would make sense for the Slaangor to be more of a glass cannon. It's an interesting unit to write rules for because they need to fulfil a useful role in two different factions, I'd like them to be harder hitting but squishier Bullgors. The mortal wounds at the end of the combat phase rule is a first draft of something interesting. Since they'll die like flies, that end of phase ability should be better, like D3 mortal wounds per Slaangor on a 3+. They probably won't live to the end of the phase, but now the opponent has to make sure of that or take the mortals, therefore being actually useful distractions. And of course, their weapon profiles have to be rewritten so that taking them in large units is ever an option. And why don't they attack with their horns?

Just thinking, I've heard people complain about the lack of a mounted Lord of Pain type hero to support slickblade seekers, maybe a Slaanesh Daemon Prince would work. 12" fly so they can sort of keep up, the +1 to hit command ability isn't as good as a Keeper but they are 120 points cheaper.

I'm in the opposite camp, gonna use chaos warrior conversions as Myrmidesh coz I wanna run Nobles of Excess without spending 200 pounds lol BTW, I do think that the Slaangor Fiendbloods are underwhelming even taken in isolation (even compared to other Beasts of Chaos units tbh), but I think the reason it was such a surprise is that Dread Pagent warscroll. The underworlds slaangor had 4 -2 rend 2 damage attacks! Our thoughts and prayers are with the Slaaneshi beastmen who mourn their greatest ever hero wandering into a chasm.

Looking at everything, I've written up a list of the kind of stuff I want to make work, a lot of which I already have done or on the hobby table. That unit of Slaangor is hilarious wishful thinking, but it's in there as a placeholder bit of chaff that I might replace with some endless spells. Double Daemon Prince in invaders is probably workable, not super competitive but it's what I want to run. I guess I could drop a hero for some extra Twinsouls, since the Nobles of Excess are gonna be the hitty core of the army. That's kind of affected by my financial budget though, 2 boxes of painbringers is pretty costly (I'm planning to proxy my Slaanesh warriors as the 10 strong painbringer unit). As for my summoning pool, I have a unit of fiends and a viceleader (or resurrecting the epitome). I'm not gonna do anything to maximise depravity anyway. I also have an unfinished unit of hellstriders, I could switch them for the Slaangors.

Maybe the 4th wound of Slaangors spilled out the pot onto the seeker warscroll. It's in keeping with Idoneth Eels, which are also 4 wounds despite being weedier than a chaos knight. The strange thing is the unit of 5, I feel like it would've been less controversial if seekers were a unit of 3x 4 wounders.

Fair point, the only problem I have is that depravity points are still just your summoning budget and I don't want to play a summoning army. I was hoping for something more like the blood tithe where you can spend them on some buffs instead. I'm with you on not wanting to play an overpowered faction, but I don't like how there's only a downside in keeping to a mortal only-theme.

What's the hellstrider change? I saw the points were raised but not the new scroll

Official warscrolls up on the NZ, so no more chan diving - yay! After the disappointment with Slaangors, I'm somewhat pleased about the Painbringers. They might be overcosted at 150 (they seem somewhere between chosen at 140 and warriors at 100), but I look forward to trying them. Maybe the most surprising thing, looking at the warscrolls, is the lack of 'weird' rules. Like you expected some stupefying musk that debuffs the enemy or some mechanic where they compete with friendly units. But it's mostly rerolling hits, adding an extra attack, that kind of thing. Not a good or bad design choice per se, I just expected some of that, well, pomp.

Aw man, those Slaangor really are disappointing, especially since I was taking my time with a fun proxy. I guess I'll finish up 6, maybe run them in hopes of accomplishing something. I can understand why they're 3 rather than 4 wounds (being weedier than ogors and more like foot tzaangor enlightened) but lack of any other defence as well as rend -1 damage 1 on three 4+/3+ attacks? That said, there is a possible plus side here. The Beasts of Chaos battletome is likely to get updated in the next couple years so hopefully that means the warscroll gets a rewrite lol. Coz at the moment, this 140 point unit is worth like 80 points.

Painbringers and Twinsouls were mentioned, on top of Daemonettes does that include any of the cav? The page I saw had that column cut out of the pic.

My hope is that the Hellstrider points increase comes with some fun new rules. The Painbringers & Twinsouls having a 150 & 170 points value is a surprise, seems they're more elite than blood warriors and chaos warriors. I'm most interested in conditional battleline, I don't wanna field Daemonettes so I hope Hellstriders or Blissbarbs have 'battleline if...'

huh I just assumed they changed it to hedonites, never mind. Well I'll be doing majority mortal armies either way lol

I like the smaller locus disparity between keepers and regular heroes, makes the little ones feel more useful. Saddened if not surprised that allegiance abilities has shifted into hedonite-only, since I wanna run Slaves units like Daemon Princes and Chaos Warriors. On the plus side, my Chaos Warriors look like a lot Painbringers already so I'll probably run them as that. I've only seen a couple of snippets, am I right in saying depravity points can only be spent on summoning? I was hoping for a system where you can choose to spend them on bonuses instead, I don't love being forced into a summoning playstyle (partly out of preference for mortals, partly coz it means you have to paint more units on top of the list). I know Khorne isn't considered top table competitive, but I like the flexibility you get with Blood Tithe.

Yeah I'm also interested in troop warscrolls, Slaangor, Painbringers and Seekers in particular. I'd like to hear about Battleline roles, though realistically it's all just gonna be snippets until we see the points.

I don't think so, the Lord of Pain is on a 40mm base, right? You can see that the Painbringers are sitting on smaller ones. That said, no one has seen the rules yet so who knows if they're more like blood warriors/liberators or skullreapers/paladins. Hey, sequitors are kind of an in-betweeny sort of unit, one or both of them could fulfil that role. I'd be happy with either. I really like the idea of a super elite Slaaneshi duelist unit but also it feels right for every chaos god to get a 100 point 2 wound troop. That said, if it's the latter one of them should be Slaanesh battleline (painbringers generic slaanesh, then the twinsouls for Sylle'Esske general or something).

If you're looking for a cost effective Slaangor proxy, I suggest Slaanogors. A box of ogor gluttons is also 30 quid but you get 6 instead of 3. For the kitbash, the main things is getting chaos gutplates. Marauder horsemen shields are the correct size but most suitable are Hellstrider shields. You probably want to replace the weapons too, I've been using Dark Elf Executioner blades and Hellstrider claw spears. Then you can add some finishing touches, gems here and there (you get lots of spares in the Keeper of Secrets kit). Here's an example:

Is there any news on Hellstrider reboxing? I assumed GW would do it last Hedonites release, but they still came with squares. Also means you can't get them from most discount sites.

hey, so, assuage a sudden random concern of mine: Those Slaangors are on 40mm bases right? I thought so and made Slaangor proxies on 40s, but now I'm second guessing.

Looking at your mockup, I feel like this has to be 32mm base. As you can see below, Daemonettes are about the same height as Kairic acolytes (depending on posture). But they certainly aren't towering a full head over them, and you expect the Blissbarb archers to be in the same scale as Acolytes or Bloodreavers. If they're on 25mms they'd be almost as short as Arkanaut company, and I don't see GW scale creep backlashing that hard.

I'm secretly relieved Slaanesh hasn't come out yet coz I've had time to continue my time-inefficient hobby project. Well I guess I've said it out loud, I'd make a crappy keeper of secrets. I'm working on my Slaangor proxies. I hope they're good enough to field but also not so good that they'll end up the Slaanesh equivalent to eels.