This month is bringing a massive host of updates to Age of Sigmar as the setting transitions to Ghyran, the realm of life. Each army is getting two whole pages of additional rules and optional alternative warscrolls for you to use in your games and we are very excited about all of it! Before we get stuck in, a thank you to Games Workshop for providing us with these rules as an early release to review.

Today, class, we get the Hedonites of Slaanesh. An army that, much like the Kharadron Overlords, seems to have a difficult time in the game; often either ending up on one of the extremes of the “is it good?” spectrum instead of falling squarely in the middle of “OK”. Many builds have favoured relying on units of Blissbarb Archers for damage at range with much faster units darting around the board for battle tactics and some melee damage. This update brings two more Battle Formations, three Heroic Traits, and alternative warscrolls for Syll’esske and Slaangor Fiendbloods.

Battle Formations

We’ve typically found that any army getting new battle formations are typically the more interesting updates, and these don’t disappoint in that department, however simple they are.

The first, Pretenders, allows your Slaanesh Hero with an artefact of power to take a Heroic Trait chosen during deployment. Choosing during deployment means you can tailor it a bit more towards your opponent, and that decision happens after setting up all units as well. Of course this sort of choice typically comes with a plan, likely wanting to take Celebrity Warlord (below) on top of another Heroic Trait that you’ll get to use throughout the battle.

Your other new choice is Invaders which focuses on Friendly Sybarite Infantry giving them an additional tick of rend on melee weapons while wholly outside friendly territory. This can take your Painbringers up to a nasty Rend -3 and is very easy to achieve on the new alternative Fiendbloods. We don’t yet know what the upcoming season’s battleplans will look like so it’s hard to say right now how easy/often you’ll be wholly outside friendly territory.

Heroic Traits

Starting off with the only once-per-game one here, Celebrity Warlord is aptly named for a Slaanesh General. You use it during your movement phase and it costs you a command point on top of only happening once. You pick a non-Hero Sybarite unit that’s been destroyed and set up a replacment unit with only half the models wholly within 12″ of this hero and more than 9″ away from the enemy. Recurssion is great. Bringing units back from the dead, especailly when this can be your second Heroic Trait in your list, is fantastic. It being an enhancement that is once per game, costs a command point, and is very restrictive on where that unit comes back is not great. I’d have likes to see this maybe be more similar to the Gitz recurrsion of being End of Turn but closer to enemy units or simply to not cost a command point to pull off.

Next is Master of Temptation another great name. During the enemy hero phase you pick a unit within 18″ so long as your opponent has temptation dice; for the rest of the turn if they haven’t used any temptation dice yet then that unit can only use Core abilities. The timing of this bothers me somewhat as it won’t stop any enemy Hero Phase abilities which are often the ones you want to be switch off like important buffs! However getting to switch off things like mortal damage on charge, abilities that allow running and charging, etc is just great. I can see this being a popular choice given its long range.

Lastly, The Need for Perfection is a Passive ability potentially giving friendly units that roll poorly the Euphori Keyword for the rest of the turn. The first time a unit wholly within 12″ rolls a charge, casting, unbinding, or banishment rolle of 5 or less (before modifiers) they gain Euphoric. It’s hardly a gurantee but turning those bad rolls into a benefit on nearby heroes and any charge that’s making a short charge anyways is pretty fantastic. You could also roll a low charge, gain Euphoric, and re-roll the charge for a command point.

Alternative Warscrolls

Syll’esske

A minor upgrade in stats with a 5+ ward instead of the usual 6+ they come with but otherwise the same for move, save, health, and control as well as weapon profiles. Abilities are entirely different, as expected for an alt warscroll. This scroll focuses on taking an army of mixed mortals and daemons, which is pretty cool. Unfortunately a bit expensive at 230 points.

Champions of the Gilded Throne allows you to choose a non-hero Slaanesh Daemon and a non-hero Sybarite unit to fight back-to-back assuming they are both wholly within 18″ of this model. That’s a massive bubble and very easy to pull off if you’ve mixed your army at all between daemons and mortals. Getting to fight with two units before your opponent gets to swing is always powerful, though, and allows you to make multiple charges with your glass cannon units without the threat of one getting wiped before even attacking.

Wandering Minds is a unique spell that needs a 6+ to cast and has you choose a non-hero Sybarite Infantry unit and a non-Hero Daemon Infantry unit. The Sybarite unit forces your opponent to subtract 1 from any ward rolls caused by combat attacks from that unit while the Daemon unit gains a 5+ ward; both last until the start of your next turn. You don’t have to choose both types to get the effects, you could simply get one or the other if you only pick one of them. The downside is being restricted to just infantry meaning the only units being affected will be Daemonettes for the 5+ ward. Sybarites do OK here with a few options and getting those Painbringers to Rend -3 with the above Battle Formation and ignoring Wards will just pick up many units in one swing.

Violent Offerings happens at the end of every turn if this model dealt any damage to an enemy Wizard or Priest and that enemy was also destroyed this turn. Syll’esske gets +1 to their power level for the rest of the game and they can stack this multiple times. With only 9 health and a 4+/5++ however it’s going to be difficult to pull off against any of the larger enemy wizards out there and hunting down smaller ones is typically easier said than done. Nice when it happens, but you’re taking this version for the other two abilities much more than this.

Slaangor Fiendbloods

Not the most popular choice in armies…hence the alternate warscroll I suppose. They are completely identical to the normal warscroll in all stats, attacks, and keywords. Instead of moving when getting shot at and damaged they get to set up in Ambush and walk on from a battlefield edge during any movement phase. Getting to do that in the enemy movement phase so that you can move and charge in your next turn (assuming your turn is next!) is very strong. If you have choice of turn, make your opponent go first and bring them on up the table or even in their backfield knowing that your turn is up next; if nothing else it’ll make them think twice about moving up the board which could hinder their plans!

Their other ability, Instinctive Advance, works as a reaction when your opponent declares a commnand for a unit within 12″ of them. Immediately after the command is resolve this unit can move 3″ and can even move through enemy combat ranges (not through enemy models, this can be a confusing read sometimes) and even end in combat as well. This will make your opponent think twice about commands and the fact that it happens Once Per Phase means you could cover some serious ground with these. Redeploy is the most obvious one potenitally allowing them to get even closer to the target trying to run away! Realistically a Redeploy will, at best, get a unit 3″ further from this unit and even potentially end up closer instead! I like this Warscroll a lot and hope to see it getting some use. Solid for just 150 points for three of them, definitely a “scalpel” type unit that will be best served by being played “correctly”.

Tempting Prospects

All in all, these are nice updates. What the full impact will be is yet to be seen, and the battle formation Invaders especially will depend very heavily on what maps look like this season. Would love to hear from the Slaanesh players, though, if either of these alt Warscrolls are something you’re particularly excited about and might make you pick up either unit if you don’t have them; or if you do, and havne’t been playing them, might consider throwing into a list now?

At this point I’m just on the edge of my seat to know what the entirety of the new season is going to be like! And very curious how long alternate warscrolls will stick around or if we’ll be seeing more of them in the future. It’s a very interesting prospect but I’m not certain how much I like it, not knowing for sure what an enemy unit across the table from me is. We’ll just have to see if it works out ok!

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