In the build-up to the new General’s Handbook there has been a series of Scourge of Ghyran articles on the Warhammer Community site, containing new rules and warscrolls for each of the Age of Sigmar factions. Yesterday, it was the turn of Hedonites of Slaanesh and a rich bounty it was indeed with two new Battle Formations, a new table of Heroic Traits and two alternative warscrolls – one for Syll’Esske and one for the much maligned Slaangor Fiendbloods!

New Battle Formations

First up we have Pretenders with the wonderful Prodigy of Excess as their special rule:

Battle Formation – Pretenders – Prodigy of Excess

Once per battle in the Deployment Phase, pick a friendly HEDONITES OF SLAANESH HERO that has an artefact of power to be the target. Give the target a Heroic Trait from the ‘Figureheads of the Dark Prince’ or ‘Hedonistic Obsessions’ tables.

The Designer’s Note on this rule confirms that this isn’t picked at army composition so you can react to your opponent’s choices when choosing your extra trait. Remember, all abilities in the Deployment Phase that don’t have the DEPLOY keyword happen after all of the abilities of both players, with that keyword, have been resolved. So you’ll know what your opponent has and where they’ve put it before having to pick what your extra trait is going to be. This is also good because you can pick freely from either of the tables (including our new one – below) which means you can still take Strongest Alone on a Keeper of Secrets with the Pendant of Slaanesh using this ability and have included one of the other Heroic Traits on another Hero at list composition. This is good, I’m not fully convinced it’s going to outdo the sheer utility of Seeker Cavalcade, but if we end up with a little less love for our cavalry in the new season or if you have a specific army build in mind there’s some definite play in this…

The other Battle Formation we have is Invaders with their Ecstatic Revellers rule:

Battle Formation – Invaders – Ecstatic Revellers

Add 1 to the Rend characteristic of melee weapons used by friendly SYBARITE INFANTRY units while they are wholly outside friendly territory.

This is a really interesting one, but I think it probably falls a little short of other choices at the moment. It could still be really good in the right list, and remember Sigvald and Syll’Esske both also have the SYBARITE INFANTRY keywords. However, as I see it, there are two main challenges to this necessarily being a good choice:

• The first one is the trickiest one to answer to properly until we have all the information on our new General’s Handbook. Currently, 7 of the 12 Battleplans have a straight line in the middle and the two territories are all of the battlefied on either side of that line. These maps can be quite tough in regards to getting INFANTRY units wholly outside of friendly territory to be able to benefit from the Battle Formation rule. As the battle progresses this will get easier and easier to trigger but you’re potentially not seeing this, if you end up with a grind in the middle, until after the real battle is already won or lost. If there are lots of maps with plenty of smaller territories, greater amounts of No Man’s Land or even more staggered deployment maps where there’s a chance to get key units out of your territory early if you deploy accordingly then this could grow in value but even then, if you’re picking for a tournament where you don’t know the maps it could be far too risky to build to…
• One of our other Battle Formations, Depraved Carnival also triggers on the same keyword combo. That’s not to say it’s a better choice necessarily and you’re likely to be somewhat subject to the whims of your opponent as to where you get this. What I will say for Depraved Carnival is you can get a little more control over this through use of the Fane’s Damned Conduit rule to inflict some damage on one of your units (+1 to hit and +1 to wound (note that the to wound bonus only works on combat attacks) being a nice combo to gain from doing so. In truth, I think both Battle Formations probably fall a little short of what you need really but if you’re going heavy on SYBARITE INFANTRY units then there’s certainly some options to weigh up now!

It’s worth flagging that one of the units that you can take steps to ensure will benefit from Ecstatic Revellers are the new Slaangor, who we’ll come to soon…

Hedonistic Obsessions – New Heroic Traits

First up we have the wonderful Celebrity Warlord:

Heroic Trait – Celebrity Warlord (1CP)

Once per battle in your Movement Phase, pick a friendly non-HERO-SYBARITE unit that has been destroyed to be the target. Set up a replacement unit with half the number of models from the target unit (rounding up) wholly within 12″ of this unit and more than 9″ from all enemy units.

It might only be a once per battle use and it costs a CP to do it but I think this one will be quite popular in lists with any non-HERO SYBARITES… I imagine that’s about 90% of lists this season with how good our cavalry can be and/or the joy of Twinsouls bodyguard but we’ll have to see what next season looks like. Essentially this is asking you: do you think 1 CP and your Heroic Trait slot is worth having an extra 130 – 190pts? Whilst you could use this to bring back 5 of your 10 Twinsouls for example, bringing back 20 wounds of our Cavalry sounds the most appealing. 10 Slickblades that you can play pretty aggressively with because you know 5 of them are coming back for a second go definitely sounds good to me but ultimately resurrecting any unit that you can potentially drop onto an objective or score a Battle Tactic with as the line becomes stretched has real value. What you will need to think about most, is who’s going to have this trait as if they’re not around when you need it this could be quite painful.

Next is Master of Temptation:

Heroic Trait – Master of Temptation

You can only use this ability in the Enemy Hero Phase if your opponent has any Temptation Dice. Pick a visible enemy unit within 18″ of this unit to be the target. For the rest of the turn, while your opponent has not used any of their Temptation Dice to replace a roll for the target this turn, the target can only use CORE abilities.

This one is an interesting interaction with the Temptation Dice mechanic and you can create some situations where your opponent is having to use them in ways that are risky or don’t suit their plans.

Timing works against this one a little as it’s in the Enemy Hero Phase and seeing as they’ll have the chance to do all their actions first and only then does it kick it, one of the best phases to use it in will be largely skipped over. The easiest way to minimise the impact for this will be for your opponent to Run the unit and use the Temptation Dice there to quickly strip the ability away but sometimes forcing them to run might be just the ticket – particularly on units that can’t access the ability to Run and Charge.

A reminder then that the universal CORE abilities are only:

• Normal Move
• Run
• Retreat
• Shoot
• Charge
• Fight

There are some abilities on unit warscrolls, those that replace one of the above essentially, that also have the CORE keyword but otherwise, if it’s not there, it’s not going to be usable until that unit has made use of a Temptation Dice.

Some fun potential uses for this that spring to mind are:

• I mentioned already the timing for the Enemy Hero Phase being a slight issue, one slight benefit to the timing is if you put this on a Wizard, if you then use Magical Intervention that Wizard won’t be able to make an attempt to Unbind your spell which might help to try and force through a key casting.
• Anything that doesn’t have easy access to Run and Charge and has some cool abilities that go off in the Movement, Shooting, Charge or Combat phases that lack the CORE keyword are your prime targets for this. There’s some work involved in making this work for you though. If the unit won’t be too bothered about having to Run then your opponent will likely just do this and remove this ability as early as possible. If it has a Shooting profile then this is their next opportunity to use a Dice on it instead of making a Wound roll. Equally, targeting the unit yourself with Covering Fire in their Shooting Phase will give them the chance to knock this off. Next chance is the Charge Phase when they can use 2 dice to change a Charge roll… But if you didn’t give them more than 1 Temptation Dice this means they’re potentially having to wait until something is picked to Fight – meaning you can switch off all of their Movement, Shooting, Charge and Combat Phase abilities potentially.
• As an example, let’s pick a big scary God-level model that we want to ruin for your opponent, someone like Kragnos… For example, taking advantage of the timing above, you could target him with your Magical Intervention cast and he’ll not have access to his The Shield Inviolate ability to shrug the effect off on a 3+. Equally, his The End of Empires ability to add extra dice to friendly DESTRUCTION charge rolls is lost until he uses a Temptation Dice as is Rampaging Destruction, his RAMPAGE that allows him to put out potentially quite a lot of Mortal Wounds. Kragnos doesn’t have innate Run and Charge, although some of the factions he can be taken in can access it e.g. through a Prayer for Ogors for example – so you’ll know whether he has it before you target him. If he doesn’t get that ability and therefore can’t just use a Temptation Dice on a Run roll to get him back to normal without sacrificing all his potential, then the earliest he could do so is with a Charge roll, but if you only made one unit EUPHORIC that’d be a LOT of his value you’re potentially denying him.
• This will have some potential value when you want to limit what good your opponent can do with the Temptation Dice e.g. if you needed two EUPHORIC units but you don’t want them to hold them until their Charge Phase for example, this can let you bait one of those dice out early and hopefully reduce the number of units Shooting or Charging you as a bonus to denying them a very good chance at a very difficult charge.

I think this is possibly a bit too situational to have great value over some of the options we have (Strongest Alone and Celebrity Warlord) but there’s definitely some potential for shenanigans with this and it probably has some more value in a Pretenders list where you can bring this in if your opponent has a really great target to neuter with it (hello Kragnos!) otherwise you can pick a different ability for your extra choice and/or still access at least one of the big two!

The final new Heroic Trait is The Need for Perfection:

Heroic Trait – The Need for Perfection

The first time each turn that an unmodified charge roll, casting roll, unbinding roll or banishment roll for a friendly non-EUPHORIC unit wholly within 12″ of this unit is 5 or less, that units has the EUPHORIC keyword for the rest of the turn.

We’ve got better picks for our Heroic Trait(s) but this one is again interesting for Games Workshop trying to do something else to build on our army mechanics. Essentially, the Hero has a 12″ bubble around them and the first time each turn that a non-Euphoric unit in that bubble rolls an unmodified 5 or less on a 2D6 roll (Casting, Unbinding, Banishing, or Charging) it gains the EUPHORIC keyword for the rest of the turn. There’s obviously some pitfalls here – you can’t plan for it, a lot of the conditions apply only to a wizard, it only lasts for the turn and that might be your opponent’s turn where you’re less likely to declare any charges, and any unit you NEED to be EUPHORIC for the turn, you’ll have already picked at the start of the Battle Round. It’s important to note that these don’t have to be failed rolls, just 5 or less so if you have Casting bonuses or Charge Bonuses (or rerolls) you still make them and gain EUPHORIC as a bonus. There’s probably a meme Pretenders build that uses this and Glory Hog in the same list giving you the chance to have 6 units Euphoric over the course of a Battle Round if you meet the extra conditions (only 5 at any one time though with this being only for the Turn) but I can’t picture it ever really delivering on that in a meaningful way and thus never being more than a meme!

New Warscrolls

Firstly we get a new warscroll for Syll’Esske. This is an interesting one I think, as I’ve made semi-regular use of Syll’Esske throughout this current season so I’d have said there were units in more desperate need of this intervention but I know Syll’Esske isn’t a popular pick for all of that. Their profile remains the same with the same two combat attacks to use. However, the changes that we get here are rules that Hedonites really will benefit from having access to and really expand upon the toolbox available to them. First (and foremost) we have the excellent Champions of the Gilded Throne ability:

Syll’Esske – Champions of the Gilded Throne

When players are alternating picking units to use a FIGHT ability, when it is your turn to pick a unit, instead of picking 1 unit, you can pick a friendly non-HERO HEDONITES OF SLAANESH DAEMON unit wholly within 18″ of this unit and a friendly non-HERO HEDONITES OF SLAANESH SYBARITE unit wholly within 18″ of this unit. Resolve the second FIGHT ability immediately after the first.

This plugs a particularly large gap for Hedonites as a faction. With lots of units that can potentially hit hard but can’t take a hit in return it’s long been risky charging in with multiple units as other than relying on some random Strike First or Strike Last abilities to try and keep your units alive. Now, you can engage two threats simultaneously if you position Syll’Esske correctly to take advantage of this. The good news is, that Syll’Esske with a move of 8″ is fast enough to make this not too difficult as long as you’re watching how far you move on your Charges. The caveat of course is that we’re needing to play to the theme of Syll’Esske and we need DAEMON and SYBARITE units to make this work. Thankfully, other than non-HEROES this isn’t locked to any further keywords so you can charge in some Slickblade Seekers and some Fiends for example and have both fight at the same time.

One of the best things on Syll’Esske’s original warscroll was their spell which switched off a unit’s ability to use Commands. The new Warscroll has swapped out that one for a quite different spell, Wandering Minds:

Spell – Wandering Minds – Casts on a 6+

Pick up to 1 visible friendly non-HERO SYBARITE INFANTRY unit and up to 1 visible friendly non-HERO HEDONITES OF SLAANESH DAEMON INFANTRY unit to be the targets. If successfully cast, and you picked a SYBARITE target, subtract 1 from the ward rolls for damage points inflicted by its combat attacks, until the start of your next turn. If you picked a DAEMON target, it has WARD (5+) until the start of your next turn.

I’m not going to lie, the GW Rules Team Legaleese that this is written in meant I had to re-read a few times to make any sense of what’s going on here. In short, you can pick up to 2 units (but you can just pick 1 so you don’t lose access to it when all your Daemon units are dead for example) to be the targets of the spell. If you’re picking 2 targets, 1 has to be a DAEMON INFANTRY unit and 1 has to be a SYBARITE INFANTRY unit. The effect of the spell differs for each target type. For SYBARITE units it means your opponent has a worse WARD save (-1) against their combat attacks. DAEMON units instead gain a 5+ WARD. Daemonettes are currently the only unit that satisfies one of those conditions and otherwise you’re looking at Twinsouls, Painbringers, Slaangor or Blissbarb Archers (feel like we’d be at the point of desperation though if we’re casting this to make Blissbarb Archers better in combat). The spell only requires the unit to be visible and otherwise has no range requirement so dovetails quite nicely with Sadistic Spite for the SYBARITE unit to up their combat potential further.

I don’t think its a spell that makes this version of Syll’Esske worth taking in its own right but if you’ve got infantry in the list with them, you’ll probably find some value in this. Especially if you’ve managed to trigger their final rule Violent Offerings:

Syll’Esske – Violent Offerings

At the end of any turn, if any damage points were allocated to an enemy WIZARD or PRIEST by this unit’s combat attacks this turn and that enemy unit has been destroyed, add 1 to this unit’s power level for the rest of the battle. This unit can be affected by this ability multiple times and the effects are cumulative.

This one is a bit niche but Syll’Esske certainly has a combat profile that’ll allow them to make quick work of a lot of smaller WIZARD or PRIEST models, but, in and of itself just a nice bonus when you can trigger it I think rather than one to be building too many plans around.

The change to the warscroll leads to a 10pts increase in points for Syll’Esske from the details shared on the Warhammer Community website.

Finally, we have the Slaangor Fiendbloods with an alternative warscroll and if ever a unit has needed one… Slaangor were in an odd place, they were already quite punchy but on a fragile frame with rules that just didn’t synergise with that fact. The Slaangor’s combat profile is largely similar but they do gain a boost with +1 Damage on the Charge on their Razor-sharp Pincers and Gilded Weapons. They really come into their own with their new warscroll abilities. In homage to their Gor-kin heritage, Veiled Threat allows you to set them up in reserve, ready to ambush with their Bestial Onslaught rule.

Slaangor Fiendbloods – Bestial Onslaught

In any Movement Phase, pick this unit if it is waiting in ambush. You can set it up on the battlefield wholly within 9″ of a battlefield edge and more than 9″ from all enemy units.

Whilst in theory not the best version of the arriving from reserves rule as you’re limited to within 9″ of a battlefield edge rather than anywhere on the board, it is one of the better ones in that it can be use in ANY movement phase giving you some flexibility and they can turn up after your opponent has made all of their moves to exploit any space they’ve left behind them. The flip-side to arriving in your opponent’s turn is that they can’t be made EUPHORIC when they arrive. You’ll have to gamble on the priority roll to do so the following turn and get to use them in time. This is the sort of rule that means your opponent can’t afford to leave backfield objectives unguarded, so even if they don’t present you with a great Ambush location, them reacting to the threat impacts upon what might be happening elsewhere on the battlefield.

The other big change for Slaangor is the replacement of their Slaughter At Any Cost rule with the far more interesting (and useful) Instinctive Advance:

Slaangor Fiendbloods – Instinctive Advance

Once Per Phase (Army) after your opponent has declared a Command for a unit within 12″ of a Slaangor Fiendblood unit, immediately after that command or the ability that it was a reaction to has been resolved, this unit can move 3″. It can move through the combat ranges of enemy units and can end that move in combat.

This is a brilliant little rule with lots of potential fun to be had from it. Some examples being:

• If your opponent uses Magical Intervention to get an extra spell in, you can get some free movement in response. Same with if your opponent uses Rally on a unit.
• If they Redeploy, they’re going to need more than a 3 to have actually gained any distance from the Slaangor should they follow, this could be quite handy if your opponent wanted to try and restrict your charge options when they arrive from Ambush.
• Covering Fire could trigger the Slaangor move, allowing you to either move them closer and let them take the brunt of it to protect a more valuable unit or instead, perhaps moving the Slaangor to safety and letting a tougher unit of yours (well by Slaaneshi standards at least) tank the shots for them.
• In combat, if you charged or are in an ongoing combat, and your opponent uses All-Out-Defence in response to the Slaangor attacking, the Slaangor can make their attacks and then use their move to extricate themselves from combat and avoid taking any damage in response. This won’t work if the enemy unit charged this turn and/or if they’re in combat with other units they might still be able to pull-off some pile-in shenanigans to catch the Slaangor.
• If your opponent wants to reroll a charge through Forward to Victory your Slaangor can make that charge even more difficult, tie up a different unit or maybe if it was one of those horrific 3″ charge fails, initiate the combat anyway but deny your opponent their charge benefits.
• Power Through is such a strong Command and this gives you the chance to extricate yourself from a combat if the Slaangor remain engaged after Power Through, or you can pick a new dance partner and move into combat with a different unit tying them up – bonus points for catching a shooting unit with this and shutting them down for a turn.
• Anything that uses a Command Point to activate is a Command, so this includes a number of the recursion related abilities including Celebrity Warlord in the mirror match.

If you’re using this reactive move to enter combat, you are surrendering the Slaangor’s charge bonus but it can definitely have value, especially for catching units that don’t want to be in combat or needed a charge bonus themselves to be of maximum effect (for example, a lot of cavalry relying on their lances on the charge etc.).

Now obviously, we’re not about creating “Gotcha!” moments that can create a bad feeling, so what we’re most likely to be seeing here is your opponent thinking they’ll do something, you reminding them that the Slaangor will get to move as a result of it and then them choosing not to do it. This is still golden. At worst, for example, it means your Slaangor might only be worrying about a 4+ save on a unit now rather than the 3+ they were going to have from All-Out-Defence as taking some more damage but still getting some attacks back is likely to be the better choice for your opponent (but not always). I’m a huge believer in doing everything you can to give your opponent choices to make as the more they have to make, the more likely they are to make the wrong one at some point and ultimately, the more they’re having to consider the harder it will be for them to continually make the right ones as the cognitive or processing load leads to fatigue. The new Slaangor warscroll is absolutely perfect for creating quite a few of those sorts of choices through the combination of their ambush and reactive move.

Just a note on the above, I think the type of Ambush that Slaangor have is actually better for compounding this effect sometimes. There’s something about the fact that board edges are in theory easier to block off than against a Deep Strike style reserve rule that means opponents are more likely to make a choice in response. They might extend their battlelines a little further out to the flanks to ensure you can’t come on there, meaning there’s more opportunity for you to find an area in the line that’s easier to punch through and not as easy for your opponent to respond to. Instead, they might refuse a flank or bunch up in the middle, leaving more of the board open to you to exploit. The same is true with that particularly worrying battlefield edge behind their army – there’s something ingrained in our psyches that sees that as a bad one to allow units to arrive from so they might not move all their units up with the line or they might hang the whole line back more than they would have otherwise. Once you throw in the Instinctive Advance rule you’re putting extra processing load on your opponent. At 150pts (a 30pt increase!) a unit of 3 Slaangor Fiendbloods is probably just dangerous enough to cause them to have to make all sorts of extra considerations and to my mind – that’s worthwhile.

I do think there’s a really interesting control style build, stacking a few of these sorts of things that just tries to wear your opponent (the player and not their army) down without necessarily needing to engage. It’ll likely be a list archetype I’ll explore in full once we have the new General’s Handbook available to us to understand what the battleplans and new style Battle Tactics look like.

Conclusion

Overall, there are some interesting choices in here. Once we see the rest of the rules for the new season we’ll be better able to appreciate the full value in them. However, seeing them explore some more mechanics around the Euphoric and Temptation Dice rules is quite encouraging for when they get round to our Battletome, hopefully they’ll do some more of this to allow there to be a greater level of upside to our rules that currently do quite a lot for our opponents. There’s also some really valuable options amongst the new stuff here that regardless of what the battleplans look like are going to be useful to have available to us such as Syll’Esske’s Champions of the Gilded Throne or the recursion from Celebrity Warlord which could alter the level at which Hedonites sit within the competitive meta. Also, the choice of Slaangor for a new warscroll is a triumph both from a personal level (as a former Beasts player I’ll always have a soft-spot for the Gor-kin and they’re some of the nicest sculpts in our army) but just from the reassurance of them identifying some of the correct units that need some work. It leaves me feeling optimistic about where we could end up!