Please don't do updates on every single box that becomes unavailable in every single region. Pretty please.
I feel like I've reached some sort of old-man-gamer status now. All my models are now oldhammer compared to all these new sculpts...
New Slaanesh rules. The temptation dice seems like a rather annoying mechanic to deal with as there's no meaningful way to avoid it for the opposing player. Maybe if it didn't deal damage when you refused it might have been a fun thematically ability. But in this form it's basicly just a bunch of free, unavoidable damage & deprevation points.
That's kinda the point? Most allegiance abilities/core summoning mechanics aren't something you can just... ignore. Wouldn't be a very good ability if that was the case, would it? Each unit can also only be effected once per phase so, the damage is rather ignorable outside of a few choice instances. I think its rather fun and flavorful, definitely unique. Would much rather see something like this than something less inspired.
True. I just hate that this could easily kill one of our skink foot heroes, if we don't accept the dice a couple of times. But I guess it does force a player to give Slaanesh depravity points a lot of the time.
They'll need to actually be doing damage to the skink priest tho. You could just not shoot with him and the only way its forcing you to make a choice is if it's already doing damage to you and you're failing saves. If something is targeting a skink priest and you're failing saves the little guy probably isn't long for this world anyways.
That's true. Actually, I misread the rules as well. I thought it was any failed roll, but it's only hit, wound, and save rolls. I thought it included casting or chanting rolls as well.
As a general rule you don't get free damage from core mechanics though. Or they at least come with some caveat, e.g. Ogres do free damage when charging, stop them from charging and they won't do free damage. See, this is kind of the issue I have with it. Anything that isn't hitting/wounding/saving on a 2+/3+, or simply rolls a ton of dice, is going to trigger this frequently whenever it does anything, resulting in a situation where it's kinda better to just not do anything with some units, especially the more minor stuff (e.g. screens, support heroes, but also "minor" combat units like saurus knights). Which isn't exactly fun. The basic idea of the mechanic is fine. The idea of temptation is nice and fluffy. But the damage when you resist temptation isn't really necessary, the pay-off of being tempted isn't anywhere near enough in 99% of the cases to warrant the punishments, and it lacks any caveats, such as "you can only be tempted when within X" of a Slaanesh hero" for the opponent to play around. Which combined make it kind of a missed oppertunity. It could've been a great thematic mechanic, but the execution is lacking.
What do you mean by triggering it frequently? And on a saurus knight unit, for example, you can simply just take thr damage if you want. I think the idea that you're paralyzed with inaction because of the occasional depravity gain or d3 mortal wounds is a little farfetched. IMO the slaanesh player is going to have to split damage to force all 6 out every round. Even then, the depravity table isn't gamebreaking. Mortals on 6s and a 5+ ward is pretty table stakes these days. If the summoning table is super cheap it might be more problematic, but as it seems your opponent just as so much control over a main mechanic.
It'll trigger basicly every turn you attempt to do anything with that unit (assuming Slaanesh has the available dice of course, which honestly, they should. 6 Dice is pretty generous considering we don't really see lists with tens of units) For example a skink with his blowpipe will fail 8 out of 9 attacks, allowing the Slaanesh player to tempt a skink unit nearly every time it tries to attack, even if the unit consists of a single skink. Also, fun fact. To beat the damage (on average) than you recieve from the D3 mortal wounds in return against a 4+ save, you'd need at least 18 unbuffed skinks. Which basicly means that attacking with anything that isn't a fully buffed horde of skinks is going to cause more damage to you than it does to Slaanesh. That's kinda lame. A full unit of knights does about 4 damage on average against a 4+ save. Eating that D3 damage means you're eating half the damage your doing without even taking into consideration the opponents counter attack. Much like the skinks, that's not exactly a great trade, though at least knights can manage to get out ahead without needing external buffs. That'd be true if it'd only trigger on failed. Since it also triggers on failed attacks getting to use all 6 dice really shouldn't be that difficult unless your opponent has less than 6 units in (ranged) combat. Hell, even if he doesn't have 6 units in combat it's not that hard as you can potentially trigger it 4 times per battle round on the same unit. It depends a bit on which unit you're looking at. Big models/units are happily going to continue attacking, because they'll do more damage than the temptation dice will cause (directly, or indirectly via the deprivaty points) in return. But like I already pointed out, things like skinks, minor support heroes & even stuff like saurus knights are kinda screwed, as they can't really do enough damage to warrant the tempation dice. It (probably) isn't gamebreaking. It's just annoying to suddenly have all of your minor troops be even more useless than they already are normally. Additionally in specific scenarios it can end up being somewhat gamebreaking as it has some weird interactions. E.g. a bastiladon who'd want to keep his 2+ save is forced to constantly generate the D6 depravity points. As for the depravity table itself. Honestly, it's depressing that powercreep has made these army-wide effects relativly "normal", but that's a completly different discussion . Does raise the question though. With the benefits the depravity table is giving army-wide; how bad are Slaanesh units going to be baseline without the depravity buffs? Especially considering that they can, and probably will, be at max depravity within a single turn.
I can see that, i guess i just already assume their damage is useless anyways so i'm not exactly hurt by actually losing it. Shooting 10 skinks is often not even worth the time hah. Especially when its not purely useless, as causing problems for your opponent always has some advantage. I think if the summoning table is super cheap, it can easily be problematic. But as it sits, It feels like an ability where you are just taking a bunch of random chip damage on units that you completely control. And the other side of the coin is giving them depravity and passing a failed roll. Neither option seems that bad to me /shrug. And i enjoy that i have the control, which kinda sucks for the slaanesh player. If he's hoping for a bit of extra depravity to go over one of those humps, you can easily stall him out. If they aren't or they flubbed a few d6 rolls and are behind on their depravity gen you can just keep taking the dice with really no real concern.
Yeah, to a tournament player this will probably barely matter. But as a player who likes their minor stuff to actually do something other than getting killed, this just kinda sucks. I wouldn't call D3 mortal wounds "chip damage" given that virtually every source of mortal wounds does D3 damage. It's basicly giving Slaanesh access to a budget comet's call, and that isn't considered chip damage either. For that to work you're banking really hard on the depravity being behind (or kinda bad) though. And with a potential 6D6 plus rules like euphoric killers it seems unlikely they'll ever really be behind on depravity. On a sidenote. Why is the tempation limited to one die? Replacing 1 failed roll with a 6 isn't exactly stellar in 99% of cases. Sure there's the occasional situation, like a buffed up carnosaur's bite going from a fail to a 6, but for the average unit it's a maximum of 1 extra damage, and even that's not a guarantee if Slaanesh saves the attack. Anyways, core idea is fun. But there's some glaring issues with the overall execution, which is a shame, cuz it clearly has potential.
I'm still a little iffy about the mechanic, too. But it does kind of fit the Slaanesh "pleasure" (6 on a roll) or "pain" (D3 damage) vibe.
I do have to say the pleasure is also a bit dissapointing. Imho, the Slaanesh player should be able to offer far more tempting deals if GW wants to go this route. "All the attacks of your carnosaur will guaranteed hit, but I get to summon a KoS"-type deals would be far more interesting than "you get a single roll of 6" Hell, at least make it a guaranteed succesfull attack that can't be saved, not just a guaranteed hit-roll.
Ive seen the argument a lot online that the d3 mortals on a refusal is overkill, and it should have just been the temptation of 6 for the DP. But no one seems to follow that thought through. If the mechanic was "you get a 6, I get d6 DP", and thats it, it what world would you ever accept that? It cant be used on charges or casts, so maybe once per game there will be a save roll that keeps your EotG alive or something? It basically would make the entire mechanic pointless, and almost be better for the opponent than the Slaanesh player. Since it is one of their Allegiance abilities, it has to have some actual power behind it. Can you imagine if Slaves gave their opponent a buff every time they rolled on Eye of the Gods? or if our Primeval Domain rule just made all of the terrain Mystical for us and our opponent? thats what people are asking for with this rule
I mean, you can just as easily turn that argument around as well. If the only reason you ever accept it is to avoid that D3 damage it's a pretty stupid mechanic as well. And that's kind of the situation we're currently stuck with. Honestly, the best solution would just be to make the actual temptation part a lot better. Both for Slaanesh & for his opponent.