Whether you’ve been searching for Slaanesh across the Mortal Realms or have been serving the will of the Prince of Chaos in the grim darkness of the far future, you’re in for a treat.
This article was originally published on the Warhammer-community site.
Realm of Chaos: Wrath and Rapture is up for pre-order this weekend, and comes with a host of Daemons of Slaanesh that can be fielded in games of Warhammer Age of Sigmar or Warhammer 40,000. Not only that, but the battlebox includes the multipart plastic debut of the gribbly Fiends of Slaanesh, as well as a brand-new Herald in the Infernal Enrapturess.
Today, we’re taking a closer look at the rules for this awesome new model, and will be offering some cunning tactics to help you get the most from your sensation-seeking Daemons of Slaanesh in either game system, as they play very similarly in both Warhammer Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40,000.
This maliciously musical Herald of Slaanesh is sure to become a regular feature in daemonic armies for Warhammer 40,000 (whether they’re solely dedicated to Slaanesh or a broader Chaos army). Even before considering all the other tricks up her sleeve, the Infernal Enrapturess offers powerful sonic fire support with her heartstring lyre, which can be tuned accordingly to blast apart multiple foes or a single high-value target:
If your opponent has any psykers to hand, they would do well to keep them clear of your Infernal Enrapturess, as her Discordant Disruption ability will make any attempt to manifest a psychic power a risky business. Even the most formidable Psykers such as Ahriman and Eldrad Ulthran will be far from immune to her unsettling harmonies:
The freedom to summon forth additional units from the warp via Daemonic Rituals is a huge tactical advantage that Chaos Daemons armies have, giving them the ability to spawn a horde of gribblies or heinous beast behind enemy lines or onto an objective. An Infernal Enrapturess adds 3 to any summoning rolls she makes, enabling her to safely summon a unit of 10 Daemonettes or two Fiends of Slaanesh (both units with a Power Rating of 4) on a single dice, thereby avoiding any risk of suffering mortal wounds in the act! And that’s not all – she can reinforce existing units that have suffered losses, even multi-Wound models such as Fiends:
On the battlefields of the Mortal Realms, the heartstring lyre of your Infernal Enrapturess will prove a valuable asset in the shooting phase:
Her Harmonic Alignment ability ties in with the Slaaneshi Allegiance Abilities by generating an additional Depravity Point at the start of each of your hero phases. If you’ve ever been that frustrating single point short of summoning a Keeper of Secrets, an Infernal Enrapturess will pay dividends. Furthermore, her Discordant Disruption ability is just as effective as her Warhammer 40,000 counterpart at punishing Wizards:
One final thought – an Infernal Enrapturess may be no slouch in combat, but don’t mistake her for a front-line brawler. She’s best used as a support character, so take advantage of the Look Out, Sir! rules to keep her away from danger where possible.
Fiends really exemplify what it means to be a Daemon of Slaanesh. They are seriously fast, able to outmanoeuvre any foe or exploit any gap in their lines, and attack with a flurry of claws. Fiends now also have an alpha-beast called a Blissbringer that hits even harder! The unit’s Crushing Grip ability makes their claws a deadlier prospect still in Warhammer Age of Sigmar:
Fiends also have a number of other advantages that help make them exceptional all-rounders. Not only does their sheer size lend them great survivability (they each have 4 Wounds, no less!), but they can bring down even high-value targets with their vicious barbed tail in Warhammer 40,000 or combination of Barbed Stingers and Deadly Venom ability in Warhammer Age of Sigmar:
Fiends also emit a soporific musk that can reduces the effectiveness of enemies nearby, preventing enemies from being able to Fall Back in Warhammer 40,000 unless they can fly, or inflicting various penalties on melee opponents in Warhammer Age of Sigmar:
Try to keep your Fiends near to (or use them to hunt down) enemy Psykers or Wizards, as their Disruptive Song ability will subtract 1 from any Psychic tests or casting rolls made by enemies within 12″ of them. This works brilliantly in conjunction with your Infernal Enrapturess’ Discordant Disruption ability to counter enemy psychic powers or spells.
Thanks to their number of Attacks and AP or Rend of -1 with their piercing claws, Daemonettes and their mounted Seeker kin are highly effective at slaughtering lightly armoured Infantry. Ideally, Daemonettes should form the second wave of your attack, leaping and cavorting forwards behind your Fiends and Seekers before sweeping in to support your initial charge. After all, with limited firepower across the army and the advantage of speed over almost any foe, a Slaaneshi Daemon army should be looking engage their targets of choice and reach the relative safety of combat as swiftly as possible.
An army of Slaaneshi Daemons is fast, deadly, and now poses a real threat to Psykers and Wizards! Tune back in tomorrow for a closer look at the bloodthirsty Daemons of Khorne found in the battlebox. Realm of Chaos: Wrath and Rapture is available to pre-order on Saturday, but if you can’t wait until your shiny new models arrive in the post, you could grab some Seeker Chariots or add some Daemonettes to bulk out your incoming units or fill an additional Troops or Battleline slot.
And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!
GW: How come no one is playing Slaanesh Daemons?
Players: Well they have the durability of tissue paper and hit like wet noodles. Rending sucks this edition. They aren’t fast enough to be a footslogging-
GW: Summoning.
Players: What? No? No one summons outside of open play. They are really character heavy to get enough advance and charge, auras to cover the army.
GW: SUMMONING.
Player: … They also don’t have the tools to deal with vehicles or flyers. Which is painful in a meta of Knights and Eldar flyers.
GW: S U M M O N I N G.
In all seriousness, the Infernal Rapturess seems cool for AoS (with my little AoS experience) but in 40k this isn’t the character that Slaanesh Daemons needed.
The summoning note was pretty bad, and the rules team thinking it’s anything less than bad is a little disconcerting.
Summoning isn’t that bad, some of the better players in the USA have built winning lists around the summoning mechanic and performed very well with them.
However, I would agree that if you don’t build for it, it can be a bit underwhelming.
I get the utility of summoning for more static or gun line type armies but not so much for large mobile footslogging armies.
Playing Slaanesh Daemons, my characters are rarely stationary to summon. They are following other Daemon units to provide Locus of Swiftness or another aura buffs.
If the Infernal Rapturess could summon on the move, I would think her utility would go up dramatically.
For the generic meta, I can see undivided chaos daemons taking her for the anti-psychic aura but she isn’t adding anything useful for mono Slaanesh Daemons that I would use her over existing heralds.
I see your point. It’s actually VERY strong if you build a list for it. For example, Brandon Grant, the west coast’s pride haha, had a very difficult game vs. summoning Daemons with his Castellan+AM list and stated the raw flexibility of it was incredibly difficult to combat. You pull in the units you need on the fly. To the skilled player (again, in a list built to use it) that is mega strong. To the less skilled player, it’s underwhelming and possibly just confusing, honestly.
>no one summons outside open play
You mean aside from the winning team of ETC and several of the highest-ranked Daemon players in the country?
Yeah, exactly, haha. You said it more, ah, directly than I did =)
While I’m not experienced enough with demons to write on it, Reece can you convince someone who is to write on summoning? I definitely don’t get it well enough to use it effectively. And would love to learn 😛
Ditto. I feel like I am missing something now.
You take a few plaguebearer blobs, tsons supreme command, soup battalion from daemons with Herald of slaanesh and tzeentch and summon as needed: pinks when you need to kill a horde, daemonettes when you need to reduce a melee horde’s damage, plaguebearers when you need more screens, etc.
Sometimes you even summon an insensate rage BT if he won’t be shot to shit.
The ETC guy was playing 90 Plaguebearers if I recall which is a pretty easy line to summon with.
I honestly don’t recall any top Chaos players summoning but I am probably wrong because I don’t follow every major event’s results.
I’m glad someone noticed!
With that being said, summoning was difficult before, new reinforcement rules put it in the ground. not summoning turn 1 and after turn 4 means it’s impossible to run that army outside funsies.
The reason I could keep up with people was because I would summon a bunch of stuff turn 1 when people pressure me, or move up and summon turn 2 and get board control.
The rules change removed an option and made the army just…bad. I was super bummed.
You can summon turn 1 normally, bruh =)
Bring it back! Bring it back! Bring it back!
Tzeentch summoning is pretty good. Slaanesh summoning is praying for a 8″-9″ charge without full re-rolls.
Anyway, the perils is interesting as it combos with the 2D3 MW stratagem so that’s kinda cool.
The 6s bring stuff back is a joke. I glanced through it and thought it was “roll for every model” but it’s 6 for every UNIT. So what do we have multimodel unit wise: daemonettes and fiends (and CSM stuff like obliterators). So if something there is dead, on a 6 you’ll get one model back.
So in reality it doesn’t solve any problems slaanesh had. They’ll still get shot off the board before doing anything. Uh… hope there’s more in the book inside? ._.
Oh and seekers but those will be at the other end of the board so they don’t count
I actually disagree. I summoned every single god (even slaneesh!) at ETC and ATC. They legitimately all have their place and have situations that can be solid.
I also think the come back on a 6 thing is meh but if daemons keep getting abilities like this I think it’ll start being more powerful.
All slaneesh need is an ork(or khorne) equivalent buff to charge distance. I really was hoping this character would do that but oh well.
I know now about the daemonette thing. I was uninformed. I’m still uninformed on how many daemonettes was summoned (30?). And I’d rather have a psyker and a +1S buffed than a harp attack and slightly better summoning rolls only on Slaanesh daemons that are rarelly needed.
And yeah I was hoping for a charge boost too. Or at least an advance boost.
I would have like to see an advance boost as well. Daemonettes tend to be a fair distance behind the Seekers on average rolls and depending on deployment map.
The randomness of the advance rolls is often what makes or breaks, my games.
Honestly, what I’m most curious about right now is base sizes. I have a ton of Fiends and Flesh Hounds, and want to know how I should get started re-basing them. Not actually sure I’m going to bother with the Flesh Hounds, honestly. I’ve already re-based most of them once in the last couple of years.
So, summoning could be REALLY good if they clarified that it wasn’t reinforcements. That’s all it needs to be solid.
I think 2nd at ATC and first at ETC shows that summoning at least has a place in the game. However with only being able to summon turns 2 and 3 and all your summoning points exploding turn 4 really hurts it. I won a mirror match with a turn 5 summon that would now be illegal.
The whole point of summoning is that it’s weaker but more flexible which is useless if it’s weaker and LESS flexible.
Add a 2 point strat that lets you move (even if it’s only like 6-12 inches) then summon and clarify that summoning doesn’t count as reinforcements, boom, summoning is competitive and still has super high skill cap.
You’re mixing up reinforcements and tactical reserves.
Reinforcements are anything being set up on the table mid turn(deestrike, teleports, summoning)
Tactical reserves are reinforcement units that are put in deepstrike during deployment. Since you’re not puting any units there (you’re reserving points) during deployment (you do it while writing the list) – they are not Tactical reserves, therefor they are not (or should not as I think you’ve seen it ruled this way) subject to the turn 2,3 nonsense.
Except you CAN summon turn 1.
Then let everyone else know that haha. It hasn’t been in any FAQs and BFS plus all the ETC team said I couldn’t so I stopped fighting TOs over it.
I got my ork codex as well so I stopped stressing about it.
Yeah, that is straight from the source. You can for sure summon normally on turn 1.
I’ve played plenty of armies that have to start with 5 minutes of “well actually, technically…” while I explain why this is allowed but it doesn’t mean I like playing that if I can avoid it.
You wouldn’t be able to write a primer on it? I tried to make summoning work with my CSMs, but just got butchered as I lost my mobility.