Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh
This is the general tactics page on how to play Slaanesh in Total War: WARHAMMER.
Why Play Slaanesh?
- You prefer Speed and using your mobility to outmaneuver and tear apart your enemy as opposed to the simple rip and tear.
- Because you're a sexual deviant and this is the best way to show your horniness without going out in public. (Though given that this game is T rated expect the more sexual parts of Slaanesh to be toned down, at least until some of the modders have their say)
- Because fuck armor, your crab claw ladies don't give a fuck about it.
- You want to play the only army in the game that is non-binary inclusive.
Some degenerate is going to give you a NSFW mod, it's only a matter of ti-IT ALREADY HAPPENED, but granted, what do you expect?
Pros
- Speed: You ARE the fastest army in the entire game. Your cavalry, chariots, and Legendary Lord have a base speed of 100, daemonettes outrun most skirmishers with base speed over 50, and even slaanesh marauders have above average cardio with 38 speed. Your army will run circles around everyone else, wood elves and beastmen included.
- AP: Heavy armour shouldn't be a problem for you in the slightest. Factions that rely on armour like Dwarfs and Warriors of Chaos will dread when you come on to the battlefield.
- Cavalry and Chariots: With numerous varieties of both Cav and Chariots you have the ability to be a really strong threat while on the move. Sure, Heartseekers and Hellstriders probably won't beat Grail Knights in a fair one on one fight but their sheer speed will mean that back line is probably doomed. Plus the chariot variety means an armored front line is going to suffer.
- Flanking Potential: Cavalry aside, many of your units are fast and have "Devastating Flanker" as well. You can expect to be one of the best factions for penetrating a soft spot in the enemy's army.
- Fatigue fighting: Fatigue heavily penalizes melee attack and armor stacking to -30% melee attack and -25% armor when a unit is completely exhausted. Melee defense remains surprisingly good with only a maximum -10% penalty from fatigue. This significantly benefits you since most of your units rely on melee defense and ward saves for survival. While you're not going to outlast Nurgle or any faction with lore of life, your army of half naked tarts will fight. . .well not better but less bad compared to other factions the longer a battle drags on.
- Immunity to Fear: A big part of the Mark of Slaanesh on the tabletop was immune to psych. This is carried over as Immune to Psych for your mortal units. Combined with all your daemons being unbreakable, you really won't give a shit about big scary monsters or units.
- Diplomacy: Few mortals can resist the God(dess) of Pleasure. Unlike other Daemonic Forces, you have diplomatic options at your disposal. This can be useful to close off a front with a non-aggression pact, or even an alliance of convenience when necessary.
Cons
- Fragile: The downside of having an army of half naked monster girls/boys/things? There isn't a ton of armour to go around. Expect to be taking a punishing on the way in (Not that Slaanesh has an issue with that), so long as you aren't using ward saves. Which you shouldn't since Slaanesh units have some bound ward save abilities which are generally far more impactful than armor.
- Lack of Ranged: You can't hump your opponent to death from the other side of the map. You have no ranged units to speak of. Seriously, even freaking KHORNE has ranged units. You have no chance at playing defense.
- Lack of Fliers: When Furies are the best flying unit you have, it's safe to say you aren't a faction that is designed around dogfighting and controlling the skies. You are easily the weakest Monogod faction when it comes to the air.
- No Flexibility: The other monogods are one dimensional too but you have it the worst. Everyone fighting you knows you're going to bring a fast glass cannon army. Like your other chaos monogod siblings, you do one thing well and can't do much else. Somewhat ironic that the factions closest to chaos are the most predictable opponents.
- Autoresolve hates you: Get ready to fight a lot of really one sided fights because Autoresolve thinks your Exalted Daemonette stack will get decimated by that one ten unit stack of Kossars.
- Fast Games: Because of their fragility and need to be maneuvered correctly to win, expect Slaanesh games to be quick, regardless of who wins. Slaanesh will either completely slaughter the enemy or run into a brick wall and crumple to dust. If you like long, tense game where the winner can be decided at any moment you won't get that from Slaanesh too much.
- DLC: Sorry but trends are trends and some of your better units may be reserved for Lord Packs. From a launch standpoint you got Tzeentch and Nurgle beat, but you could use some more mortals/boob snakes.
- not beginner friendly: a bit of an odd one sure, but it has to be said, slaanesh is not a faction for beginners with no range units, no somewhat tanky monsters and all of your units being made of used condoms where even a cheap unit of archers can kill your lord in milliseconds, slaanesh heavily punishes you for one mistake and one has to sell there soul and become the dark lord of micromanagement if you want to win consistently as slaanesh, especially in multiplayer.
Faction Traits
- Daemonic: Undead with extra steps, really. Once your daemonic units lose enough leadership, they'll begin to lose health and fade back into the Warp in the same vein that undead units crumble away. The good news is that even if your daemons are doomed to evaporate, they'll at least stick in and fight to the last model.
- Devastating Flanker: A bunch of your units have this special ability which doubles their charge bonus when attacking an enemy unit from the flank or rear. Considering your Furies and all your cavalry have Vanguard, as well as the obscenely high speed of your army overall, this incentivizes you to try to encircle the enemy as quickly as possible and... well no way to say this that's not going to be a double entendre, Hit them hard and fast in the rear!
- Sensuous Seductions: Like with the other Chaos god armies you have a battlefield resource that unlocks map-wide abilities as you accumulate it. As with the other daemonic factions these battlefield resources have three tiers and when you use one of them it reduces the resources you've accumulated so far. This one is gained by killing units that have negative morale, meaning you can keep replenishing these abilities so long as there are still units on the battlefield to kill. The three abilities (in order of strength and cost) are:
- Fascination: A direct-damage spell that also causes Rampage on the target
- Narcissism: An AoE snare, similar to Net of Amyntok
- Sweet Sorrow: An AoE buff to speed and vigor
Lords
Legendary Lords
- N'Kari: He's big, he's fast, he's purple, and he's got four nipples. Has a blistering 100 speed, which means he's a single entity monster that can keep up with warhounds and light cavalry. This guy can blitz across the battlefield and right into your "backline," which is good because he has only 5 armor and needs to hurry if he doesn't want to get turned into Swiss cheese by ranged units. His offensive potential is extremely high, and you can stack physical resist and ward save to make him quite durable in melee, but best used to hit and run/flank. Also a caster of the Lore of Slaanesh, but you're probably better off putting skill points elsewhere, use a hero caster. His special abilities include:
- Harvester of Souls: heals him when nearby units are complete destroyed (this stacks)- combine with high ward and he'll be extremely tough
- Willing Prey: debuffs an enemy's melee attack and defense
- The Witstealer Sword: massively boosts his AP and base weapon damage.-Alternative live dangerously and take the Sword of Slaanesh from his chaos realm first visit if possible and enjoy a greater demon with well over 100 speed 60-70% physical resist/40% ward and a sword of Khaine equivalent. doing 1.2k weapon damage.
Generic Lords
- Exalted Keeper of Secrets: Same as Blood boi, Bird Boi, and Plague Boi. The Exalted Keeper of Secrets acts as the lord while the standard one is a monster you can recruit. An anti-large AP monster with the Lores of Slaanesh and Shadows that can get around the battlefield very quickly. Believe it or not it's slower than a Bloodthirster and less mobile since it can't fly. That said it has a lot of nasty special abilities, including a Mortis Engine effect against low-leadership enemies, AoE hexes that causes rampage or reduce melee attack, and an activatable buff that massively boosts its melee damage over the course of three stages. Also gets some regen while killing broken units.
- Herald of Slaanesh: A hybrid lord with the Lore of Slaanesh and/or Shadow magic along with AP in melee. Think a Loremaster for the High Elves only faster and frailer. Your only lord choice with the Devastating Flanker ability. Can ride the Steed of Slaanesh, Seeker Chariot, or Exalted Seeker Chariot. Will also realistically be your only Lord choice in the early campaign as you can't get the Exalted Greater Daemon without evolving one of these things like a Pokemon. Like other daemonic Herald lords she also has three "locus" abilities, which include:
- Grace: A ward save that greatly improves melee defence and physical resistance. -By far the best, helps fragile Slaanesh units survive
- Swiftness: An augment which greatly improves charge bonus, speed and charge speed.
- Beguilement: A hex which reduces leadership and melee defence.
Heroes
Legendary Heroes
Generic Heroes
- Alluress: A hero version of the Herald, like for the other three gods. Same spell lores and mounts. Also has Devastating Flanker.
- Cultist of Slaanesh: A Dark Elf cultist and a skilled fighter with a number of unique abilities including Devastating Flanker and "Gate of Slaanesh." The gate is a one-time summon of a unit of daemonettes in MP but can up upgraded in campaign to 3 daemonette summons and later one Keeper of Secrets per battle. Can be mounted on a Chaos Steed for added mobility.
Units
Infantry
- Marauders of Slaanesh: Slannesh's warriors of pain and seduction (no, not those guys. or those guys. Look, Slaanesh has a lot of freaks working for them, ok?) The big difference between these guys and normal Mauraders is they have Immune to Psych, meaning they are far less likely to run than their cousins in the Warriors of Chaos and Norsca. Come with an Anti Large spear version, and standard version, and a tanky whip version. Use them as your cheap screeners to protect your Daemonettes from missiles. These are also your only shielded infantry options. Whip version is the most useful long term due to good/decent staying power but you may just have to forgo a traditional frontline late game. As of patch 1.2 they can get the Soporific Musk ability from research, giving them a MA/MD debuff. The whip version with the addition of Soporific Musk is actually an impressively survivable and efficient melee unit vs enemy infantry, their high defense and debuff lets them swing above their weight class, might be useful all game now. Frankly they are a lot more efficient than demonettes for their cost, though primarily a defensive unit. You can get them 15% cheaper from a common follower in campaign.
- Daemonettes: Very fast, very AP heavy, and very squishy Daemonic infantry unit. Roughly equivalent to wardancers, stats wise, but considerably faster. Has Devastating Flanker. Consider that a unit of seekers serves basically the same role but can cycle charge and flank better while also having poison, and aren't much more expensive. You may be better using whip marauders as a frontline and using chariots and cavalry over demonettes as flankers.
- Exalted Daemonettess: Faster, killier, sexier Daemonettes. Roughly equivalent to bladesingers, stats wise, but considerably faster. Has Devastating Flanker and the Soulscent passive ability, which increases their armour piercing and melee attack when within range of an enemy unit whose morale is wavering or lower. Same issue as basic Demonettes, since they should be used to flank ask yourself if you should just use a hellflayer, exalted chariot, fiends, or Heartseekers instead given all are faster, deadlier if cycle-charged, and have posion. Still a good unit of course.
- Bringers of Beguilement: These ladies come with Perfect Vigor and a contact rampage effect, so use them to try to lock an enemy in place and keep them there for a proper pounding. Also nice that they don't lose combat effectiveness as the fight goes on.
Missiles
None, until a dlc adds one possibly.
Cavalry
-all of these have poison
- Seekers: Has the potential to be one of the fastest units in the entire series, unfortunately they don’t even have any armour, so cycle charging might be your best strategy when using them. Has Devastating Flanker and Vanguard deployment, making them well suited for getting right up in the face of range-heavy armies.
- Heartseekers: Named after the unit champion of Seekers, these things are a straight upgrade. Unlike your regular seekers these guys have the Soulscent passive ability which increases their armour piercing and melee attack capability when within range of an enemy unit with morale wavering or lower. Also has Devastating Flanker and Vanguard deployment.
- Eternal Entourage: In addition to Perfect Vigour these ladies and their snake-raptors buff the melee attack and weapon strength of nearby allied heroes and lords. Useful for an alpha strike on the enemy general and will still be hitting pretty hard even in the late stages of a battle. Still fragile as all hell.
- Hellstriders: Essentially the same as the above, only they’ll cut their losses and run rather than fight to the bitter end. Will come with lances (or pincers rather) and Hellscourge whips. Another unit with Vanguard, the lance variants also get anti-large. Do not have Devastating Flanker. These have no real place in most armies, foot marauders make better chaff or frontline and seekers do the cavalry job better, use if you feel the need I guess, replace late game.
Chariots
- Seeker Chariot: A low model chariot unit with poison and Devastating Flanker. Super fast for a chariot but probably even more brittle when trapped in prolonged melee.
- Hellflayer: Essentially acts as a giant lawnmower, able to plough through infantry. Unfortunately it’s a wide target so might get singled out by ranged fire. Has Devastating Flanker but unlike the other chariots this one also has the Soulscent ability.
- Exalted Seeker Chariot: An extremely fast but extremely fragile single-entity chariot that will mow down any heavily armored infantry it comes across. Has Poison, Perfect Vigour, and Devastating Flanker.
War Beasts
- Fiend of Slaanesh: Imagine even faster, bigger, rat ogres with a debuff aura and you’d get the idea. Would be able to keep up with the rest of your forces, but unfortunately has just as much armour as the rest of them. Has the Soporific Musk passive ability which lowers enemy melee defense and melee attack.
- Chaos Furies (Slaanesh): Essentially the same as the other furies, acting like daemonic harpies with buffs from their god. In this case, speed, armour piercing and Devastating Flanker. Most importantly it has Vanguard deployment, which means it can deploy alongside your cavalry units for punishing encirclements.
Monsters
- Chaos Spawn of Slaanesh: Appeared in the Nurgle vs Slaanesh video. Will likely be used the same way you use normal Spawn, only might be faster and have better AP. Have the Soporific Musk ability like the fiends, although it was bugged and didn't work until patch 1.2.
- Soul Grinder of Slaanesh: A purely melee version of the Soul Grinder with 75 speed, anti-large, and lots of armour piercing damage. May be preferable for most uses to the keeper of secrets because they have actually good armor and fill a similar role. it is easily the toughest endgame unit you have access too. Unfortunately despite their better armor once your Keeper of secrets come with 2 free casts of every lore of Slaanesh spell from the tech tree I cant see any argument for using these anymore, the free spells will make KOS a much better value for your money.
- Keeper of Secrets: Your Greater Daemon unit is fast, has lots of weapon strength and armor piercing, as well as Blissful Rapture, Devastating Flanker, and Strider. Can cast two bound spells from the Lore of Slaanesh: Lash of Slaanesh and Acquiescence. They're powerful melee killers but they need to flank and cycle charge for best affect due to their low durability. Take advantage of their high mass and slippery animations to run in and out of the fight. Consider pairing them with N'Kari or an Exalted Keeper to form high-damage goon squads. Soul Grinders are Tankier and might be better for prolonged brawls. Campaign tech tree can give them the whole Lore of Slaanesh. Good targets for buffs to weapon damage like Mind Razor or the Slaanesh rampage buff. With the abillity to get up to 2 casts of every lore of Slaanesh spell free as bound spells from campaign techs these guys are very deadly and versatile, they lack a soul grinders armor but free magic makes them much deadlier. in campaign put your lord with as many hero's as you feel the need for and a Doomstack of just these and you'll have no trouble. for example of how to abuse the magic to the fullest, use 17-19 of these, paralyze the entire enemy army with Phantasmagoria on each unit, drop Pavane and Slicing shards on every enemy unity then flank them before Debuffing them with Acquiescence and finally rear-charging in with Hysterical frenzy and I guess you can lash them too if anything is left.
Artillery
None to speak of. You don't have any ranged units at all.
Multiplayer Strategies
Slaanesh is all about one thing, going at your opponent as fast as possible. Oh, they will resist, but you'll get your way in the end. Slaanesh really needs to find that perfect vulnerable position and slide right in. Don't go for grinding here, get into the habit of rhythmically pulling in and out to get the best result possible. Be sure to conserve as much of your unit's energy and fight too, you don't wait to climax too early. If all goes well eventually everything will come together in one big- SNAP I'm the embodiment of ecstasy and excess and even I was getting sick of the sex puns! Ok fine, you have a ton of mobility, AP and dps on your units but they will fall apart really fast if they meet stern resistance. Your units are built to flank, so if you try to take a frontal fight with any semi sturdy faction you are going to get massacred. The lack of ranged and fliers also means you will have to get to that backline the old fashioned way. It will be a Micro heavy army that will reward good timing and have one of the higher skill floors in the game. Now go teach those ungrateful bastards our horny ways!
- Beastmen: One of a few factions hornyer then you! (Rimshot). They're probably the only faction that have comparable speed to you (even if you're slightly better than them), expect a game of trying to get a charge off while not being charged in turn. That they have Archers and a sorta Artillery in the Cygor might force you to be a little bolder then you might otherwise want. Over all: an intresting match up.
- Bretonnia: This matchup is a bit complicated. On one hand, all their heavily armored knights can be quite susceptible to your abundant AP and accessible anti-large. On the other hand, they're better situated for extended combat than you are and Bretonnia has the best flying cav in the game. You might out-race any of their infantry and keep their cavalry on the run, but their Pegasus Knights have absolutely free reign to pick and choose their engagements. Need to pull out of an engagement turning sour? Well, those Pegasus Knights just swooped in and boxed in your forces. If Bretonnia brings any archers and artillery, you will definitely want to shut that shit down first; pox archers can hamper your effectiveness in combat and that can and will ruin otherwise favorable engagements. So long as you can get past any screening knights though, that shouldn't pose much of a problem for you.
- Daemons of Chaos: They're going to bring khorne and nurgle units. see their sections for how to deal with that, otherwise do your best to abuse speed and try to snipe their low-powered lords with a keeper of secrets or n'kari.
- Warriors of Chaos: Now this is a fight you'll love to take. Big, slow armored infantry with virtually no ranged options make for very easy prey for your speedy armor shredding daemons. You can effortlessly dive in and out of combat as you wish. Just try to shut down any Hellcannons and Marauding Throwing Axe Horsemen they may have brought with them and you'll be golden.
- Dark Elves: Oh look, another faction geared heavily against armored factions! Unfortunately for you, they are flexible enough to still engage non-armored units with the same or similar degrees of lethality compared to your one-note tune. What's worse, is they have chariots and infantry who can do so from range. Anti-large also frequents their forces, which can be particularly dangerous to your own chariots and monsters. The good news is that you still outstrip them in a foot race and can easily tie down their missile units, but you'll need to be extra cautious regarding any Witch Elves or Sisters of Slaughter they bring to the field.
- Dwarfs: Oh man, if you can micro well you are going to have a field day with Dwarfs. You have pretty much everything that they hate fighting from an affordable AP frontline, fast flankers to dive the backline and chariots galore. Daemonettes will likely make the most cost effective front line, and a few mauraders to screen will allow them to get in without taking too much in the way of missile fire. It's unknown whether Seekers or Hellstriders (probably Hellstriders, they can have shields) will make the better choice for cav, but either way they should be able to rapidly get around and dive those cannons and guns before they can do much damage. Even your furies have AP and Devastating Flanker, which will make them great for killing dwarf ranged units. With three options of chariots to pick from (go for normal seeker chariots, they'll be available in more numbers) you should be able to punch through their lines and dry hump that silly book of theirs. Really, the only thing that won't work are monsters as Dwarfs have plenty of missiles and Anti Large, so Fiends, Spawns and KOS can stay at home, meaning a Herald will likely be your best Lord option. If you can micro well you can dominates this match up but if not... well, prepare for a lot of your skimpy crab ladies to get turned into sexy ground beef.
- Khorne: A very rough matchup. Khorne players will ditch their chaos warriors for bloodletters that are just straight up superior to your daemonettes.No ranged units and khorne's propensity for counter-charging you makes this a very painful matchup as 'hammer and anvil' runs into khornes 'just hammer'. Abuse magic as best you can and make use of your speed to take favorable engagements if you can.
- Lizardmen: Saurus based formations will be child's play to your forces. Slow and heavily armored, even your infantry will be able to cycle charge them with impunity. Larger dinosaurs will be at your tender mercies as well, Soul Grinders, Keepers of Secrets and even just Marauders with Spears will be suited to dealing with the heavily armored beasts. The units to keep tabs on here will be the Skinks. Reasonably fast (not as fast as you, but still worth noting) and unarmored, putting all that juicy AP to waste. Units to be particularly wary of will be the Terradon Riders. You can do virtually nothing as they rain poisonous javelins from the sky, crippling and slowing your forces to be a better match for Skink Cohorts or Chameleon Stalkers. So long as you keep on the move, cycle charge their forces and try to waste as much ammo as you can, they'll eventually be forced to commit to a losing fight. Furies are a must-pick here as terradon riders can be reliably countered by them without backup.
- Norsca: A rough matchup, norscan beserkers have no armour but a fuck ton of infantry-shredding power, You might be tempted to bring along marauders with their anti-inf bonus to counter but any norscan player worth their salt WILL bring mammoths which you have little to no options to deal with.A tough matchup but winnable if you can manage to take favorable engagements with your speed but if the norscan player wises up and turtles up you're in for a rough time.
- Nurgle: This might actually be a difficult one. Your biggest strengths are speed and armor piercing, but Nurgle's units have almost no armor to begin with and don't really have a back line to speak of. Fighting them is going to be like when someone in a cartoon punches a fat guy and their arm just sinks into his gut. You don't have the things that scare Nurgle the most, namely fire damage and ranged units. Instead you're going to have to rely on your superior mobility to cycle charge his slow moving units again and again. You might not benefit from your AP but you still have substantial charge bonuses. The real question is how many charges it takes to cut through Nurgle's absurdly large health pools and healing. If you get dragged into a war of attrition you're going to lose.
- Ogre Kingdoms: Ogre artillery comes with enough meat to hold off your attacks until backup arrives and in most cases can simply 'pull through' your attacks with higher mass and they WILL bring artillery. Ogre strategy against you is to abuse your lack of anti-large and just ram you around the battlefield and eat through your roster. expect leadbelchers to cut you apart on your cycle charges and hold their own if you do manage to dive them. as for counters bring your daemons and chaos spawn and try to abuse your magic the best you can. expect a very painful battle.
- Skaven: You'll be able to dive their backline in record speeds, but you should not underestimate the firepower they can plug you with before you reach them. They'll likely have hordes of Skavenslaves to simply tie down your forces through unarmored bodies alone, so try to keep on the move.
- Slaanesh:
- Tzeentch: Tzeentch's ground units are squishy, and bad at melee, and not as fast as yours, so you should use that to your advantage by encircling them and shredding them in melee as quick as possible; they are probably the only Daemons you'll be okay with sticking around in melee with, but you should be charging as much as possible still just for the Charge Bonus. All those ranged shots won't matter if you're already up close and give them no chance to use it. Do not under any circumstances let any flamers live, they will melt through your infantry like paper and is more than worth taking furies soley to tie them down until your other units get there.
- That being said, Tzeentch also has the most flyers out of the 4 gods, so you should expect a Tzeentch player to take some of them just to fuck with you; screamers or doom knights will intercept your chariots. Tzeentch also has Barrier, which nullifies the first few hits they take in combat, which will be your charge. Models will still get thrown, they just wont get hurt right away.
- Vampire Coast: This may be a hard one since you don't have anything to counter deck droppers other than furies and most of your anti-large comes on big monsters that will get shot to pieces if the vampirates look at them funny. Go wide with marauders and daemonettes, you won't need anything tougher to take on zombie deckhands. As for the giant enemy crabs + necrofexes, you can hide your own monsters somewhere and not commit them until after you tied up their ranged units or you can try dogpiling them with seekers + marauder spearmen. Neither option is ideal, but they're the only choices you got.
- Vampire Counts: The Vampire Counts might be your comrades in terms of shunning ranged weapons but beyond that they're very different from you. You have almost no flyers, Vampires have a bunch. Your units hit really hard but are super fragile, while the undead excel at grinding you down with blobs of durable chaff. This second part is the biggest problem for you, as wars of attrition are the ultimate bane of your existence. All those flying units will also mean your great speed still won't give you your choice of engagements, as the vargheists can charge you but you can't charge the vargheists. Your best bet is probably going to be to act as a scalpel, cutting the enemy lords an heroes neatly out of their army. If you can do that the rest won't matter. Unfortunately, since a lot of their lords can take flying mounts, that will be easier said than done. Definitely bring Furies and anything that can act as an assassin or elite anti-large. The fact that their units don't route is good and bad for you. Bad because you can't stack your army abilities while fighting them, and good if you bring N'Kari as when they die he can get a ton of heals.
- Wood Elves: Calling it now, this will be an interesting mashup. You both are going to be fast, and very squishy, so dealing with their archers should be easy. However, your lack of armor on your nude beasts will make them easy targets. So basically a drag race of vegans vs virgins. Likely to go very poorly for Slaanesh as Slaaneshi armies will be paying for AP that is not going to do anything to the hippies, and Slaaneshi armies tend to be very allergic to missiles, which the wood elves are just about the most shoot happy faction in the entire game.
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