Back to Secret League

Slaanesh Teams

Player Pics


Player Icons
Slaanesh Elves

Slaangors

Slaanesh Warriors


Background
Slaanesh Teams were the last of the aligned Warriors of Chaos teams to start playing Bloodbowl. Slaanesh only commanded his followers to form a team after Khorne teams started appearing.

Slaanesh directly opposed Khorne who only believed in self sacrifice and suffering. Slaanesh respected life and gained pleasure not through killing life forms, but through pain and perfection... achieving the perfect balance of inflicting and suffering pain, and finesse.

Rationale
Slaanesh teams represent the Slaanesh Warriors of Chaos, in the same way Nurgle Teams represent Nurgle Warriors of Chaos. The aim of this roster was to create a team in the same vein as the existing Nurgle team has been; basically with no lesser daemons in like Daemonettes and absolutely no Greater Daemons.

To my eye the basic principals behind achieving this is first and foremost use the Gor specific to that god, in Nurgle teams this is the Pestigor and in Slaanesh teams it is the Slaangor. Pestigors were then given skills that are true to the image of their god, so they gained Regeneration and Nurgles Rot. Slaangors were given the skills Very Long Legs and Prehensile Tail. These skills were chosen as they seemed to be the two mutations most suited to Slaanesh with the exception of Claw. The reason I left Claw off the Slaangors was firstly because the warriors have them and I did not want the two positional players to be too similar and secondly I did not want the team to be too bashy.

Prehensile Tail was an obvious choice as many of the creatures of Slaanesh have a tail, often with a spike on the end similar to a scorpion. Prehensile Tail is also fairly synonymous with Slaanesh much like Foul Appearance is with Nurgle, and has been ever since the Realms of Chaos Slaves to Darkness book in which it was one of their more effective mutation choices.

Very Long Legs was then the next choice; this adds the extra Ma to the Gor which is how the skill used to work in previous editions of the rules, and it adds to their potential for being more mobile than your average Gor. High Ma is also synonymous with Slaanesh, many of their troops ride steeds or chariots and their foot-soldiers have a higher than average Ma. I also like how Very Long Legs adds to the Slaangors androgyny and makes them resemble their greater daemon more.

To complete the transformation the Gors Av was lowered to 7 as it is more in keeping with Slaanesh troops relatively low toughness and similarly changing their skill access from S to A to again push them towards hit and run players instead of the standard grinding Gors of the normal chaos team, it also fits in their theme of masochism. The Gors Horns gives them that added punch true to Slaanesh troops type, but leaving them with St access would detract from the teams unique playing style and would allow them to develop into a very bashy player too easily.

Next came changing the unaligned Chaos Warrior to represent the lesser daemons they are aligned to, again Nurgle Warriors skill set is very similar to how you would imagine a Plaguebearer would be represented in Bloodbowl. So in this case the warriors need to be built to represent a Daemonette. So the two obvious choices are Claw and Very Long Legs. Claw is synonymous with Daemonettes so it was an easy choice and Very Long Legs was selected for the same reasons the Slaangors were given it. Both increasing the Warriors Ma and adding to their androgyny.

Deciding how to handle the Chaos Warriors stat line was the hardest thing to do in this roster. Because the Warriors start with Claw (which was unavoidable) anything higher than St3 seemed too great for such an agile team. As the design goal of the Warriors was to emulate the Daemonettes St3 seemed only right, but I kept Av9 as they are still wearing chaos warrior armour. The skill access was also changed from St to Ag again to push the team down the Slaanesh path of hit and run style play. Claw gives the team some real punch, and the extra Ma on the Gor and Warrior, plus Very Long Legs and A access means that the team has far greater ability to develop in the hit and run style of Slaanesh, mixing finesse and beautiful play with deadly sadistic killers.

Because of the nature of the team there was no need to consider a Big Guy and Slaanesh do not have any creature that would be suitable for this role anyway. Fiends could be considered I guess but I have never liked the idea of a Fiend playing Bloodbowl it has the same sort of feeling as allowing a Unicorn to play really, and yes there used to be a Unicorn called Lucky Luc but thankfully it was removed from the rules pretty quick.

Finally came the job of filling the linemen positional. In the Nurgle team this is filled with Rotters. In Slaanesh the obvious choice was Slaanesh Elves or Slaves to Darkness as I have called them, this is a nod to their true background. Stories of Slaanesh Elves are found in most iterations of Warhammer in one book or another. The Slaanesh elves are often found in stories of defected elves that worship Slaanesh. These elves were originally part of a cult called the Cult of Pleasure and it was believed a conflict between elves and the elves of the cult was how the Dark Elves originally formed. There are still stories of High Elves defecting as well, though any caught are punished with death. The Slaanesh elves are basically your standard elf linemen though they have access to mutation skills so starting them with Av7 was a no brainer.

As Khornes polar opposite and bitter rival it made sense to make the Slaanesh team focused on finesse and hit and run style play as opposed to the Khorne teams all out bash style. This team really treads the line between being very good and too good so Re-rolls had to start off at 70k. Although on paper this team may look incredible, the low Av of the Gors plus high cost of all the players makes this a tricky team to use until it has got a number of games under its belt and then it should flourish.

Season 2 Changes
Slaanesh teams performed a little below the desired level, playing 226 games with a win percentage of 45%. I had originally wanted the Slaanesh Warriors to be St4 and Av8 but feared the team might be too good. As it has ag4, claw, Mutation access etc... So I originally gave the team St3 av9 Warriors to see how they did. As they performed below the level I wanted I have given them the original stat line I wanted to. This is a big buff though so I will be watching this closely.

Season 3
No changes made, and I am still watching this one closely as they do look on paper as if they have the potential to be too powerful. However since changing to the roster they are currently using they have played 412 games with a win percentage of 50.85% which puts them in the tier 1 bracket and would suggest there is no issue with them. I think given time this roster has the potential to be a top drawer team in the right hands so it is not locked in place just yet, I would like to continue to watch them for a longer period of time before locking them in.

Season 4 Changes
Roster is performing fine, still at a win percentage around 50.8%. The Slaangors are still not being taken so I have decided to increase their Ag to 4 and remove Very Long Legs. Increasing their players cost to 100k. They now have a defined role in the team as Runners, and backfield blitzers. The justification of the Ag4 is down to the mark of Slaanesh bestowed upon them. It is a small stretch but it was needed to make them more of a focus on the team instead of a luxury player that was too hard to develop.

Team design, rationale and background by Garion.
Player Pics drawn by Knut_Rockie and coloured by Garion
Icons by Garion and Cowhead