Postby Raffa » Fri 03 May, 2013 8:36 am
For complexity's sake then...
So we have a tic/tac/tic/rap opening. AC and grenade launchers split between the 2 tic squads. Then T2
Army Composition
Slaanesh Commander (SC) then comes in. He is followed by fully upgrading CSM into KCSM, with eternal war and champion, and raptor AC. In general, Raptors jump in to suppress as much as possible so that AC tics, KCSM and SC can get in close to cause the damage. Vanilla SC will do significant damage and begin inflicting model losses to start his demoralizing effect. AC tics engage to tie up as much as possible whilst SC and KCSM go after the highest value targets.
This is where his upgrades come in. Buying Mask of Pain will really allow the KCSM to, at least for a time, compete with some more dedicated melee squads in a vaguely similar way to how apo can let ASM punch above their weight with heals/combat stims/etc. They will hit harder, do more specials for disruption (and not be special attacked very often) and chase hard. However they will be more vulnerable and lose 2% of their sizable hp every second, so the incentive is there to really use them while you can. Bearing in mind the SC has demoralize to somewhat counteract the negative effects of Focus of Pain and you can hopefully see that the idea with SC is to try to give Chaos the option of an army that can be more than the sum of its parts - you're just not going to get anything like the best out of this guy unless you use him in conjuction with your main force. Mask of Pain also synergises quite well with tics and can make them very dangerous, but this carries the increased risk aswell of making an already fragile unit even more vulnerable. If TCSM were taken it could be used on them to further increase their anti-infantry potential or simply it would be used on the SC to give him melee skill 90 and turn him into something of a beast in melee. With his inability to get significant health bonuses however, this gives an already far from robust, expensive single model a large target sign. Bear in mind it's also 80 energy on a 100 energy commander so he can't use other abilities if he pops this.
If faced with a powerful ranged squad, the Tome of Pleasure upgrade becomes very tempting. Shutting down a ranged squad has so many benefits don’t think I have to list them. Most importantly it will give some time for the SC and melee units to get closer to actually getting to melee. At 40 energy, this also leaves room for a use of Sonic Burst (default ability) that you wouldn’t be able to use if just blindly going for Mask of Pain.
Counters
As far as counters go, SC should effectively be treated as a punchier, softer Librarian without but who is going to have to get stuck in to maximise his effectiveness. He can be focus fired down quickly or overwhelmed in melee. Sternguard, upgraded shootas, TCSM, Purgation, Termagaunts, Warp Spiders and Devils/IG ranged blob are the ranged counters that immediately come to mind as being highly effective. Taking him down in melee is deliberately trickier – if he hasn’t used Focus of Pain he can do a burst of knockdown with Sonic Burst, although this does knock down allies also. In a well-synergised Chaos army he will be very hard to take down. However, with his mediocre hp he is very vulnerable to knockdown as well as swamping. Upgraded sluggas/storms, banshees and other dedicated melee squads are a very serious threat to him. Overall though, treat him vaguely as a Libby for target purposes and the counters reveal themselves.
Cost efficiency
For cost efficiency/performance he would vary tbh. A player who doesn’t know what he’s doing and blindly throws him into melee expecting him to kick ass like a force commander isn’t going to end up well and there will probably be people who go on these forums saying OMG SC IS SO SHIT BUFFBUFF NOWNOWNOW!!! If he’s used in tandem with the army as a whole, and if you’ve built your army correctly, then he will be quite a formidable proposition. With Mask of Pain he’s costing 400/85 for an 800hp model, but he has some very powerful support/lockdown abilities that can change the course of engagements. It’s no small investment in him at the vanilla 325/60 cost when you bear in mind that this is a melee subcommander, and this type of unit is notorious for dying. But his power grows hugely with his upgrades and I can see the Focus of Pain on KCSM in combination with the SC for Demoralize becoming a very strong, alternative way of playing Chaos. Worth noting also that Mask of Pain is also designed to work for tank-hunting; Plague Marines benefit most from this, with the extra speed and damage, but they have a lot of hp and will be losing it passively even if not being shot at. Works for Las havocs to an extent aswell. If you can afford it, Mask of Pain perhaps works best with Bloodletters as, if you can get some worship up, they will become a melee superiority unit, if fighting alongside the SC for the debuff.
Conclusion
The Slaanesh Commander built this way is a viable alternative to the bread and butter Chaos Tier 2. But again it requires that you make the army fight as one. So to conclude, players who just pick him blindly will get something from him, but it won’t come close to justifying the investment. If you know how he’s meant to function on the other hand, and have an army to support him, he’ll be immensely rewarding – the more you give him, the more you’ll get out of him.
