Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I think this whole topic is a little biased as its proven on most polls that khorne and nurgle are by far the most popular chaos forces right now. But if we are talking about personal experience there is a new kid at our gaming club right now who is just starting and he chose khorne. Could I see the appeal of Slaaneshi philosophy to teenage youth? yes for the above reasons. Do I think these kids are really thinking that much into it? no.... they are just playing what they think is cool at the time.

The reason I started an EC army and have played it since third? I think that Slaanesh is most comparable to the sins of today’s humanity. Moral corruption, greed, perverse desires, all of these things are the hallmark of men in any walk of life, Slaanesh is our devil, our chaos god. I just thought that interesting so decided to play an army devoted to hedonism, excess, perfection, or corruption.

Wait, are they finally making a full blown traitor guard codex for 6th edition?

op, really o.O every person who stats chaos around my are eaither goes nurgle or khorne :3

A lot of teenagers get the gods explained to them thusly -

Khorne is the god of CC.

Slaanesh is the god of pleasure and pain.

Tzeentch is the god of brains and wit.

Nurgle is the god of sickness and immortality.

And from there they pick what they want.

Nurgle wrote:
While I dont mine another Chaos player to join the ranks, I somtimes wonder if they are picking Slaanesh for the whole rocknroll, drugs, and lets just refer to the last one as "sailing" to keep this thread PG

I think it has more to do with the uhh... "sailing" than the noise and drugs. Personally I would probably go Khorne or Slaanesh if I played daemons or CSM, like the idea of rushing in hand to hand, or using noise weapons and having a high initiative.

Eiríkr wrote:It irks me more that you think Slaanesh is only about sex, drugs and rock n' roll. It may not be your fault though, more so the prevalent theme throughout Slaanesh is not supported enough by both GW and playerbase - perfection. Whatever though, this thread reeks of ignorance. I am 23, sport a beard and enjoy progressive metal yet Slaanesh is my patron God... Oh, whoops...

Slaanesh is about excess, not perfection. It's been that way since the 1980's.

Platuan4th wrote:

Eiríkr wrote:It irks me more that you think Slaanesh is only about sex, drugs and rock n' roll. It may not be your fault though, more so the prevalent theme throughout Slaanesh is not supported enough by both GW and playerbase - perfection. Whatever though, this thread reeks of ignorance. I am 23, sport a beard and enjoy progressive metal yet Slaanesh is my patron God... Oh, whoops...

Slaanesh is about excess, not perfection.

Perfection is excess. It is excessive obsession with being better. One could simply try to be reasonably good or even the best at something, but becoming perfect is an effort in futility. You want to perfect sword fighting? Well you have to train constantly, you have to get into duels whenever possible to ensure that you know how to defeat all manner of opponents, you have to learn every other swordsmanship style, eventually swordsmanship will dominate your life just like crack cocaine if you get addicted to it.

Buttons wrote:

Platuan4th wrote:

Eiríkr wrote:It irks me more that you think Slaanesh is only about sex, drugs and rock n' roll. It may not be your fault though, more so the prevalent theme throughout Slaanesh is not supported enough by both GW and playerbase - perfection. Whatever though, this thread reeks of ignorance. I am 23, sport a beard and enjoy progressive metal yet Slaanesh is my patron God... Oh, whoops...

Slaanesh is about excess, not perfection.

Perfection is excess. It is excessive obsession with being better. One could simply try to be reasonably good or even the best at something, but becoming perfect is an effort in futility. You want to perfect sword fighting? Well you have to train constantly, you have to get into duels whenever possible to ensure that you know how to defeat all manner of opponents, you have to learn every other swordsmanship style, eventually swordsmanship will dominate your life just like crack cocaine if you get addicted to it.

Yes, perfection is excessive, but my point is not ALL Slaanesh worshipers seek perfection, many seek excess for excess' sake. Take Noise Marines for instance. They're not seeking perfection of anything, they're seeking to find ANYTHING that will stimulate them because they've overloaded and blown their pleasure centers seeking the next excess they can experience through sound.

Saying Slaanesh is about perfection is as limiting and narrow as saying Slaanesh is sex, drugs, and rock n' roll.

Platuan4th wrote:

Buttons wrote:

Platuan4th wrote:

Eiríkr wrote:It irks me more that you think Slaanesh is only about sex, drugs and rock n' roll. It may not be your fault though, more so the prevalent theme throughout Slaanesh is not supported enough by both GW and playerbase - perfection. Whatever though, this thread reeks of ignorance. I am 23, sport a beard and enjoy progressive metal yet Slaanesh is my patron God... Oh, whoops...

Slaanesh is about excess, not perfection.

Perfection is excess. It is excessive obsession with being better. One could simply try to be reasonably good or even the best at something, but becoming perfect is an effort in futility. You want to perfect sword fighting? Well you have to train constantly, you have to get into duels whenever possible to ensure that you know how to defeat all manner of opponents, you have to learn every other swordsmanship style, eventually swordsmanship will dominate your life just like crack cocaine if you get addicted to it.

Yes, perfection is excessive, but my point is not ALL Slaanesh worshipers seek perfection, many seek excess for excess' sake. Take Noise Marines for instance. They're not seeking perfection of anything, they're seeking to find ANYTHING that will stimulate them because they've overloaded and blown their pleasure centers seeking the next excess they can experience through sound.

Saying Slaanesh is about perfection is as limiting and narrow as saying Slaanesh is sex, drugs, and rock n' roll.

Except many Slaanesh worshipers are all about perfection and Slaanesh isn't just the God(dess) of drug addicts and sluts (s)he is also the God(dess) of people trying to better themselves. The Chaos Gods are not overt in how they manipulate people into joining them, you don't just wake up one day and think "I will join Chaos today" it is a process that even well meaning and good people can fall to. Take for example Khorne, Khorne may be portrayed as "hurr durr smash" but it doesn't mean that all of his followers were always like that. One could have been a highly competent guardsman sent into a bloody campaign, and who managed to survive a year of warfare where 80% of his regiment was killed and what remained was combined with two less bloodied regiments. The process continues for almost a decade until the guardsman (now the regiment XO lets say) thinks of nothing but slaughter, not because he is a maniac, but because it is all he has witnessed for decades, any friends he makes are inevitably killed, any feats outside of killing (such as saving another guardsman) are ultimately futile (since the guardsman will die eventually in battle). Eventually the men under his command start to follow his example and the regiment slowly starts to fall to the Blood God until they are declared heretics or seize the initiative and wage war on their own.

That same guardsman could also fall to Slaanesh (by becoming obsessed with perfecting the art of pragmatic warfare), Nurgle (by falling into despair and submitting to Nurgle simply to end his suffering), and even Tzneetch (by wanting power, if only to help end the senseless slaughter that he has to witness). Chaos followers need not be black and white psychopaths, they can easily be well written, sympathetic characters, if they aren't it is simply because the writer can't create a good villain.

feth, now I want to create a CSM or traitor guard army centered around such a situation (regiment XO falling to chaos after decades of warfare).

Edit: You specifically said Slaanesh was not about perfection at all, I was simply saying Slaanesh was about perfection to a degree, I never said every Slaanesh worshiper was obsessed with perfection, many are simply extravagant nobles or desensitized hedonists. Even debauchery isn't all sex, drugs, and rock and roll, there is gluttony as well, there is megalomania, wanting something simply because it is bigger or better, hell there is a thread in the /tg/ archive about slaanesh cults in which people brought up that a Slaanesh follower with power might send people to their deaths for stupid reasons simply because they get enjoyment out of wasting resources.

I'd say Slannesh pops up in 40k books as the most common Chaos God. Its partly because its most obviously corruption of morals and that creates a much more believable downfall like in Fulgrim. Plus, you can at least communicate with Slanneshi followers whilst you can't with nurgle (zombies) or Khorne (maniacs) whilst Tzeentch has an image problem since they're just really good sorcerers. The god himself is fine with the emphasis on manipulation but its not clear what he represents.

Basically Slannesh is the most god which lends itself most to the written word and describing corruption.

Modelling and gaming wise. Khorne n Nurgle are the best since they have the best stats and the object is killing things; therefore maniacs n zombies are fine.

Buttons wrote:
Except many Slaanesh worshipers are all about perfection and Slaanesh isn't just the God(dess) of drug addicts and sluts (s)he is also the God(dess) of people trying to better themselves.

Way to ignore my last sentence there. And my point, AGAIN.

Yes, some Slaanesh worshipers seek to better themselves, but they do it to EXCESS(which you keep referring to as perfection).

And yes, it starts covertly.

That doesn't change that Slaanesh is the god of excess(GW states this in all versions, even the older, better, more multifaceted versions where Khorne was also about Martial honor), but it's excess in ALL THINGS, even bettering yourself or if you limit that excess to a single thing.

Great White wrote:Yeah, I'm jumping on the thing of everyone starts with Khorne or Nurgle. I'm a teenager and my favorite is Khorne, least favorite being Slaanesh. I don't see why he/she would appeal to anyone(besides Fulgrim). I guess I just am not into man women.

Solidarity Brother! If I can't batter/slash/stab them with it, I ain't interested.

Wins

Platuan4th wrote:

Buttons wrote:
Except many Slaanesh worshipers are all about perfection and Slaanesh isn't just the God(dess) of drug addicts and sluts (s)he is also the God(dess) of people trying to better themselves.

Way to ignore my last sentence there. And my point, AGAIN.

Yes, some Slaanesh worshipers seek to better themselves, but they do it to EXCESS(which you keep referring to as perfection).

And yes, it starts covertly.

That doesn't change that Slaanesh is the god of excess(GW states this in all versions, even the older, better, more multifaceted versions where Khorne was also about Martial honor), but it's excess in ALL THINGS, even bettering yourself or if you limit that excess to a single thing.

*Missed my main point in both posts*
I never said Slaanesh wasn't about excess, I was saying that the excess includes perfection. I never said everyone who follows Slaanesh does so out of perfection, nor that perfection isn't excess (my first post quoting yours specifically says perfection is excess).

Whut? I thought that Slaves to Darkness established Slaanesh as the God of Pleasure and Physical Sensation and that sorta thing.

@Platuan4th:

Sorry chap, brain fart. If I were thinking properly yesterday [or was it the day before, struggling!] I would have amended for excess and perfection, although neither are reliant upon the other. Regardless, I am a little offended as to why you have called me out for this when the OP has taken the wrong end of the stick completely and rammed Slaanesh into that horrible little niche most people seem to take it for. Damnable heat, I am a little irritable in the sun.

Started a Slaanesh army because all my other armies were ranged, so decided to go with a melee based one to add diversity. Then the reason I didn't go with Khorne is I find most of the models to be somewhat goofy in a way; just don't like them for some reason. I do have a small Tzeentch force, but with the current horrors it will likely remain somewhat small for the time being. As for Nurgle, just like Khorne I don't really like the aesthetic of it.

Though if it matters I started Chaos at first with Tzeentch. Probably will end up going back to it again later as well, the freedom it seems to have is nice. Though gameplay wise it just felt too much like the same old with a different wrapper. I guess also Slaanesh gives a reason to try and mess around with pinks and purples a little, one of the things I try to do with a new force is give it something unique to it in terms of painting to make it more interesting to work on and watch it as it progresses. This was the main problem with my Eldar as I kept trying new schemes all the time and ended up with skittles more or less.

The only real problem is Chaos undivided.

In my experience the ONLY slaanesh player in my old games group was a slaanesh die hard from way back when. In previous editions of 40k slaanesh was largely unloved by the masses being out done by Khorne and Nurgle hands down, this may have been the fact that they were the only plastic (and hence cheaper) models. Back then Tzeentch was as shooty and had a slight edge in that it was more durable than slaanesh so that was often the 3rd choice. It wasn't till Havoc squads became capable of fielding 5 blastmasters in the previous codex that slaanesh got into the spotlight. And I guess that started the next gen of slaanesh worshipping hedonists of the modern age...

Or at least thats my theory...

Generally, it seems younger players jump towards Slaanesh and Khorne, because they're the easiest to understand (Rawr, violence and sex appeal)

That doesn't make them inherently "bad" or anything, it just seems to be a trend.

I chose Slaanesh because I think it's the Chaos god that makes most sense.

Slaanesh is not the God of pleasure and pain in a sexual nature. He is the God of pleasure in excess. When I think of Slaanesh, I think of Cenobites (Hellraiser). Slaanesh cares almost as much for his followers as Grandfather Nurgle. He only asks that whatever you want to do (art, music, slaughter, dance) do it to the absolute extreme. When you think you have reached that, then he will take you that much further. Look at Lucius the Eternal, his lust for combat would rival any berserker however, unlike berserkers who are mad with a blood frenzy to honor Khorne, Lucius takes the utmost pleasure in how sadistic he can be with his slaughter, so much so that if anyone takes any pleasure in killing him, they become his new host. The reason it seems that Slaanesh is all about S&M is an excess of anything you get pleasure from eventually leads to pain.
For example, say you love playing the violin, so much that you obsess about it, it will delight in your enjoyment and offer you the ability to be the very best, but as you attain being the best, you play until your fingers bleed, until you are one with your violin as your blood soaks into the instrument and it becomes a living, breathing entity that reacts to your every whim. No one could play better than you but you cannot do anything else and with Slaanesh's influence, you do not care since it is all part of the sacrifice.

Shadox wrote:

Alsath wrote:Slaanesh is my first pick because of aesthetics; the Keeper of Secrets is one my favourite models, and Slaanesh folk have a lot of traditional demon looks about them if you're thinking the goat/bull-headed type.

Aren't the Khorne-daemons supposed to look the most like "classic" daemons?

Depends on your view really, I see generally 2 different types of demons, the 'hell' type (Khorne) and the 'baphomet' type (slaanesh). I like both, but the baphomet to me has always been more appealing because of it's more earthly nature and origin.

Rivet wrote:[When I think of Slaanesh, I think of Cenobites (Hellraiser).

Yes! I forgot about that, but indeed there is something very hellraiser about Slaanesh. It's extremely intense and sometimes I find my self leaning more towards Tzeentch because Slaanesh just got too much

Buttons wrote:Except many Slaanesh worshipers are all about perfection and Slaanesh isn't just the God(dess) of drug addicts and sluts (s)he is also the God(dess) of people trying to better themselves. The Chaos Gods are not overt in how they manipulate people into joining them, you don't just wake up one day and think "I will join Chaos today" it is a process that even well meaning and good people can fall to. Take for example Khorne, Khorne may be portrayed as "hurr durr smash" but it doesn't mean that all of his followers were always like that. One could have been a highly competent guardsman sent into a bloody campaign, and who managed to survive a year of warfare where 80% of his regiment was killed and what remained was combined with two less bloodied regiments. The process continues for almost a decade until the guardsman (now the regiment XO lets say) thinks of nothing but slaughter, not because he is a maniac, but because it is all he has witnessed for decades, any friends he makes are inevitably killed, any feats outside of killing (such as saving another guardsman) are ultimately futile (since the guardsman will die eventually in battle). Eventually the men under his command start to follow his example and the regiment slowly starts to fall to the Blood God until they are declared heretics or seize the initiative and wage war on their own.

That same guardsman could also fall to Slaanesh (by becoming obsessed with perfecting the art of pragmatic warfare), Nurgle (by falling into despair and submitting to Nurgle simply to end his suffering), and even Tzneetch (by wanting power, if only to help end the senseless slaughter that he has to witness). Chaos followers need not be black and white psychopaths, they can easily be well written, sympathetic characters, if they aren't it is simply because the writer can't create a good villain.

That makes next to no sense. That's not how people fall to Chaos at all.

The Ruinous powers want things. They want humans to do things for them. They offer humans things in return. What each Power offers is different.

Slaanesh offers pleasures of the flesh and sensory stimulation. This can cover things like the pursuit of excellence. It also covers people who just like sex, drugs and rock and roll. Which group do you think is the larger? One appeals to everybody on some level, while the other only appeals to tiny tiny niche of society. I'll let you choose which.

Khorne offers martial success. A warrior doesn't fall to Khorne because he's bloodthirsty, or because he's been repeatedly exposed to bloodshed. He falls to Chaos because he chooses to do things for Khorne in return for martial success.

Tzeentch offers mortals political power, sorcerous power, etc.

Nurgle... well, Nurgle offers people pustules and stuff. I guess that might appeal to people certain of death due to illness or something.

I'm a bit older and have enjoyed the background for a pretty long time and know that Slaanesh is more than sex, drugs and jazz flute. There's so much more to Slaanesh than this and it's why I chose him. That and because they link pink ...

To me, Slaanesh is perhaps the most evil of the Gods. He is the soul destroyer, he has a hunger for you that can never be sated. He is a God that will tolerate no other, he is a jealous and wrathful Master. He will grant you your boon, only for you to never experience the same pleasures again until you eventually consume yourself, leaving you a hollow and soulless husk. All joys can be known to you, but he will leave you empty and screaming to feel.

It's like everything you do is never as good as it first was and you keep doing more and more things to recreate the original high in a way, but as soon as something works, the next time you try it, it leaves you wanting the original feeling, but you can never obtain it.

The notion that Slaanesh is just about pleasure is a watered down version that doesn't focus on the true meaning of what it is to be damned or to embrace damnation. It misses the point and is no longer about the destruction of the soul.

Yeah I never got the whole fascination with Nurgle either. But if some people call that "immortality" then uh... cool have fun. The only thing I like about Nurgle is FnP and +1 Toughness! I think a lot of people who like him do so for that reason, though I'm sure plenty genuinely like him for other reasons.

I'm not in the hobby for long (since 2009 I think) and I'm planning to start a Slaanesh force, so perhaps I'm one of the players you are talking about.

In local tourney scene most Chaos players actually have Nurge or Khorne armies, and Im not really into the cheesy "Blood for the Blood God" hype. Slaanesh I prefer for being an egoistic, hedonistic god, and hedonism is something that most people enjoy to some degree. To me, to worship Slaanesh is to truly embrace that "evil" side of humanity.

I'm also a horror movie fan and my favorite serie is Hellraiser - and themes in Hellraiser are pretty close to the theme of Slaanesh.

What I hate about Slaanesh though are the pink paintjobs and cheesy Noise Marines with guitars.

PS: Yes, I love music, drugs and sailing

Pilau Rice wrote:I'm a bit older and have enjoyed the background for a pretty long time and know that Slaanesh is more than sex, drugs and jazz flute. There's so much more to Slaanesh than this and it's why I chose him. That and because they link pink ...

To me, Slaanesh is perhaps the most evil of the Gods. He is the soul destroyer, he has a hunger for you that can never be sated. He is a God that will tolerate no other, he is a jealous and wrathful Master. He will grant you your boon, only for you to never experience the same pleasures again until you eventually consume yourself, leaving you a hollow and soulless husk. All joys can be known to you, but he will leave you empty and screaming to feel.

It's like everything you do is never as good as it first was and you keep doing more and more things to recreate the original high in a way, but as soon as something works, the next time you try it, it leaves you wanting the original feeling, but you can never obtain it.

The notion that Slaanesh is just about pleasure is a watered down version that doesn't focus on the true meaning of what it is to be damned or to embrace damnation. It misses the point and is no longer about the destruction of the soul.

This! Is what I was trying to say. I just got more convoluted in my wording. Yes a lot of people fall to Slaanesh because of sex, drugs, and rock n roll, and by all means Slaanesh will take that, but think of those souls as going to the fridge and getting a ham sandwich. Yes it will satisfy but you will be hungry again, it is a filler to get you to the next meal. Now those who you can truly "feed upon" are those you can push beyond and truly devour a soul worth eating. Think of those who push themselves further into your service willingly and do not realize they are falling to you. These souls are like a steak that happens to be all you can eat.

I don't see what's so problematic.

Slaanesh I feel is perhaps the best representation of the Id, the closest to modern day Lucifer out of all the Chaos Gods, luring you to his, her, it's side with promises of pleasure and excess beyond compare for the measly price of your soul.

If you want evil, I really think Slaanesh does it best.

Kaldor wrote:
That makes next to no sense. That's not how people fall to Chaos at all.

The Ruinous powers want things. They want humans to do things for them. They offer humans things in return. What each Power offers is different.

Slaanesh offers pleasures of the flesh and sensory stimulation. This can cover things like the pursuit of excellence. It also covers people who just like sex, drugs and rock and roll. Which group do you think is the larger? One appeals to everybody on some level, while the other only appeals to tiny tiny niche of society. I'll let you choose which.

Khorne offers martial success. A warrior doesn't fall to Khorne because he's bloodthirsty, or because he's been repeatedly exposed to bloodshed. He falls to Chaos because he chooses to do things for Khorne in return for martial success.

Tzeentch offers mortals political power, sorcerous power, etc.

Nurgle... well, Nurgle offers people pustules and stuff. I guess that might appeal to people certain of death due to illness or something.

Except no. That's an incredibly limited view of things, and I would be greatly surprised if even a hundredth of those who have fallen to Chaos fell in such a clear cut manner. Really, do you think a Chaos God just walks up to someone and goes, 'hey, I know you're having issues with X, serve me forever and I'll help you out?'

Just look at the Horus Heresy. Everything that went on with Argel Tal, and the primarchs scattering. You think the Chaos Gods did that just for kicks and giggles? It just so happened that Mortarion landed on a poisonious world and fell to Nurgle, right? And Khorne was raised a gladiator and thus given the Butcher's Nails, and he just happened to fall to Khorne right? Lorgar's own corruption started with him becoming a priest on his homeworld. A priest to the worship of the Dark Gods, though he didn't know it at the time.

I'm sorry, but Buttons is right.

(fluff-wise)

I've never really 'got' Tzeentch. God of "Change" what's that? Barack Obama? What does it stand for? I think that focusing more on its magic/psyker aspects will sell it better. Though still trying to avoid being a simple 'God of Harry Potter'.

Nurgle: Probably my favourite though I'm not really a Chaos player at heart.

Khorne: Battle and violence- simple. Perhaps lacking in vision, but it suits the dystopian world and the Warp well.

Slaanesh- Great, the God of "pleasure" without the Dark Eldar nastyness. (Not that I'm against DE per se) And what King Pariah said:

King Pariah wrote:
Slaanesh I feel is perhaps the best representation of the Id, the closest to modern day Lucifer out of all the Chaos Gods, luring you to his, her, it's side with promises of pleasure and excess beyond compare for the measly price of your soul.

If you want evil, I really think Slaanesh does it best.

Macok wrote:Soooo you like Nurgle because you are mature and smart, but when somebody like Slaanesh he's immature and pubescent? I don't get this topic and I never understood categorizing players by faction they like.
And I honestly thought that Khorne or Tzeentch were the default pick guys.

This poll would suggest S as the least liked chaos god. The data wasn't gathered among "young, new chaos players" but still.

What dose that have to do with anything? Mature and smart what?