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I don't know about you but I always found it peculiar that Slaanesh is the only god not to have a Special Character Greater Daemon by default (not counting the FW super-Daemons of course). In fact, without Forgeworld, there's only *one* Special Character for Slaanesh, while Khorne and Tzeentch get three each!

The question becomes, what would make for an interesting Keeper of Secrets, that isn't simply a "Keeper+1"? Fateweaver is a near autoinclude, despite having an inferior statline to a bog-standard Lord of Change, on mere account of having a useful Warlord Trait and better Psyker rules. Skarbrand on the other hand is even more useless than a standard Bloodthirster, on account of lacking wings, and being all too easy to shoot dead. Ku'Guath is a tankier Unclean One.

The question is, what should our Keeper represent? Let's come up with a name, backstory, and some powers.

I'd probably give it a weaker passive invisibility so needing 5+ to hit him/her when shooting it, or instead of that force anything that attempts to shoot the KOS to take a leadership check if they fail they have to forgo shooting.

Probably call the ability Siren as a throw back to the old minor psychic power that was in the 3.5 chaos dex.

As for the name of the special character i'm honestly shocked N'Kari isn't already a special character considering how much fluff he has.

N'Kari was a Daemon Prince back in 2nd edition. He was a Psyker, fighter, and had the (humorously defined) Rod of Command. If he was a full-fledged Keeper, things would have been interesting as is. Ah well.

There's a certain part of me that is amused by the idea of a winged keeper, akin to a giant flying succubus.

It's always easy to just make a bigger, shinier beatstick with a couple of new nails driven into it. I think the real challenge with making something uniquely Slaanesh-feeling is that, as you said, you need to drive in to what this thing's story and style is.

What I think would be cool is something that drives enemies to overexertion. He gets them so caught up in the thrill of battle that they make mistakes. Heavy gunners exalt at the roar of their guns so they keep firing. Melee fighters get lost in bloodlust and swing wildly, exhausting themselves.

The question is how to translate that into rules. The way I would do it is that every time our Special Keeper is targetted with an attack, after the attack is resolved, the unit who launched the attack must take a Leadership test. If it fails, they are reduced to WS1/BS1 as they struggle to find ammo that they recklessly spent, or are overwhelmed by exhaustion.

 curran12 wrote:
It's always easy to just make a bigger, shinier beatstick with a couple of new nails driven into it. I think the real challenge with making something uniquely Slaanesh-feeling is that, as you said, you need to drive in to what this thing's story and style is.

What I think would be cool is something that drives enemies to overexertion. He gets them so caught up in the thrill of battle that they make mistakes. Heavy gunners exalt at the roar of their guns so they keep firing. Melee fighters get lost in bloodlust and swing wildly, exhausting themselves.

The question is how to translate that into rules. The way I would do it is that every time our Special Keeper is targetted with an attack, after the attack is resolved, the unit who launched the attack must take a Leadership test. If it fails, they are reduced to WS1/BS1 as they struggle to find ammo that they recklessly spent, or are overwhelmed by exhaustion.

This sounds cool, I also like the Siren ability.

Take avatar of Khaine abilities, throw them on a keeper of secrets, bam, the possessed avatar from the fluff, not amazing, but fluffy

I've always liked the idea of a Midas-themed Slaaneshi daemon that turns enemies to gold with its touch. It would probably work better as a herald than as a greater daemon, but I like the idea of a pair of abilities like this:

Gilding Touch: On a to-hit roll of six, the target model must immediately pass a strength test (before to-wound rolls) or be removed as a casualty.

Horrific Treasury: Replace models removed as casualties by GildingTouch with a suitable marker. The marker is considered impassible terrain. At the end of the game, the Daemons player receives 1 VP for each such marker as (Name Here) lays claim to his newest treasures!

Just spitballing, I also like these ideas:
* A daemon that gets more and more pumped up each consecutive turn it spends in combat, but loses steam each turn it spends out of combat; gotta keep that party goin'!

* Something mawloc-ish. I like the idea of a greater tentacle daemon that pops up out of the ground to attack things.

* A GMC hunter; something that gets more potent the bigger and scarier its opponent is as it uses impossible grace and Devil May Cry style attacks to bring down larger foes.

* A Shub-Niggurath fertility monstrosity that spawns daemottes (or some sort of Slaaneshi pixie-style nurgling swarm?) if it doesn't move? A big, stationary swarm-maker would be an interesting counterpoint to the other, faster slaaneshi daemons.

* BIG daemon on an even bigger super seeker/fiend/chariot. Basically just a super seeker or chariot type model. I mostly just like the idea of a Slaaneshi wyld hunt type of thing.

* Super desire daemon. Choose one of threeish options that you force all models within a certain range to desire beyond reason. So you might force guys to move towards an objective (so shiny!) if they can, force them to try and charge into combat (such a thrilling melee!), or simply do a streamlined version of the dominate power as they bask in the overwhelming beauty of the daemon.

Just a few thoughts.

Keeper of Secrets is considered an auto include with the new update, give him soulstealer, psycher level 3 (try and roll invis) and give him 2 greater rewards and you get lucky and roll good on rewards and invisibility you have yourself the most powerful Greater Daemon in the game bar Be'lakor. He is the cheapest Greater Daemon and with upgrades he is still a steal for what he is capable of. Here is an example

Lets say you roll invisibility, this means opponents roll on 6's to hit in melee and ranged attacks! Now for rewards you roll a 3+ armour save and +1 wound with 'it will not die!' Now that is amazing for its cost!... now comes the new update... Lets say you get super lucky and roll celebrity of slannesh as your warlord trait, this means you can run AND charge with this unit. This means you can run AND charge which means likely getting into combat turn 1. Here is the fun part, now that your keeper is chopping away at the enemy the enemy has 1 turn, 1 TURN to kill this thing otherwise it will likely regain ALL lost wounds thanks to soulstealer!

This is why Keeper of secrets is the strongest Greater Daemon currently, even if your unlucky and roll maybe 5+ invun rerolls or hellfire gaze fir greater rewards and maybe a worse warlord trait, and maybe you didn't even roll on invisibility. You still have the ability to regain all wounds if your opponent doesn't deal 5 wounds in 1 turn.

There are also ways of mitigating the "random chance aspect" if you have some know-how

As for special characters I imagine they would cost alot more in points compared to the keeper if they were to give it any of these rewards as an auto include. Also isn't the keeper of Secrets already a special character with his own fluff? Isnt he Slanneshes' prized creature? I supposed they aren't a specific named creature like Be'lakor

Reavas wrote:
Keeper of Secrets is considered an auto include with the new update, give him soulstealer, psycher level 3 (try and roll invis) and give him 2 greater rewards and you get lucky and roll good on rewards and invisibility you have yourself the most powerful Greater Daemon in the game bar Be'lakor. He is the cheapest Greater Daemon and with upgrades he is still a steal for what he is capable of. Here is an example

Lets say you roll invisibility, this means opponents roll on 6's to hit in melee and ranged attacks! Now for rewards you roll a 3+ armour save and +1 wound with 'it will not die!' Now that is amazing for its cost!... now comes the new update... Lets say you get super lucky and roll celebrity of slannesh as your warlord trait, this means you can run AND charge with this unit. This means you can run AND charge which means likely getting into combat turn 1. Here is the fun part, now that your keeper is chopping away at the enemy the enemy has 1 turn, 1 TURN to kill this thing otherwise it will likely regain ALL lost wounds thanks to soulstealer!

This is why Keeper of secrets is the strongest Greater Daemon currently, even if your unlucky and roll maybe 5+ invun rerolls or hellfire gaze fir greater rewards and maybe a worse warlord trait, and maybe you didn't even roll on invisibility. You still have the ability to regain all wounds if your opponent doesn't deal 5 wounds in 1 turn.

There are also ways of mitigating the "random chance aspect" if you have some know-how

As for special characters I imagine they would cost alot more in points compared to the keeper if they were to give it any of these rewards as an auto include. Also isn't the keeper of Secrets already a special character with his own fluff? Isnt he Slanneshes' prized creature? I supposed they aren't a specific named creature like Be'lakor

I really need to sit down and speed some time with the new rules. Everything I've seen has been awesome! That said, I think MJ's point regarding auto-includes was basically, "Let's make something cool, fluffy, and useful that isn't just a better Keeper of Secrets or so powerful that you'll never take a normal keeper of secrets."

True but most named characters are better than their customisable counterparts

Honestly I would think that you should make it a regular Keeper with a spiffy weapon and add in something like "all attacks against this model (shooting and melee) that miss will instead hit the unit that was attacking."

against eldar saving throws must be rerolled. ignores cover.

I would like some kind of rule that reflects Slaanesh's ability to force anyone who looks upon her/him to serve Slaanesh for all eternity.
Two possible rules:
"Who am I fighting for again?" - Once per turn the keeper of secrets may force an enemy unit to make a leadership test. If passed nothing happens. If failed the owner of the keeper of secrets may use that unit as if it was their own for that turn.
Or
"Don't look at it!" - All enemy units in line of sight of the keeper of secrets must make a leadership test. If passed nothing happens. If failed that unit may only make snap shots that turn.

These rules show both Slaanesh's ability to warp the heart of any being and enemy units having to turn away to prevent them from being corrupted.

Give it the Culexis "attacked at BS/WS 1" rule and then the ability to force enemy units to attack it (just one? Within x"?)

Demons could really use the shooting protection.

 mrhappyface wrote:
I would like some kind of rule that reflects Slaanesh's ability to force anyone who looks upon her/him to serve Slaanesh for all eternity.
Two possible rules:
"Who am I fighting for again?" - Once per turn the keeper of secrets may force an enemy unit to make a leadership test. If passed nothing happens. If failed the owner of the keeper of secrets may use that unit as if it was their own for that turn.
Or
"Don't look at it!" - All enemy units in line of sight of the keeper of secrets must make a leadership test. If passed nothing happens. If failed that unit may only make snap shots that turn.

These rules show both Slaanesh's ability to warp the heart of any being and enemy units having to turn away to prevent them from being corrupted.

I'd definitely go for Don't Look at It over Who am I Fighting For?. While fluffy, WAIFFA would be kind of a feel bad rule. "Okay, now your death star kills off your own knight." It also gets complicated (what happens if you charge a friendly unit but don't finish them off?), and I'm not sure it's fluffy to have tyranids or Khorne daemons being impressed by this greater daemon of Slaanesh.