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The issue with "everything is broken" is that the game is just reduced to gimmick builds. Which can work (for a time) in a computer game, but in a game with a significant time and money commitment to fielding the army, just alienates.

The debate is what the playerbase want. To some extent *competitive players* don't care, because they'll just take the best stuff.

So I feel its a toss up between "systemists" - who would prefer a limited number of choices that are all nudged to be broadly "viable", if not top-tier amazing - and I guess "narrativists" who would prefer an vast number of options that could never be balanced but will allow a near infinite amount of customisation of "your dudes".

I'm very much in the systemist camp. I'd prefer if GW looked upon what they had wrought, and said "okay, we are going to make 5-8 ways to play each faction, as indicated by a given chapter/dynasty/whatever, and we'll nudge the tactics/warlord traits/relics/statagem etc towards making that "build" a thing".

But all the customisation makes me think that's never going to happen. Which is a shame. And 90% of customisation won't actually be seen in the wild, because people will just mix and match the best stuff. So its a waste of ink.

Well it is better have a gimmik build that works, then a codex with balanced rules in a world where balanced means bad.

And in a world where GW can't even make one valid way for some armies to play, I have my deep doubts that they could sit down and decide to design 5-8 ways to play even just the most popular factions.

Karol wrote:
Well it is better have a gimmik build that works, then a codex with balanced rules in a world where balanced means bad.

And in a world where GW can't even make one valid way for some armies to play, I have my deep doubts that they could sit down and decide to design 5-8 ways to play even just the most popular factions.

gimmic builds are just annoying because it means unless you happen to have the exact right combination of models your army sucks but it's not going away. tell Marine players who didn't run gulliman having a gimmick build was good during the 8.0 days. tell eldar players who didn't run the various eldar gimmick lists their codex was "fine because they can just run the gimick build" Gimmick builds are utter cancer to the game because the only people who run them are try hard compeitive types willing to randomly buy a specific army or someone who happened to get lucky.

thats not what people want. want most people want is an army thats well balanced across the codex and capable of being compeitive with a large varity of, reasonably sane builds.

Take Slaanesh in AoS right now - they've a very powerful build that focuses on using mostly hero/leader models to generate depravity to then summon more leaders that generate more depravity. Which means the best army is one that's basically all Keepers of Secrets.

Anything else - fiends, deamonettes, seekers, chariots - are all decent, but less powerful. So you've a Battletome(codex) that offers a lot of variety, but where only 1 build is supreme over all the others.

Plus with how depravity works you always want your maximum of leaders which means even if you don't build perfectly for it (all keepers) you're still wanting more points in your leaders than the rest of the army.



The result is a battletome that is powerful, when running its depravity focused lists, but offers little variety in what you can take whilst retaining the power. Meanwhile if you do take other lists you know that you're operating "at a loss" of the army full potential.



Now every army will have builds that are better and worse; but when there's one build that outstrips the others its bad. Ossiarchs had the same with their +1 save to every model. The other army themes were ok, but +1 save to every model was just so powerful it was an automatic take.

BrianDavion 793948 10987693 wrote:

gimmic builds are just annoying because it means unless you happen to have the exact right combination of models your army sucks but it's not going away. tell Marine players who didn't run gulliman having a gimmick build was good during the 8.0 days. tell eldar players who didn't run the various eldar gimmick lists their codex was "fine because they can just run the gimick build" Gimmick builds are utter cancer to the game because the only people who run them are try hard compeitive types willing to randomly buy a specific army or someone who happened to get lucky.

thats not what people want. want most people want is an army thats well balanced across the codex and capable of being compeitive with a large varity of, reasonably sane builds.

I don't think eldar are a good example for gathering sympathy, not after 9 editions of top builds. And again let me tell you having one gimmik build, and eldar had more then one in 8th, is way better then having just a bad codex that doesn't work, because the design team decided to do some copy pasting without care about edition core rules or lit viabililty. Would it be nice to have 8 ways to play every single codex? of course. But this is the real world. In the real world you are lucky if you have one good way to play. But yeah historicaly from an eldar players perspective it is probably better for no one to have gimmik builds, because there is always the small chance that something like the castellan list pops up and suddenly they have to buy new models to play flyer lists. And no one likes to buy extra models to play the same faction. And yeah the 8th ed CWE eldar codex was balanced, you practicaly could play anything when carried by strong units, and if someone was double dipping on CWE and Inari rules, then their casual for fun lists were beating all but the most powerful tournament lists in 8th ed. The thing is aside for eldar and marines, no other faction can be sure that their new codex is going to be balanced internaly or externaly, not to mention both at the same time. this way I think that having OP units and rules for every faction is better, it at least gives you a fighting chance and not the guess you draw a short one this edition treatment.

Now every army will have builds that are better and worse; but when there's one build that outstrips the others its bad. Ossiarchs had the same with their +1 save to every model. The other army themes were ok, but +1 save to every model was just so powerful it was an automatic take.

That is a valid assumption only for armies that could have more, then one build. You ain't going to get a lot of sympathy from a KO player or CoS player that you are forced in to a triple KoS build, because comparing to them the slanesh player is playing a totaly different game.

And it is the eldar example yet again. It was not enough that bikes, dark reaper, serpents, spears and flyers were good. At the hight of eldar power, pre Inari nerf , eldar players were claiming their codex wasn't good enough, because guardians , DAs and melee foot eldar were kind of a bad. That is something we here call a rich persons problem.

Karol wrote:

Now every army will have builds that are better and worse; but when there's one build that outstrips the others its bad. Ossiarchs had the same with their +1 save to every model. The other army themes were ok, but +1 save to every model was just so powerful it was an automatic take.

That is a valid assumption only for armies that could have more, then one build. You ain't going to get a lot of sympathy from a KO player or CoS player that you are forced in to a triple KoS build, because comparing to them the slanesh player is playing a totaly different game.

Slaanesh and Ossiarchs are not that big in model range either.
AoS does have a good few smaller armies so often their variations are focusing on one unit over another. That said it should still be part and parcel of their tomes that its an option to build in different ways not just one way. In theory the more you then add to the army the more options you are adding and with a flat level of internal balance its easier to slip things into the army to create new niches and options.

From the little I read about AoS, the top armies are all more often then not doing summoning and be build around 2-3 of something big.

The number of models doesn't matter that much, unless you can really get an army for a lot cheaper then that of your friend, and GW seems to be bound for something like that to not happen too often. Of course I would love GW books to have to have multiple ways of playing, the way the sm codex is. It is an awesome thing.

I question the validity of the argument that for GW, with the people that work there and with the company operating the way it does. It is more probable for GW to make books for everyone with those 5-8 good builds, then 1 skew list per book. I am talking about reality. I already partialy agreed to the statment that the best situation would be ton of OP stuff.

It ain't my foult that some people think that OP has to mean gimmik lists, even if sometimes it does.

Tyel wrote:
The issue with "everything is broken" is that the game is just reduced to gimmick builds. Which can work (for a time) in a computer game, but in a game with a significant time and money commitment to fielding the army, just alienates.

The debate is what the playerbase want. To some extent *competitive players* don't care, because they'll just take the best stuff.

So I feel its a toss up between "systemists" - who would prefer a limited number of choices that are all nudged to be broadly "viable", if not top-tier amazing - and I guess "narrativists" who would prefer an vast number of options that could never be balanced but will allow a near infinite amount of customisation of "your dudes".

I'm very much in the systemist camp. I'd prefer if GW looked upon what they had wrought, and said "okay, we are going to make 5-8 ways to play each faction, as indicated by a given chapter/dynasty/whatever, and we'll nudge the tactics/warlord traits/relics/statagem etc towards making that "build" a thing".

But all the customisation makes me think that's never going to happen. Which is a shame. And 90% of customisation won't actually be seen in the wild, because people will just mix and match the best stuff. So its a waste of ink.

Players will optimize the fun out of a game. Most armies do have a lot of ways you can play them. Most of them are just not good. Some of them are surprisingly sleeper good but still not as good as the most optimum way to play the army. At the end of the day the game is a compitition and people want to win. They will usually go for the most optimum way to play.

Karol wrote:
From the little I read about AoS, the top armies are all more often then not doing summoning and be build around 2-3 of something big.

The number of models doesn't matter that much, unless you can really get an army for a lot cheaper then that of your friend, and GW seems to be bound for something like that to not happen too often. Of course I would love GW books to have to have multiple ways of playing, the way the sm codex is. It is an awesome thing.

I question the validity of the argument that for GW, with the people that work there and with the company operating the way it does. It is more probable for GW to make books for everyone with those 5-8 good builds, then 1 skew list per book. I am talking about reality. I already partialy agreed to the statment that the best situation would be ton of OP stuff.

It ain't my foult that some people think that OP has to mean gimmik lists, even if sometimes it does.

The issue is, typically, if a codex has multiple potential playstyles at top level competitive play, it's because that army does that thing better than everyone else.

Typically there are multiple potential playstyles present in any given codex. the only question is whether they're actually a feasible thing that can work against an opponent running a competitive list. You love to complain about how unfair it was that eldar could have multiple playstyles and many of their units were really good compared to other codexes' stuff....but then you like that space marines currently have multiple playstyles and don't seem to understand why that is, and why you can't just 'give everyone else multiple playstyles.'

Karol wrote:

BrianDavion 793948 10987693 wrote:

gimmic builds are just annoying because it means unless you happen to have the exact right combination of models your army sucks but it's not going away. tell Marine players who didn't run gulliman having a gimmick build was good during the 8.0 days. tell eldar players who didn't run the various eldar gimmick lists their codex was "fine because they can just run the gimick build" Gimmick builds are utter cancer to the game because the only people who run them are try hard compeitive types willing to randomly buy a specific army or someone who happened to get lucky.

thats not what people want. want most people want is an army thats well balanced across the codex and capable of being compeitive with a large varity of, reasonably sane builds.

I don't think eldar are a good example for gathering sympathy, not after 9 editions of top builds. And again let me tell you having one gimmik build, and eldar had more then one in 8th, is way better then having just a bad codex that doesn't work, because the design team decided to do some copy pasting without care about edition core rules or lit viabililty. Would it be nice to have 8 ways to play every single codex? of course. But this is the real world. In the real world you are lucky if you have one good way to play. But yeah historicaly from an eldar players perspective it is probably better for no one to have gimmik builds, because there is always the small chance that something like the castellan list pops up and suddenly they have to buy new models to play flyer lists. And no one likes to buy extra models to play the same faction. And yeah the 8th ed CWE eldar codex was balanced, you practicaly could play anything when carried by strong units, and if someone was double dipping on CWE and Inari rules, then their casual for fun lists were beating all but the most powerful tournament lists in 8th ed. The thing is aside for eldar and marines, no other faction can be sure that their new codex is going to be balanced internaly or externaly, not to mention both at the same time. this way I think that having OP units and rules for every faction is better, it at least gives you a fighting chance and not the guess you draw a short one this edition treatment.

Now every army will have builds that are better and worse; but when there's one build that outstrips the others its bad. Ossiarchs had the same with their +1 save to every model. The other army themes were ok, but +1 save to every model was just so powerful it was an automatic take.

That is a valid assumption only for armies that could have more, then one build. You ain't going to get a lot of sympathy from a KO player or CoS player that you are forced in to a triple KoS build, because comparing to them the slanesh player is playing a totaly different game.

And it is the eldar example yet again. It was not enough that bikes, dark reaper, serpents, spears and flyers were good. At the hight of eldar power, pre Inari nerf , eldar players were claiming their codex wasn't good enough, because guardians , DAs and melee foot eldar were kind of a bad. That is something we here call a rich persons problem.

except eldar are a good example, because yeah, people tend to dismiss them as "ohh they're powerful" even though a LOT of the time over the various editions it's been based on gimmick builds. if I was an eldar player I'd not be happy with that. god knows I wasn't happy when armies I played where reliant on gimmick builds ebcause I didn't wanna run them.

Karol wrote:
And it is the eldar example yet again. It was not enough that bikes, dark reaper, serpents, spears and flyers were good. At the hight of eldar power, pre Inari nerf , eldar players were claiming their codex wasn't good enough, because guardians , DAs and melee foot eldar were kind of a bad. That is something we here call a rich persons problem.

I'm gonna need a citation on that. I have a sneaking suspicion that Eldar players acknowledged the power level of their codex in a way that you do not for the armies you play.

Hecaton wrote:

Karol wrote:
And it is the eldar example yet again. It was not enough that bikes, dark reaper, serpents, spears and flyers were good. At the hight of eldar power, pre Inari nerf , eldar players were claiming their codex wasn't good enough, because guardians , DAs and melee foot eldar were kind of a bad. That is something we here call a rich persons problem.

I'm gonna need a citation on that. I have a sneaking suspicion that Eldar players acknowledged the power level of their codex in a way that you do not for the armies you play.

He has a personal disdain of Eldar and eldar players because he played a rock bottom tier army vs only alitoic flier spam for 90% of 8th edition. So he brings it up in every thread.

I would disregard most of what he says about eldar (or 40k for that matter)
Also Karol is a minor who also happens to play in a very wierd toxic meta his accounts... So yeah you will get everything viewed though that lense.

 Argive wrote:

Hecaton wrote:

Karol wrote:
And it is the eldar example yet again. It was not enough that bikes, dark reaper, serpents, spears and flyers were good. At the hight of eldar power, pre Inari nerf , eldar players were claiming their codex wasn't good enough, because guardians , DAs and melee foot eldar were kind of a bad. That is something we here call a rich persons problem.

I'm gonna need a citation on that. I have a sneaking suspicion that Eldar players acknowledged the power level of their codex in a way that you do not for the armies you play.

I would disregard what he says about eldar.
He has a personal disdain of Eldar and eldar players because he played a rock bottom tier army vs only alitoic flier spam for 90% of 8th edition.

Also Karol is a minor so everything is viewed through a very specific lense.

Honestly I doubt even what you said is true, though I bet he's said that.

Hecaton wrote:

Karol wrote:
And it is the eldar example yet again. It was not enough that bikes, dark reaper, serpents, spears and flyers were good. At the hight of eldar power, pre Inari nerf , eldar players were claiming their codex wasn't good enough, because guardians , DAs and melee foot eldar were kind of a bad. That is something we here call a rich persons problem.

I'm gonna need a citation on that. I have a sneaking suspicion that Eldar players acknowledged the power level of their codex in a way that you do not for the armies you play.

You can basically ignore whatever Karol says about eldar honestly.
What he doesnt seem to understand is that for most players, having spammy, super strong list choice isnt what we look for.

Ynnari was boring, Flyer spam was boring.

Yet, apparently if i dare complain that warp spiders are weak im a filthy eldar player that wants an OP codex. Its not about the codex not being strong enough as a whole, its about the identity of the codex not fitting with whats good.

Then he'll turn around and bitch that his gakky GK list that doesn't work couldnt beat top lists and that he can't buy more models

 Argive wrote:


My money is on DE if anything at all in terms of 40k.
I think its 40k turn to get major previews now though isint it ?

I hope you got good odds, great shout.

So, I'm glad DE are coming up (though leery about a thin model update). But this quote from the preview honestly makes me tired.

The first xenos codex of 2021 makes the Drukhari faster and deadlier than ever before. You’ll see:

More attacks
Higher damage
Lethal combat output across the board

More attacks, more dice, more more more more.

And while I get the damage increase on the incubi to combat the 2Ws, I hate to think what's going to happen to the units that don't end up getting a damage bump.

Dialing everything up to 11- just not sure this is the best approach.

Voss wrote:
So, I'm glad DE are coming up (though leery about a thin model update). But this quote from the preview honestly makes me tired.

The first xenos codex of 2021 makes the Drukhari faster and deadlier than ever before. You’ll see:

More attacks
Higher damage
Lethal combat output across the board

More attacks, more dice, more more more more.

And while I get the damage increase on the incubi to combat the 2Ws, I hate to think what's going to happen to the units that don't end up getting a damage bump.

Dialing everything up to 11- just not sure this is the best approach.

Its a bad approach but thanks to the wonders of Shock Assault there are only 2 options for GW.
Buff everyone else up to 11, because even a basic primaris has 3 attacks, something normally reserved for dedicated combat units of other factions,
or Nerf marines back down and admit giving an entire faction a blanket +1 attack and -1 AP was a colossal mistake.

(well ok, there is a 3e option, ignore the issue and watch the game slowly, or not so slowly die, much like 7th edition did).

 Overread wrote:
Take Slaanesh in AoS right now - they've a very powerful build that focuses on using mostly hero/leader models to generate depravity to then summon more leaders that generate more depravity. Which means the best army is one that's basically all Keepers of Secrets.

Anything else - fiends, deamonettes, seekers, chariots - are all decent, but less powerful. So you've a Battletome(codex) that offers a lot of variety, but where only 1 build is supreme over all the others.

Plus with how depravity works you always want your maximum of leaders which means even if you don't build perfectly for it (all keepers) you're still wanting more points in your leaders than the rest of the army.

The result is a battletome that is powerful, when running its depravity focused lists, but offers little variety in what you can take whilst retaining the power. Meanwhile if you do take other lists you know that you're operating "at a loss" of the army full potential.

Now every army will have builds that are better and worse; but when there's one build that outstrips the others its bad. Ossiarchs had the same with their +1 save to every model. The other army themes were ok, but +1 save to every model was just so powerful it was an automatic take.

I see your point, but the problem is that I completely adore how Slaanesh plays in AoS and love herohammer tbh. I don't want that playstyle to be changed.

Voss wrote:
So, I'm glad DE are coming up (though leery about a thin model update). But this quote from the preview honestly makes me tired.

The first xenos codex of 2021 makes the Drukhari faster and deadlier than ever before. You’ll see:

More attacks
Higher damage
Lethal combat output across the board

More attacks, more dice, more more more more.

And while I get the damage increase on the incubi to combat the 2Ws, I hate to think what's going to happen to the units that don't end up getting a damage bump.

Dialing everything up to 11- just not sure this is the best approach.

No it isn't. If D2 is just to cancel out the new 2W then we are left back where we started, except for all those weapons that are stuck at D1. It's just more of the Codex arms race.

BrianDavion 793948 10988389 wrote:


except eldar are a good example, because yeah, people tend to dismiss them as "ohh they're powerful" even though a LOT of the time over the various editions it's been based on gimmick builds. if I was an eldar player I'd not be happy with that. god knows I wasn't happy when armies I played where reliant on gimmick builds ebcause I didn't wanna run them.

You know everyone would be happy if they had a so powerful set of rules, that anywhere outside of the top tournament circles it could carry practicaly any combination of units. So while not every eldar player had to play some army of doom with just WK, scatter bikes and serpents, they were well could have half of their army made out of those units, and half made out of random stuff, and the army resulting from a such a combination would still be doing very well.

No one at my old store played CWE or Inari with 60 reapers or 6 flyers. But all of them did use some of those units in smaller, same way marine started using intercessors when suddenly they were made good. And again, I think having a gimmik is way better then not having one. Because if you don't have one and GW doesn't write a codex for you faction which is jam packed with powerful rules, the further you get in to edition the worse the book gets. I am talking from only 8th expiriance here, but GK in 8th had the design team streamline and balance the hack out of their books. It was devoided of major gimmiks, and those that it had were removed as the edition went on. Worse this situation ment that you were even more limited in what you could take. Without good or gimmik units or combos of units that could carry you, you could never afford to play with weaker units, because your army was already weak. And if you tried that it was not very fun, I can tell you that as someone who played 8th with a GK termintor army. And it may not come as a suprise that GK stoped being unfun as soon as their got their PA book , full of gimmiks, specialy for paladins, making termintor models actualy no punishingly bad to take.

Karol wrote:

BrianDavion 793948 10988389 wrote:


except eldar are a good example, because yeah, people tend to dismiss them as "ohh they're powerful" even though a LOT of the time over the various editions it's been based on gimmick builds. if I was an eldar player I'd not be happy with that. god knows I wasn't happy when armies I played where reliant on gimmick builds ebcause I didn't wanna run them.

You know everyone would be happy if they had a so powerful set of rules, that anywhere outside of the top tournament circles it could carry practicaly any combination of units. So while not every eldar player had to play some army of doom with just WK, scatter bikes and serpents, they were well could have half of their army made out of those units, and half made out of random stuff, and the army resulting from a such a combination would still be doing very well.

No one at my old store played CWE or Inari with 60 reapers or 6 flyers. But all of them did use some of those units in smaller, same way marine started using intercessors when suddenly they were made good. And again, I think having a gimmik is way better then not having one. Because if you don't have one and GW doesn't write a codex for you faction which is jam packed with powerful rules, the further you get in to edition the worse the book gets. I am talking from only 8th expiriance here, but GK in 8th had the design team streamline and balance the hack out of their books. It was devoided of major gimmiks, and those that it had were removed as the edition went on. Worse this situation ment that you were even more limited in what you could take. Without good or gimmik units or combos of units that could carry you, you could never afford to play with weaker units, because your army was already weak. And if you tried that it was not very fun, I can tell you that as someone who played 8th with a GK termintor army. And it may not come as a suprise that GK stoped being unfun as soon as their got their PA book , full of gimmiks, specialy for paladins, making termintor models actualy no punishingly bad to take.

Karol ffs, stop with your eldar hate boner.
When people complain that eldar are weak, they complain about aspect warriors being bad mostly. When is the last time you've seen swooping hawks/warp spiders/banshees/scorpions? Pretty much never.

Iracundus wrote:

No it isn't. If D2 is just to cancel out the new 2W then we are left back where we started, except for all those weapons that are stuck at D1. It's just more of the Codex arms race.

New? Primaris have had at minimum two wounds for years friend.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

No it isn't. If D2 is just to cancel out the new 2W then we are left back where we started, except for all those weapons that are stuck at D1. It's just more of the Codex arms race.

New? Primaris have had at minimum two wounds for years friend.

And were the primary type of Marine ran. Quite frankly the complaining is a bit silly and, if anything, helps give Incubi a niche over Banshees and Scorpions.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Void__Dragon wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

No it isn't. If D2 is just to cancel out the new 2W then we are left back where we started, except for all those weapons that are stuck at D1. It's just more of the Codex arms race.

New? Primaris have had at minimum two wounds for years friend.

And were the primary type of Marine ran. Quite frankly the complaining is a bit silly and, if anything, helps give Incubi a niche over Banshees and Scorpions.

But those units are not even from the same book? It's like saying Nobz need to be given a niche over aggressors. Not that I'm complaining mind, but this seems like an odd take.

I mean bringing Incubi up to D2 on their melee weapons is cool, but it basically means that there's no point in playing or buying anything if you're in a faction that doesn't have a 9e codex yet.

Drip-feed codices are a mistake.

 Castozor wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Void__Dragon wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

No it isn't. If D2 is just to cancel out the new 2W then we are left back where we started, except for all those weapons that are stuck at D1. It's just more of the Codex arms race.

New? Primaris have had at minimum two wounds for years friend.

And were the primary type of Marine ran. Quite frankly the complaining is a bit silly and, if anything, helps give Incubi a niche over Banshees and Scorpions.

But those units are not even from the same book? It's like saying Nobz need to be given a niche over aggressors. Not that I'm complaining mind, but this seems like an odd take.

Maybe it's supposed to be an argument for playing DE vs CWE?

Looks more like an argument to play other things until something decent comes your way

Voss wrote:
So, I'm glad DE are coming up (though leery about a thin model update). But this quote from the preview honestly makes me tired.

The first xenos codex of 2021 makes the Drukhari faster and deadlier than ever before. You’ll see:

More attacks
Higher damage
Lethal combat output across the board

More attacks, more dice, more more more more.

And while I get the damage increase on the incubi to combat the 2Ws, I hate to think what's going to happen to the units that don't end up getting a damage bump.

Dialing everything up to 11- just not sure this is the best approach.

While I agree that making everything more lethal is not the solution to balance the game, if a faction has to become more lethal is Dark Eldar.

That's our thing, fast and deadly. I, for one, don't enjoy the abominations we have to play now for being semi-competitive... full Coven with Dark Technomancers for cheesy Reaper shots.

 Denegaar wrote:


While I agree that making everything more lethal is not the solution to balance the game, if a faction has to become more lethal is Dark Eldar.

That's our thing, fast and deadly. I, for one, don't enjoy the abominations we have to play now for being semi-competitive... full Coven with Dark Technomancers for cheesy Reaper shots.

I couldn't agree more with every word.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Take Slaanesh in AoS right now - they've a very powerful build that focuses on using mostly hero/leader models to generate depravity to then summon more leaders that generate more depravity. Which means the best army is one that's basically all Keepers of Secrets.

Anything else - fiends, deamonettes, seekers, chariots - are all decent, but less powerful. So you've a Battletome(codex) that offers a lot of variety, but where only 1 build is supreme over all the others.

Plus with how depravity works you always want your maximum of leaders which means even if you don't build perfectly for it (all keepers) you're still wanting more points in your leaders than the rest of the army.

The result is a battletome that is powerful, when running its depravity focused lists, but offers little variety in what you can take whilst retaining the power. Meanwhile if you do take other lists you know that you're operating "at a loss" of the army full potential.

Now every army will have builds that are better and worse; but when there's one build that outstrips the others its bad. Ossiarchs had the same with their +1 save to every model. The other army themes were ok, but +1 save to every model was just so powerful it was an automatic take.

I see your point, but the problem is that I completely adore how Slaanesh plays in AoS and love herohammer tbh. I don't want that playstyle to be changed.

Thing is I'm totally fine with an army of mostly keepers - they are fantastic models.
I just want the Battletome to be able to do that without feeling overpowered and broken AND to have the ability to do other things of equal (or at least balanced) weight in power. I want to be able to use deamonettes for more than "battleline tax" I want to be able to use a fleet of chariots and seekers; or to throw down fiends. Right now doing any of those results in a much weaker army.

The correct course is to adjust things so that both sides get what they want rather than only one. The new mortal models, right now, have no purpose because they won't generate depravity. So I'm expecting GW will have to rework something to make them work otherwise all those shiny mortals will be useless.