Revisiting Slaanesh

The chaos gods have been a constant throughout the life of Warhammer, in all its various incarnations. We’re used to them now, how they look, who they are, what they represent. In most cases, their tabletop incarnation basically works. Khorne, all red and brass, fire and anger. Nurgle, chortling warmth amidst utter foulness. Tzeentch, a riot of shapes and colours, knowledge and madness. But Slaanesh is still not yet there. This isn’t to say the Prince of Pleasure doesn’t have a distinct aesthetic on the table, it’s just that the aesthetic has such a narrow focus when you consider what Slaanesh is supposed to represent.

Slaanesh is the god of excess. Not sex, or debauchery, but excess. An excess of sensation, or vanity. At a low level of worship, one can rationalise Slaanesh as appearing as a Dionysus-like figure, when it’s party time, we pray to Slaanesh to make sure it’s a banger. And when it isn’t time to party, when we have to work, or fight, or think or if we just get sick, god dammit, we turn to the other powers. Everything in moderation, everything in its place.

A dedicated chaos army on the table, though, isn’t invested in worshipping the gods in moderation. By the time an army of chaos dedicated to one of the gods has formed, they have absorbed the aspects of their chosen deity in totality: for a Slaanesh army, it’s not that it’s party time, all the time. It’s instantly chasing a high, desperate for more, needing to go further. And, quite simply, I don’t think the range reflects that.

The range as it is, this depiction of comfortable, violent debauchery, is basically fine. However, I don’t feel as if it really encompasses what Slaanesh could potentially be about. Sex and drugs and rock and roll are a form of excess, but also quite a mundane one, and railroading the physical, tabletop representation of those who follow She Who Thirsts into these themes feels to me like a missed opportunity. Case in point, the official scheme for slaanesh has become quite muted? It’s a lot of greys, purples and soft pinks. Where’s the utter riot of colour? Where are the forms, and I feel this part is crucial, that look like they’re obsessed with chasing sensation?
Part of it, obviously, is ‘excess’ is kind of an open and abstract concept. All the chaos gods deal in excess in some form, be it skulls taken, plagues propagated or forbidden knowledge earned. But Slaanesh is the god who deals with that abstraction as one of its main spheres of power. Also, the official GW model range has to be something that people want to buy, build, paint and play with, so something that was too weird would be maybe too much for some people.
But, make no mistake, too weird is what we’re going to be looking at here.

Essentially, I want to discuss an alternative tabletop representation of slaanesh that doesn’t necessarily exclude the sexual elements, but doesn’t make them the forefront of the range’s design ethos, especially when the ‘sexual’ also includes the mascochistic, as this inevitably leads to demonisation of cultural practices that from a traditional ‘wester’ viewpoint seem barbaric and savage, but are actually of deep cultural and spiritual significance to other groups around the world. I also want to move away from the slaanesh range being representations of hermaphroditic and transgender bodies, seeing as that’s the only place Warhammer wishes to discuss these concepts, I, as a transwoman, would rather the only place me and mine are portrayed not be the army meant to corrupting sexual deviancy. I want to look at the idea of perfection and sensation, the pursuit thereof and how that would manifest in wanting to achieve perfection of form, and in constantly seeking sensation. Essentially, in this reimagined slaanesh army, I see the force being broken up in two different ways. The arrogant, desperately vain and superficial Cult of Perfection, who draw on themes taken from Sigvald the Magnificent and the Horus Heresy book Fulgrim, and the addicted, single minded hedonists of the Cult of Sensation, drawing ideas presented in sensory/ cortical homunculi sculpture.

The Cult of Perfection

Firstly, the easiest of the two to talk about is this Cult of Perfection. I want to convey the idea of beings who are beautiful on the outside, but have been utterly corrupted inside, and want to do so without drawing on the surgical or ritualistic. Too often, we see hard, toned gorgeous bodies that are shown to be ‘corrupt’ through acts of tattooing, piercing or scarification, but these practices are only ‘corrupt’ through a very, very narrow and conservative lens. Body modification such as this can be seen in hundreds of non-western cultures as a matter of course, and in the counter-culture elements of western society itself. Modifying one’s body isn’t what makes one corrupt and evil, however extreme the modification. That comes from the attitude and behaviour they have and show toward others. Essentially, the monster is inside, not outside.
I really like the old Sigvald the Magnificent model because it represented a slaanesh model we hadn’t seen before or since. Sigvald was essentially flawless, his armour spotless, his body toned and unmarred. We are told of his peerless fighting prowess, and also of his cruel and vain nature. I like the model because he *looks* traditionally heroic. But the subtext there is that he’s generally an awful person. It’s all very Dorian Grey. 

I think the Sigvald model is an excellent starting point for this side of the army. In my mind, its quite a conventional force, with low-level cultists doing their best to stay in shape and keep their gear clean, then as the gifts of slaanesh take hold they become more and more ‘perfect’. Muscled bodies and ornate armour and clothes, fine weapons. It’d all be very clean too, think more svelte Stormcast with Slaanesh icons rather than lightning bolts. At the most senior, the units in the list would practically be marble statues more than are human beings. They would be very clean, very cold, very precise. The point here is to display a standard of beauty that is divorced from actual humanity. One of my favourite parts of Fulgrim is where the eponymous primarch throws a hissy fit when he is told his work is ‘too perfect’. Its lack of flaws also gave it a lack of humanity, leaving it cold.

So, the base unit for the army would be cultists, much like Kairic acolytes for Tzeentch armies. They would be unremarkable save for their weapons, cruel whips and barbed blades designed to disfigure. They would be a unit of spite and jealousy; very much the idea of ‘you don’t get to be more beautiful than me.’

After them would be the chaos warrior analogues. Much cleaner than other chaos warrior-type units in design, and armed with shields and polearms (to keep the rabble away) or elegant scimitars, their design would evoke the aesthetic of Sigvald as I mentioned earlier. Superlative fighters, the twist comes when their delusion of being an elite fighting force is shattered. Thinking themselves unbeatable by ‘lesser foes’, if they were to fail a battle shock test, any models that flee are replaced by a separate unit. In my mind, they would look fraught, disheveled and manic, their delusions  of superiority gave way to the cold reality of their defeat. Rather than the disciplined fighting style of their peers they would fight with a berserk fury, and if enough models are replaced in a turn the Slaanesh player would have access to a powerful fighting unit.
Finally, the most elite unit is the one that has achieved most this false notion of physical perfection. Visually, think classic greek and roman statuary, but ambulatory. Bodies of smooth, unblemished marble or obsidian, draped in fine silk and fur, with armour designed to protect but also show off the wearer’s body. Small units, but reasonably large models, like Kurnoth hunters, and an enviable martial stat line. Much like the warriors before, however, they are so wrapped up in their own delusion of superiority and perfection that defeat, being exposed to their own failings and inadequacies, would shatter them. On the outside, these figures look, for all intents and purposes, perfect, but on the inside the corruption is there for all to see. As one is destroyed, you would replace it with a special kind of chaos spawn, a broken statue bursting with writhing coils of black tar and putrid foam that would charge howling toward the enemy.

In terms of command units, a leader variant of this final, statue-like form seems appropriate, with perhaps an even more horrific transformation should it fail. Instead of a straightforward wizard, I imagine a cruel cultist figure with a large mirror. For some reason unable (or perhaps unwilling, having become wise to the fallacy that has consumed its peers) to achieve this notion of ‘perfection’, they instead use this mirror to reflect the truth of an individual back at them. For the enemy, this could force a battle shock test or a debuff as they see their fears and failings in the polished surface, but it could also be spitefully turned on allies in the Cult, showing them what lies beneath and prematurely activating their secondary form.

This side of the army is designed to be, on its face, a very conventional force, something perhaps like a strange mirror to the Lumineth. Obviously, though, they have this dark secret that bursts forth when they fail. The theme of chasing perfection on the outside only to let the inside rot within seems very appropriate for Slaanesh.

The Cult of Sensation

The second half of the mortal army follows this idea of sensory excess. This idea is already present in the Slaanesh army, but in a disappointingly normal way. As I said earlier, sex and drugs and rock-and-roll is an all-to-mundane way to demonstrate this notion of hedonistic debauchery. It works fine at the very lowest level, but I think we can go more extreme and weirder with it.

I see warriors for this part of the army being dedicated to the pursuit of one of the five senses, taste, touch, smell, sight and hearing. Much like the units in the perfection cult, the obsession gets more extreme the more senior the warrior. Basic cultists simply want to get stuck in and enjoy all the experiences that combat offers. Then, as they find themselves drawn to any one experience, they become consumer by it until eventually it is their entire existence.
The key to understanding my idea for what this looks like comes in the form of the sensory or cortical homonculus. This is a kind of anatomical illustration or sculpture designed to demonstrate how sensitive given human body parts are in relation to each other. Hands and lips are gigantic, the figure’s torso much less so. As warriors from the faction dedicate themselves to one sensory experience, the parts of their bodies that process that sense become more exaggerated, much like on the sensory homunculus. Eyes become wider, tongues grow fat and loll out of mouths. These are people unconcerned with how they look, they are essentially junkies for sensation, and in the pursuit of more and more extreme sensory experience they end up looking very, very strange indeed, harking back to the weirder designs for chaos models from much earlier in Warhammer’s existence. The army as a whole lacks the illusion of regimented coherence that the Cult of Perfection has, instead being a chaotic horde of addicts joyfully bounding toward their next fix.

Much like the perfection cult, the sensation cult starts with simple cultists. While the other cultists in the army prefer to use whips and long blades, keeping their distance, those for this side of the force dive in with boundless enthusiasm, going in with brutish clubs and mailed fists. The idea here is that they have been overcome with the joys of sensation, and on the battlefield know that the best place to experience that is at the closest quarters possible.

Following them are those that have started to dedicate themselves to one particular sensory experience. Those dedicated to sight have larger eyes, and are ranged troops. Larger ears for others, perhaps, some with bigger mouths and a hunger for flesh. These are still armoured warriors but much weirder looking than we might be used to for mortal troops. These function in a similar way to Eldar aspect warriors, each one dedicated to a specific thing, and therefore a specific aspect of warfare. Of course, in the case of these warriors their fighting style is a means toward chasing the sensory aspect they desire. Also, much like Aspect Warriors they are lead by an exarch of sorts, someone who is much more actively mutated with multiple eyes, or elephants trunks, or feeding tentacles. Still human(ish) but with bodies more obviously altered toward the pursuit of their sensory high.

Finally, the heavy hitters of the army are very mutated human monsters, like a slaanesh version of the khorgorath. Five in total, each absolutely consumed by their sensory desire. A creature of total omniscience that can see all around, multiple eyes sharp for every scintillating sliver of noteworthy vision, itself clad in lurid clashing colours. A hungry monster, all grinning mouths and slavering tongues, arms and tentacles whipping out to grasp tasty morsels that get too close. A living collection of radar dishes and listening trumpets, picking out every whispered command and cry of joy and pain as the chimes and bells on its body crash and ring. A hideous combination of man, dog and elephant, seeking out foes hidden behind cover, tearing them apart to find out what they smell like on the inside. A brutish creature, quick to close with the enemy so it can grasp them, tease and toy with them, enjoy all their strange textures as it crushes them. Each of these would be very far removed from what we consider the usual domain of slaanesh but each is designed to represent an apex of sensory obsession. I think they are lead not by an exemplar of this idea of sensory excess, but instead by a shepherd-like figure, directing the various aspects of the force toward a noteworthy example of their desire.
Combined, the two forces would look very strange on the table, which I think is important. 

Slaanesh models have become too stuck in a rut, too focused on one aspect of Slaanesh and missing what could potentially make the force really great. Obviously, this army idea I’ve discussed here is very much geared towards a mortal force for Age of Sigmar, but I think these concepts could translate to 40k. The purpose of this project is purely speculative; I wanted to see what a Slaanesh army would look like if divorced from the crass, juvenile sexual imagery it’s been lumped with for so long. That being said, if anyone were to actually do something with these ideas I’d love to see what they came up with. The hobby is so much bigger than the models we’re given, especially with chaos, and I think it does us well to think about the different factions and themes beyond the out-of-the-box plastic we can buy.