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Need help with an Archaon army


Chrask

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Hey guys,

as a longtime reader i decided to start my first thread about my favourite model, Archaon (the big version).

I started playing AOS torn between the ironjawz and Archaon the big badass himself. At that time the ironjawz made it and i started an army i really enjoy playing until now, but Archaon was always in my mind.

I reached a point where i want a second army, and this is where i need your help!

The only thing i am sure about is that the army must be built around Archaon and one / some / all of the chaos gods, Archaon should be the star of the army.

Point wise, i'd like the army to be big, like >= 3k points up to a maximum size of 8k points, anywhere in between those numbers where you think Archaon is most effective.

As i basically have no chaos models (other than Archaon), i appreciate every list that synergizes well with Archaon as i have to buy the models anyway if i find a list i like. Every theme is fine for me as long as it doesn't contain skaven or beastmen :D

I am looking for a quite strong but not super competitive  list that is able to win some games and to surprise other players, but i couldn't find suitable lists on the internet. As far as i have seen Archaon lists aren't the most efficient lists which is fine for me, i play him because it is by far my favourite model. It just would be nice to be able to compete with my friends and at least have a chance to win some games against them. I want neither an autowin-list nor an autoloose-list. 

 

I really hope that i was able to explain my point. Please read over my mistakes as i am not a native speaker and feel free to correct me as i am still learning to speak (and write lol) english properly.

I am looking forward to your replys, thanks in advance for making it to the end of this wall of text and for your advices and thoughts :)

 

Cheers

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1st of all :) archaon makes combo with tzeentch destiny dice soooo if u want to make uber tournament list go like this

Archaon
3x chaos marauders for battleline (cheapest chaos battleline plus easiest way to make enought mortal/slaves/tzeentch keywords in ur army)

From tzeentch i would take

Kairos (normaly u have 9 dice with avarge rolll u will get at least one 6 and as u know u need 2 to make autokill with sword if u dont roll 6 or ur 6 are finished from dd u can change one dice after roll once a game with kairos it will give u easiest way to one shot kill all enemy heroes or big monsters)
Gaunt summoner(also as everchosen unit) for hordes and there is one spell arcane transformation wchich gaves u one additional atack with wepon. give it to archaon and it makes better chance to roll 66 in sword atack
Skyfire for shooting ?



I would add some more mortals with mark of tzeentch from slaves to darkness and finish it all with everchosen tzeentch battalion (i dont remember name but this one which gaves additional rend -1 and extra save 6plus vs mortals)

From units that i would look at (not tz one) are

Varanguard (if their points will go dwn in gh2 now they are overpointed)
If u have a lot of mortals chaos shrine is nice for extra save ( u will be like nurgle )
Deamon prince ?

But mostly i would prefer to take horde of chaos marauders with this tz everchosen battalion buff plus mage artilery for buff/ Dmg spells plus some shooting skyfires (best with tzaangor shaman for buff) ofc skyfires propably will go up i points but still in 2k points i would find place for them

Thats all i cant give u full list becouse i dont rlly know what u want (as u said u want to have competetive but not ass shaking list)

I just show u few examples where u can makes some buffs like multi save vs mortal wounds or easy way to make ur archaon one strike killing machine ... just if u want my advise hold ur horses with varanguard at least till gh2 (same with skyfire but if u want to use destiny dice they are best tz shooting unit)



Wysłane z mojego SM-G928F przy użyciu Tapatalka

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Thank you very much, that is exactly what i had in mind when creating this post, some nice combos and synergies, some unit suggestions and lots of stuff to make Archaon even greater than he already is.

 

I thought about either khorne or tzeentch to combo Archaon with, Khorne for giving him some nice offensive buffs, tzeentch for like a bit of everything, great shooting, great magic, great buffs ^^

 

If i plan to use the varanguard, maraudeurs and so on, does my army have the tzeentch alliance if i give them the tzeentch keyword( as they don't have it on the warscroll until the game starts)?

 

And as you said you would stack maraudeurs, if i plan to have a 3k+ army, wouldn't it be better to run multiple chaos warriors as battlelines, even some chosen as elite units?

 

As the last questions, and i know this is hard to answer and depends on the situation, how many units of skyfire would you use compared to infantry and other units? Like one skyfire for every 3 maraudeurs / chaos warriors for example? Just a rough distribution would be great to know as for the ironjawz you can say one unit of ardboyz for one unit of brutes or gruntas roughly if you have no specific strategy :)

 

Thanks for the replies!

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Im hoping varanguard get the Tzeentch keyword so you can use the Alligence abilities for Tzeentch, ie Destiney dice. Plus if Archaon can give the keyword in the hero phase, I can't see why not. 

 

Add in Sayl to fling some Varanguard into the enemy nice and fast, and some Skyfires to pretty much destroy anything that moves.

 

Agreed, on using the Marauders to claim objectives, and then Letting the Big man himself Archaon do his thing.

 

Bring on GH2 damnit! Oh and reduce points for Archaon too.

 

 

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Like Hightime said, a lot of things can change between now and next week's Saturday (when the new General's Handbook is coming out).

I've also been thinking about wielding Archaon in some tournament capacity, so below are some thoughts - which totally could be invalidated in two weeks time with GHB2. :D This is also trying to make Archaon as competitive as possible, but nothing's stopping you from mixing and matching options to get to a desirable power level.

 

That being said, arguably Archaon's greatest strength is his ability "The Slayer of Kings" - two or more wound rolls are 6 or more and target is instantly slain. That includes your frostlords on stonehorns, Nagash, other Archaons and so on.  He lacks the rend to reliably deal with well armored targets apart from that, but does shred through low armor.

Tzeentch is by far the best complement to the ability through Infusion Arcanum - measly 5 as casting value and he gets to add 1 to his hit and wound rolls. Then give his sword Arcane Transformation from another caster. Now 5s will count towards the insta-death, and you have 5 rolls to get two or more. Getting two 6s in your 9 destiny dice is far from guaranteed, but since 5s also count it becomes that much easier.

With 5 dice, your chance of getting at least two fives is 54%, and if you substitute even one of the rolls with a destiny dice, the chance goes up to 80%. Or just substitute two if you can, and don't want to risk it.

Tzeentch also helps with his survivability by giving him Shield of Fate, which combined with Mystic Shield gives him a 2+ rerollable save as long as you have at least 1 destiny dice left. 5+ ignore mortal wounds, 4+ ignore spells, and 2+ rerollable armor save with 20 wounds. Not gonna go down easily.

 

Your biggest problem with Archaon will be that any skilled opponent will wrap their important targets with chaff and terrain to try and stop you from reaching them - a 160mm base is surprisingly clumsy. So you need a reliable ways of getting rid of chaff. Gaunt Summoner is probably the game's best way of dealing with hordes, and will be a mandatory pick for tzeentch in the advent of hordes becoming popular. Take a GS with a balewind and blue scribes, and you are very likely to get his spells off.

To deal with more chaff and/or smaller unit sizes etc. you can go for the skyfire route (9+shaman will deal with a lot of things in this game), or the changehost route (especially with balewind swapping, the mortal wound output from it is very, very good). You even get to use the command ability from LoC from the changehost if your archaon is the general. Pretty potent stuff.

 

Just like with any center piece army, your main game plan should revolve around how do you deliver maximum output from Archaon. How to keep it alive, how to get it where it needs to be, and how to use his abilities to their maximum potential. While keeping in mind what the scenario you're playing requires  you to do.

Hope that helps and do let us know what you end up going for! :) 

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Thank you very much guys for this awesome suggestions, really helped me and is exactly what i was thinking of when creating this thread.

 

I am definetely going to take everything you said into consideration.

Still waiting for GHB2 until my first purchase, but the points you mentioned seem to good to not use Archaon in a tzeentch army.

 

Right now i am leaning towards Archaon, Kairos, LoC, Sayl and a gaunt summoner as my leaders (and maybe a tzangor shaman) and maraudeurs/chaos warriors for my battleline (correct me if i am wrong here please: right now (we will see wether this will change with GHB2) i cannot use the Tzeentch allegiance if i use maraudeurs or chaos warriors, even if i give them the tzeentch keyword, because they don't have it on their warscroll at the beginning of the match?).

Add in some varanguard for mobility on the board , a chaosshrine for additional buffs, a vortex and bluescribs for better casting and some skyfires for ranged damage output.

I think this will provide me with a little bit of everything i need, a strong and (with some buffs) tanky leader that can kill priority targets, good objective control with marodeurs and chaos warriors, mobility with the varanguard and sayl, good ranged threats and a good mortal wound output.

And of course really good caster.

 

Just by typeing this i get super excited about this list and most importantly, playing Archaon finally in a list that seems super fun to play and quite strong seems great to me! :)

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43 minutes ago, Chrask said:

(correct me if i am wrong here please: right now (we will see wether this will change with GHB2) i cannot use the Tzeentch allegiance if i use maraudeurs or chaos warriors, even if i give them the tzeentch keyword, because they don't have it on their warscroll at the beginning of the match?).

You can use them as Tzeentch as far as I know, at least I've seen some Fatesworn Warbands in Tzeentch allegiance using marauders. Varanguard however would break allegiance due to the current interaction.

Sounds like a fun and strong list you're coming up with there!

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...right now (we will see wether this will change with GHB2) i cannot use the Tzeentch allegiance if i use maraudeurs or chaos warriors, even if i give them the tzeentch keyword, because they don't have it on their warscroll at the beginning of the match?)...

 

You can use both Chaos Warriors and Marauders as Tzeentch Allegiance, as long as you can assign the Tzeentch Keyword during set-up. (And you can set that keyword on Set-up for them.) Varanguard don't have the Tzeeentch keyword, and can't have it set until the Hero phase by Archaon.

 

“If all the starting units and warscroll battalions in your army follow TZEENTCH – including any units that you assign the TZEENTCH keyword to during set-up – then your army has the TZEENTCH allegiance.” P.72 Chaos Battletome: Disciples of Tzeentch

 

Chaos Warriors and Marauders Warscroll:

"Mark of Chaos: If you wish, when setting up this unit, you can pick one of the following keywords to assign to it for the duration of the battle: KHORNE, TZEENTCH, NURGLE or SLAANESH."

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Aaaaah i see, this is quite nice for the warriors and marauders and quite sad for the varanguard, but definetely gives some options in terms of abilitys.

Especially when considering the new allies rules.

As i just posted some of the units i want to use, do you see something my army lacks off but needs badly, that should be solved by non-tzeentch allies, or do you think i am just fine useing varanguard as my allies? :)

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...3x chaos marauders for battleline (cheapest chaos battleline plus easiest way to make enought mortal/slaves/tzeentch keywords in ur army)

...

 

 

Indications are that minimum unit size for Chaos Marauders is going up to 20. (Based on both their current cost and the minimum unit size in the Path to Glory.)

 

With GHB 2017 coming in two weeks, the battleline meta will change.

 

And combined the points cost for your chosen leaders is ~1600 points.

 

That is a whole load of points taken up by heroes....

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I am going to wait for GHB2 before i start creating an army, as too much will change.

 

You have to consider that, even if the heroes will cost around 1600 points, my army will have at least 3k points, probably around 4-5 k.

1600 points for heroes seem just fine for me.

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Treacherous Bond with Archaon can basically pass off wounds to another unit on a 2+. Park a big unit of marauders or brimstone horrors nearby and Archaon will be nigh unkillable in normal fashion. Best part is that the wounds are passed off after saves are made, so you can still beef up his whole rerollable 2+ type shenanigans with all your other spells and abilities.

I would glance through the Everchosen book and take a look at some of the big battalions - they're meant for the kinds of big games you're thinking of.

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6 minutes ago, angelust said:

Treacherous Bond with Archaon can basically pass off wounds to another unit on a 2+. Park a big unit of marauders or brimstone horrors nearby and Archaon will be nigh unkillable in normal fashion. Best part is that the wounds are passed off after saves are made, so you can still beef up his whole rerollable 2+ type shenanigans with all your other spells and abilities.

Need a little help here as i am not familiar with the english terms, what is treacherous bond ( like an ability or something?) and where can i find it :D

7 minutes ago, angelust said:

I would glance through the Everchosen book and take a look at some of the big battalions - they're meant for the kinds of big games you're thinking of.

I thought the same, which is why i went to my lokal GW store and bought the book yesterday :D

Unfortunately they didn't have the tzeentch tome in stock, so i ordered that one.

 

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A few notable Synergies with Archaon:   

Tzeentch alliance abilities allow you to use fate dice on your slayer of kings sword to get double 6's to wound and delete an enemy model.  Also there is the spell lore which allows you to tie Archaon's life to a unit nearby.  Treacherous bond or Shield of Fate.  You can shrug mortal wounds off onto say chaos warriors who get an additional 5+ save with their shields.

Tzeentch fatemaster can also be used in tandem to make sure you get all sorts of re-rolls for his abilities

Archaon adjusts battleshocks tests up or down 2.   Use with Chaos Knights- the Chaos knights reduce bravery by one.  Crom the Conquerer with Archaon reduce battleshock tests by 2 as well.  He also rocks a 3+ save and is cheap in points.

Varanguard seem like they have been covered in previous comments. Take Overlords of Chaos battalion to make Varanguard into the killing machines they are meant to be.

If I were you I would wait to see what abilities come out for both Slaves to Darkness or Slaanesh in the general's handbook 2017.

Slaanesh have hellstriders and Slaanesh lord on Daemonic mount which both give -1 to hit stackable bubbles to your characters and units nearby. 

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As i've gained deep insight on some nice synergies and units that work well with Archaon (thank you for that guys you are awesome), i have yet another question.

Who are the allies you see working well with Archaon in a tzeentch list?

I definetely try out Sayl, but i am not sure on what to go for with the other units.

Obviously varanguard came into my mind, and i also thought about a slaanesh lord on daemonic mount.

What other units do you see working well as allies?

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  • 3 weeks later...

Im also interested since I got 3 x V-guards, Gaunt and Archaon. I was thinking about that fatesworn warband, but im not familiar with every slaves unit.
So far im thinking about putting 3 x marauders on that list,m but 1 unit will be 40 bodies. Ill try Sayl also just to use marauders for forward objectives screens. But then, I still have to have 6 other mortal tzeentch units, which means, theres no room for varanguards in Everchosen list (!).

What do you think will suit in this case? Is there any reasonable, at least, semi-competetive list for Fatesworn Warband.

My main goal is ti have DDice, Archaon, Kairos/Loc and Varanguards but still 300 pts for V's make them extremly difficult to put in GH17 competetive lists imo.

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Here is what i am going to try out when i have the models:

(For my heroes check my post above)

 

Marauders for objectives, chaos warriors for tanky infantry (only if i know i will need them), and hopefully chosen (i love the models, but i don't know how well they will perform with their point reduction.)

Chaos knights for mobility

(Maybe a gorebeast-chariot, not sure but they are in the harbringers of ruin box so i'll give them a shot)

Skyfires for ranged sniping, flamers for hordes.

(Maybe a mutalith because i like the model)

If i know i need more tools against hordes i take a Gaunt Summoner without disc.

For allies i am still not sure, maybe Sayl+ varanguard and the everchosen battalion.

And the fatesworn warband with them StD units.

 

I like that basic composition because i think it gives you a good core to Work with that can be adapted for almost every situation of you know what you are up against or a little bit of everything if you dont know.

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