How would you rate Disciples of Tzeentch with out Skyfire Spam?

[Lord Veshnakar]

Genuinely curious here. My brother plays them and doesn't really like to use skyfires and is struggling competatively. Wondering if that's a shared experience. 

[kzimm72]

I haven't read the book yet but faced them in battle over the weekend with my rotbringers.

He had a 30 block of tzaangors that pretty much cleaned up 75% of my army. The bonus attacks and buffs they get were nasty.


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[AverageBoss]

I would say they are below top tier, but above mid tier. Skyfire spam with multiple buffs is just the closest thing DoT has to a deathstar of old. I for one only run 6 with a single shaman hanging around and do fine. Tzaangors, Pink Horrors, and a slew of useful characters are more than capable of carrying the army.

The book does have poor internal and external balance though. All flamers, enlightened, acolytes, screamers, fatemasters, Fateweaver, and all 4 heralds are over pointed to different degrees. Skyfires are odd, because they are fine in 3-6 man units with one or two buffs, but are broken in 9 man units with buffs.

[Nico]

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The book does have poor internal and external balance though. All flamers, enlightened, acolytes, screamers, fatemasters, Fateweaver, and all 4 heralds are over pointed to different degrees. Skyfires are odd, because they are fine in 3-6 man units with one or two buffs, but are broken in 9 man units with buffs.

Overall I'm worried about them as a faction. My practice games have been a mixed bag. I've completely avoided Skyfires and used the Fatesworn Warband, the Exalted Conflagration and more recently the Hosts Duplicitous.

• The biggest issues are with the Daemons. Other than Horrors and the LoCs (i.e. new Warscrolls) - the Tzeentch Daemon units were repointed despite having conspicuously disappeared from tables since the GH (the worst examples being Flamers and Screamers, which are horrendously overpointed). I can sympathise here as historically Flamers were very strong. The problem is compounded as the Deamon Battalions are seriously disappointing (with one exception) as are their Battleline options. Having to have the 200 point Herald on Chariot as a general is horrendous (it doesn't have a command ability - it casts one spell and has a 5+ save).
• The Exception is the Hosts Duplicitous or its component the Changehost, which is a powerful tool. However, the downside is that it chews up almost the full 2000 point army, leaving almost no room for anything that isn't a squishy caster or a Horror or a decent sized summoning pool. I also suspect that like Sylvaneth, it's an army that will get "found out" - it will have a good few months before the majority of players learn what it does, then it will be routinely countered by good deployment or small changes to lists.
• The Multitudinous Host is another option, but doesn't give you the option of a single drop army (unless you want to YOLO with only a single 5 wound hero as general on the hope you can summon on more heroes using the Pink Horrors).
• Kairos is disappointing for the cost - it really hurts that he cannot fit in the Battalions instead of a regular LoC. The lack of -2 rend is also disappointing.
• The Exalted Conflagration is very disappointing. Perhaps if the entire Battalion gained the -1 to hit debuff vs Pew Pew, it would be worth spanking 720 points on 6 Exalted Flamers. 
• The Lores are very fluffy, but on closer inspection they are pretty disappoining - Arcane Transformation, Shield of Fate and Infusion Arcanum are solid. There's a real gap where a solid debuff spell should be (to deal with deathstars). The Arcane Suggestion spell is very poor as it only lasts for your turn - not until your next hero phase (even before taking account of the random effect) - I hope this is a typo. This is plugged by the Hosts Duplicitous - so you're almost forced to take this Battalion.
• The command traits are perhaps the worst of all the allegiances with battletomes and Allegiance Packs after Beastclaw Raiders (those suckers have to make do with Battle Brew and Rampaging Destroyers). There are 3-4 good artefacts for DoT, but they aren't up there with Sylvaneth or Stormcast Eternals or even BoK.  
• I rate Tzaangors and I even rate Acolytes as useful. Enlightened are good with Mystic Shield and Shield of Fate. However, the Battalions available aren't great (the small ones are at least reasonably cheap) - piling in and attacking during the hero phase is one of the worst combat buffs available.  The big ones mandate large unit sizes, which rapidly hogs almost the entire 2,000 points available. 
• The most controversial point will inevitably be Destiny Dice and Mortal wounds. The typical effect of which is to top up a Bolt of Tzeentch or Pink Fire by 2.5 mortal wounds, from 3.5 mortal wounds (D6) to 6 mortal wounds. It's adding slightly more than an Arcane Bolt on top of the spell by itself. It's helpful for first turn burst damage, but on average you are looking at 1.5 sixes and 1.5 fives in your pool. If (contrary to what the author of the book intended), they are nerfed, then Tzeentch are left with very little by way of burst damage or can opener tools (Slaves to Darkness have very little -2 rend - two heroes and Daemons can risk their 4+ save heroes in melee - not ideal). Soul Grinders are overcosted and cannot be buffed using artefacts or Arcane Transformation. Perhaps more concerningly, if DD aren't useable for mortal wounds, then their value declines significantly and the various tools for regenerating them or predetermining them decline even more so. I cannot see any reason to take a maxed out Arcanite Battalion for almost the whole 2,000 point army to get your choice of 3 guaranteed sixes, only to use them on....? Please bear in mind that the entire Tzeentch range of Warscrolls has only 3 with D6 damage or more - Archaon, the Soulgrinder and a quiz. The same is true of the Overseer's Fate Twisters (which is already marginal because you have to take Exalted Flamers in it.... sigh).
• Coming swiftly on DoT's heels were new hard counters to DoT, namely the auto unbinds of Khorne and the Hallowed Knights Battalion.

Conclusion

Of course, it's hard to find sympathy for an allegiance which is going to be kerbstomping opponents left right and centre with Skyfire spam at the weekend. Please nerf the Skyfires into the ground, but leave the rest of the Allegiance in a good state. It's on shaky pillars at the moment. 

[AverageBoss]

Oh, I did not even touch on spells, battalions, and artifacts. About 1/3 - 1/2 our spells are good (on top of several useful model specific spells we have access to), to I feel its enough to get by, though will become a samey and predictable over time.

There are way too many problems with our artifact selection. And it would probably take hours to type out all the flaws on that front.

The Battalions though really upset me. The are clunky in their assembly for starters. Many force you to invest in lackluster units. They tend to leave little points for flexibility (especially in the daemon and large arcanite battalion). Aside from changehost/host D (which have much more glaring problems), the bonuses provided are either incredibly lackluster, too unreliable, or both (many don't go off unless you roll a 6 in a specific circumstance). We don't have any mega battalions that allow "additional units" (see every stormhost battalion). And The Curseling, Ogroid, and Gaunt Summoner were completely left out of any formation, and Fateweaver is only available in 1.

[Nico]

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The Battalions though really upset me. The are clunky in their assembly for starters. Many force you to invest in lackluster units. They tend to leave little points for flexibility (especially in the daemon and large arcanite battalion). Aside from changehost/host D (which have much more glaring problems), the bonuses provided are either incredibly lackluster, too unreliable, or both (many don't go off unless you roll a 6 in a specific circumstance). We don't have any mega battalions that allow "additional units" (see every stormhost battalion). And The Curseling, Ogroid, and Gaunt Summoner were completely self out of any formation, and Fateweaver is only available in 1.

They are indeed disappointing, but not quite that bad.

It's normal for Battalions to include some level of tax in terms of a bad unit. However, you're right that requiring 6 Exalted Flamers (let alone 18 Flamers) or 40 Acolytes are very onerous taxes). The buffs from the Screamer Battalion and the Warpflame Host are some of the most feeble buffs in the game - healing when you unbind on a Herald on Disk...).

The Mega Battalions do allow extra Arcanite units or extra Daemon Units respectively - not that there's much space.

Kairos Fateweaver is hard to justify as being allegedly better than a regular LoC. The main thing he can do is cast Treacherous Bond off another Mortal Wizard to give yourself a decent tank. The fact that he can reliably cast other friendly spells isn't the advantage it would be outside of the Tzeentch army (since there are so many buffs to casting and DD are available to ensure that spells go off).

[ledha]

1 hour ago, Nico said:

 

• I rate Tzaangors and I even rate Acolytes as useful. Enlightened are good with Mystic Shield and Shield of Fate. However, the Battalions available aren't great (the small ones are at least reasonably cheap) - piling in and attacking during the hero phase is one of the worst combat buffs available.  The big ones mandate large unit sizes, which rapidly hogs almost the entire 2,000 points available. 

can you please explain me this part ? i don't even understand how it's a bad buff 

[Nico]

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can you please explain me this part ? i don't even understand how it's a bad buff 

It's because it doesn't do anything until after the initial combat of the game (e.g. after you've charged in or after your opponent has charged you). This means that (a) it's operating on a depleted unit; or (b) the game may have already been decided by the earlier combat.

[Bradifer]

• Lord of Change is good.
• + Nice Mortal Wound Cannon.
• + Reliable Spellcasting.
• + Decent in melee at mopping up battleline units,
• - Dies in melee to elites or monsters.
• - Dies to shooting and mortal wound spam.
• - Can never hide out of LoS.
• - Spells happen in the hero phase, you can't move until movement phase. Therefore spells are significantly worse than ranged attacks. (Really this sums up partially why Skyfires are good and wizard spam is falling behind.)
• - Ideal as a general in caster armies, but the traits and artefacts all lean towards melee.
• - Fateweaver costs more and is worse

 

• + A unit of 20-30 Tzangors is good.
• + 2 wounds each.
• + Khorne BB level of attacks.
• + Skill matters in determining placement and pile-ins i.e. Rend -1 on the right targets, dual wielding on the low armor targets. Also keeping in range. .of synergies via Shaman or Tzangor Coven.
• + Unit is fast.
• + Free Mortal Wounds from banner.
• - Takes up a huge footprint .
• - Low bravery means you constantly want Inspiring Presence or risk losing 2 wounds per model fleeing.
• - Reduces flexibility in army when 20-30 cost you 360 - 540 pts, a huge chunk of your army.

 

• Gaunt Summoner is good.
• + Flexible and cheap for 2 spells. 
• + Very powerful horde clearing spell
• + Has all the keywords.
• - Somewhat reliant on often-banned Balewind Vortex (extra 100 pts).

 

• Pink Horrors are good.
• + Essentially a 10 wound wizard.
• + Bonus to cast is easy to guarantee.
• + Shooting attacks chip off wounds.
• + Split rule allows flexibility to chaff opponent in combat.
• + Somewhat expensive @ 14pts per wound.
• + High Bravery.
• - Bad at melee.
• - Bad saves.
• - Another expensive battleline unit reduces overall army flexibility and list design options.

I won't do the rest of the units. But those are the ones that stand out to me. Tzangor Shaman is required, has amazing synergy spell, and his once per game ability is powerful. Skyfires obviously good. I play them in either 3 or 6.

Enlightened needed a better armor save to really look intimidating.

Ogroid is neat, but feels alone as one f the only models that wants melee combat.

Daemon Prince, ^ Same as above. Plus you really don't need a Tzeentch Daemon Prince, one more wizard doesn't really matter.

Almost all of the Daemons are overcosted, or just bad.

Battalions, while there are many, require a lot of investment from units that aren't great (flamers, Kairic Acolytes, etc.) Plus the battalions are very restrictive and take a massive chunk of your army.

Destiny Dice were fun at first but keep getting worse - the No Mortal Wounds for DD seems quite stupid, as does the require 2 DD to cast a spell. It's like taking one of the most fun things to do, and completely removing it (Using a single DD-4 to auto cast an 8+ spell on Lord of Change). Some of the most critical rolls you already aren't allowed to control i.e. priority turn roll, and certain effects from spells like the spell that resummons daemons or kills the unit on a 1...

Do we really need to continue nerfing it? Are we also removing some of the power from Sylvaneth's 0% counterplay-indestructible free woods, 2 methods of mortal wounds, and dangerous terrain for enemies? I doubt it, so let's not make allegiance abilities bad - otherwise you will encourage the heck out of Skyfire + Shaman + Sayl + Warpfire + Bloodletters + Plaguebearers kind of lists, or more Moo-Clan lists, or Hurricanum Kurnoth Hunters etc...

 

TL;DR It's fun, has a few good units. But units are expensive and battalions are restrictive and expensive. The Daemon 1half isn't very strong. Spells are easier to counterplay than giant threat range shooting attacks. Traits + artefacts benefit melee, but your generals aren't tanky and don't want to be in melee. Destiny Dice are really fun but need FAQ's to determine if they really need multiple layers of comped nerfs. Let people play with their toys. However the book has the tools to compete in all 3 phases of the game, and strengths to take on each Matched play battleplan.

 

[ledha]

sorry to make another intervention but... what do you mean with the no mortal wound for Destiny dice ? oO

[Soulsmith]

14 minutes ago, ledha said:

sorry to make another intervention but... what do you mean with the no mortal wound for Destiny dice ? oO

Oh Tzeentch, what have you done...

[Stevewren]

13 minutes ago, ledha said:

sorry to make another intervention but... what do you mean with the no mortal wound for Destiny dice ? oO

You can't use DD when determining how many mortal wounds you do with a spell. You can use them to get the spell off, but you have to risk the roll to see how much damage you do. 

My big issue at the moment is the wording on the Lord of Change and the fact that if you have the sword or the rod then you can't use your beak and claw attacks, which really limits the damage output on the models. We'll see how bad it is this weekend when I use all four Lords of Change in one army! 

[ledha]

16 minutes ago, Stevewren said:

You can't use DD when determining how many mortal wounds you do with a spell. You can use them to get the spell off, but you have to risk the roll to see how much damage you do. 

My big issue at the moment is the wording on the Lord of Change and the fact that if you have the sword or the rod then you can't use your beak and claw attacks, which really limits the damage output on the models. We'll see how bad it is this weekend when I use all four Lords of Change in one army! 

well, is it official ? i always saw people using them for rolling the damage of the spells

[Stevewren]

9 minutes ago, ledha said:

well, is it official ? i always saw people using them for rolling the damage of the spells

Official? Its what it says in the book

Rolling for damage for mortal wounds isn't covered under the nine uses. People have done it in games including Warhammer TV games, but that doesn't make it correct. As always though if your opponent is happy with it then fill your boots as they say. I agree its a strange omission, but it isn't the first odd bit of rules writing the GW have ever done. 

[Arkiham]

16 minutes ago, ledha said:

well, is it official ? i always saw people using them for rolling the damage of the spells

It's debatable , it was/is widely classed as OP but practically.. it's not. 

Allowing a wizard to do 6 mortal wounds =OP. 500 shots from a battalion. Perfectly fine...lolwut

[ledha]

8 minutes ago, Stevewren said:

Official? Its what it says in the book

Rolling for damage for mortal wounds isn't covered under the nine uses. People have done it in games including Warhammer TV games, but that doesn't make it correct. As always though if your opponent is happy with it then fill your boots as they say. I agree its a strange omission, but it isn't the first odd bit of rules writing the GW have ever done. 

depend if the term "damage " apply to a spell. But if they use it in the warhammer Tv as well as in the white dwarf battle repport, i'm inclined to say you can use it for your damage spell

[Vaz84]

Local scene plays DD working on mortal wounds, since it's a "damage" roll. Damage can be normal, or mortal.

Spell casting wise, play with it's dice per dice. A charge roll, casting roll, etc.. one dice for one result. You don't replace all X many dice for a melee attack roll. 

I think Tzeentch book is glass hammer, very magic the gathering black/blue type mix. Lot's of burn, and tricks. However not very tanky and needs to stay in control of the game. I feel it will perform well in a balanced meta of competitive but not bleeding edge lists. I think some units certainly need a point re-balance, but GH2 can deliver on that! 

[Iradekhorne]

4 hours ago, Vaz84 said:

Local scene plays DD working on mortal wounds, since it's a "damage" roll. Damage can be normal, or mortal.

Spell casting wise, play with it's dice per dice. A charge roll, casting roll, etc.. one dice for one result. You don't replace all X many dice for a melee attack roll. 

I think Tzeentch book is glass hammer, very magic the gathering black/blue type mix. Lot's of burn, and tricks. However not very tanky and needs to stay in control of the game. I feel it will perform well in a balanced meta of competitive but not bleeding edge lists. I think some units certainly need a point re-balance, but GH2 can deliver on that! 

 

I hope that too.

Acolytes for 140 is a very bad joke xD.

However. Fatesworn warband is playable on tzeentch army, or the batallion broke the allegiance?.

I remember someting from one faq or answer and questions that allow you to put ib tzwentch allegiance (and nugle khorne, etc everchosen batallions)

[Cookiez]

@Bradifer my thoughts exactly. Tzeentch in current form is unstable and "power level" may change from feeding points to opponents to tournament-winning army. There are only few A tier options - Lord of Change, Tzaangors in large blocks and Skyfires, Gaunt with Pinks somewhere between A and B tiers. There are many elements pulling Tzeentch down:

- bad battalions,

- overcosted units, Acolytes are a really bad joke, just like Flamers,

- bad spells,

If you make a list from tier A units and take those few good spells, you will probably win, but if we talk competitive - options are limited.

[Nico]

DD working on mortal wounds stems from the writer of the book giving that as an example of what he intended.

There was an immediate kneejerk reaction to the idea of DD for mortal wounds (despite the fact that Thundertusks do exist and that pew pew >>>> magic). We'll see what happens.

[Malfallax]

I cannot understand what's the fuss with DD for MW ...

I mean, we got 9 dice total of which only 3 maximum (on average) are actually useful for damage.

And 1 spell to reliably generate more.

 

Personally I play it as intended by the writer and my LGS is fine with it.

[Tasman]

On 4/20/2017 at 2:42 PM, ledha said:

depend if the term "damage " apply to a spell. But if they use it in the warhammer Tv as well as in the white dwarf battle repport, i'm inclined to say you can use it for your damage spell

Surely "damage" is exactly what it sounds like.... whether you are using them for, say, the d3 wounds caused by flamers or d3 or d6 wounds caused by spells.... It's only for the rare occasions that you actually have to roll for damage, whether it's mortal or regular wound output.

Besides, there are, as was noted, PLENTY of units out there that get ridiculous amounts of saves v mortal wounds. Maw crushers for one example, stonehorns for another. Just to name two.

[Requizen]

We had a DoTz player smash face in a weekend 3-game event. No Skyfires, just lots of Heroes (Changeling, Herald of Tzeentch, 2 Lords of Change, Blue Scribes, Exalted Flamer). He used The Host Duplicitous and swapped things around to get really sick board control and casting positioning. Plus, Blue Scribes are really good once they've learned some power spells. I think he tabled each opponent or came close to it. Horrors are extremely good screening units (especially since he used a small summoning pool for Blues/Brimstones), and the Flickering Mirage spell really screwed people over. 

I think there's plenty of good things outside of Skyfires, though they are the most straightforwardly powerful.

[Stauderpower]

I've been playing and building disciples of tzeentch since they came out (about 50 games so far) and at a competitive level they do not have a lot of options. To be a top end list you either go skyfires or changehost/duplicitous. If you don't have skyfires it's all about demon heroes throwing out crazy amounts of mortal wounds and horrors blocking and stalling until you wipe stuff out with spells. I really enjoy that side of it and honestly most factions only have 1 or 2 top end list anyways. Overall I think they are a very good book just with some wonky internal balance (especially non horror demon units) as many posters have said.