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AoS 2 - Disciples of Tzeentch Discussion


Gaz Taylor

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20 hours ago, Pyrk said:

(ie glaive, vulcharc, scroll)

As far as I know Vulchark and the Scroll one too have weapon options. It does not say they have to swap out their weapons for anything. So if you want them to have Arcanite Shields the Vulchark and the Scroll one too can have Arcanite Shields or Paired Blades if you prefer that. Only the Glaive bearers state that their weapon load out is changed.

As far as Paired Blades or Arcanite Shields I personaly would prefer shields. If they ever get into melee. They will fall over to a stiff breeze. So if you do not activate first who cares anyways. But even if you activate first with a full unit the damage increase you get, depending on the enemies defensive stats ofcourse, is for a 10 man unit 1 at best? I prefer them having the increased defensive capability to survive random chip damage. I am not saying they suddenly become tanky with shields but it can help a little here and there. Even with shiels i expect them to fall over when i send them into melee. 

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22 hours ago, Jabbuk said:

I know Tzaangors suck but I spent ages painting them so I kinda wanna play them

Awesome! Its always sad to think about the effort we put into our minis and then maybe not playing them afterall. Go for it. So You wanna have a fun list? Fun is rather brought right but I can tell you what I would change if I wanted to have fun with Tzaangors. You should play 20 in a unit. If you want the fun to be with your Tzaangors hacking stuff down in melee you want 20 in a unit so they do not loose their 9+ model buff too soon before they even get into melee. Though that would presuppose you having more then 10 Tzaangors painted and ready to go.

In general a unfun setback could be that if you do not go first and play against a shooting army your Gaunt Summoner will die before he can summon the pinks and leave you starting the game without pinks? I do not know about your tournaments competitiveness or meta but if you expect a lot of shooting you better be able to hide that Gaunt Summoner because you definetly pay the points for those pinks he can summon by taking him and if he does not get around to summon those pinks that is a big feels bad. Just thinking about your fun aspect here right.

Ofcourse we could talk about how to make your list "better" but you wanna have fun with Tzaangors. You got Kairos and Umbral Spellportal. That is one of the best things our book can do at the moment I feel like so enjoy your Tzaangors.

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Thank you so much for the feedback guys, I really appreciate it.

I refined my list a little bit:

Allegiance: Tzeentch
- Change Coven: Hosts Arcanum
- Grand Strategy: None Chosen
- Triumphs:
Kairos Fateweaver (435)
Gaunt Summoner of Tzeentch (255)
Ogroid Thaumaturge (165)
The Blue Scribes (135)
Changecaster, Herald of Tzeentch (135)
10 x Kairic Acolytes (115)
10 x Kairic Acolytes (115)
10 x Kairic Acolytes (115)
10 x Tzaangors (175)
3 x Tzaangor Skyfires (210)
Umbral Spellportal (70)
Soulsnare Shackles (65)

Total: 1990 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 0 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 99
Drops: 10
 

I decided to go for Changecaster instead of Tzaangor Shaman. I think the Changecaster will contribute more to the Fate Points and I don't have enough Tzaangors in my list to justify the Shaman. I could be wrong tho, please correct me if I am.

My strategy is basically going to be to do MW from afar, have the kairics as screens (and pinks from Gaunt) and keep the Tzaangors tight and use them as countercharge if ever. I'd like to use their MW ability for each wizard around within 9".

Then I try to summon pinks ASAP and try to block movement with shackles. I'm new to this so that's be my overall strat. I feel like Tzeentch has no real hammer and you absolutely don't wanna go in melee because they all die so quickly. 

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On 1/6/2022 at 6:45 AM, Duke of Mousillon said:

@TerminusRex please tell us about your experience with the Cult of the Transient Form. I think on paper it looks ... mediocre but I will be more then happy to be shown its benefits. Even if you wanna play a Tzaangor army just being another Cult that gives better generic buffs seems superior. 

I went 2/1 and finished 7th overall in a 20-man, losing to a Kragnos double turn.  The other cult point is potentially valid, but I made 7 extra goats from the Acolytes over the course of the game (so just barely above average).  The bravery aura was also somewhat nice in that it saved me a battle shock command point a couple of times.  I did change my list by dropping the Skyfires (who are dogshit), and adding Scribes and shackles.  I am not sure if the shackles are really worth it since they either got unbound when I cast it or during their hero phase.

22 hours ago, Ganigumo said:

Tzaangors don't even have a bad warscroll, they just don't have access to much support in the book and are overcosted.

Tzaangors actually have a solid warscroll. 20 wounds for 175 is not bad, and they can deal decent damage if they have the adequate support.  With 7 wizards nearby, their banners were doing serious amounts of non-spell mortal wounds to the enemy lines. I enjoyed that quite a bit.

Their biggest shortfall is the 4+/4+ hit and damage stat, so you need to buff both if you want them to kill things in melee..  Fatemasters are not tanky enough to get so close to buff melee, so you need All out Attack, and Tzeentch is always hungry for command points.  On damage side, you just need an arcanite hero nearby, so that's not as hard.  In several circumstances I was able to get them in melee with both buffs in place, and they absolutely wrecked house (maximum potential is 20 horns, 20 savage blades, and 8 greatblade attacks)

7 hours ago, S1lmaril said:

I'm thinking about an Eternal Conflagration list, what about a castle of 3x3 flamers unit with 3 exalted flamers and Fatemaster to give em reroll? 

I would just summon exalted flamers where you need them. You also need a screen unit or you will just lose the game no matter your damage output. Running them in units of 6 may give an opportunity to use Fold Reality to bring some back.

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This is my current Conflagration list that I want to drop once I've had my fill of goats. I am really trying to prove that mortal units aren't so bad, and have been doing quite well with both Pyrofane Cult and now Transient Form. Although I have yet to face dragons, which I understand just deletes Tzeentch anyway.

 

Battalions: Battle Regiment, Command Entourage (extra artifact), 4 drops, 15 point bid for Triumph: Inspired

Changecaster - Artifact: Aura of Mutability, Spell: Bolt of Change

Fatemaster - General: Coruscating Flames

Kairos Fateweaver - Spell: Tzeentch's Firestorm

Magister - Artifact: Shroud of Warpflame, Spell: Glimpse the Future

The Blue Scribes - Spell: Fold Reality

10x Pink Horrors

6x Flamers of Tzeentch

6x Flamers of Tzeentch

Endless Spell: Umbral Spellportal

 

Main issue I see with the list is that it really wants to move in one block with Horrors upfront, flamers on the flank, and all the heroes (except blues and Kairos) in the middle. That means all the daemons are -1 to hit in range and melee, and are re-rolling to hit and to wound.  With all out attack on the horrors for first turn, that's an average of 19 D1 and 25 D3 wounds, all at -1 rend. This is assuming the flamers are only hitting on 4s.

It really strikes me as similar to my Pyrofane shooting list, with more damage output but with a smaller footprint and fewer scoring tools.  It also generates fewer fate points, but should have 12 by turn 2 to summon an exalted flamer.

 

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19 hours ago, Jabbuk said:

Then I try to summon pinks ASAP and try to block movement with shackles. I'm new to this so that's be my overall strat. I feel like Tzeentch has no real hammer and you absolutely don't wanna go in melee because they all die so quickly. 

I usually try to bring in Blues initially. 10 Fate Points is feasible Turn 1, and that provides alot of board presence. If I have excess, then I let the points built up to 20, so I end up summoning pinks Turn 3 in most cases.

Playing a tournament this weekend and one of the lists is Hallowed Knights with 2x Stormdrake Guard, 6x Vanguard Raptors, a priest for Translocation, and Gardus for a 5+ ward.

With all the shots from the Raptors, I am a little cautious that they will nuke a Bird before I get a chance to go.  Running the classic Fate, LOC, Ogroid, Changecaster,  Scribes with some horror/kairic fillout for the balance.

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5 hours ago, Calypso2ts said:

I usually try to bring in Blues initially. 10 Fate Points is feasible Turn 1, and that provides alot of board presence. If I have excess, then I let the points built up to 20, so I end up summoning pinks Turn 3 in most cases.

Playing a tournament this weekend and one of the lists is Hallowed Knights with 2x Stormdrake Guard, 6x Vanguard Raptors, a priest for Translocation, and Gardus for a 5+ ward.

With all the shots from the Raptors, I am a little cautious that they will nuke a Bird before I get a chance to go.  Running the classic Fate, LOC, Ogroid, Changecaster,  Scribes with some horror/kairic fillout for the balance.

I totally agree about the 2 birds being classic. It's just I spent a crapload amount of time painting my first LoC. Painting another one turns me off right now.

Thanks for the input on horrors.

Here are pics of my LoC.

PXL_20220112_143706544.jpg

PXL_20220112_143721107.jpg

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5 hours ago, TerminusRex said:

This is my current Conflagration list that I want to drop once I've had my fill of goats. I am really trying to prove that mortal units aren't so bad, and have been doing quite well with both Pyrofane Cult and now Transient Form. Although I have yet to face dragons, which I understand just deletes Tzeentch anyway.

 

Battalions: Battle Regiment, Command Entourage (extra artifact), 4 drops, 15 point bid for Triumph: Inspired

Changecaster - Artifact: Aura of Mutability, Spell: Bolt of Change

Fatemaster - General: Coruscating Flames

Kairos Fateweaver - Spell: Tzeentch's Firestorm

Magister - Artifact: Shroud of Warpflame, Spell: Glimpse the Future

The Blue Scribes - Spell: Fold Reality

10x Pink Horrors

6x Flamers of Tzeentch

6x Flamers of Tzeentch

Endless Spell: Umbral Spellportal

 

Main issue I see with the list is that it really wants to move in one block with Horrors upfront, flamers on the flank, and all the heroes (except blues and Kairos) in the middle. That means all the daemons are -1 to hit in range and melee, and are re-rolling to hit and to wound.  With all out attack on the horrors for first turn, that's an average of 19 D1 and 25 D3 wounds, all at -1 rend. This is assuming the flamers are only hitting on 4s.

It really strikes me as similar to my Pyrofane shooting list, with more damage output but with a smaller footprint and fewer scoring tools.  It also generates fewer fate points, but should have 12 by turn 2 to summon an exalted flamer.

 

Would you care sharing what your Pyrofane Cult list looks like?

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13 hours ago, TerminusRex said:

losing to a Kragnos double turn

what were your other matchups and how did they play out? Yeah I suppose 7 "free" Tzaangors is not terrible. I am just so afraid of Kairics dying outside of melee making the ability not work. How tough was it to keep the Tzaangors within 9 of the dying model? How did that impact your board presence? 

You tried one big block of Acolytes and two min units of Tzaangors. What about those numbers? You liked them? Or would you think about maybe swapping to a bigger unit of Tzaangors and smaller units of Acolytes?

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9 hours ago, Duke of Mousillon said:

what were your other matchups and how did they play out? Yeah I suppose 7 "free" Tzaangors is not terrible. I am just so afraid of Kairics dying outside of melee making the ability not work. How tough was it to keep the Tzaangors within 9 of the dying model? How did that impact your board presence? 

You tried one big block of Acolytes and two min units of Tzaangors. What about those numbers? You liked them? Or would you think about maybe swapping to a bigger unit of Tzaangors and smaller units of Acolytes?

That is true, several die from ranged abilities, but if they are focusing all their ranged attacks on Acolytes (who have shields and usually mystic shield on top), that also works for me. Just "within" is a lot easier than wholly within, so 9" was plenty.  I am a lot more aggressive with the acolytes in this list since they are the chaff screen. I would kill for some sort of pre-game movement ability for them.  Board presence is definitely an issue as you want the tzaangor units roughly in the same area to use their banners, but that's what summoned blue horrors are for.  I do want to try the Guild of Summoners (but I lose the horrors and don't have enough big birds) and Cult of Thousand Eyes for the goat lists.

I did try the 20 goat with 2x10 acolytes, but didn't like it for several reasons. #1, with 32" bases and only 1" range, you will never get that many goats in combat, so you're wasting a huge number of points just sitting there.  As it is, I treat them as units of 6 combat models with 4+ ablative dudes. #2, having played Acolytes quite a bit, they are total ****** at 10-strong, only good as a "I have no other option" filler for battleline.  It's too easy to shut off their casting and they die too quickly to make much of an impact. At 20 strong, they can actually fight in two ranks, with the 7 glaive attacks doing a surprising amount of damage.

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15 hours ago, Jabbuk said:

Would you care sharing what your Pyrofane Cult list looks like?

Battle Regiment

Gaunt Summoner - Glimpse the Future

Changecaster - Chainfire Amulet, Bolt of Change

20x Acolytes

20x Acolytes

10x Pink Horrors

Mutalith Vortex Beast

Cockatrice

 

Warlord Battalion

Fatemaster - General

Ogroid Thaumaturge - Infusion Arcanum, Arcane Tome

Blue Scribes

10x Chaos Warhounds

 

I've had a few variations including dropping the bird and warhounds for a second Mutalith Vortex beast. Both the beast and Cockatrice are not as good without Destiny Dice, and Mutalith in general is not tanky/damaging enough for their points. I do find having the monsters to be very useful for scoring battle tactics (for example, metamorphosis the Thaumaturge, and run him along with the cockatrice and vortex beast for 3 VPs, cockatrice makes monstrous takeover very easy with flight, etc.).  Having screens is paramount in this edition from my experience so far, so even the Warhounds do their job and do it well.

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10 minutes ago, TerminusRex said:

That is true, several die from ranged abilities, but if they are focusing all their ranged attacks on Acolytes (who have shields and usually mystic shield on top), that also works for me. Just "within" is a lot easier than wholly within, so 9" was plenty.  I am a lot more aggressive with the acolytes in this list since they are the chaff screen. I would kill for some sort of pre-game movement ability for them.  Board presence is definitely an issue as you want the tzaangor units roughly in the same area to use their banners, but that's what summoned blue horrors are for.  I do want to try the Guild of Summoners (but I lose the horrors and don't have enough big birds) and Cult of Thousand Eyes for the goat lists.

I did try the 20 goat with 2x10 acolytes, but didn't like it for several reasons. #1, with 32" bases and only 1" range, you will never get that many goats in combat, so you're wasting a huge number of points just sitting there.  As it is, I treat them as units of 6 combat models with 4+ ablative dudes. #2, having played Acolytes quite a bit, they are total ****** at 10-strong, only good as a "I have no other option" filler for battleline.  It's too easy to shut off their casting and they die too quickly to make much of an impact. At 20 strong, they can actually fight in two ranks, with the 7 glaive attacks doing a surprising amount of damage.

Acolytes are 32mm bases with 1" reach as well.

I'm not sold on cult of the transient form, its just way too jank, and doesn't provide much benefit, even though I like it the most narratively. AOS 3 changed the ability to only trigger in the combat phase so we can't even get tzaangors off of shooting/magic casualties like we used to, and the tzaangors need to be within 9" of the slain model not within 9" of the unit the model was from, which kind of wierdly translates to wholly within if you want to be able to benefit from any 6's. Doesn't help that the subfaction has the worst artefact, Command ability, and command trait of all the subfactions.


Something to keep in mind if you want to try Cult of a Thousand eyes is that Tzaangors don't actually have the Mortal keyword, so they don't benefit from the abilities. Which is a shame because we really needed a subfaction to raise Tzaangors up a bit.

I think mortals are a bit overcosted but there's definitely some gas in an arcanite focused playstyle, even if its not as competitive as the daemon builds, but I think Pyrofane cult, guild of summoners, or hosts arcanum are the way to go for it.

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2 hours ago, Ganigumo said:

Acolytes are 32mm bases with 1" reach as well.
 

Then I've been cheating people and using an old warscroll or something. I could have sworn the glaives were 2".

My 20-man acolyte unit was strung out in a single staggered line, with the goats right behind them, so every model in the unit was within 9" of a goat unit.

Edited by TerminusRex
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6 hours ago, Duke of Mousillon said:

I can even see a possible state of the game where Host Duplicitous is a valid option. Trying to just run and charge enough Tzaangors up the board to pin the enemy in place. 

You know, I have only seen a model retreat from combat maybe a handful of times, and it's always a character that gets roped into combat with pile-ins 2-3 turns into a melee.  I do not know if Tzaangors are tanky enough to tie units down like Horrors can, battleshock is a problem for them.

 

I do like the idea of Hosts Arcanum for my goat list even if it feels weird not to have extra screamers and daemon heroes to support them (I guess I can always summon a Fluxmaster).  The 6 summoned skysharks will add a nice extra touch to my long-toss Tzaangor/Enlightened/Shaman bomb.

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You must have misunderstood me. I am not talking about right now. I am saying that I can see a state of the game where this could be a good option. Meaning if the meta shifts and maybe points costs are adjusted this could be good. Because fundamentally speaking. That is a strong rule to have. Just denying a whole mechanic (in this case retreating) is strong. Is it relevant right now as the state of the game is today? Maybe not. But it just needs a shift in the meta to make it strong suddenly. It doesnt need like bug rules changes or warscroll changes to be good.

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Secretely I hope that the Slaves to Darkness being more and more separated from the mono god armies indicates us getting proper Tzeentch Chaos Warriors at some point in this edition. Would be totally stoaked about that though I am afraid I am wishing for too much. 

Then again Slaanesh now too has those Painbringer models which are basically Slaanesh Chaos Warriors. 

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On 1/15/2022 at 10:28 PM, Jabbuk said:

Would you care explaining why? I'm putting some in my list and was thinking they're a good threat from far away with potential mw.

They have to few, to unreliable shots to be a reliable thread at range. They are a decent fast melee unit when striking first. But in general they do to many things to be actually good at any of them ( per points payed). So while you will mostly be underwhelmed by their actual performance they bring a lot of flexibility...

What kills them is they just do not fit into the current Tzeentch playstyle. 

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2 hours ago, Koala said:

They have to few, to unreliable shots to be a reliable thread at range. They are a decent fast melee unit when striking first. But in general they do to many things to be actually good at any of them ( per points payed). So while you will mostly be underwhelmed by their actual performance they bring a lot of flexibility...

What kills them is they just do not fit into the current Tzeentch playstyle. 

Thank you for the reply. I'm kinda new to the faction so what is Tzeentch current playstyle? I thought it was staying away and doing MW from afar, mostly, screening the board with summons, which, in my mind, Skyfires contribute to. I dunno, in my mind they do at least. Would you care to elaborate a bit?

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