AoS 2 - Disciples of Tzeentch Discussion

[Malakithe]

19 minutes ago, OkayestDM said:

Perhaps, but it's being done across the board with each new book. I doubt we'll be excluded.

Unfortunately that is true

[RUNCMD]

I'd love to see Kairics come down, even by 10 or 15 points, but I'm thinking it might depend on any sub-faction abilities that are tweaked, maybe like Pyrofane cult.

Maybe we see some Internet leaks in the coming week or so!

 

[Ganigumo]

1 hour ago, OkayestDM said:

Perhaps, but it's being done across the board with each new book. I doubt we'll be excluded.

Ironjawz, IDK, and DoK were pointed pretty aggressively werent they?

Clanrats definitely were too.

We got gamewide increases at the start of 3rd but they're just as inconsistent as ever with points. Heck even the initial point increases for third were way out of line in a lot of cases, since stuff literally nobody played went up.

 

Although I agree that the LoC will probably sit in the 450-500 point range with a few buffs to compensate.

[Jaskier]

1 hour ago, RUNCMD said:

I'd love to see Kairics come down, even by 10 or 15 points, but I'm thinking it might depend on any sub-faction abilities that are tweaked, maybe like Pyrofane cult.

Maybe we see some Internet leaks in the coming week or so!

 

I feel like they will get a big boost in the battletome, much like how Sylvaneth units got multiple rewrites in a span of a few months. At least I hope so anyway!

Good thing about the books is we only have to wait to pre-order day at the latest to see the whole book, so even without leaks we don't have too long to wait to see the full rules assuming the books are up for pre-order next weekend. 

[Duke of Mousillon]

7 hours ago, RUNCMD said:

New Gaunt ability to have two units in reserve is alright, has some sound utility if applied to both Gaunt variants, spesh if Hosts Arcanum stays the same with pregame move for Gaunt on Disc but I kind of hate knowing that this will most likely replace their Arcane Tome ability.

This. Even without Host Arcanums 6''. He runs 16''+1d6''. Plus the 9'' set up bubble. That is way further then any pink horror unit should casually end up at turn 1. Nevertheless 2 of them. To be fair. Soulscream Bridge could do more or less the same for us. But he makes this plan way more flexible and reliable. 

[HMB]

What about if the Gaunt is killed before the unit arrives on the battlefield?

[Duke of Mousillon]

@HMB unit cannot be set up anymore and is destroyed on the 4th battleround. 

[HMB]

not a good ability in this case

[Duke of Mousillon]

It is potentially. Look at it as a turn 1 cheat for your set up units. And the thing is you dont have to use that ability. You set him up early in set up phase and suddenly every unit you have could be going into the silver tower potentially. If you have an enemy who can snipe him turn 1 out of your deployment zone nomatter where you set him up then dont use his ability. But if you can safely set him up without him dying instantly you have basically a deep strike for turn 1. Even better. If your opponent has no ranged threat for him. Or at least you can avoid them. You can wait with his teleport until turn 2-3. All of this depends ofcourse on point costs and if he has a goof warscroll spell on his own and so on. But generally speaking. This is a two unit deep strike most games for turn 1. Maybe even for turn 2-3 if you can afford it. Thats not "not a good ability". 

[Grimrock]

The deployment ability isn't bad, but I get the feeling that it is going to be a bit polarizing. If your opponent doesn't have a way to take him out and there are good units to teleport it might be something close to an auto win. Taking a summoner on disk, hiding behind LOS blocking terrain in deployment, then jumping out 20" to deploy two units of flamers in perfect range to kill a couple critical heros or monsters on the first turn could be game winning. Certainly would crush Khorne armies pretty hard. On the other hand if they surprise you and snipe him out turn one with a spell portal or something that ignores line of sight then it's pretty much an auto loss the other way. Sure you could just not use the ability in deployment, but I'm guessing it's going to be his main schtick (this probably replaces his current summoning ability) and where most of his points come from. If you don't use it you might be paying 250 points for a squishy 2 spell caster that won't have any other effect on the game. 

One thing I did notice is the ability isn't keyed to Disciples of Tzeentch, so you could drop in a unit of 30 marauders with mark of tzeentch and get a pretty much guaranteed turn 1 charge. The problem there is marauders are heavily dependent on hero phase buffs to do anything useful. Still, jamming up your opponent with a bunch of chaff for a turn might not be a terrible thing.

 

[Duke of Mousillon]

1 hour ago, Grimrock said:

but I get the feeling that it is going to be a bit polarizing

You might say. Just as polarizing as the old one with his summoning of 10 pinks if not killed in the deployment zone on turn 1?

[Grimrock]

50 minutes ago, Duke of Mousillon said:

You might say. Just as polarizing as the old one with his summoning of 10 pinks if not killed in the deployment zone on turn 1?

In theory could be worse. For one thing everyone knew that wasn't going to last and, sure enough, it was nerfed in a couple weeks to 5 models. It also happened in the hero phase so it couldn't piggyback off the the movement of a flying summoner on disk. Like I said it kind of depends on the quality of the units in the book, if flamers are super strong then this could be bonkers op. 

Edit: Just to be clear, what I meant by polarizing is how auto-win/auto-loss this ability can be. To make it worthwhile you'd have to invest a lot of points into it (like 700+ using current points). If you do that and manage to snipe out critical components of your opponents army turn 1 with no real counter play you're probably going to win. If you get 700+ points killed on turn 1 you're definitely going to lose. If you take the summoner and buy units specifically for the teleport but then don't use it because of the risk then you're wasting a bunch of points and are immediately on the backfoot. Honestly the more I think about it the more I kind of hate it. The only way it makes sense is if we have no good shooters that can really take advantage of the ability, but at that point we're nerfing the entire faction just so the gaunt summoner can have some janky tech. I would have preferred it if they left it at summoning 5 pinks.

Edited September 16, 2022 by Grimrock

[Fellman]

apparently Horros only split on 4+ in the new 40k demon book might inplement that in aso how knows

[Malakithe]

5 hours ago, Fellman said:

apparently Horros only split on 4+ in the new 40k demon book might inplement that in aso how knows

Maybe their points would come down if they split on a 4+. Would be better for balance and not nearly as annoying for others to fight against

[Halkbat]

Pinks can get worse when enough other stuff is buffed to not be made of paper.  Our unit statlines were made when stacking penalties to hit was our main form of defense.  With a cap on penalties to hit we either need to expand to penalties to wound or get better saves to see the same level of survivability.

[Grimrock]

23 minutes ago, Halkbat said:

Pinks can get worse when enough other stuff is buffed to not be made of paper.  Our unit statlines were made when stacking penalties to hit was our main form of defense.  With a cap on penalties to hit we either need to expand to penalties to wound or get better saves to see the same level of survivability.

Or we could be a glass cannon ranged/magic army. The -1 to hit was new in the current edition of the book and honestly it's kind of a thematic mismatch like the first Nurgle book. Nurgle was the tanky faction that was somehow one of the fastest armies in the game. Tzeentch is the ranged/magic faction that is somehow ridiculously hard to kill with splitting horrors and -1 to hit. Just like Nurgle I wouldn't be surprised if they drop the tankiness in general and get back to the core concept of the faction. Maybe something like -1 rend for all tzeentch daemons wholly within 9" of a locus. 

Edited September 17, 2022 by Grimrock

[Jaskier]

The thing is that Tzeentch's identity in both Warhammer Fantasy and 40k is tied to improved ward / invulnerable saves. They've always been at least the second tankiest god, and the new 40k Chaos Daemon book continues that trend. It's not really a thematic mismatch or mistake that Tzeentch is like that in AoS. I do think they perhaps could tune up the ranged output of the army a bit as Flamers especially just weren't designed for 3rd edition. 

Edited September 17, 2022 by Jaskier

[Grimrock]

29 minutes ago, Jaskier said:

The thing is that Tzeentch's identity in both Warhammer Fantasy and 40k is tied to improved ward / invulnerable saves. They've always been at least the second tankiest god, and the new 40k Chaos Daemon book continues that trend. It's not really a thematic mismatch or mistake that Tzeentch is like that in AoS. I do think they perhaps could tune up the ranged output of the army a bit as Flamers especially just weren't designed for 3rd edition. 

Yeah, there definitely is a history there but like you said they should be the second most resilient. The current book takes it way too far IMO. A big brick of pinks is way tougher than anything in Nurgle just like the old Nurgle book was generally faster than Slaanesh. If you look at the new 40k daemon book sure tzeentch is pretty resilient at range, but they're extremely vulnerable in melee. Horrors can split and stick on an objective pretty well but it's random and there is counter play by killing the whole unit before they get to roll. If we end up with something closer to that I'd be pretty happy. 

[Halkbat]

Horrors are in a good place right now not being able to rally or heal them but also not counting as slain keeps them relevant but they die steadily to all damage thrown their way.  They are the door stop that allow us to do more than kill the first enemy unit to get within 18" and pack up our models.

[Jaskier]

8 hours ago, Grimrock said:

Yeah, there definitely is a history there but like you said they should be the second most resilient. The current book takes it way too far IMO. A big brick of pinks is way tougher than anything in Nurgle just like the old Nurgle book was generally faster than Slaanesh. If you look at the new 40k daemon book sure tzeentch is pretty resilient at range, but they're extremely vulnerable in melee. Horrors can split and stick on an objective pretty well but it's random and there is counter play by killing the whole unit before they get to roll. If we end up with something closer to that I'd be pretty happy. 

I do like the idea of the -1 to be hit being transferred to ranged attacks, it'd be a bit less useful but still show the vulnerability of Tzeentch Daemons to melee. I think the only thing in Tzeentch that's more durable than what Nurgle can bring is Horrors and only because of their splitting and effective battleshock immunity until they're down to Brimstones; outside of Horrors, Tzeentch units tend to be quite frail. Horrors are just by their nature very difficult to balance thanks to their splitting so it'll be interesting to see how the new book handles them, I don't think there's any warscroll in the history of the game that's had as much attention and rewrites as Horrors. 

[RUNCMD]

Have a game tonight and tomorrow night, most likely last two for the new book, thought I'd share my list:

Allegiance: Tzeentch
- Change Coven: Hosts Arcanum
- Grand Strategy: Take What's Theirs
- Triumphs:

Leaders
Curseling, Eye of Tzeentch (175)**
- Lore of Fate: Arcane Suggestion
Kairos Fateweaver (435)**
- Lore of Change: Bolt of Tzeentch
Lord of Change (400)**
- General
- Command Trait: Spell Hunters
- Artefact: The Fanged Circlet
- Lore of Change: Tzeentch's Firestorm
Tzaangor Shaman (135)**
- Lore of Fate: Shield of Fate
Gaunt Summoner on Disc of Tzeentch (230)**
- Lore of Fate: Arcane Suggestion

Battleline
10 x Pink Horrors of Tzeentch (250)*
10 x Kairic Acolytes (120)*
10 x Kairic Acolytes (120)**

Endless Spells & Invocations
Chronomantic Cogs (40)
Umbral Spellportal (70)

Core Battalions
*Expert Conquerors 
**Warlord

Total: 1975 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 0 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 74
Drops: 8
 

Mostly just taking what I have painted at this stage, but I think if anything I'd swap out the Shaman for Ogroid, but his movement and extra spell cast come in handy for summoning purposes. I also want to try the new warscroll for the Curseling, as I haven't tried it yet. Could be fun, could be boring, see how we go hey!

Edited September 19, 2022 by RUNCMD
Spelling

[Duke of Mousillon]

New box content:

Kairics

Tzaangors

Screamers

Flamers

Magister on Disc

 

I forgot the Magister on Disc got a new model. Hopefully this time around he gets memorable rules. Woul like to see him actually being the premium mortal wizard. Can't comment on whether I am pleased by the contents or not. From todays tome I would probably never buy it but that is no reasonable evaluation.

Our pre order goes up next week. Just missing summer by one week. My condolences go to the high elves who are still not having their pre order next week. 

Edit note: they only put half a Kairics box into our new box apparently. So only 10. And the original Kairics Box is now only purchasable online? Has that always been this way?

Edited September 19, 2022 by Duke of Mousillon

[Jaskier]

I saw some rule leaks on Discord (from someone who correctly said Lumineth wouldn't be up for pre-order this week) and they are; 

Kairos loses his dice manipulation and instead gives you a fate dice every turn. 
Flamers are apparently a lot stronger. 
Lords of Change/Kairos can "steal" endless spells. 

The buff to Flamers is expected, 3.0's removal of stacking to-hit buffs and the increase in saves / save-stacking really hurt them. Kairos has been a meta choice since what feels like the dawn of AoS with his die change rule, so I'm not surprised that's going - an extra fate dice per turn is a nice if weaker replacement. The bit about "stealing" endless spells is interesting as the big birds can already auto-dispel them, so I can only assume it means that they get to take control of predatory endless spells from enemy wizards - in the current meta, that's going to be super good against all the Purple Suns being thrown around. 

Edited September 19, 2022 by Jaskier

[Duke of Mousillon]

2 hours ago, Jaskier said:

Kairos loses his dice manipulation

Sadness. Will see how he turns out then. 

About the endless spell stuff. So if endless spells should really play a role then I hope that ours are playable. Would be a shame to see them gathering dust for eternity. I could even see it being interesting for tzeentch to take tzeentchs endless spells for free. Or at least one of them but it was already pointed out rightly by @OkayestDM that that would've been spoilered last article. Hoping for the best.

[RUNCMD]

4 hours ago, Jaskier said:

Kairos loses his dice manipulation and instead gives you a fate dice every turn. 

Not mad about it if it happens. Whilst his dice change ability is strong, I really think that (depending on how it actually works) getting a fate dice every turn is really going to help a lot more!

These rumours are hyping me up a bit. Thanks for sharing @Jaskier! Hoping they don't lose their auto-dispell, that would be pretty average I think because it's a great way to rack up Fate points.