Tzeentch win Cancon and the GW GT Heat 1

[Ben]

Changehost to be exact. 

1/2/3 at Heat 1 

1st at Cancon 

The 2 week FAQ will coming soon.  I know emotions have been high this weekend, but lets have a measured chat about what we expect to see/is needed  in the FAQ.  

[Walrustaco]

Changehost needs adjusted. The teleport should be more limited or the perhaps, the battalion should just not allow a teleport at all. 

Flamers could need something like a range reduction. Some kind of nerf to their shooting anyway. Or just a steep points hike.

The Destiny Dice interaction with battleshock needs to change. As it is, using any kind of destiny dice to substitute a roll for a battleshock test auto passes it. An exception should be made to allow modifiers to apply to destiny diced battleshocks. Or just disallow those dice to be used on battleshock. 

Host Duplicitous is bullsh*t. Blanket prevent retreat is not okay. You get tagged by a horror unit, you're stuck with it forever unless you can chew through 50-150 wounds. And they probably cant fail battleshock either, because Destiny Dice.

They just aren't fun to play against with these tournament builds.

Edited January 26, 2020 by Walrustaco

[PrimeElectrid]

InB4 jUsT sHoOt ThE hErOeS

[chosen_of_khaine]

Not only that, but there were only 2 OBR in top 20 of CanCon (2nd and 12th place) and only one OBR currently in Top 8 of LVO, despite being by far the most popular army at both events.

[swarmofseals]

Any lists?

[SireScott]

It seems a perfect storm of a problem which makes it hard to unpick. Flames and horrors both have major problems which changehost completely solves. Ie both are short ranged and somewhat slow, and flamers arent tough. However a 1 drop battalion with teleports just seems to completely nullify those issues making them both way too efficient. It almost seems that changehost just cant exist but that wont happen. So I'm at a loss how this will be solved.

[Arkiham]

tzeentch is winning again?

 

better get that unruly mob with pitchforks an torches going again to nerf it back into non existence 

[Sedraxis]

Pinks splitting into 1 blue instead of 2 would solve a lot for the Horror problem.

Flamers and exalted flamers could go to 1 damage flat instead of d3, their output is extremely high even without any battalions helping them out. Alternatively their cost could rise by 50%.

Fixing the unmodified interactions with destiny dice is another important one.

The recent chaos battalion bonuses are very strong, but it makes for a cool army strength. However combined with Tzeentch alpha strike/shenanigan potential it covers too many weaknesses, and I think battalions like Changehost need to be either big-battalions that include 1-2 smaller battalions or straight up 300 points. Any army should pay a hefty price for such power.

The Gaunt Summoner bringing 200 points of units while costing 240 is a bit nuts, allow him to summon 10 Blue Horrors instead of Pinks to even it up with the other demon units power. Same goes for the disc variation.

Finally, the Changeling is perhaps the single most undercosted unit in the game right now. Even at double points he would be great, with 2 spells, good abilities and so much shenanigan potential. I would ally him into anything that allows him. He and Belakor are insane right now.

A pretty big list, but even with all this Tzeentch will still be strong if the player plays it right. The demon side will be hard to master, but all their potential shenanigans will still be there just at a higher price and less insane damage.

As a bonus, the Darkfire Daemonrift needs to lose the extra wizard damage, or get 3 max cap and a point increase. This thing deals Pre-nerf Kroak levels of damage right now.

What surprises me most about the whole Tzeentch thing is how good the design on the Arcanite side is, how did this daemon madness get through!?

Now mind you, my goal is to get an even playing field. With Slaanesh adjusted and people figuring out OBR weaknesses there is potentially a lot of variety in the tournament scene (as LVO results show, where the new Tzeentch tome wasn't in effect as opposed to the other 2 tournament which were dominated by DoT). Tzeentch is the only real outlier pre-faq and I really hope it will be reeled in before we're in for another 6 months of 1 army ruling the world.

Edited January 26, 2020 by Sedraxis

[swarmofseals]

15 minutes ago, Arkiham said:

tzeentch is winning again?

 

better get that unruly mob with pitchforks an torches going again to nerf it back into non existence 

Has there been any period since the 1.0 battletome where Tzeentch hasn't been at least decent? Even nerfed as it was Tzeentch was providing solid results all the way up until the new tome came out.

31 minutes ago, SireScott said:

It seems a perfect storm of a problem which makes it hard to unpick. Flames and horrors both have major problems which changehost completely solves. Ie both are short ranged and somewhat slow, and flamers arent tough. However a 1 drop battalion with teleports just seems to completely nullify those issues making them both way too efficient. It almost seems that changehost just cant exist but that wont happen. So I'm at a loss how this will be solved.

Flamers are definitely good, but there are quite a few ranged units out there now that output damage at similar efficiency and can be teleported into range. If Flamers are broken, then there is a bunch of other stuff out there that is broken as well. I'm inclined to think that just the flamers are probably not that big of an issue. 

The Horrors are more problematic imo. Being able to guaranteed teleport (at least) 100 wounds of -1 to be hit models into melee with the opponent on turn 1 is much more impactful.

Of course, the combination of these two things together is especially egregious. You get to bottle up the enemy in their deployment zone for at least one if not 2-3 turns while also hammering them with efficient ranged damage.

It might be that they tweak some points values here and there, but there are a bunch of possible errata that would likely fix the problem without overnerfing. Here are a few ideas:

• Changehost teleport: teleported models can't move for any reason until the end of the turn
• Changehost teleport: can only teleport inside your own territory on the first battle round
• Changehost: your opponent automatically gets the choice of first turn order

That's not to say that these should be the only changes that GW considers of course, but I think any of these three could potentially solve this particular problem. The first one might not be enough - it stops the horrors from fully bottling in the opponent quite so completely, but it still might prove to be too good. The second and third ones should do the trick, I think.

[kahadin]

I'm sad because I feel like the only thing worth a damn in the whole book are horrors and flamers. I don't think it will be much of an army to play if you make those units "balanced".

I'd be sorry to see changehost unusable as well.

I think the meta just needs to catch up to tzeentch and it will be ok.

I don't really know of anything that was unclear and needs a Q&A. I imagine people will just hope for some hard erratas, so even though I'm not a DoT player I'm worried about what will happen.

[Smooth criminal]

I like how the OBR got pushed out with only 1 in each top 10. Can we finally put the hype around that faction to rest?

[Carnelian]

Get rid of the no retreat rule from the Hosts Duplicitous for something else (or make it cost a command point) 

Change the battleshock interaction with destiny dice. 

Change the Changehost to be one unit that can teleport and it costs a command point or can only teleport within 9" of a friendly unit or some such. 

(oh and also drop skyfires and enlightened and tzaangors by 20 points each pls hehehehe) 

Edited January 26, 2020 by Carnelian

[Carnelian]

33 minutes ago, Smooth criminal said:

I like how the OBR got pushed out with only 1 in each top 10. Can we finally put the hype around that faction to rest?

Changehost is a hard counter to OBR so once changehost becomes reasonable I predict OBR will go back up the tournament rankings 

Edited January 26, 2020 by Carnelian

[Fairbanks]

8 minutes ago, Carnelian said:

Changehost is a hard counter to OBR so once changehost becomes reasonable I predict OBR will go back up the tournament rankings 

I don’t believe LVO had new Tzeentch.

[swarmofseals]

17 minutes ago, kahadin said:

I'm sad because I feel like the only thing worth a damn in the whole book are horrors and flamers. I don't think it will be much of an army to play if you make those units "balanced".

I'd be sorry to see changehost unusable as well.

I think the meta just needs to catch up to tzeentch and it will be ok.

I don't see how the kinds of changes I suggested above would make Changehost "unusable" -- two teleports and getting to be 1 drop are still fantastic. 

It's also not at all clear that horrors and flamers themselves need to be nerfed. I think you are absolutely right that these units, at baseline, are things that the metagame can adapt to. I hardly think that they are the only good things in the tome though -- Kairic Acolytes and a bunch of the heroes also seem quite strong. 

If you don't deal with what Changehost is doing, however, I don't see how the metagame can adapt. Most armies can't do anything that interacts with it. What can you do against being bottled up in your deployment zone by 100 wounds of models that are basically immune to battleshock? What adaptation is really possible?

[Kramer]

2 hours ago, chosen_of_khaine said:

Not only that, but there were only 2 OBR in top 20 of CanCon (2nd and 12th place) and only one OBR currently in Top 8 of LVO, despite being by far the most popular army at both events.

Can’t be true they’re broken beyond repIr  

[kahadin]

31 minutes ago, swarmofseals said:

I don't see how the kinds of changes I suggested above would make Changehost "unusable" -- two teleports and getting to be 1 drop are still fantastic. 

It's also not at all clear that horrors and flamers themselves need to be nerfed. I think you are absolutely right that these units, at baseline, are things that the metagame can adapt to. I hardly think that they are the only good things in the tome though -- Kairic Acolytes and a bunch of the heroes also seem quite strong. 

If you don't deal with what Changehost is doing, however, I don't see how the metagame can adapt. Most armies can't do anything that interacts with it. What can you do against being bottled up in your deployment zone by 100 wounds of models that are basically immune to battleshock? What adaptation is really possible?

I was not addressing you friend, just the amount of passion I see against DoT in general.

Personally I think their only real problem is how much people hate fate dice, but you don't see people really saying that. I'm worried that all this passion will translate to DoT getting the hammer and little worthwhile being left.

I can't tell you the best way to counter DoT in their current state, but I can guarantee someone will in a few weeks.

 

[Doko]

I hope changehost get reworked

 

Horrors up to 350 points(50wounds for 200 points is veeery balanced)

 

Flamers up a 40%

 

Destiny dice cant be used for battleshock

 

With this maybe they start to be balanced vs god tiers armys

[Austin]

Between this and the Iron Hands domination the GW playtesters are having a rough go of it lately huh.

-edit

Actually I should say rules folks AND playtesters.

Edited January 27, 2020 by Austin
accuracy

[Thostos]

3 hours ago, Fairbanks said:

I don’t believe LVO had new Tzeentch.

Correct,LVO was not allowing either Tzeentch or KO`s latest books in the event.

  Also keep in mind that the top Tzeentch player at LVO is a very skilled AoS player and has played the army since its release doing very well overall.

 

[Thiagoma]

2 hours ago, kahadin said:

I was not addressing you friend, just the amount of passion I see against DoT in general.

Personally I think their only real problem is how much people hate fate dice, but you don't see people really saying that. I'm worried that all this passion will translate to DoT getting the hammer and little worthwhile being left.

I can't tell you the best way to counter DoT in their current state, but I can guarantee someone will in a few weeks.

 

To be honest, and my experience is limited, last time i went on a 3 games tournament and fought Tzeench  twice in a row, i felt lile i could have more fun at the dentist office.

I never had a fun game against Tzeench.  Hero phase take a lifetime of removing your models from the table while you watch a huge pile of horrors form. In the follow up comes the shooting phase that also takes a lifetime of more models going away. 

Then it is finally your time, good luck trying to move bettween the horrors and endless spells!

 

The boring experience followed by "just kill the heroes!"  is probably the reason people are negative towards Tzeench. When the new book came along all i wanted was "please make then more fun to play against!".

But  those are only my 2 cents on the subject.

[Austin]

27 minutes ago, Thostos said:

Correct,LVO was not allowing either Tzeentch or KO`s latest books in the event.

  Also keep in mind that the top Tzeentch player at LVO is a very skilled AoS player and has played the army since its release doing very well overall.

 

Are you sure? The guys commentating said it was the new book.

[Thostos]

22 minutes ago, Austin said:

Are you sure? The guys commentating said it was the new book.

 Yes,,rules cutoff was 3 weeks back...

Edited January 27, 2020 by Thostos

[Sinfullyvannila]

Just take flamers out of the Changehost battalion and it turns from a 1 drop into a 4 drop and almost all the problems are solved. Any army that can get a 3 drop and fast chaff, or high threat range shooting can deal with flamers.

I’ve run the new horrors and they aren’t as broken as people make them seem. Don’t allow play by intent with their splits. Just always demand a measurement to see if they aren’t wholly within their Daemon hero and they fold pretty quickly. I hate how much time they add to the game though.

Daemonrift is only good with a LoC to eat it after you cast it. Otherwise choose priority to move it and you’ll probably kill all of Tzeentch’s other leaders. You also need Gaunt Summoners to cast them. Speaking of which...

Guant Summoners bring in a twofold vulnerability to Alpha Strikes. They can’t go in any battalions and their 50 wounds of Horrors are protected only by a 5-6 wound, 6+ save(conditionally better in some situations) and no mortal wound shrug model.

Destiny dice on Battleshock: now that we have to use 2 dice on 2d6 rolls our destiny dice will only last around the top of 3 unless we build for regeneration, in which case we may squeeze into the top of the 4th with a couple). OBR gets battleshock immunity all game(tangentially, Petrifex is straight up better than Locus). Which of these abilities is broken? Some factions can generate enough command points to make battleshock nearly irrelevant too. This ability is very strong but not any more broken than the above examples. You don’t see it if you concede early though.

Edited January 27, 2020 by Sinfullyvannila

[swarmofseals]

2 hours ago, kahadin said:

I was not addressing you friend, just the amount of passion I see against DoT in general.

Personally I think their only real problem is how much people hate fate dice, but you don't see people really saying that. I'm worried that all this passion will translate to DoT getting the hammer and little worthwhile being left.

I can't tell you the best way to counter DoT in their current state, but I can guarantee someone will in a few weeks.

 

Yeah, I didn't think you were addressing me specifically. It just seems to me that the majority of commentary (particularly among top players, who I think GW listens too far more than the masses) is specifically directed at the interaction between Changehost and Horrors and Flamers. While it's possible that an overnerf will happen, I doubt that it will be caused by something like people not liking to play against fate/destiny dice. Those have been in the game for years now and if GW were going to change them they likely would have done so with the battletome itself.

GW is inconsistent enough that it's reasonable to be worried about an overnerf, but I think there are a lot of people out there at the top levels of play that see a problem that can't really be adapted to. The mechanics are completely non-interactive.