Forrix

I'm using him in an escalation league I'm in and think he's pretty good in low point games. He's a wizard with a good warscroll spell, hard hitting for his points cost, tanky enough he won't die easy to small stuff, and triggers Tzaangor's +1 wound. Just a good jack of all trades character. That said, I don't see him in any competitive 2K point games.

I think KO could do pretty good against Tzeentch, Horrors aside, Tzeentch is very squishy so KO being able to apply rend -1 or -2 damage easily to flamers and characters is going to hurt. Remember they changed it so rend effects destiny dice and Tzeentch is almost entirely on 5+ or 6+ saves (not counting STD stuff but doesn't seem to be the issue right now). Despite people calling Changehost a 1 drop most of the competitive Changehost lists I've seen include a fatemaster and a Gaunt Summoner putting them at 3 drops (though with the FAQ changes Tzeentch might change the meta lists). If they are taking the Daemonfire Darkrift from STD they will need that GS to cast it btw. KO could get down to a 1 to 2 drop with the Grunstock Escort Wing and Barak-Urbaz (which also gives extra gold for rerolls) or the Iron Sky. Taking the first turn would allow KO to fairly reliably kill the GS before he gets a chance to summon and get the drop on the flamers and support characters*. Obviously screening could be an issue but with Fly High and 18+ inch range on a lot of their stuff I still see KO doing a horrific amount of damage. The only major issue I see is producing the raw damage needed to take out Horrors since you'll still need to take objectives but that will depend on the scenario and hey, Horrors aren't auto-passing battleshock anymore without characters. *Killing the fatemaster and exalted flamers will severely diminish flamers' damage against low model count units/characters but flamers are so squishy I'd just shoot them first anyways unless for some reason I can't get in range of the flamers but I could the fatemaster/exalted flamers.

I give up.

Nagash and Arkhan off the top of my head are two casters with a +3 to cast and a +2 to cast. Guess that doesn't apply to them? Yes, you take a 380 point caster in a magic themed army and spend 2 of your 9 special resources and a command point to cast a spell you were almost certainly going to be able to cast anyways and your opponent's random 100 point something wizard can't unbind it.

Only impossible to unbind if you don't have positive modifiers to unbind or an auto-unbind ability. And a 2 and a 6 is still two out of your nine DD and that 2 could have been a soft inspiring presence.

I kinda feel like it was them saying "Hey! We do playtest!" I really fail to see how stacking casting modifiers is really that powerful. Mass Conjuration largely seems worthless to me in its current iteration, by nature it only works on double casters and then you're using either 4 destiny dice or putting in on a LOC who doesn't really need anymore help casting. Maybe against a Nagash list packing that bucket of +3 unbinds but that's about it. Getting a +1 from the LOC command ability on top of DD is strong but really doesn't seem powerful to need a specific exemption. I just don't see the game breaking when a LOC or a GS gets +2 to cast with their DD at the low low cost of a command point every turn and 4 DD. RuneBrush does make a good point about hit and wound rolls though. It does allow for Tzeentch to bypass negative hit/wound modifiers and feels both thematic and powerful. That's the first, in my eyes, well reasoned cause for the unmodifiable destiny dice change.

Archaon surrounded by a crowd of Greater Demons would be pretty lit....

The problem is the damage still isn't there. Blight cyst Blightkings are doing 5 wounds on average against Mortek Guard with their shield reroll discounting death saves and possible Harvester saves (math might be off a bit, just gave a unit of 10, 48 attacks to try and account for exploding 6s). If there is a Harvester your pretty much relying on your opponent failing to screen it or trying to kill it with spells that hard cast on 7 (+1 if your a GUO with a dagger!) against the OBR player's likely +2 or 3 unbinds. If you can't kill the Harvester then you're just screwed depending on the battleplan. Though most players I know don't actually take the Harvester since its kind of a "win more thing". Drones aren't killing anything with substantial support that probably isn't going to be able to keep up with them and even then their only rend attack is hitting on 4s with 1 attack base on a model with a 50ish mm base. Pusgoyles just aren't killing anything. You're also going to be lacking in bodies severely unless you packing a bunch of Plaguebearers but then those guys REALLY aren't killing anything and will still get cut to pieces to in melee. Wrath of the Everchosen added a bunch of nice stuff to Nurgle but non of it fundamentally alters the equation. You playing an melee attrition army against another melee attrition army that has better melee damage, spell casting, unbinding, shooting, model recursion, and damage reduction. And roughly the same when it comes to model count and mobility (apples to oranges there but I'd say it even outs). You could load up on STD and Clan Pestilins stuff but then you'll run into the question of why not just play STD or Skaventide.

There are also armies that can't do much except in close combat. I've been wanting to take my Maggotkin for a spin with all the new stuff they've got recently but my local meta is extremely OBR heavy and there isn't anything in Maggotkin that looks to offer real solutions for the problems OBR present. OBR strikes me as skew faction (as in it literally skews how you build lists not necessarily that it has an overwhelming win %) that serves as a gatekeeper to keep at lot of armies out of the competitive side of things. When building a list now I absolutely must have a way of dealing large amounts of rend attacks (preferably outside of the combat phase) and/or mortal wounds. With Nagash or Arkhan in seemingly every single list these methods either can't rely on spell casting or need to be able to get through a +2 or +3 unbind. As someone who has both Cities and Tzeentch it is completely doable (though catapults are still scary af) but a lot of other armies are going to be extremely limited in what they can bring or just outright unable to compete.

I've always felt like OBR were Fyreslayers +1 rather than Fyreslayers being stronger due to OBR's aforementioned spellcasting, ressing, and lets face it, HBG might hit harder than Mortek Guard fully buffed but if you're face planting either of those things you're losing. As you admit Gloomspite aren't a competitive choice. Welcome to the uphill battle. Maybe try fanatics if Mortek Guard are giving you problems since they fight at the start of the combat phase (before MG get their rerolls in your turn)? GG are one of the worst armies at the moment, especially if you aren't playing the meta spell spam list. You're going to be struggling horribly and running into problems for which you won't have an answer. I've found online that people love to play the underdog faction but in real life, well every single Nighthaunt player in my area has quit or switched to a different army.

This. Also, I'll add that the only way I've found to make the Sword and Flail GUO come anywhere near worth his points is to put Ghyrstrike on his big sword.

Ironically one of my complaints about the BCR side (aside from what you said about Thundertusks) is that the Huskard/Frostlord artifact table feels awful (seriously, how many lists do you see that take one?). Including a new artifact table could help certain factions out immensely and since its strictly an addition to the battletome it doesn't invalidate what's written in the tome. AKA a new player who picks up the Battletome doesn't find that nothing actually works like written in the book anymore but rather learns that there's a bunch of additional toys he can get to enhance his army. The same could be done with subfactions, which we're already seeing in Wrath of the Everchosen.

Yup, I said it before but if they had worded it as "In addition, any rolls that have been replaced count as unmodified rolls and cannot be re-rolled or (with the exception of save rolls and battleshock tests) modified further." I'd agree that they count as unmodified. As it is, I can't in good faith as a player, have an opponent show me that paragraph then look him in the eye and go "Nope, still count as unmodified because of they're not adding or subtracting to the dice roll." There is definitely logic to the counter-argument but at the end of the day you are trying to ignore a plainly written rule in a way that benefits you with an army that is already on the stronger side. That is too close to "That guy" land for me. Obviously, with all the arguments flying around a clarification would be a very good idea. On a different note, and hopefully to steer the conversation away from the deadlock its currently in, would anybody have a problem with all DD counting as unmodified and being subject to re-rerolls and modifiers? The errata mentions that the developers were trying to stop problematic situations identified in play testing by making them unmodifiable but for the life of me I can't think of an interaction that would be that negative. Obviously there is Mastery of Magic but that would still involve 2 DD (with at least one of a higher value and a low value dice that could have been useful for battleshock). Not to mention that Lord of Changes casting is strong enough you probably wouldn't bother with using destiny dice anyways. Making them subject to rerolls would definitely nerf their power in certain circumstances but I feel like they'd still be a powerful and highly useful mechanic on the whole. Personally, this whole DD mess, in my eyes, arises from the rules design team trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist and creating a whole mess of problems in the process. Regardless of the ruling on modified vs unmodified to the current debate I'd still describe DD as being a clunky and counter-intuitive mechanic due to them working differently depending on how they are used. Making them always count as unmodified but subject to rerolls and modifiers would have them act just like dice that were naturally rolled which seems to be the original idea behind the rule.

Pretty much this. I doubt its RAI but RAW is very straightforward to me and the counter argument is convoluted enough that I would feel foolish trying to argue it with an opponent. Especially when Tzeentch is already a very strong army. I suppose it could be worthwhile to ask a TO for a ruling before a tournament but I'm planning on play it as not working until they FAQ the FAQ.

My group has always played that counts as slain = slain for abilities and models destroyed by battleshock trigger slain abilities. It worth mentioning due to the Blood warrior question awhile back that most abilities that trigger on slain specify a phase (typically combat) or that they be slain by an attack (typically melee).

Yeah, I haven't really kept up with Mantic stuff but that is far better looking than what I normally associate them with, modelwise.

Blood Warriors and Vulkite Berzerkers (the ones I can think of off the top of my head) both specify combat phase only in their rules so no. Horrors of Tzeentch do not specify phase with their Split rules.

My interpretation is based on if an item A with the exception of situations B and C counts as D,E, or F then item A in situation B or C does not count as D,E, or F.

Then why would they specify that destiny dice count as unmodified in their rules?

That was my thought too. If they just stated that destiny dice used for save rolls and battleshock can still be modified then there wouldn't be a problem.

The actual quote from the errata "In addition, any rolls that have been replaced (with the exception of save rolls and battleshock tests) count as unmodified rolls and cannot be re-rerolled or modified further" Pretty clear to me that its exempting save and battleshock tests from counting as unmodified rolls.

Yup, I reread the errata. They FUBAR'd their wording so DD count as modified for save or battleshock rolls (or at least there's a very strong argument that they do).

If you use a DD of 1 for battleshock you get the d6 pinks back (and auto-pass). They still count as unmodified its just that they can be modified if its a save roll or battleshock roll.

Don't forget the Blue Scribes for reroll casting rolls.

Agreed. I wish DD played smoother but I'm not against the end result power wise. On the Gaunt Summoner I mostly find it odd that one of his summons is about 2x the value of his other summons. Plaguebearers, Bloodletters, and Daemonettes are all above 100 points but only a bit and generally want to be taken in big units and of course, don't benefit from the GS's locus. I think Furies would make for an excellent summon except you just get so much raw value from the pinks and the GS has such a big target on his head you pretty much just want to hurry up and summon the 10 pinks. I'd really like that summoning option to be brought in line and a points cut to the GS if necessary. This is more of me commenting on how something plays thought then a major balance complaint. I'm also a little sad that I now have no excuse not to run the Blue Scribes and a Fatemaster so I'll be either buying some finecast or converting. I'm liking these fatemaster conversions though. Might do something along the Ahriman lines as I don't have a spare disc on hand and it does look pretty good.