RUNCMD

Intro After diving into Tzeentch, both Mortals and Daemons and having played the Army for some time now, I figured I would write a guide for people looking to start the army in 2020 and possibly into 2021, due to a few people on TGA asking the best way to start the army. This is being written just as the Broken Realms: Morathi book has been released, no Dec FAQ being released and no extra cool rules in the Broken Realms series that will ultimately see Tzeentch get something new. That being said, I will try and give as much information as possible, without harping on too much, but apologies if that does happen. I will also include the TLDR at the top here, because after writing all of this, I release how long it is with the lists included but read on if you’re keen. TLDR!!!!!! This guide is also in no way focuses on competitive play but does dabble a little bit into it and is more for people looking to start a new army or who enjoy the more casual gaming side of AOS but also want options to branch into competitive later. What this doesn’t really cover in a lot of detail is the Covens (or subfactions) that Tzeentch has to offer and the “Agendas” that Tzeentch can complete which give your units Buffs for completing mini missions on the side. Where to begin? Like most Chaos armies there are two main routes you can go down with Tzeentch, Daemons or Mortals. Whichever you choose you need to consider/keep these things in mind when collecting Tzeentch: - - The army can be a horde army that is both quick to and can take a lot of time to paint - - It can be quite expensive either which way you go if you’re aiming for a 2k army - - It has a moderate to steep learning curve (depending on your own gaming experience) - - It does require a fair bit of overhead in terms of “army management” when playing - - It is a glass canon for the most part - - It has a couple of strong melee options available within the default Allegiance, but easily adds more with the likes of Slaves to Darkness - - Has summoning (Fate Points) which is based off successful spells being cast (both yours and the opponents) - - Has a great mechanic called Destiny Dice (described below) - - It is a more magic/shooting based army by default that prefers to hold back and play the longer game - - It is an extremely rewarding army to play when you start to master it/get your groove on If the above hasn’t put you off, then the next thing to decide is what do you find more appealing of the two, do you prefer the Daemons or Mortals or even a combo of both? From here, I will break the collecting side down into these three options. Keeping this inline with a more “basic” guide for the more casual players on their way to 2k. I will also provide some lists that focuses on these avenues, that are a bit more vanilla but also will see you have some fun and can build on later! Side note: all of this can be thrown out the window if you just go for the “rule of cool” which I’m a huge fan of! Destiny Dice After armies have been set up but before the first battle round begins, roll 9 dice and put them to one side. These are your Destiny Dice. Destiny Dice can be used during the battle to change the results of different dice rolls. The number of Destiny Dice you have at any time must never exceed 9. Instead of making one of the rolls from the list below for a friendly TZEENTCH unit, you can spend one or more of your Destiny Dice. The result of the roll you would have made is replaced with the value on the Destiny Dice you spent. For example, instead of rolling a dice to see how far a TZEENTCH unit would run in the movement phase, you could spend a Destiny Dice to determine the distance. If you spent a Destiny Dice with a value of 5, the unit would run 5". Destiny Dice can be spent in place of the following dice rolls: • Casting rolls • Unbinding rolls • Dispelling rolls • Run rolls • Charge rolls • Hit rolls • Wound rolls • Save rolls • Any roll that determines the Damage characteristic of a missile or melee weapon • Battleshock tests Daemons of Tzeentch By far and large one of the best boxes GW has created is the Start Collecting Box: Daemons of Tzeentch, in terms of value for money. The box hosts a lot (and I mean a lot) of versatility and options from what you can build. If you want to go down the Daemon heavy route, you want to probably pick up at least two boxes of this box which will provide you with some awesome hero’s, Pink Horrors as Battleline, Screamers for Battleline (if you choose Host Arcanum Coven), various ways to build the Exalted flamer on chariot or on foot and also those nice flamers which do a lot of damage in shooting. The box is great to be able to also kitbash a Fluxmaster on Disc (if you don’t like the old resin model), a Blue Scribes (if you don’t like the old resin model) whilst still giving you the options to have extra Exalted Flamers for summoning or even to fill out Battalions etc. I bought 3 Start Collecting boxes (pre AOS 2.0 tome) and ended up building the following: X1 Fluxmaster on Disc (kitbash) X1 Blue Scribes (kitbash) X1 Changecaster X2 Exalted Flamers on foot X3 units of Pink Horrors X3 Units of Flamers X3 Units of Screamers X9 Blue Horrors you get from not building the Burning Chariots (bonus) If you include the slightly underpowered unit of Blues (only by 1 model), this actually brings you to a total of 1920 points off the bat. Which is a solid start for Daemons. From here you will need at least TWO boxes of Blues and Brims for each Unit of the Pink Horrors you chose to field (this is where it gets expensive and also somewhat laborious in terms of painting, although contrast can make short work of that). The units above are the real crux of what you will want to be fielding in terms of all Daemon units. From here though, you will want to get yourself a Lord of Change and later down the line, a Changeling. Once you have a Lord of Change, you will be able to field the current “Meta” Battalion of Changehost! Which allows for a lot of fun and all the units above more or less fills the Battalion requirements. In terms of Covens that you can choose for the above units, the Daemon ones are really versatile and a lot of fun. At this point in time, I don’t think there is a bad one for what you will pick, but the standard one, in conjunction with Change host (this is what makes it the “Meta” which is also starting to shift), is the Eternal Conflagration which also makes Flamers as Battleline so you can drop some of those Pink Horrors and boxes of Blues and Brims and lower the cost a bit! Host Arcanum as mentioned above will make your Screamers an even cheaper Battleline but I’d also suggest still taking some of those Pinks for screening/tar pit purposes. One Model that is going to be covered a bit more later that also falls into the Daemon section is the Gaunt Summoner. This guy is pretty great albeit he has had a pretty decent nerf since the FAQ a bit earlier in 2020. He is a 2 cast Wizard (great for racking up Fate Point for summoning), can bring in 4 different Daemon units one of which being Pinks but only 5 models in the unit or a unit of Furies. All which have great versatility in their own right, minus those stupid Khorne Bloodletters which you can just chuck in the bin! I wouldn’t say that he is a staple for a Daemon list but he is pretty versatile in the long run and is something to chuck into your mix a bit later! There’s a lot of Endless Spells that synergize well with the Daemon side of Tzeentch, especially anything that offers an extra -1 to hit as Tzeentch Daemon units get a tasty -1 to hit in Melee when they are wholly within 12’ of a Tzeentch Daemon Hero! A quick list using the above models looks like: This is a very vanilla list for Tzeentch at the moment but packs a lot of power. As mentioned above it allows you to chop and change the covens and will keep you busy for a while. Spells go in as you want them. Mortals of Tzeentch Mortals are by far my favourite aesthetic for Tzeentch and what I am currently mostly interested in, so I may be a bit bias in some of this writing. They are in a somewhat weird place in terms of points cost list wise and some of the Battalions are not overly great, minus a couple. That doesn’t mean they are not viable, but it means you have to be a bit more creative with how you spend your points. At the time of writing, the latest Battleforce Boxes have been released and comes with the following: X1 Lord of Change X1 Gaunt Summoner X20 Kairic Acolytes X3 Tzaangor Enlightened on Disc (can be built on foot) X10 Tzaangor on Foot Depending on price point in your country, this is a great way to dive into the Mortal side of Tzeentch at the present as it offers a lot of good options and will be easy to expand on from there. I will say though, as mentioned above, Mortals are a bit lacking at the present in some ways, especially the Coven that is dedicated to the Tzaangors. Because of this I have found that at the present the best bang for points in a list using their specific coven is the Kairic Acolytes coupled with Pyrofane Cult which buffs their shooting tremendously. Tzaangors on foot are a great option to put into your list to get some melee punch in, whilst leveraging the shooting of Kairics! That leads me into the Tzaangor Enlightened (both variants) and Skyfires. At the present, there’s still a lot of debate about these two units in terms of Strength and best bang for buck. I will leave that to your own decision on whether you prefer shooting (Skyfires) or melee (Enlightened). Both are great to pick up and add to your force, but as it stands I think that Skyfires are over costed for what you get and to that end, I prefer Enlightened on Disc. If you do end up picking up either one of these (or both) units, make sure you grab yourself a Tzaangor Shaman to buff these guys and also add some more magical power to your heroes. One of the coolest Models the Mortals side has to offer is the Ogroid Thaumaturge. This guy is by far the most Melee focused Hero Tzeentch has in its arsenal and is also a spell caster! If you give him the spell Infusion Arcanum (from the Mortal’s side of the spell lore) you add +1 to Hit and Wound to his attacks which is awesome! The Magister is also a great option, either on disc and foot, to provide you an extra spell and has a chance to bring in a free Chaos Spawn with their inbuilt spell if you slay any models. The one key model that I would suggest getting for your mortal list (and also Daemons as well) is the Fatemaster! This guy is great as he is super resilient, is not a wizard unfortunately, but has a great Command Ability that you spend a Cp at the start of the Hero phase which allows you to re-roll ALL hits for attacks of units that are wholly within 9 inches of him. SUPER handy, but does cost that CP. This guy can be kit bashed easily with a spare disc you may have, using a stand in model you find cool or you can just opt for a resin/finecast model. I kitbashed mine by sticking an extra Kairic Acolyte leader ontop of a screamer and it works fine. The Curseling is also a great model, two cast wizard, quite choppy in combat and can also steal some spells he is able to cast (think Nagash’s Hand of Dust) however I will say I haven’t found him to be a great pick for competitive lists. That’s just personal opinion though. The Gaunt Summoner is also a great Model to chuck in the mix, because he can bring you in that 5 man unit of Pinks which would act as really nice quick screen for whatever you put them infront of. Also he can bring in Furies which if you bought the original Warcry Starter box many moons ago, could see you find a use for them! Check their Warscroll, theyre great! The Mortal side of Tzeentch requires a bit more research I think in terms of what you will buy to fill out your list. My suggestion would be that to cover your Battleline you will need x2 boxes of Kairic Acolytes and possibly up to 2 boxes of Tzaangors on foot to back them up! For heroes though, if you stick to the Mortal keyword religiously, you would want to grab yourself a Magister, Ogroid and also Gaunt Summoner! These additional heroes will offer lots of cool spells and perks. The Shaman offers a lot of added value for any of the Enlightened or Skyfires but is not imperative if you take them at lower unit sizes. The Mortals side has some interesting battalions at the present, but I think they ask a bit too much for what you pay to meet their requirements. One frustrating thing is that Kairics don’t get a discount if you take them at a max size, and Tzaangors on foot are far too expensive at 180 points for 10. With all this being said, I think that the best way to collect a Mortal list is to fill Batteline requirements with you Kairics, at bigger or smaller sizes but keeping in mind they don’t stick around too long and across the Mortal range there is terrible bravery, so you will mostly be taking them at bigger units to get the bonus to bravery (check core rules). Build ore around a central theme about what you would like your list to do in terms of being more shooting or combat focused and then always couple that with your heroes and their magic! Remember that Tzeentch summons via the Fate Points and you can only summon Daemon units. If you want to couple summoning into your Mortal lists, grab yourself a Box of Blue and brim horrors and I would also suggest to get yourself a Start Collecting Tzeentch Box to get all the units from that box which you can summon quite easily if you play a bit of the longer game (based on magicians you may take) and if you really wait, bring in that unit of Pinks! Yet again needing the two boxes of Blues and Brims to field that unit. I think one thing that is really worth noting is that for most Mortals Lists you want to either take a Battalion to get the extra CP or buy one. This is to make sure you can spend a CP on inspiring presence to keep a lot of the lower bravery units around due to Battleshock. A quick Mortals 2k list that I have built would look like this: The list above leans more into the shooting of the Kairics with the Battalion ability and also the coven. Whilst it doesn’t max out the synergies of the Coven and the Battalion for competitive play, it does offer a bit of everything in terms of Magic, Shooting and also Melee. If you keep the Kairics alive you can also rock up some nice fate points for some summoning! All this being said, Slaves to Darkness still haven’t been brought into the equation and can really offer a lot more Mortal Options for both Wizards, Battleline and extra powerful units. Daemon and Mortal Combo If you want to get a good spread of both it can be a powerful combo, but I think you will always be leaning into one side more than the other for more synergy. I really like using either Pink or Blue Horrors as screens for the more key units of Mortal units, like a big block of 30 Kairics, or even using Screamers as late game objective grabbers. The Gaunt summoner is definetely one of the better Models to pick up in any list really, but in a Mortals/Daemon combo list he has some cool tricks, especially if you just want to vomit up more models as a screen for your opponent to deal with. At the risk of repeating myself, you can take elements of what Is mentioned above to build a good list for a combo but something I have created would look something like this: Again, not overly synergetic, but combines a bunch of the models from the latest Battleforce Box and the Start Collecting Boxes (if you kitbash the Flux and Blue Scribes from those boxes) and would leave you open to playing both to see which you prefer playing. It also doesn’t include a Battalion but you could incorporate if you dropped a leader but you might have to work a little bit harder to get the 9 spells required to bring in a Lord of Change straight away, which is the major perc of the Guild of Summoners coven. Also a great reason to take that coven is that the Brimstone Familiar artefact you give to a hero has a 12 inch bubble of Battleshock immunity, which is awesome for those Kairics! Chuck some Blue Horrors infront as a screen and they will stick around much longer! What hasn’t been covered? There’s actually a fair bit that hasn’t and this is mostly how Allies such as Slaves to Darkness and also Beasts of Chaos work within a Tzeentch Allegiance, but I think that is something that would be for another post. Also I really haven’t gone into too much detail about Agenda’s or Destiny Dice, but these are all things that are really worth exploring a bit later. I also haven’t gone into the Big Man himself, Archaon! I think this guy deserves his own discussion as he’s not really an entry point for the Army, although you can build around him really well. The Tzeentch Endless Spells and Endless Spells in general. The Tzeentch ones are actually pretty damn good and offer more utility to any of your lists! I haven’t gone too much into detail for competitive lists and chat. This mostly happens already over at the Tzeentch forum on TGA. It’s got some players who are willing to answer any and all questions, so come join the chat! Fate points and summoning. But this is all covered in the tome! TLDR!!!!!! All in all, regardless of the Daemon or Mortal route, grab yourself at minimum the following: Battletome - X1 Start collecting box, even if you only ever end up using these units for summoning - X1 – 2 boxes of Blue and Brim Horrors, same as above even if just for summoning but they make amazing screens - The current Battleforce is a great place to start for a Mortals heavy or Daemon/Mortals combo, especially when coupled with the Start Collecting Box - X2 (minimum) Boxes of Kairic Acolytes for the Mortals side I hope you find this helpful in some way and I haven’t flooded you with too much info! Thanks for reading if you got this far 😊

@Gwendar LOL, if you lose your next few games we will know getting a shout out on the show is a no go!

I'm about to give this a listen! Nice work mate!

Bit of a change of topic but with the current realm rules, our agendas and some of the buffs/de-buffs floating around the current tome, i'm wondering what people's favorite combos are to stack on a single unit at the present? Some of the one's i'm enjoying at the present are: - Playing in the realm of Chamon, stacking the +1 save spell from the realm onto a blob of 30 Kairics coming from a Fluxmaster on Disc, (lasts until your next hero phase), Fatemaster in the middle and burn his CP, Kairics declaring the agenda Overthrow leaders (+1 save for the rest of the battle) and have thme hide behind a single unit of Pinks. Give the Aura of Mutability to the Fluxmaster if you can (fave Daemon artefact) and then when the pinks and stuff split, if they previously got their spell off giving them the +1 to hits, when they're at 20 they get the extra +1, plus re-rolling their hits because of fateboi if theyre wholly within and adding +1 to wounds. Tasty as. *This is also a lot of your army to have in one blob and also in one position of the board, but it's worked for me so far. - I think the Changeling coupled with a Unit of 20 Pinks is just Brutal (noting the previous discussions around Pinks etc) but what I have done previously is had him cast shards of Valagharr onto a unit, basically making them -1 to hit and half their movement, chucked his ability onto the unit crippling them even more in terms of the exact same, Charged that unit of 20 pinks into the unit from 9 inches away after having their spell go off and also completing the Reckless Abandon agenda making the unit of Pinks -3 to hit in melee because Old mate Changeling was still wholly within 12, basically immobile come their turn if they feel they wanted to retreat (reminding them they would still be halving first, then halving again and rounding up), +2 to hit on the hit rolls with an extra attack each which was nice. They def pulled their weight for once! Later after a turn the unit was nearing down to the Blues and brims, so I was spending that CP for the Chamon ability to make them a +1 to hit in combat and the inbuilt chamon spell of +1 to save. - Think my favorite though (and this was probably more situational really) is having the Guant Summoner on Disc in the Host Arcanum playing Knife to the heart, he was sort of floating around the board for a bit and then Turn 2 I had moved him into position for the summoning, got turn 3, summoned in the Furies and the Screamers from the artefact in the hero phase, ran the screamers onto the objective (20 inch run) and to keep the furies up, charged them into one of his units that were probably about 8 inches away from his objective as he was onyl slowly starting to move off it once he felt comfortable, then once the combat phase came around selected the furies 1st and they made their retreat move onto the objective with the screamers and that was game turn 3. I felt bad as it was done by start of my turn 3 but loved that I actually pulled it off! Furies are def an awesome summon for this exact reason off the Gaunt Summoner on Disc. Keen to hear some of the others people have achieved/pulled off! Totally understand that what i described about the Pinks is what people think should change, but don't want to make the focus about that.

Sorry I misunderstood, but thanks for the clarification. I think this is a viable option, and it was mentioned later in the posts following this that yeah the summoning points would need a shift. Doubt they would do that in a single FAQ though? Maybe next tome?

Even after losing the Daemon Key Word, which is the real reason they were scary because peeps would just fold reality them. And most of the time if you're doing this your screen slows them down, if it is a chaff unit. Then you're generally holding them back for 2-3 rounds I find. People still just shoot them off though, and being at a 5 up with no DPR they die pretty quick.

Correct, however I don't think this justifies them going up. It's great to couple this with tzeentch's firestorm or something high to cast but if he isnt on a balewind most of the time the re-rolls are what they are usually taken for I feel.

Agree mate on a whole lot, but I respectfully disagree regarding the neverending loop. BUT i will put the caveat that I've only been in the hobby for about 2-3 years now so im still very green compared to vets who have seen the transition from old world to AOS. Couldnt agree more with some of the tomes being a mixed bag of being thrown together hey. I felt that a lot of the Son's of Behemat reflected a bit of this and some of the stuff was actually quite lazily written. Also, you're point re: 3 points changes/FAQS is spot on... if theyre willing to do that they may as well actually do some solid FAQing and assist with warscroll updates where needed. The amount of books and rules coming out has me a bit nervous as well. Im keen on entering into tournaments, but not if I have to bring a book shelf with me just to play and be up to date with all the rules. It gets a bit much. I mean look at what they have just announced for Warcry (granted I dont play) but thats an extra 4 books on what seems like 3-4 that are already out? Hopefully this broken realms is more in line with what we saw with Wrath, which is alright as it isn't a HUGE difference to the way we play... unlike the Realm Rules we got that are pretty average and lack luster.

It would fit the lore though if the Tzaangors were added to the Kairic unit.

@Ganigumo a lot of interesting suggestions there and I like a lot of them! Interesting that they are asking people to come and comment, which is a great way to stay in touch with the player base and get real time info/data. Some of my thinking based on what you have said: - LOC coming down, couldn't agree more. Not because I want to include it in more lists but because I actually want to field more than 1 and not feel like I've just blown close to half of my 2k points. - Blue scribes going up, don't think it's needed. They're only really dangerous on the Balewind (IMO) which I feel will get removed from matched play in AOS 3.0 anyway. We should enjoy it whilst it lasts! Also, they're massive glass canon and really only that great in the first maybe 2nd round? - I'm guessing your comment about Vanilla Tzaangs being able to be taken in units of 5 also means they would see the points drop relevant to that unit size and it would be at a bit more like 90 points for 5? - Enlightened on foot as Battleline is TS is General, ohh boi, let me roll these D6's to see how many mortal wounds my bank account will suffer if that is the case! Hope there's a resale market for those discs! - Alterkin down 60 - yeah I'm about this. - Kairics down 10 - I'm also about this. OR a discount for taking 30... why there's no bargain on taking a blob of 30 is beyond me. - Skyfires down in points will see a lot more use and also make the Battalion's more viable for sure. Some suggestions I wish I could make (noting some of the ones you made above are also what I would make): - Overhaul of Cult of the transient form regarding the ranges in which the "adding Tzaangor to a Tzaangor Unit" works - Making the Ogroid (in addition to the Shaman) as general open up Tzaangor Enlightened on Foot as battleline - Revamp of the Omniscient Oracles Battalion. Most laughable battalion in the book I think for what it costs and what you get. I really want to run this Battalion and coupled with your suggestion of drop in points for LOCs and Kairics, well it'd be fun to see on the table. - Tzaangor Coven come down by 20 points due to current high cost of the units if they dont change the points for taking the units needed - Discounts for taking max blobs of anything really... But anyways, this is just a wish list Christmas FAQ list LOL. I think if I could ask GW to do anything though it would be to change the speed at which they are releasing things like new tomes, take the time to play test things a lot more (minimum 4-5 months, idk) with proper external play testers (sign NDAs if they have to), lower the cost or at least drop this massive Tariff they have for Australian buyers/players (feels bad man) and also change this mentality of win at all costs I feel is seeping into AOS atm... I also think that this is coming from the 40k scene as well, as that seems to be struggling to maintain its player base (I say this only from what I am seeing in my local scene and also across Australia) as more and more players are coming over to AOS. I feel that the win at all costs mentality comes from releasing things so fast and the latest meta armies... also It's becoming harder and harder to just keep up with the speed of things being released... does anyone else feel this? Whilst I know it's great for an ecosystem/game, it can also be pretty detrimental. I feel if they did a bit more of this that things would be more balanced? Maybe

I don't think Pinks splitting into blues/brims will ever get us fate points, it would make it easier to summon in other items and just ultimately spam them, like screamers or flamers. Also if they went back to the old method of Blue and Brim points, it'd mean FAR too much overhead in tracking everything again and it'd ****** a lot of people off. Pissed me off when I played the old tome. I see what everyone is saying regarding how they need a re-work, but honestly, a single unit of Pinks and the way it works now is a fantastic screen and is just that. Sure if you stack them into 2 big blobs it means that you can just hold an objective and the opponent has to chew threw them but this is totally a synergy of the army, the lore and also part of GW's profits I think I'm more interested in seeing GW bring more balance to the Mortal/Tzaangor side of the army before just squatting the Horrors because as someone mentioned above, they are a great Anvil, one of the best in the game, and as Gwendar Mentioned, the army is all about control of the board, and that takes a lot to master in it's own. Anything with big shooting (where I feel the meta is going atm in a lot of armies), or Melee can easily take down a single unit of Pinks and Blues and Brims in a turn, especially with rend. If they do split evenly though they need to come down in points. I couldn't agree more with this though: Across their whole range!

Yep, only if you have the Pink Horror holding the banner. It's all outlined on the warscroll how it works.

Yeah I get a real kick out of making lists and then seeing them work really well! Always happy to help you build a list at whatever points range, that would be fun for you and your cas mates to play if you end up diving into Tzeentch! Also happy to help with the comp lists as well. I think when collecting a new army or starting one, if your aim is for competitive games/tournies, you should aim for that and disregard whatever anyone else says. Mate its YOUR hobby after all

@Kasper if they're not competitive players that makes sense why they roll their eyes... but I would say it's not contributing to a healthy scene even if they choose to not enter tournies etc. Good to hear that you have a balance though of competitive and non-competitive players to play against. If I can offer any advice it would be possibly don't talk comp lists with the players you know are going to not be into it, and reserve that energy/banter for the people who will at least reply constructively, mostly for your own sake so you don't ever get disheartened by someone who just rolls their eyes. But also this forum/website has a lot of people to share ideas with

@Kasper eh thats on them then imo. Not to say anything negative, but to auto assume something will be one way because you say "I'm bringing X Army" is a bit poor in my mind, and also doesn't make for a healthy scene. Sure there are going to be strong lists and people will always take the latest army etc, but in my mind, if someone says "im bringing KO" im like "damn I need to figure out how to shut them down asap and play against them"... If they keep rolling their eyes at the latest armies to have a good tome, they will be doing that the whole time they play AOS in my mind lol. Edit: Changed my naughty word to Damn lol

He doesn't have any unfortunately. But I can see what youre saying for sure! Maybe next time we will use some proxies!

@Kasper just ask them if they want to play against the Stock Standard Changehost lol. Did they happen to give more info as to why they rolled their eyes? I'm really interested by this.

You're a wise man! I totally forgot this! And just goes to show that there's always something to learn (again) or remember lol!

Haha I was! And this makes a lot of sense. Azyr really is a poor app sometimes! Pink Horrors are still only 200 points when you list build, like come on guys! I see what you're saying about the Geminids, and Also the auto dispell from Kairos is great too.

Played a pretty fun game against Khorne last night which I was pretty worried about going into. We played total commitment which I'm a big fan of for my list that I'm running atm which looks like this: Apologies I'm not sure hot to do the neater lists as a drop down on this forum This is mostly my list i've been running for a while now and am planning on taking to a tournie in November. His list had 2 Bloodthirsters, Skarbrand, x2 individual Slaughter Preists, X1 Blood Secrator, x1 unit of 5 Chosen, Wrath Mongers, x 2 units of Blood Reavers and x1 unit of Blood Warriors. He took the Skulls of Khorne and also the Big Khorne Axe as his Judgments (they act like endless spells but for Khorne, they're gross, can't be unbound or dispelled by you, but there is a chance they bail at the start of each turn or end of the turn something like that). He was essentially a 6 drop as am I and he won the roll off, dropping first and also determining who went first. Based on this, I chose to max out my drops and just watch real carefully where his Bloodthirsters and Skarbrand went, where the Chosen and Wrathmongers went and deployed as tactfully as possible. I made sure that my two bigger blobs of kairics where wholly within 9 of the fatemaster to get the re-rolls and also for battleshock purposes. He just hunkered down in the middle of them. I deployed my unit of pinks into front of those two blobs, deployed the Shaman and the enlightened behind a big piece of scenery, deployed one unit of kairics just off to the left objective (with enlightened just behind them sort of to deal with anything that came their way), the Fluxymaster was just behind them and then the blue scribes on the big bit of scenery up high to stay out of the way of melee units but also making it harder for those bloodthirsters to come near him. I burnt the CP on the Fatemaster to re-roll hits JIC i got double turned. Still had 2 as I bought the extra - always handy! He gave me turn one, and basically I just used this to rack up fate points which was pretty average as scribes rolled a nice 1 for their auto cast ability and then it was just trying to get others off really. managed to get 4 fate points or something by that stage and by the end of my first turn I didnt move, hunkered down and waited. His turn 1 was more or less getting some buffs off on the thirsters to make them way more gnarly and advance things up. Nothing got up in my face but he positioned himself for that double and also focused mostly on my right flank which had the Pinks, two big blobs of Kairics and the Fatemaster. At this stage he was now in range for some shooting and also Spells. I got the double and it was on. The highlight of the game for me was that the blue scribes cast Balewind vortex with that 2, nice one boys! Then they cast Boon of Tzeentch, getting it on a 5, then, the Blood Thirster that has the Mage Eater artefact, which lets the holder unbind spells AND on a roll of 8 that caster takes D6 mortals, unbound the spell on an 8 and rolled a 6 for the D6 and my Blue Boys went up in a puff of blue smoke. Hilarious! At this point I was kinda worried because they are kind of pivitol in my list lol. Anyways, I got some spells off again, burnt the Cp, declared an Agenda to kill a hero and add +1 to saves on the big unit of Kairics, Killed a Blood thirster (the Mage Eater thank god), killed the Chaos Chosen (they hit real hard, spesh in Khorne), and then hunkered down on that objective again. My enlightened and the FLuxmaster started to creep out on the left flank as his Skarbrand was the only thing coming that way, so ran the Flux out to the left keeping it as far away from Skarbrand as possible, and the enlightened just positioning themselves for counters. He had his turn, managed to get the Axe of Khorne into my Kairics and pinks doing alot of Damage and killing off 13 Kairics and a couple of Pinks. He got his Blood thirster in and started swining, chipping away at everything as it does. Then we went to Priority, and I got it again! Essentially fromhere, I shot off the other Bloodthirster coming for me, Charged Enlightened into Skarbrand and killed him with the Spears, got my flux master further out to the left towards his objectives and then summoned in some screamers and got them up pretty nicely with that. From here we more or less called it a Win for Tzeentch as we mapped out how the game would go really, and because of the higher movement I still had left and his units being a bit too dispersed it would have gone Tzeentchs way. We discussed mostly that Khorne just has no counter to shooting, and this is probably one big downfall of the army, but also, I had to really bide my time and make sure I was spending CPs for Battleshock and re-reolls of both Hits and Wounds to kill those thirsters. Theyre just gnarly! I also rolled REALLY well, on a lot of everything which was nice and he rolled pretyt average on saves, Skarbrand especially. So just shows that sometimes this can def come down to Dice rolls. Khorne is always going to just come straight at you, it's not a hold back Army, so the scenario we played and also the fact I kept getting Priority really helped otherwise it really could have been a Turn 2 Khorne Game! It was a lot of fun though! Didn't even use my Shards this game, and I havent used them a lot of the time. Might swap them out for something like Shackles and see if they have a better use, or maybe I've just not needed them in the games I've played recently. Also Shaman couldnt cast spells to save his life. Typical LOL. There's a few things I'm missing like his Skulls forcing ALL my successful spells Turn 2 or 3 I think to be re-rolled and man that hurts, but less so when you don't even roll successful casts anyway Can't DD them either because they are still forced to be re-rolled, but you can use them after the inital roll as the re-roll.

Thanks for the Batrep mate, always love seeing these! Totally agree about the Daemonrift and that it gets a bit worse as the wizards disperse, but it's alot NOT a predatory endless spell, which is lovely, so you don't have to worry about it coming back into your face, where as with Geminids you have to really think about that and whilst they are great, they can also really cripple things like those Horrors etc because of their Shooting/Melee profile. I love the list that you've taken and it's great to see you get a game in with it! I'd love to see more of this list if you ever do more Batreps and can use this one!

I think Flamers are worth it in probably 70% of Tzeentch lists and most covens, apart from the Cult of the Transient form. Sure the EC and HD covens make them bettert, spesh EC with them becoming battleline and also giving them rend, but the fear that a unit of 6 and an exalted can put into an opponent is worth it, let a lone ( or 12 of them buffed by an Exalted. That being said it's a heavy investment to not take the EC and give them rend. Edit: extra words.

I personally prefer the Extra CP. But play around with it and see what works best. Personally I love the chaos spawn lol. So im kinda conflicted in answering, but the CP has far more utility for games, where as spawns are better for holding up a unit and, kinda just doing that really.

Yeah correct, but if something nasty charges in and wipes the pinks into blue and possibly brims straight away the DD of 1 won't matter and you don't want that screen running at all. Its easy enough to make a pink out of the "wholly within "so you can get them back and then when placing the blues make them wholly within again due to base size. This is one effective way ive found to use Horrors as a screen really.

@Ganigumo I agree LOC turn 1 is preferable and fine. Turn 2 it hurts a bit more. fatemaster is great. I'm having a lot of success with him at the present with my current list, but will try GOS coven soon to see if he is more effective with the battleshock immunity artifact. I'm not sold on the Curseling at the present. I have used him a couple of times and found he didn't do that great, so if you have a good experience with him I'd be interested to know. Enlightened for the Hammer is great, then coupling with something as a screen to make sure they don't get charged is even better and almost acts as a small anvil! Just read Grashak's warscroll, he looks great!