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My blog is primarily my own personal fluff in the Warhammer 40,000 universe regarding the Draconis system such as the Knight House Yato in Ryusei, their Household Militia, the Draconian Defenders, and the Forge World of Draconis IV with its Adeptus Mechanicus priesthood, Cybernetica cohorts and Skitarii legions, and the Titan Legion, Legio Draconis, known as the Dark Dragons.

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Friday, December 9, 2016

Daemon Legions of Tzeentch

This post is about the Daemon Legions of Tzeentch and the Pandemoniad of Tzeentch, the Formation-based Detachment for your Daemons of Tzeentch. Tzeentch Daemons are so awesome I thought I would dedicate an entire post of tactics and analysis for them. So let's look at them!

Why Play Daemons of Tzeentch
Well, because they're one of the best psyker-based armies in Warhammer 40K. Even your basic troops, Horrors, can produce up to 3 Warp Charges if you fill them up to 20. You'll be drowning in Warp Charges, and the new Discipline of Change for Daemons of Tzeentch is awesome - I know you want to roll that Prismatic Gaze. So do I.
You also have a wide range of witchfire powers to flame your opponents - Flickering Fire! And in adddition to psychic phase, you have Exalted Flamers and Flamers with their awesome Fires of Tzeentch to throw down templates on your enemies and incinerate them even if they're hiding in cover. You also have some of the best HQ in the game in Kairos Fateweaver and Lords of Change, and thanks to them being able to fly they're pretty hard to kill, are very mobile and are awesome Psykers to boot. Expensive, but worth it.

Daemons of Tzeentch Detachment
So what do you get if you specialize in Daemons of Tzeentch as opposed to using the army datasheets from the Chaos Daemons codex? Well, you have access to a bunch of new loci for Tzeentch, (which replaces that in the Chaos Daemons codex anyway)...new Horrors (which again replaces that in the Chaos Daemons codex), uh...well, nothing has changed. I think the only change is that you get to roll on the new Warp Storm of Tzeentch, and that's about it. The real kicker for Daemons of Tzeentch is that you get to use the Pandemoniad of Tzeentch, which is an awesome Formation-based Detachment, and I'll tell you why below. For now, let's focus on the new stuff you get.

Warlord Traits
Your Tzeentch Warlord gets to roll on the following Warlord Traits:
- 1: Born of Sorcery: Your Warlord harnesses Warp Charges on 3+. I can't tell you just how awesome this is. It makes a huge difference especially for a Psyker-based army. Trust me, it does.
- 2: Incorporeal Form: Any enemy that targets your Warlord or his unit reduces their BS and WS by 1. Sweet, and helps your Warlord survives better. Not bad at all.
- 3: Warp Tether: Add 1 to your Warlord's invulnerable save, as well as all friendly Daemons of Tzeentch units within 9" of him. Another great Warlord Trait that improves the survivability of your Warlord, I'll take it. Can stack with all the other invulnerable saves bonuses, so ABUSE IT!
- 4: Lorekeeper of Tzeentch: Add 1 to your Warlord's Mastery Level, non-Psyker Warlords become Mastery Level 1 Psyker that generates powers from Discipline of Change (why is your Tzeentch Warlord a non-Psyker!? -___-). Pretty awesome, especially when you consider you can spam 1 more witchfire power and improves your chance of getting Prismatic Gaze if you didn't take the Grimoire.
- 5: Tyrant of the Warp: Your Warlord ignores the first Perils of the Warp he suffers each Psychic phase. A huge boon to heavily Psyker based armies, especially for your Psyker Warlord. No need to worry about getting wounded or accidentally getting dragged back screaming into the Warp!
- 6: Daemonspark: Close combat attacks of your Warlord and all Daemons of Tzeentch within 9" of him get Soul Blaze. Uh...heavily underwhelming, especially when you consider that you do NOT want your Warlord or Psyker Daemons of Tzeentch in close combat with anything. Plus Soul Blaze isn't that good in the first place.

Hellforged Artifacts of Tzeentch
Hell yeah, your Daemons of Tzeentch have access to these exclusive artifacts! Most of them are pretty useful, so don't hold back and splurge on them!
- Paradox: For 25 points, you get to turn all the dice rolled during a Psychic test to their opposite side - once per turn, though. Why is this useful? If you've failed your Psychic test for example, by rolling a 5, 3 and 1 (and you can only harness on 4+, and this power costs 2 Warp Charges), you can change those numbers to 2, 4 and 6 respectively. Very useful if you need a particular power to go off (I'm looking at you, Prismatic Gaze). If you can afford it, get it. It's also a decent melee weapon with AP4 and Concussive, but nobody's getting the Paradox for that...
- The Endless Grimoire: For 35 points, your Warlord knows all the powers from the Discipline of Change. Extremely useful because it guarantees your Herald of Tzeentch knows that Prismatic Gaze without needing to rely on luck and good rolls for it. Yes, only your Herald of Tzeentch can take it, but for some reason it says Warlord, so your bearer doesn't have to be the Warlord. Even if your random Herald takes it, if your Daemon Prince or Lord of Change is the Warlord, he gets to know all the powers from the Discipline of Change.
- Soul Bane: A Fleshbane melee weapon whose AP is dependent on your target's Initiative value. Against vehicles, you get AP1. Not worth it for your Daemon Prince, who already has AP2 thanks to Smash from being a Monstrous Creature, and his Strength 6 means he already Wounds most things on 2 anyway. More for your Strength 3 Herald, if you're thinking of sticking him into melee, and it's relatively cheap. Lord of Change can't take it.
- The Oracular Dais: A buffed up Disc of Tzeentch that costs 10 points more, each turn you can have one of your friendly units (must be Chaos Daemons) in Reserve to auto-pass without rolling. Pretty useful, especially if you're bringing Deep Striking units such as Exalted Flamers. Can only be taken by a Herald.
- The Impossible Robe: An impossible artifact that confers a 3++ invulnerable save but at the cost of a quarter of a hundred points and forcing the wearer to take a Leadership test whenever he suffers an unsaved Wound. Failing which, he fades away from reality and is removed from play. Combine it with the Warp Tether Warlord Trait and make sure you remember his Daemon of Tzeentch rule that allows you to re-roll failed saves of ones and laugh as your opponent rages at your unkillable Warlord. Just don't take the Pandemoniad of Tzeentch if you choose this, because you'll only have a 3++ invulnerable save and you lose that re-rolls of ones.
- The Everstave: Sounding like a bad name for some RPG, this is a 20-point staff that fires off a S5 AP3 template with Soul Blaze and Warpflame - good for killing Space Marines and their equivalents, but beware improving their Feel No Pain rolls. Grants AP4 to the melee, but otherwise not very useful unless you need that template.

Discipline of Change
The Curse of the Wulfen has granted us Daemons of Tzeentch 3 more powers from the Discipline of Change! Of note is the Strength D Prismatic Gaze, which I know all of you really, REALLY want.
- Primaris: Flickering Fire of Tzeentch: This is what you spam Horrors for. The standard Witchfire that all Daemons of Tzeentch know, it's a range 24" S5 AP4 that deals 2D6 hits with Soul Blaze and Warpflame. Okay, Soul Blaze and Warpflame are not very useful, but the dakka is real. Not to mention, that's if you spend only 1 Warp Charge. If you want, you can spend 2 Warp Charges for 3D6 shots, and 3 Warp Charges for 4D6. Awesome. Of course, the chances of failing to harness the power as your Warp Charges cost goes up increase, but totally worth it.
- 1: Tzeentch's Firestorm: A cheap witchfire that also has 24" range, but D6+1 Strength and Blast, so is too unreliable. If you scatter, that's not good. If you roll a 1, you only get off a S2 blast that must roll 5+ just to wound T3 Guardsmen. Again, not good. And even if you manage to roll a decent amount of Strength - up to 7 - your opponents get to roll armor saves because it's AP-. Again, not good. You need a lot of luck and rolls to go your way for this to be reliable.
- 2: Bolt of Change: A much better improvement over the first power, it's a beam with the same range but has Strength D6+4, so at least S5. Not to mention, it's AP2, so you can threaten vehicles and Terminators and their equivalents with this spell. It's only Assault 1, though, so it'll at most help you kill off one Terminator in that 5-men squad - but still better than nothing, and it's 1 Warp Charge so worth it. More for vehicles, though.
- 3: Tzeentch's Warpflare: Like Tzeentch's Firestrom, this is another power that's way too unreliable for its own good. 9" nova means it will hit no matter what, you'll never miss and you don't need to roll to hit with the Horrors' pathetic BS, but Strength D6 means you have a chance of rolling a one and needing 6s to Wound that blob of T3 Guardsmen and their equivalent. Yes...wtf. The bright side is that you get 2D6 hits (which again is too unreliable), AP4 and Ignores Cover, so if you get lucky with your Strength and number of hit rolls, you'll be wiping out entire hordes without them being able to do anything aboout it. If you don't get lucky, however, you'll be wasting that 1 Warp Charge - which is fair because it's cheap, I guess.
- 4: Boon of Flame: It's summoning time! Casting this power with 2 Warp Charges nets you an Exalted Flamer of Tzeentch while using 3 Warp Charges creates 3 Flamers of Tzeentch or 1 Burning Chariot of Tzeentch (choose this, it's better than the 3 Flamers). Not bad at all. It's pretty good, to be honest, which can catch your opponent by surprise, reinforce your army and grab objectives.
- 5: Infernal Gateway: Same as the Bolt of Change, but with less range (18"), again you will deal a mininum of Strength 5 damage and up to 10, but it's AP1 and blast. If you don't scatter too badly, it'll help you wipe out that squad of Terminators and their equivalents, at the cost of 1 more Warp Charge.
- 6: Prismatic Gaze: This. So very this. At only 3 Warp Charges, you get to cast a Strength D AP1 attack with an 18" range. This is what you want, and what you will attempt to roll for, or spend 35 points on that Endless Grimoire to guarantee you get this power. If you're lucky, you'll get multiple Heralds of Tzeentch in your Heralds Anarchic running around on their Discs of Tzeentch, ready to spam this Strength D power, which will absolutely smoke your opponent's expensively assembled army of Imperial Knights/Wraithknights/Gargantuan Creatures/Super-heavies/Deathstars to ruin. Have fun.

Daemonic Loci of Tzeentch
You also have access to 3 new Daemonic Loci of Tzeentch, in addition to the already existing ones from the Chaos Daemons codex (though these have also been updated accordingly to fit with the new Horrors and their Split rules).
- Lesser Locus of Transmogrification: Every time your enemy kills a Pink Horror in close combat, he suffers a Strength 3 AP- hit. For Blue Horrors it's a Strength 2 AP- hit and for Brimstone Horrors it's a Strength 1 AP- hit. Do take note for Brimstone Horrors that it's for every unsaved Wound dealt, so if your opponent is using S1 poison weapons, double the Strength 1 AP- hits accordingly.
- Lesser Locus of Metamorphosis: Your dude and his unit gets It Will Not Die. Awesome. Worth the 15 points.
- Greater Locus of Change: A very random locus that allows you to swap your current Strength for a D6 roll. Ugh, too random to be reliable, especially if you accidentally roll your Strength to be 1. Half of the time it ends up worse or the same, and 50% it ends up better...wait, so not so bad, actually. Still, not worth 20 points and you have far better Loci to take.
- Greater Locus of Trickery: At the beginning of each turn, you roll a D6, and any To Hit rolls targeting the bearer or is unit that has the same score counts as having rolled a 1 instead. Uh, while this can be great at times, if you roll a 1, it pretty much does nothing for that turn. Still worth the 20 points because you get to roll the D6 every turn, and even a turn where you saved your Daemons from being shot is worth it. I was about to add ditto for 2, but I realize there are enemy units with BS5, so this can help save your bacon against such accurate enemies.
- Exalted Locus of Conjuration: This is the one you want for heavily Psyker-based armies (your Daemons of Tzeentch, definitely). Buffs the Strength of your psychic powers by 1. Have your Herald in a Warpflame Host take it and buff the Horrors squads within 12" of him to Strength 7 and your Horrors will essentially be spamming autocannon shots. Only one word to describe this: awesome.
- Exalted Locus of Creation: Every time a Pink Horror dies, it splits into 4 Blue Horrors instead of 2, and those Blue Horrors split into 2 pairs of Brimstone Horrors instead of one when they die. Awesome. Take this Locus and you'll be drowning your table in Horrors no matter how hard your opponent tries to kill them.

Icons of Chaos
- Arcane Icon: Grants Adamantium Will. Not too bad.
- Blasted Standard: Once per game, you can use it immediately before shooting, Overwatch or firing witchfire powers, and it does an additional 2D6 Strength 4 AP- attacks.
- Icon of Fire: Soul Blaze for close combat attacks. Don't bother. Save your points for something more useful.

Tzeentchian Warp Storm
Daemons of Tzeentch have a new exclusive Warp Storm table that they can roll on. Basically, you roll 2D6 at the start of your Shooting phase and you'll get these effects.
- 2: Boundless Mutation: Uh...select any non-Daemon character, friend or foe, on the table at random, and he suffers D3 Wounds with no saves of any kind allowed. If this ends up killing him, he becomes a Chaos Spawn. Fun if it happens to your opponent's Warlord, not fun if it happens to your allied Ahriman.
- 3: Warp Flux: All doubles in Psychic phase become Perils of the Warp. Good if it happens to your opponent, not good if it happens to you - and especially because it's not a guarantee that your opponent is playing a Psyker-based army while you most definitely are, this will more likely than not have you shoot yourself in the foot.n
- 4: Mirror Step: Randomly select any Daemon of Tzeentch, friend or foe, and he disappears, only to reappear via Deep Strike immediately. Can make for some interesting shennigans, or help you grab an Objective, or move that immobile Horror squad across the table. Pretty cool.
- 5: Gale of Change: Awesome. All Psykers now harness Warp Charges on 3+. Just awesome. Like Warp Flux, since you're most definitely running a Psyker-based army, this will benefit you. A lot. Hooray!
- 6: Mutagenic Fire: All flamers on the battlefield gain Warpflame. Useless to you as you're already running an army that only have warpflamers. On the other hand, you can get lucky and have your Horrors gain Feel No Pain when your opponent tries to wash them out with flamers.
- 7: Visions from Beyond the Veil: Both player gets D3 re-rolls, that is, you can re-roll any single dice roll once during the turn. Good for shooting and harnessing Warp Charges, though the same goes for your opponent. Well, let's share the love, I guess.
- 8: Warp Surge: All psychic powers' cost are reduced by 1 Warp Charge (to a minimum of 1), but if they fail to cast it, they immediately suffer Perils of the Warp. Awesome. Based on luck, but casting Prismatic Gaze on 2 Warp Charges is better than 3. If you have an allied Magnus, it could be useful in saving Warp Charges.
- 9: Storm of Fire: Roll a D6 for every non-vehicle unit on the table, and for each unit that gets 1 or 2 suffers D6 Strength 4 AP 4 Warpflame hits. Ha ha...very funny. Heavily based on luck again, but that's Chaos for you.
- 10: Brimstone Rain: Free unit of 10 Brimstone Horrors arrive via Deep Strike. Sweet! Great for snatching Objectives right from under your opponent's nose!
- 11: Herald's Possession: Randomly select any non-Daemon character, friend or foe, and he must take a Leadership test. If he passes, nothing happens, but if he fails, he turns into a Herald of Tzeentch. Uh, okay. I guess there are worse ways to die. At least he didn't get turned into a Chaos Spawn...and it would be funny if the randomly selected Daemon happens to already be a Herald of Tzeentch. Doubly so if he's on his last Wound, and boom! Now he's back to full health!
- 12: Avatar of Change: Select a Daemon of Tzeentch character, and he must take a Leadership test. If he fails, he dies, but if he passes, he transforms into a Lord of Change! Funnily enough, if you choose your Warlord, and he passed his Leadership test, even if he turns into a Lord of Change, your opponent doesn't earn Slay the Warlord unless he kills this new Lord of Change, and your new Lord of Change inherits the same Warlord Trait the old one had. A nice gamble if your Lord of Change Warlord is down on his last Wound, only to turn back into a new Lord of Change with full health and remain as your Warlord with the Warlord Traits still intact. Very...interesting.

Pandemoniad of Tzeentch
This is a Formation-based Detachment for Damons of Tzeentch. It is awesome. Like most oher Formation-based Detachments except the Cadian Battle Group, you need 1+ Core, 0-3 Command and 1+ Auxiliary. You also get a couple of Command Benefits:
Ephemeral Form: All units get +1 to their invulnerable saves, to a maximim of 3++, but they lose the ability to re-roll save rolls of 1s. Uh...not really a benefit but a trade-off. I can't say I'm happy with it, but while I like my Horrors and Heralds getting 4++ invulnerable saves, I think they should also re-roll their ones of failed saving throws otherwise there's little point in taking this detachment.
Master of Fate: Mandatory Warlord Trait re-roll. Oh, and you can re-roll results from rolling on the Tzeentchian Warp Storm table (see above). That latter part could be useful, I guess.
To be honest, the command benefits for the Pandemoniad of Tzeentch are very underwhelming. You get much better Command Benefits from the Daemonic Incursion from Curse of the Wulfen. That said, the Formations in the Pandemoniad of Tzeentch are a lot better and much more flexible and customizable than those in the Daemonic Incursion. I guess Chaos Daemons can't always have good things, huh?

Core
- Warpflame Host: 1 Changeling or Herald of Tzeentch leads 9 units of Pink Horrors of Tzeentch, Flamers of Tzeentch and/or Exalted Flamers of Tzeentch in any combination. If your Herald has a Locus, all units from this Formation within 12" of him are affected by it. Not only that, you get +1 Strength to any Tzeentchian Flame Weapons and psychic powers from the Discipline of Change used in this Warpflame Host. So essentially you can potentially have your 3-5 squads of Pink Horrors shooting Strength 7 AP4 Flickering Fires if you keep them within 12" of your Herald with Exalted Locus of Conjuration. Yes, please.
- Lorestealer Host: The Blue Scribes as a commander of 3-9 units of Blue Horrors. A cheap anti-Psyker Core Formation that allows your Blue Horrors and Blue Scribes to re-toll failed To Hit and To Wound rolls of 1 when attacking Psykers and their units, and they add +1 Strength to their withcifre powers against enemy Psyker units within 9" of them. Throw in an Exalted Locus of Conjuration, and your Flickering Fire goes up to Strength 7. Cute, and a good cheap Core Formation to take if you can't afford the much more expensive and unwieldy Warpflame Host.

Command
- Lord of Pandemonium: Kairos Fateweaver, Lord of Change, Daemon Prince, Herald of Tzeentch. Nothing to see here, not a Formation per say, so move along.
- Omniscient Oracles: Kairos Fateweaver with 1-3 Lords of Change. Now we're talking! Thanks to their Knowledge of Past, Present and Future, they can re-roll any rolls of 1 when making Psychic tests, To Hit or To Wound rolls, as well as re-roll failed attempts to Seize the Initiative and Reserve Rolls. This makes your flying bird Daemons absolute beasts, improves your chances of casting that Discipline of Change power, as well as hitting and wounding whoever you need to with your witchfire powers. Also allows you to make sure your units arrive from Deep Strike and Reserve, and gives you another shot at Seizing the Initiative, which can prove crucial to your strategy. Definitely a good Command choice that's cheaper and more affordable than the Infernal Tetrad. As I said, the Pandemoniad of Tzeentch has much better and more flexible Formations.

Auxiliary
- Agents of Tzeentch: One Changeling or one Blue Scribes. Nothing to see here, move along.
- Forgehost: 3 Soul Grinders of Chaos. Each time one of them kills any enemy during a Shooting or Assault phase, the rest get to re-roll all failed To Hit and To Wound rolls until the end of that phase. Amusing and not bad, but not particularly impressive. Take note your other Soul Grinders can target other units or be engaged in close combat with other enemy units and still receive this benefit, so it's not bad. The problem is making sure that first Soul Grinder actually succeeds in killing something. Best chances of pulling that off is making sure you resolve the Shooting or Assault against the weakest enemy first.
- Burning Skyhost: Led by the Blue Scribes or 1 Herald of Tzeentch, you have 9 units of Screamers of Tzeentch and/or Burning Chariots of Tzeentch in any combination. Your Herald of Tzeentch must take a Disc of Tzeentch or Burning Chariot of Tzeentch. Your Burning Chariots of Tzeentch can target an unengaged enemy unit it moves Flat Out over and deal D6 Strength 5 AP4 hits with Soul Blaze and Warpflame. Vehicles are counted as being hit on their side armor. Screamers deal D3+1 Strength 4 AP- hits with Soul Blaze and Warpflame when making Slashing attacks. While fun, this Formation is way too expensive, and usually doesn't do much. D3+1 Strength 4 hits sound cool, but AP- hurts them way too much, and you will want your Burning Chariots of Tzeentch to be firing Exalted Flamers' Pink and Blue Fires of Tzeentch instead of moving Flat Out and dealing D6 Strength 5 AP4 hits. I mean, those Pink and Blue Fires of Tzeentch deal S5 AP3 template and D3 S9 AP2 shots respectively, so you have no reason to chose the S5 AP4 hits over them.
- Brimstone Conflagration: One of the best and cheapest Auxiliary Formations ever, at minimum this costs only a mere 140 points. With a cheap Exalted Flamer of Tzeentch, and 3-9 units of even cheaper Brimstone Horrors, you can basically spam this Formation as many times as you want and flood the table with nothing but Brimstone Horrors. Thanks to its ridiculous cheap cost, you can run this alongside more expensive Formations or Formation-based Detachments such your Thousand Sons Grand Coven, who can really benefit from having cheap, scoring bodies alongside their few, elite Psykers and Terminators (and Magnus). The benefits are pretty solid too. With Malicious Self-immolation, any of your Brimstone Horrors can consume themselves in flame during the assault phase, which mean you sacrifice them (you choose how many models you want to self-destruct) to deal D3 Strength 4 AP4 Warpflame hits PER MODEL to any enemy locked in combat with them. You can choose to self-destruct the entire unit if you wish, though personally I'll just sacrifice 9 and hope 9D3 Strength 4 AP4 hits wipe out the enemy, allowing your single, lone Fearless pair of Brimstone Horrors to score that objective. Oh, and any enemy attempting to charge your Brimstone Horrors that's within 9" of your Exalted Flamer must all take Dangerous Terrain test because they're charging through a Sea of Living Flame. Excellent. Gimmicky, and they'll probably pass it, but it'll at least keep your cheap, disposable and expendable Brimstone Horrors alive for a bit longer if they fail that test (and score extra damage while at it!).
- Heralds Anarchic: 3-9 Heralds of Tzeentch, whose cheap cost and flexible customizability alone should drive you crazy with joy at spamming them (9 Mastery Level 3 Heralds flying around on Discs of Tzeentch!). Well, don't take 9 of them, of course...but anyway, you're taking them not to merely spam Heralds of Tzeentch, but also because of their Warp Conduits. That means you generate an extra dice in your Warp Charge pool for each model in this Formation. Yes, please. Just spamming 3 Mastery Level 1 Heralds alone nets you 3 extra Warp Charges that you can reserve for your Lords of Change or Kairos Fateweaver to use that Prismatic Gaze. Good if you upgrade at least one of them to Mastery Level 3 and hope at least one of your Heralds gets Prismatic Gaze too, and you can blow all your warp charges on getting it off. A very excellent Auxiliary choice. Like I said, the Pandemoniad of Tzeentch has a lot better Formations than the Daemonic Incursion.

Building your army
Well...not much to say here, other than me bringing up a list I already wrote down in my Sample Builds list. A good idea would look something like this:

Pandemoniad of Tzeentch (1,850 points)

Core:
Warpflame Host (830)
Herald of Tzeentch (Mastery Level 3), Disc of Tzeentch, Exalted Locus of Conjuration, the Endless Grimoire (180)
4 Exalted Flamers of Tzeentch (4x50=200)
5 units of 10 Pink Horrors (5x90=450)

Command:
Omniscient Oracles (810)

Kairos Fateweaver (300)
2 Lords of Change (Mastery Level 3), (2x255=510)

Auxiliary:
Heralds Anarchic
3 Heralds of Tzeentch (Mastery Level 1), Exalted of Locus of Conjuration (3x70=210)

Total: 1,850

The idea is to attach the Mastery Level 1 Heralds to 3 squads of Pink Horrors and have them run around the table capturing objectives and retaining their autocannon Flickering Fire shots. The remaining 2 Pink Horrors will remain within 12" of the Mastery Level 3 Herald, who hopefully has Prismatic Gaze. Otherwise he'll just zip around in his Disc of Tzeentch capturing objectives with his 2 squads of Horrors. Have one of your Lord of Change be the Warlord, and Endless Grimoire should still work on him and give him Prismatic Gaze. With Kairos Fateweaver already knowing all the powers of the Discipline of Change, this means you at least have 2 Prismatic Gazes flying around waiting to be flung at unsuspecting Gargantuan Creatures or Super-heavies. Awesome. Your Exalted Flamers also have D3 Strength 10 AP2 or a S6 AP3 template, so make good use of that - though thanks to those being Heavy and Exalted Flamers not having Relentless, you can't move them. Keep them in the backfield objectives in your deployment zone where they will literally incinerate any enemy that dares come close and deal D3 Strength 6 AP3 Walls of Death to any fool that dares to charge them. The extra Warp Charges that your Heralds Anarchic net you should prove useful when you cast those Prismatic Gaze powers from your Lord of Change and Kairos Fateweaver, and you can change accordingly to Flickering Fire, Bolt of Change or Infernal Gateway if your opponent brings small squads instead of giant Super-heavies and Gargantuan Creatures. And there's the option of summoning more Exalted Flamers or Burning Chariots of Tzeentch if you need reinforcements or to capture Objectives...

The downside? This is going to be super expensive. Yes, you can save money on your Exalted Flamers and Heralds of Tzeentch by buying the Burning Chariot of Tzeentch, which is a good deal because you can build both an Exalted Flamer and a Herald of Tzeentch plus 2 Screamers and 3 Blue Horrors as a bonus. You've to buy 4 for this list, though, which costs up to $160. The 5 boxes of Pink Horrors will cost 5x$29, which is $145, so the Warpflame Host and Heralds Anarchic alone will cost you $305.

The kick in the teeth is purchasing the Lords of Change and Kairos Fateweaver. Costing $57.75 each, 3 of them will cot $173.25. So the total army will cost you $478.25. That might not be so bad and again I recommend that you purchase them over a few months, but I haven't talked about procuring the Blue Horrors and Brimstone Horrors that you will need thanks to the new Split rule. From the Burning Chariot of Tzeentch, you'll only get 12 Blue Horrors, and assuming all your Pink Horrors get wiped out, you might need at least 100 Blue Horrors, or 88 more Blue Horrors. And you'll also need to get 100 Brimstone Horrors for the eventuality that you might lose all your Blue Horrors.

There's also the problem of getting another Herald or Lord of Change in case you roll those on the Tzeentchian Warp Storm table, but let's not worry about that because it's as unlikely as hell. And another 10 Brimstone Horrors and a Chaos Spawn while at it.

The solution? Since there are no separate boxes on sale for the Blue Horrors and Brimstone Horrors, I wouldn't worry about it. You can come to an agreement with your opponent and use other stuff to represent the Blue Horrors. You have 12 of them, after all. Use the spare Screamers as substitutes if you have to. Or blue dice. Whatever fits your fancy. As for Brimstone Horrors, just get colored paper or cardboard, cut them into 100 pieces, and pretend they're Brimstone Horrors. I'm sure your opponent doesn't mind. If he does, ask him to get the Brimstone Horrors for you (and he'll realize the models don't exist outside the Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower. And you sure as hell are not going to get an entire box of Silver Tower just for the Brimstone Horrors alone...

6 comments:

  1. I think you read the tzeentch warpstorm first result wrong, it says: randomly select a character (friend or foe) on the table, EXCLUDING any models with the daemon special rule.

    So yeah it is pretty awesome if you're playing purely daemons :)

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    Replies
    1. Also number 8 is reduced by 1 warp charge (to a minimum of 1), so if the power was War charge 2, it becomes warp charge 1, but if it was warp charge 3, it only becomes warp charge 2. So no, you can't cast prismatic gaze on 1 WC

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    2. And 11 is also affecting non daemons only.
      so apart from a couple results the table is really awesome if you are playing daemons, however those poor mortal allies you took will turn to spawn and heralds faster than they would by just chaos boons table.

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    3. Thanks for pointing out my mistakes! I misread the excluding part and somehow read it as excluding non-Daemon, whoops. And I also misread the Warp Charges part. I'll make the changes immediately. Once again, thanks! I appreciate it!

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  2. "Like most oher Formation-based Detachments except the Cadian Battle Group"
    haha yeah that one is stupidly bad. Only the Ghazkull one is that bad (almost)

    Really good review :) I like the army list idea too, but it could be a bit too inefficient i think.
    I would probably rather go with the lorestealer host as a core choice, fateweaver and 1 lord of change in a oracles formation, several heralds on discs with one having a grimoire and another a paradox. And finally a CAD with a couple of brimstone horror units for cheap objective secured deep striking objective grabbers, a unit of screamers to join up with heralds and another lord of change with impossible robes and a staff of change to beat the enemies down :D.

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    1. Oh, that's just a sample list, it's not meant to be optimal. It's to show an example of how a Pandemoniad of Tzeentch looks like, and how you can begin to build your army with these models. As they haven't started selling any Blue Horrors or Bristone Horrors by themselves, it'll be difficult to build an army using those. This is for beginniners or people starting out, and is meant to be an example more than a tournament-winning list.

      But you're definitely right, Lorestealer Host is a lot more efficient, and Paradox is a great Artifact. Instead of CAD I think the Brimstone Conflagration Formation might be better as you can wipe out units contesting that Objective with their self-destruct, but Objective Secured and a unit of Screamers could be great.

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