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My Tzeentch Daemons

HQ
Herald of Tzeentch w/ chariot, we are legion, master of sorcery, bolt of tzeentch
Herald of Tzeentch w/ chariot, we are legion, master of sorcery, bolt of tzeentch
Herald of Tzeentch w/ chariot, we are legion, master of sorcery, bolt of tzeentch
The Blue Scribes

Elite
3 Flamers
3 Flamers
3 Flamers

Troops
5 Horror's, bolt of tzeentch
5 Horror's, bolt of tzeentch
5 Horror's, bolt of tzeentch
6 Horror's, bolt of tzeentch, changeling

Fast Attack
4 Screamers
4 Screamers
4 Screamers

Heavy Support
Daemon Prince w/ mark of tzeentch, daemonic gaze, bolt of tzeentch
Daemon Prince w/ mark of tzeentch, daemonic gaze, bolt of tzeentch
Daemon Prince w/ mark of tzeentch, daemonic gaze, bolt of tzeentch


Round 1 vs. Space Wolves
His list
HQ
Rune Priest w/ living lightning, don't remember the second power
Wolf Priest
DH Inquisitor Lord w/ mystics

Elite
Dreadnaught w/ multi-melta
Wolf guard (joined to all of the other units)

Troops
9 Grey Hunters w/ stuff, rhino
9 Grey Hunters w/ stuff, rhino
9 Grey Hunters w/ stuff, rhino
8 Grey Hunters w/ stuff, rhino (rune priest here
1 Blood Claws w/ stuff, rhino (wolf priest here)

Heavy Support
Long Fangs w/ 3 missile's, 2 lascannons
Long Fangs w/ 3 missile's, 2 lascannons

Mission: Primary: Modified kill points, you pick 5 of your units and your opponent has to kill them to get the kp.
He picked all 5 troop squads. I picked 3 chariots, 1 daemon prince, and the blue scribes
Seconday: Have some number of victory points more than your opponent.
Tertiary: Kill all troops and any dedicated transports.
Deployment: pitched battle

Terrain: There is a huge piece ork building in the center of the table. With some hills scattered around.

Space Wovles deployment
He deploys with a standard castle with long fangs and dread on the inside of a rhino wall, all troop stay in vehicles. Inquisitor is inside the rhino wall.

SW Turn #1
He doesn't move

Daemons Turn #1
I choose 3 dps, 3 chariots, and 3 units of screamers as my first wave (having the scribes drop independent to give me 8 in the second wave). I get my preferred wave. I drop all the daemon princes in the center near the large building. The 3 chariots go to the south of his castle, on unit of screamers goes on the east side (right) of the castle, and one goes south, one unit of screamers mishaps and goes back into reserves. I take shots into the long fangs and the rhino's killing 3 fangs and managing to blow up one rhino. The fangs fail morale and run off the table.

SW Turn #2
He moves up on the east side dismounts and kills off a squad of screamers. The rest of his shooting sees one chariot take 4 wounds and a dp take 3 wounds.
Daemons KP: 0 Space Wolves KP: 0

Daemons Turn #2
I get in one unit of flamers, one unit of horror's. Flamers deviate back and don't get to fry the dismounted squad. I shoot into the dismounted squad killing 3. Blow up the rune priests rhino. Turbo boost in front of his western most rhino and shoot down 4 of the other pack of long fangs. His grey hunter squad fails morale and runs off the table.
Daemons KP:1 Space Wolves KP: 0

SW Turn #3
He puts a few more wounds on another chariot and kills 2 out of 4 of the screamers with a squad of grey hunters that dismounted. Manages to kill one of the flamers coming at him.
Daemons KP:1 Space Wolves KP: 0

Daemons Turn #3
I get in 2 squads of flamers, the other 3 horror squads, and the scribes. I risk the inquisitor and drop near his squad that ate the screamers, he rolls exceptionally low, like a 7 or something. The flamers roast the squad, my 2 man squad of flamers on the other side roasts the other squad hiding in the wreckage of their rhino from turn 1. My screamers blow up the blood claw rhino. I pepper the runepriest down to himself and one other model. And blow up his dreadnaught.
Daemons KP:3 Space Wolves KP: 0

SW Turn #4
The claws try to spread out as much as possible to avoid incoming flamer fire. The rune priest jumps behind the wrecked rhino for cover.
Daemons KP:3 Space Wolves KP: 0

Daemons Turn #4
I kill off the dh inquisitor lord and manage to get some flamer templates on the blood claws. Killing all but 2 and the wolf priest.
Daemons KP:3 Space Wolves KP: 0

SW Turn #5
He charges with his rune priest into a chariot with one wound on it, causes two wounds, I fail both saves, then fail both no retreat saves and the chariot goes poof. His lone wolf guard with power fists, shoots a chariot with a bolt pistol for a wound, charges and repeats what the rune priest did. His wolf priest kills off a flamer squad.
Daemons KP:3 Space Wolves KP: 2

Daemons Turn #5
I shoot down the rest of his models.
Daemons KP:5 Space Wolves KP: 2

Massacre for max battle points (48). This was his first time playing against the shooty Tzeentch daemon list. Initial deployment was good but then he fell for the bait and got out of his rhino's in order to kill screamers. He got the screamers but then I got his squads. He should have been much more agressive and charged my lines. Even one or two space wolves will start to eat all my units except the daemon princes.

Round #2 Nids
The Nids
HQ
Hive Tyrant w/ 2+ armor save, big gun
HIve Tyrant w/ 1 tyrant guard, and cc weapons

Elites
Doom in pod
3 zoanthropes in pod
3 hive guard

Troops
8 Termagaunts
10 Gene stealers
10 Gene Stealers w/ brood lord
Tervigon

Heavy Support
Trygon

Mission: Primary: Table quarters (you get no points for your own quarter, and you only receive battle points for holding a quarter, opponents=10, the sides are 5, and your own 0).
Secondary: Hold your own deployment quarter.
Tertiary: Control your opponents highest cost unit.
Deployment: Spearhead

I win the roll off and give him first turn. He deploys out the hive guard, both tyrants, the tervigon, and the Trygon. He basically just spreads his mc's out in his deployment zone.

Turn #1 Nids:
He shuffles around a bit waits for my drop.

Turn #2 Daemons
I pick as my first wave. 3 Chariots, 3 daemon princes and the 3 squads of screamers. I get the wrong wave. I deep strike in close 2 of the flamer units, and keep one back, and spread the horror's out in the middle away from the sides and his mc's. I put 5 wounds on the hive guard with flamer shots from the first squad. The second squad kills off the tyrant guard and puts 2 wounds on the hive tyrant. I force 3 more saves on the hive guard and he passes all of his cover saves.

Turn #2 Nids
In comes all of his reserves. One unit of stealers bolsters his side, the termagaunts and genestealers come on the other edge and into my deployment zone (I had nothing over there at this point). The doom comes down right in the middle of my lines and the zoanthropes come down in my deployment zone to give some cover to the stealers. He kills off 2 squads of flamers and gets a squad of horror's down to one model. The Doom killed 2 horror's and a flamer.

Turn #2 Daemons
I get in 1 daemon prince, and all three packs of screamers, yay me!. The daemon Prince drops in to bolster where the doom is at. I force two more saves on the last tyrant guard, he makes both cover saves. I jump my last squad of flamers over and with some horror support wipe out the stealers advancing on my position. The doom manages to kill another 1 or 2 horror's.

Turn #3 Nids
His hive tyrant charges the blue scribes and friends, the tervigon charges the flamers that killed the stealers, his other tyrant backs off. The tervigon spits out some termagaunts that shoot and assault my dp to tie it down. The dp hits and wounds with 4 attacks, and the termagaunts fall to no retreat.

Turn #3 Daemons
In come all three chariots and the two daemon princes. I put 5 wounds on the trygon (see a trend here everything down to one wound). The blue scribes and their squad fail leadership on a 15 so everyone takes a wound and the scribes go down. I bolt of tzeentch the doom and he dies. Hive tyrant east some more horror's. I assault his zoanthropes with screamers to lock them down, use another squad of screamers to protect my princes that just dropped from his stealers. I force 2 more saves on the hive guard and he saves them both with his 4+ cover.

Turn #4 Nids
The Trygon charges the horror squad kills 2, I then roll a 5 to hit a 6 to wound, and he rolls a 1, down goes the Trygon in hand to hand to horrors!!. He finish's off the changeling with his hive tyrant. His stealers wipe out two squds of screamers. The tyrant guard hits with 2 and I fail 2 saves on my horrors in his deployment zone.

Turn #4 Daemons.
I force 3 more saves on the hive guard and he passes all of them. I try to shoot down some stealers (only killing about 3 but he does put two wounds on the brood lord). And combo charge his stealers with a daemon prince and the last squad of screamers, I win the combat killing all but two of the stealers. I also charge the zoanthropes with a daemon prince and kill 1 (he had a wound on from shooting). I shoot and charge the tervigon with a daemon prince, only manage to do a wound from shooting, all the cc attacks whiff.

Turn #5 Nids
I now know that you can birth termagaunts while locked in hth. So 14 termagaunts, a hive tyrant, and one tervigon later, my dp is down to one wound. Keeping the tyrant locked in hth unfortunately. His tyrant guard kills off my last horror sitting in his deployment zone. I finish off the genestealers. Put one more wound into the zoanthropes.

Turn #5 Daemons
I shoot and destroy the drop pod, get him down to one zoanthrope. He kills off my daemon prince. I put 4 more wounds on the hive guard and he saves them all. We roll a one to continue so it ends with no one controlling table quarters (except for me controlling my own, which doesn't affect the primary but gives me the secondary). He killed my one daemon prince that was my wrecking crew so he gets the tertiary.

I could not kill that hive guard it single handedly won him the game. He passed a total of 13 4+ cover saves in a row to keep that model in the game. It killed off the horror squad camping in his zone to deny me 10 points and it soaked up so much fire power that I was unable to get to the tervigon and last hive tyrant. About the only saving grace was me getting to kill the trygon in hth! Only scoring 15pts this round drops me down to the middle of the pack

Round #3 Eldar

HQ
Farseer w/ fortune
Autarch w/ swooping hawk wings, fusion gun

Elite
5 Fire Dragon's, wave serpent

Troops
10 Dire Avengers, exarch w/ bladestorm, wave serpent
3 Jetbikes, warlock w/ embolden
3 Jetbikes, warlock w/ embolden
3 Jetbikes, warlock w/ embolden

Fast Attack
5 Swooping Hawks, exarch, skyleap
5 Swooping Hawks, exarch, skyleap, lasblaster thing

Heavy Support
Prism
Prism
Wraithlord

Mission: Primary: 4 Objectives

I win the roll off and he puts everything into reserves.
I pick as my first wave. 3 Daemon Princes, 3 chariots, 2 screamers (I joined up the scribes so a unit of screamers has to go in reserves). I get the other half.

Eldar Turn #1
Crickets, Crickets

Daemons Turn #1:
All the objectives are basically on one half of the table, so I deploy all my horror squads around the 24 inch line or back and spread them all out. The 3 squads of flamers deep strike in near the table center behind a hill and spread out. I went for maximum spread because of the yo you hawks and the prism's so I had stuff spaced as much as possible with my run moves.

Eldar Turn #2
In comes a prism, both swooping hawks, the fire dragons, and 3 bike squads. One bike squad hides behind the fire dragon wave serpent which boosts onto the table the other two squads boost into the opposite corner of the table with nothing around them.. Yoyo hawks and the prism net about 3-4 dead horrors.

Daemons Turn #2
Reserve roles for me are a little fuzzy on two and three, so hopefully I get this right. 1 unit of screamers and 1 daemon prince come down. Both drop towards the middle to make sure the prism and serpent hiding in the corner can't completely get away from me. Lots of shooting nets me a stun on the fire dragon wave serpent. One unit of flamers moves towards the prism and serpent in the corner, the other's stay in the center.

Eldar Turn #3
Still No wraithlord!! But he does get in both units of hawks again, his dire avengers, and his prism. Everything goes on the extreme other side of the table well away from everything, prism shots and yoyo hawks kill another 2-3 horrors and a flamer. He moves up slowly with one unit of bikes to shoot some flamers but is out of range.

Daemons Turn #3
In comes 2 chariots, 2 units of screamers, and 2 daemon prince's. The princes come down towards the center, the two chariots and screamers land on the other side to threaten his turbo boosted stuff and shoot up the unboosted jetbikes. Lots of missed rolls later and I only manage to kill one bike, but they fail morale and run around a bit. The screamers assault the stunned fire dragon serpent blowing it up and killing two of the fire dragons. Shooting sees the other fire prism shaken and 2 of the jet bikes behind it are killed.

Eldar Turn #4
In comes the wraithlord who runs up and kills the unit of flamers that glanced the fire prism. The dire avenger's bladestorm my daemon prince, but only cause 2 wounds ( I made a ton of 4+ saves something like 6 out of 8). The swooping hawks land this turn and shoot but not causing much damage. His bikes rally. His wraithlord charges my daemon prince, daemon prince gets one wound on the wraithlord and takes one wound. His farseer charges my screamers, he kills one, they do a wound back.

Daemons Turn #4
My last chariot comes down in the center. Horror's and flamers, and some chariot shots see one squad of hawks wiped out, the autarch dead, and the last squad of hawks down to the exarch and one other. The last 3 fire dragons die to horror fire. A daemon prince charges and kills a bike warlock, and I shoot down the unit of bikes that rallied the last turn. Farseer nets no wounds, screamers put a wound on the farseer. The combat between the daemon prince and wraithlord is a draw with no wounds being dealt.

Eldar Turn #5
Dire avengers mount back up and flat out it onto an objective. All his other vehicles move flat out to contest. The swooping hawk exarch and friend shoot and then assault a lone horror sitting on an objective that he is contesting with the mounted dire avengers. The exarch and friend whiff their attacks and the horror does one wound back, he takes it on the exarch and roles a 1. Go horror! The lone swooping hawk sticks around. His last squad of bikes jets up to contest the center objective. The wraithlord goes down to the daemon prince, and the farseer goes down to the screamers.

Daemons Turn #5
It's a scrum in the middle of the table, I basically line up as many charges, side shots, rear shot's, and hail marry's as possible. Flamers kill the bikes, I have a chariot charge into combat with the lone swooping hawk and fail to kill him. I wreck the dire avenger wave serpent and they have nowhere to go so they are wiped out.

We roll and it's another turn!

Eldar Turn #6
They remaining skimmers fly around to block objectives

Daemons Turn #6
I manage to down a fire prism, leaving me with controlling 3 objectives and him contesting one.

I get 43 out of a possible 48 to finish out the day with 2 massacres and a low scoring tie. Which means I was pretty shocked when I got called up for Best General, and fourth overall. Curses you Hive Guard, curses! Anyways thanks for reading.

I really like your tactics in the final round versus eldar. It sounds like you had some bad dice and the Nid player had really hot dice in the second game... Nothing you can do about dice. Great job pulling down the second wave in the last game and outshooting the eldar.

G

Great reports, a very interesting read. Thanks for posting.

Reading this makes me actually consider trying an mono-tzeentch list sometime.

Great report! Your list has a frightening amount of shooting - I love it when you face someone who doesn't realize just how much tzeentch can shoot.

Great job too, with your non-preferred wave in 2 games!

Great report. Interesting mix of opponents. The Eldar army in particular looked like it could have been nasty. And it would have been a whole different ballgame if that Inquisitor had brought a Psycannon.

I play a mono-Tzeentch army too, and I'm a big fan of it. It looks very similar to yours, with the big difference that I run Fateweaver in it. So 2 Heralds out, no Screamers, and instead I have Fateweaver and 6 units of Horrors. I've wanted to put in the Screamers a few times (mostly for Land Raiders), but I always felt like I'd rather have the extra scoring units in the 6 Trooop units. (That's at 2k anyway. At 1850 it drops to 5 units of Horrors.) I've thought about a build like this, but I just can't bring myself to go anywhere without Fateweaver. He adds so much survivability to the list, fairly vicious shooting, and brings in a huge target that eats up a lot of opponents' firepower while my army goes to town. Have you ever experimented with Fateweaver? It requires the army to play slightly differently, generally clustering up in a ball and using Icons to guide the later deepstrikes. And of course, it doesn't like to see Psyker Battle Squads or Inquisitors toting Psycannons (though the army in general doesn't like him). But all in all I've found him well worth his points just about any time I've ever fielded him.

How well do the Screamers generally work out for you? I just have a hard time thinking that those points aren't better spent getting more Horror units, and increasing the total # of scoring units (particularly when I get the wrong half, don't want all of my Troops getting aced too fast). But I do hate seeing Land Raiders...

@gardeth: I like the tzeentch daemon list a lot. It's just got some extreme versatility. Not intending to brag but I own a lot of 40k armies, and I used to suffer from a lot of army hopping. After playing the same army for about a month I would have to switch it out and play something else. I can't quite nail it down, but I keep coming back over and over to my tzeentch list, it's fun, fluffy, I don't usually see it's like at tournaments, and it can compete. It definitely keeps me on my toes.

@Somnicide: Those darn nids, if I would have gotten my primary wave in it probably would have been game over at least it was a fun tight game if nothing else!

@sirisaacnuton: I'm not a fan of fateweaver in a mono tzeentch list. Fateweaver points wise is the equivalent of 3 heralds of tzeentch. I would take 3 heralds every time. The amount of fire power they dish out is just insane, and I have the scribes for all the other powers.

You are paying close to 400pts for fateweaver plus the icons because of the fact you've got to keep your stuff together. I want to be able to spread out. I like having board control. I think the fateweaver list gets in trouble when going up against heavy assault lists because they can't get multiple combats. With the spread out nature of my list I can usually make it so the uber squad of doom (ie thunderwolf, nobs, etc) gets to eat 1 unit of 5 horrors, or a single daemon prince, instead of getting a multi-assault off. Plus I'm one of those people that would fail the leadership test 9 out of 10 times . Fateweaver lists obviously work, it's just not how I envision my army working.

The screamers actually help to keep the horror's alive against most lists these days. Plus a unit of 3-4 is just so cheap it up's the number of effective units that start on the table. My initial wave coming in is 9 units, so against mechlists it's usually 3 chariots, 3 daemon princes and the 3 screamers. Your initial wave, and I'm presuming here, probably looks like fateweaver, 2 chariot heralds, 3 daemon princes or maybe you put in two squads of regular horror's instead of chariots. It's all clumped up presenting a nice place for your opponent to go. I dump everything on the 24 inch line and surround my enemy giving him no one place to go with his stuff.

If I have screamers threatening someones expensive raider or their troops in transports they will almost always shoot the screamers first this makes my chariots and daemon princes live longer on the initial drops and helps horror survivability later on.

At 2k I actually remove a screamer from each squad, add in 2 more squads of 5 horror's and give 2 of my daemon princes soul devourer. This gives me 6 troops and still gives me 9 screamers (in 3 squads).

For their points the screamers end up being a major annoyance to my opponents. They block rear hatch's impede movement, cause a lot of threat on the table, and they are definitly a throw away unit. My only fear is in kp missions because they can be easy points to get, but I'm running as many kp as your average mech list these days and you can't one shot anything in my army.

Screamers for this tournament did the following.
Game #1
As an aside, in game, 2 squads of grey hunters got out of their vehicles to kill my screamers, which then allowed me to flame and shoot the grey hunters, and they killed a rhino on their own.

Game #2
Sucked up some shots, kept zoanthropes from shooting for a turn causing my opponent to charge them with his stealers to break them out of hand to hand, thus enabling me to charge the stealers with my daemon prince and another unit of horror's. They also blocked the newly dropped daemon princes so that they couldn't be charged by the stealers.

Game #3
They accounted for the fire dragon wave serpent, and the dire avenger wave serpent.

Overall not a bad use of 192 points.

Anyways I'll stop putting in this wall o text .

Anyways I'll stop putting in this wall o text

Great batrep and an even better wall of text Congrats!

wall of text ftw!

Warmaster wrote:good stuff

Hey, no worries about walls of text here.

While you can get 3 Heralds for the cost of Fateweaver, it's not really an option since he only displaces 2 in my list. I run him, Herald on chariot, and Scribes, so dropping Fateweaver would only add in 2 Heralds plus some extra stuff (basically Screamers, since the rest of my FOC is full). And compared to 2 Heralds, he has pretty fierce shooting prowess. Less shots, obviously, but the combo of BS5 with the ability to add in Breath or Boon on top of his other 2 shoots in a turn makes him still pretty brutal. He adds an extra MC (and a mobile one) in case I need someone to hop up and rip open a pesky Medusa or something of that ilk. He doesn't fear being charged and locked down by a Dreadnought like a Chariot would.

In terms of the army's clumpage, yes, I give up multicharges quite a bit. However, with so much more resilience (better than a 3+ save and invul to boot) multicharges don't often do that much damage unless it's a ridiculous unit (like full Nob squad or full Berzerker squad), and the amount of shooting available can usually put down those units' transports early on to limit their options. Then they're pretty much always in the range of multiple DP on the counter-charge since the army is so close together, and charging DP's plus the fact that everyone in the combat is so hard to kill makes it very one-sided. He also really helps mitigate the army's weakness in KP missions since I run so many units. And yeah, the first wave generally looks like Fateweaver, 3x DP, Changeling's Unit, another Horror unit with Scribes attached, Herald, leaving at home 3 Flamers and 3-4 Horror units (depending on point level).

I do have that issue with his Ld test, but then it usually seems like I roll above average for his saves anyway, so might as well balance out with bad Ld rolls. I've certainly see him eat a charge from 10 DC + Lemartes and not take a wound, kill a guy in return and win combat.

OTOH, toward the end of my first round at the 40k tourney at last year's Adepticon, I was winning primary and secondary late (KP and VP respectively) with a draw on tertiary, when my opponent's shooting put one single wound on Fateweaver. First save he had taken that entire game. One, reroll, one, followed by boxcars. Fateweaver gone, entire army clumped up to be charged by fleeting assault squads and terminators, lost something like 5-6 KPs in one turn and about 900 VPs. Lost the game by 1 KP, 300 VPs. Very sad day.

So Fateweaver definitely has his drawback, and it crops up at inopportune times, but in general, I've found that he makes the remainder of my army so much more survivable that he more than makes up for the chunk of units I'm missing due to his point cost. Particularly in shooting vs. shooting match-ups, I can easily win a war of attrition (usually) because it's so much harder to diminish my firepower. Just shutting down the Bolt from a unit of Horrors or offing a DP is a huge undertaking when there are rerolled 4++'s, and Fateweaver himself will sometimes occupy an entire Tau or IG turn of shooting and live, meaning that I essentially get to take 2 turns in a row.

Fateweaver is there for new players who need training wheels.

G

Any actual tactical insight behind that? I post an analysis of my experiences with Fateweaver, with an army that has given me a fairly good record of success against strong opponents, and your only response is to say anyone who uses him is a noob. Not exactly much of a contribution. Do you have some experience or insight that runs counter to my analysis of his pros and cons?

I point you to

King of yee Olde Tyme Trolles

for your answer.

Don't mind the one-liners too much.

No noobs do t necesarily use Kairos but it makes it so much easier to win and I don't find him to be tactical, he is there so you can reroll saves & his shooting is the cherry on top. I agree with Warmaster that is more tactical to field the three heralds on chariots plus the Blue Scribes. I played against a mostly Tzneetch list several weeks ago versus my Khorne daemons and I was amazed how much dakka they can throw down. I run a big of Blood Crushers with two mounted heralds... no one has ever shot them all off the table, Tzneetch didn't do it either but they did seriously attrit the unit and that was very impressive to me. The Tzneetch army list presented here in this batrep appears to have been very well thought out and I have to give some kudos for that.

G

I think Kairos is the Vulkan He'stan of Codex: Dæmons. He is not necessarily the best or most strategic option in the Codex, but he is much easier to use than some of the other choices, so he is attractive to new people or people who want a more straightforward army.

I've seen a lot of good players run the much hated Fateweaver/Crusher spam list and it would be bull hockey to say only noobs run this or that it's gentle. While it is a no brainer that doesn't mean only a noob would run it.

G

Green Blow Fly wrote:No noobs do t necesarily use Kairos but it makes it so much easier to win and I don't find him to be tactical, he is there so you can reroll saves & his shooting is the cherry on top. I agree with Warmaster that is more tactical to field the three heralds on chariots plus the Blue Scribes. I played against a mostly Tzneetch list several weeks ago versus my Khorne daemons and I was amazed how much dakka they can throw down. I run a big of Blood Crushers with two mounted heralds... no one has ever shot them all off the table, Tzneetch didn't do it either but they did seriously attrit the unit and that was very impressive to me. The Tzneetch army list presented here in this batrep appears to have been very well thought out and I have to give some kudos for that.

G

Now this, on the other hand, is worth listening to. Any time GBF posts a full line or more on tactics, it's good stuff

Green Blow Fly wrote:I've seen a lot of good players run the much hated Fateweaver/Crusher spam list and it would be bull hockey to say only noobs run this or that it's gentle. While it is a no brainer that doesn't mean only a noob would run it.

G

Certainly true.

In defense of Fateweaver from a tactical stand point, the only real reason I started looking at him was the fact that he has all the Tzeentch powers for the same points as a Lord of Change with Legion, Master and Breath. You get Boon for free. BS 5 is pretty huge on him and he is still a monstrous creature at the end of the day.

I think saying he is training wheels, is the same as saying taking a deathstar of juggers with skulltaker is training wheels ;-)

Somnicide wrote:
I think saying he is training wheels, is the same as saying taking a deathstar of juggers with skulltaker is training wheels ;-)

I agree Fateweaver, jugger's, skulltaker, they are all training wheels, man up

In all seriousness they are good units, just not what I feel that I need in my tzeentch list.

I don't know exactly how we define "tactical" around here, but I find Fateweaver very important tactically. Specifically, when so many games revolve around Troops controlling objectives, killing vs. protecting Troops becomes a primary focus. I have a lot more tactical flexibility if it actually takes a little doing to get my troops. Without Fateweaver, Pink Horrors die like Guardsmen in cover. They don't have to worry about running away, but a strong army can certainly wreak havoc on a bunch of T3 4+ guys. Now when they suddenly have better odds of saving than Space Marines, I can be more aggressive with them, I can do things I might not be able to do if they're much softer targets, I can take the opportunity to go after my opponent's troops rather than trying to shut down his anti-infantry weapons before they kill all of my troops.

Sure, it's a whole different ballgame when he's surrounded by 24 Bloodcrushers and Plague Bearers. But that army is just about as mean, and does just about the same thing, without Fateweaver. He's almost a "win more" option there. That's the kind of army where he's like Vulkan: without Vulkan you still have your flamers and meltas and hammers, and they're still good, just not quite as good. But in a mono-Tzeentch army he really changes the character of the army and how it plays. Despite having a lot of the same units, a Tzeentch army with Fateweaver and one without are very different armies. I can't really say whether one is better or worse, but they won't play the same way.

And to mention one more time, there's no way to compare Fateweaver to 3 Heralds. I already have 2 other HQ. If I could replace Fateweaver with 3 Heralds, and run 4 Heralds plus the Scribes, I might be tempted. As it is though, he only takes up the room of 2 Heralds + some other points. And I don't see the utility of dropping him for 2 Heralds + 100 points of stuff (150 points of stuff if I drop the icons that are almost necessary with him). At 2k, I've almost filled my FOC, so if I were to replace him, it's not with 3 Heralds, it's with 2 Heralds and then just make existing units a little bigger (or add overpriced Bolts to the Flamers).

Looks like you had a grand time at the tourney dude! Good to see folks still giving the Daemons a go, and mono-god at that.

Thanks for the report. I was delighted to see you faced an Eldar army without Eldrad or the Avatar and had Swooping Hawks!

Looks like you had a good matchup with those SW as well. No Razorbacks or min-maxing.

- Blackbone

Maybe I was too harsh on my critique of Kairos. Certainly he fits well into the theme for a mono Tzneetch list and even other armies that have a heavy helping of Tzneetchian units. Basically though I agree with Warmaster that for a mono Tzneetch list I think you can better spend those points elsewhere. Heralds are chariots are excellent mobile shooty units and I think they are more tactical. Really the major advantage of the birdbrain is rerolling saving throws and I don't think anyone can disagree with this assessment. Sure all of his shooty attacks are nice coupled with the high ballastic skill but again this is just a side benefit.

Is the Skulltaker, herald and large block of Crushers another unit with training wheels? You are paying more points and they are only good in assault plus they are relatively slow. Sure it's certainly a deathstar unit, to that I will attest. The thing is you rarely ever see this unit on the table while Kairos is featured in many daemon armies. I am biased for two reasons - I have played against my fair share of Fateweaver/Crusher/Plague Bearer spam lists and the Fateweaver is there for one reason... He is simply a moar win unit if ever there was one in my mind. Second when I decided to finally build a daemon army I was dead set against taking Fateweaver. I wanted to prove to myself I could build a competively army without him. As far as I know I'm the first to run a big block of Crushers with two heralds. It might have training wheels but it's original and fits in well with the theme.

G

I'm with you. And I didn't take offense. Just wondered if there was any reasoning behind the initial statement.

I just have a hard time getting behind mono-Tzeentch without Fateweaver. In a mixed list, certainly. If my troops were Plaguebearers I'd have much sturdier scoring units. If my elites were Bloodcrushers I'd have much sturdier killing units. But taking only Tzeentch, I can't get behind how fragile some of the units are. The Heralds on Chariots are a steal, and they do provide great mobile shooting. But they cruise off to take care of business (or get out of charge range) and leave the scoring units to die.

It's interesting that you approached Daemons from a purposefully no-Kairos direction. I went exactly the opposite. Fateweaver is what got me playing Daemons. I needed an army for Fantasy, and wanted a new army for 5th edition. I loved Eldrad in 4th (Fortune on a 3++), and thought magic was cool in Fantasy. Lo and behold, here's a single model that in 40k drags around a Fortune for everybody and in Fantasy is 2 level 4 wizards. I couldn't not play him.

Then it turns out people hate him, in both systems, and he pisses some people off. Oops. What can ya do?

Back on topic of Warmaster's army, have you considered Soul Grinders? I love my Tzeentch Princes, but a lot of that comes from their survivability with rerolls and their ability to dig me out of multicharges after my big blob of an army gets charged but everyone refuses to die. Without Fateweaver, though, I'd be very tempted by multiple Soul Grinders with Phlegm. Be real aggressive with the Deep Strikes, getting them up in threatening positions and dropping pie plates while the Tzeentch Daemons use supporting fire against key targets. Tested Grinders any?

sirisaacnuton wrote:I'm with you. And I didn't take offense. Just wondered if there was any reasoning behind the initial statement.

I just have a hard time getting behind mono-Tzeentch without Fateweaver. In a mixed list, certainly. If my troops were Plaguebearers I'd have much sturdier scoring units. If my elites were Bloodcrushers I'd have much sturdier killing units. But taking only Tzeentch, I can't get behind how fragile some of the units are. The Heralds on Chariots are a steal, and they do provide great mobile shooting. But they cruise off to take care of business (or get out of charge range) and leave the scoring units to die.

If I was to ever run fateweaver I think it would have to be in a monster mash list, basically fateweaver, lord of change, 3 princes with wings. Basically fly around popping transports until you pick which assault you want to get stuck into. I really dislike having to clump all of my troops up, that just is completely not my play style. I like to bait with units, pull stuff into traps, divide and conquer, basically I like my opponent to feel like my stuff is everywhere and even taking out a part of my list just means what's left gets shot to heck. Plus as you can see from this report, my 3+ is more like a one in six chance with my daemonic assault. I think my overall average for getting my preferred wave is probably closer to 50% or more, and I dislike having a 333pt model not on the table 50% of the time (plus those games where he just never comes in). Now the one thing that I'm always tempted to put in is the masque, but that would break my mono-god theme, I would pay the masque's weight in gold to be able to use her and not get called out on fluff for it.

So this is why I run minimal 5 man squads. I do a lot of going to ground or running away with one-two models left sorts of maneuvers. I can't think of a single game where I actually lost every single horror model I had. It just doesn't happen. The main reason being that if I am facing somone that I know can do that I make sure to split them into different waves so I can leave some in reserve's. And I've found horror's to be extremly durable for a lot of things.

sirisaacnuton wrote:

Back on topic of Warmaster's army, have you considered Soul Grinders? I love my Tzeentch Princes, but a lot of that comes from their survivability with rerolls and their ability to dig me out of multicharges after my big blob of an army gets charged but everyone refuses to die. Without Fateweaver, though, I'd be very tempted by multiple Soul Grinders with Phlegm. Be real aggressive with the Deep Strikes, getting them up in threatening positions and dropping pie plates while the Tzeentch Daemons use supporting fire against key targets. Tested Grinders any?

Soul Grinders don't work well at all with my list. If I was to drop my daemon prince's for grinders I would be immensly vulnerable to walkers and monstrous creatures of all shapes and sizes. Grinder's die to all other walkers except for ork dread's and kan's (because of initiative). And monstrous creatures just shred them. Tzeentch daemon princes will get their str8 shots off, but then usually lock them down in hth. Also for the mirror matchup a daemon prince vs. a grinder fight is pretty pitiful, the grinder's need 5's to hit and then 50% of those just bounce.

The other issue I have with grinders in my list is target saturation/synergy. I laugh at 5 man fire dragon squads, melta vet's, dark lances', etc. In today's mech enviroment my army turns all that nice anti-tank weaponry into a 50/50 wound on a model. I also like the fact that there isn't a single one shottable thing in the list. Everything has to have fire power put into it, and almost all of it you need a full squad plus rapid firing to take it out or put a dent in it.

Yeah, I was just hacking on GBF mostly. I kind of like the monster mash list myself with 3 chicken littles running around with fateweaver.

As for the masque you could point out that she is an exile from the court of slaanesh ;-)

The other option is to do a cool looking "counts as"

There will always be a place in my black heart for the Masque. She is a powerful miscreant that was caught out at the wrong place at the wrong time so she just keeps doing what she does best. Nothing wrong with that.

G

Warmaster wrote:
If I was to ever run fateweaver I think it would have to be in a monster mash list, basically fateweaver, lord of change, 3 princes with wings. Basically fly around popping transports until you pick which assault you want to get stuck into.

I've played that list, in a couple different builds. It's incredibly fun. One had Fateweaver, a LoC with every upgrade (clocked in at 365...made Kairos look cheap), and 3x DP with Tzeentch mark, Bolt, Gaze, Breath, Master of Sorcery, Might, Hide, Wings, and Instrument. Then 4 units of Pink Horrors. Not exactly the most competitive list, and harsh to get the wrong half (I frontload it with all 5 monsters) but holy crap it is all kinds of fun.

I've played a different version, based around a theme of a competition among the gods, so evenly split up among the 4. Kairos, 3 Screamers, 5 Horrors representing Tzeentch; Skarbrand, 3 Crushers, 5 Letters for Khorne; a Nurgle DP with Hide, Wings, Flies and Touch (and maybe a shooting attack), alongside 3 Nurglings and 5 Plaguebearers; a Slaanesh DP with Hide, Might, Wings, Aura, Musk, Pavane, and Gaze alongside 3 Fiends and 5 Daemonettes; and finally the referee of the contest, a Soul Grinder. It has a little goofy theme to it, but it's mostly an excuse to #1 play a monster mash list (and this one's even more fun than the Tzeentch one) and #2 to have an excuse to set up a situation where a Nurge DP has rerolls to hit from Skarbrand, rerolls to wound from Noxious Touch, and rerolls to saves from Fateweaver. Hilarious.

I've played these in a couple tournaments, and while they didn't bring home the gold, they were great fun. Coolest highlight: the Slaanesh DP, not to be upstaged by the Nurglesque one, did a 15" hit and run out of a combat, followed by a 12" movement, 4" Pavane and about a 5" charge to suddenly fly across the table 36" and wreck some Chaos Raptors trying to take out my troop unit standing on a far away objective.

Warmaster wrote:
Plus as you can see from this report, my 3+ is more like a one in six chance with my daemonic assault. I think my overall average for getting my preferred wave is probably closer to 50% or more, and I dislike having a 333pt model not on the table 50% of the time (plus those games where he just never comes in).

I feel you 100%. My last two tournaments with the Daemons (a 3 round and a 4 round), I got my preferred wave 3 out of 7 times. In the last round of the 4-rounder, I was still in contention to win (and the prize was a 2k point army you make the list for, up to $600) when I got the wrong half, and the only 4+ on my reserves next turn was one Herald. By the time Kairos and the last 2 Princes showed up in turn 4, they were the only things on the table staring down an entire Lash Chaos army. That opponent won $600 of Dark Eldar.

It's a hard army to love...I cringe every single time I have to make one single save on Fateweaver. Charge me with 10 Khorne Berserkers, fine, I'm not at all worried. But shoot me with one Storm Bolter on a Rhino and I just know I'll see Fateweaver decide he's had enough.

Warmaster wrote:
Now the one thing that I'm always tempted to put in is the masque, but that would break my mono-god theme, I would pay the masque's weight in gold to be able to use her and not get called out on fluff for it.

Absolutely. That's one of the main reasons I ended up with the Scribes replacing one of my Heralds. The Pavane is so powerful. I keep wanting to drop the Masque in (picked up the model recently for this purpose), but I hate losing either the other Herald or the Scribes, and I hate breaking the mono-god theme for one model.

Perhaps it's actually the Changeling impersonating the Masque? Who's to know with the tricksy and wily ways of Tzeentch?