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The new Chaos Daemons Codex has, apart from a lot of randomness, some interesting things that are tickling my fancy. The one that spawned this thread was the Herald of Tzeentch. He's the cheapest Divination Psyker that I know of, and is Mastery Level 2 at only 70 points. You can take four of these if Daemons is primary. That's four castings of prescience, plus four other rolls on Divination. And that's at only 280 points for all four.

There has to be something that we can do with this. The problem that Daemons has, in regards to prescience, is that they're not really a shooty army. It's not like we can just use a Rune Priest to Prescience and Forewarning a guard blob while hiding in that squad -- The heralds can't even join units that aren't Tzeentch Daemons. So what do we do? Put them all on Discs, zoom them around, and hope the enemy has better targets to take out than the heralds? Discs with Screamers? Do we put them with 20-man units of horrors, and prescience all those shots from Flickering Fire of Tzeentch?

Or do we just take one herald as an ally to CSM, and use it as a cheap prescience bot to make their shooting work out? Prescience'd Forgefiends, Autocannon Havocs, Obliterators, or Noise Marine Blastmasters sound pretty attractive to me.

Any thoughts?

Well - the thing you are missing - if you go Tzeentch, you are a shooty army - pretty much everything other than screamers are shooters. Also, they may not be 'built' for it, every psyker in the army can benefit (as all default powers are shooting) and every god (I believe) has a shooting weapon and average+ balistics.

In all truth - div spam in a Tzeentch army will make the pinkies VERY potent

What about giving Divination powers to some of those CSM allies as well - since CSM have no access to Div at all. Maybe a Forgefiend which nowhas 8 TL S8 shots or on a unit of 15 Nouse Marines?

Misfortune is even better imo, I would try for that power every time.

Even with Divination, a 20 Horror squad is gonna get 4-24 (4D6) shots from Flaming Fires, on avg ~14, with re-rolls. This single Psychic test can be denied on a 6+ from ANYthing, 5+ from many things, and a 4+ from anyone's good HQ. As soon as one of those Horrors die, you get 3-18 shots. And, dropping to Lvl 2, even MORE things can deny you easily.

I just played a game with my Tzeentch shooty list, against Nurgle/Khorne. My shooting was very ineffective, since most of my Witchfire was just outright denied. What I did find to be effective was combat. Daemon Princes with Biomancy and a LoC did quite a bit in Vector Strikes, and also cleaned up against 'letters and 'bearers in CC.

This Codex has changed to favour CC, since pretty much all the shooting suffers from DtW. I think they would make a great Allied detachment, giving Divination buffs to CSM. But as a competitive list, they can't stand alone as shooters.

I'm still hopeful for CC, especially with the points drops....Daemonettes are only 9 pts? YAY! And 'bearers get a 2+ cover in Ruins?

There's some good stuff, but Tzeentch has been nerfed hard, across the board. I curse myself for buying Horrors last month!

Not to mention that all tzeentch shooting has a chance to give your opponent FNP, and to further increase their FNP 'save'.
If you don't kill it outright, its probably gonna just get tougher to kill (even without losing toughness 3 models left and right).

I havent looked at the the new units, but this is what im getting from your input.

The Divination Spells are handy for shooty play. -Check

Only Tzeentch type models can join same mark models or models without marks. (per Codex:CSM) -check

1k Sons are super shooty and automatically have MoTz. -check

1k Squad Sorc's use Tzeentch spell table and either shoot doombolt or buff fellow char within 2" from Chaos Boon Table -check

CSM and Chaos Deamons are BFF's, can join eachothers units. -check

divination casting by a buffed IC with a all 4++ unit is pretty scary. -check

Im excited for this new codex. All reservations will be cast aside and the power of chaos will flow. -Double check

Only 2 of the 7 Div powers are actually limited to Shooting. Most of them work fine for assaulty units too.

Sneaky_Chicken_sal wrote:
CSM and Chaos Deamons are BFF's, can join eachothers units. -check

No, they can't. Chaos Daemons suffer from daemonic instability, and can only join other units that suffer from daemonic instability. Which of course, CSMs do not.

Actually, Daemons and CSM are BFFs, but can't join each other's units. Daemon Instability is what's preventing it.

No, they can't. Chaos Daemons suffer from daemonic instability, and can only join other units that suffer from daemonic instability. Which of course, CSMs do not.

Aaah, I see. Trixy GW. either way its good to have a caster that can buff nearby units, even if they cant technically join. TY for clarifing that. I plan on getting my own codex sometime this week.

Well, actually Instability only stops things without it joining units with it. There's another rule that says that Daemons can only join Units of Daemons of the appropriate alignment. There's still some ambiguity as to if this allows them to join other units, such as Obliterators, Possessed, etc...

When (and if) GW nerfs the last big psychic defence mechanisms from the game (Runes of Warding and, to a lesser degree, Runic Weapons), then I'm sure that Tzeentch psyker spam will become very popular.

To be fair to Tz shooting, it can get pretty out of hand and quickly.

Think:
Herald of Tz, Lv.3., takes Tz primaris.
In a unit of 20 Horrors.
You take +1S Locus.

When shooting:
Herald - 4d6 S6 AP4 shots at BS4
Horrors - 4d6 S6 AP4 shots at BS3

With a LoC to give them Prescience, all re-rolling to hit. Looking at 8-48 shots of S6 here with 28 being the average.
Add Blasted Standard for an additional 2d6 S4 hits afterwards.

 HERO wrote:
To be fair to Tz shooting, it can get pretty out of hand and quickly.

Think:
Herald of Tz, Lv.3., takes Tz primaris.
In a unit of 20 Horrors.
You take +1S Locus.

When shooting:
Herald - 4d6 S6 AP4 shots at BS4
Horrors - 4d6 S6 AP4 shots at BS3

With a LoC to give them Prescience, all re-rolling to hit. Looking at 8-48 shots of S6 here with 28 being the average.
Add Blasted Standard for an additional 2d6 S4 hits afterwards.

You will be better off if you cast prescience on yourself. Your 1 less dice on the damage, but you are not reliant upon the LoC for the buff.

 labmouse42 wrote:

 HERO wrote:
To be fair to Tz shooting, it can get pretty out of hand and quickly.

Think:
Herald of Tz, Lv.3., takes Tz primaris.
In a unit of 20 Horrors.
You take +1S Locus.

When shooting:
Herald - 4d6 S6 AP4 shots at BS4
Horrors - 4d6 S6 AP4 shots at BS3

With a LoC to give them Prescience, all re-rolling to hit. Looking at 8-48 shots of S6 here with 28 being the average.
Add Blasted Standard for an additional 2d6 S4 hits afterwards.

You will be better off if you cast prescience on yourself. Your 1 less dice on the damage, but you are not reliant upon the LoC for the buff.

I agree, I'd go Two Powers in Tzeentch, and one for the Primaris in Div. Try rolling to see if you get Gateway, then swap the other power for the Primaris if you do. It gives you a minimum strength 6 Gateway, which will just be brutal.

Elric Greywolf wrote:
Even with Divination, a 20 Horror squad is gonna get 4-24 (4D6) shots from Flaming Fires, on avg ~14, with re-rolls. This single Psychic test can be denied on a 6+ from ANYthing, 5+ from many things, and a 4+ from anyone's good HQ. As soon as one of those Horrors die, you get 3-18 shots. ..

One small correction: the Horrors hold on to mastery level three until you drop the unit down to 15.

Divination works with melle as well does it not?

Yes, which is one of the reasons the Lord of Change is so good.

Incidently with a Staff of Change he can blast marines with flickering fire then assault them and ignore their 6+ FNP with S8.

 Nitros14 wrote:
Yes, which is one of the reasons the Lord of Change is so good.

Incidently with a Staff of Change he can blast marines with flickering fire then assault them and ignore their 6+ FNP with S8.

He can blast them with Flickering Fire, assault them with S8, you can have rerolls on all of it, and you're hitting on 2+ for shooting and 3+ in combat normally, due to the very nice WS6 BS6. All for 240 Points. I'd probably put the extra points into him for the two greater blessings, as all those benefits are really great too.

 tinfoil wrote:

Elric Greywolf wrote:
Even with Divination, a 20 Horror squad is gonna get 4-24 (4D6) shots from Flaming Fires, on avg ~14, with re-rolls. This single Psychic test can be denied on a 6+ from ANYthing, 5+ from many things, and a 4+ from anyone's good HQ. As soon as one of those Horrors die, you get 3-18 shots. ..

One small correction: the Horrors hold on to mastery level three until you drop the unit down to 15.

No, They gain up to 3 Warpcharges, they are ML1 regardless.