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I have a 1000 point tournament coming up in a few weeks. I am still pretty new with Tzeentch and have been trying a bunch of different lists but haven't had much luck. This is my latest idea but looking for feedback.


The idea with the list is to have the chaos warriors run up and jam while my gaunt summoner and pink horrors lob spells into my opponents elite stuff. The curseling supports the warriors and disrupts any magic my opponent has and the thaumaturge just kills stuff that I need dead.

I have been considering swapping out the curseling for some more bodies as he doesn't seem to do much (I mainly play against beastmen and skaven so my experience may be skewed). I am also looking for advise on spells and the warlord trait, haven't played enough to really figure out whats worthwhile.

Your primary issue is that a 1000 point tournament will be utterly dominated by armies with summoning that does not scale well; Nurgle, Beastmen, and especially Seraphon will summon just as much (or close to) at 1000 points as they would at 2000 points. Ditto for LoN and reviving models (on top of Nagash himself being nearly unbeatable at 1k). So honestly? Bring something strong but that you enjoy playing and hope you don't get matched against those things. I know that is probably not the advice you are looking for but it's the best I can give.

1. Like ninth said
2. at thousand pts, I would take a Loc and a block of 30 warriors. then fill up with pink horrors and other cheap wizards. gice the LoC the spell to put his wounds as mortals on the warriors (they will still have a 5+ against that). now you have a ton of pts in heroes and no way to defend them.

Most comp lists at 1000 pts are better summoning OR very fast and hard hitting. 15 warriors just will not cut it with the tactics you are going for.

Yeah, I was kind of afraid of that. I am kind of bad with acronyms but I thought LoC was lord of change? If so I can’t do that, 30 chaos warriors + him leaves only 140 points and there is no way for him to take treacherous bond (need to be more mortal or arcanite w/arch-sorcerer trait).

I could try the Gaunt Summoner w/30 warriors, 10 pink horrors and a herald or magister. Although, would tzaangors worth considering? I know they aren’t as durable but would have quite a bit more punch which I think I would be lacking otherwise.

KingPin42 wrote:
Yeah, I was kind of afraid of that. I am kind of bad with acronyms but I thought LoC was lord of change? If so I can’t do that, 30 chaos warriors + him leaves only 140 points and there is no way for him to take treacherous bond (need to be more mortal or arcanite w/arch-sorcerer trait).

I could try the Gaunt Summoner w/30 warriors, 10 pink horrors and a herald or magister. Although, would tzaangors worth considering? I know they aren’t as durable but would have quite a bit more punch which I think I would be lacking otherwise.

tzaangors can be really good

Do note Tzaans got nerfed with the Beasts battletome. Personally I would also lean towards 30 warriors (with halberds if you can manage) and perhaps toss shield of fate on them. Try to utilize cheap/fast units to deny summoning space as best you can.

at 1k I tend to run -
Ogroid Thaumaturge - 180

Herald of Tzeentch - 140

10 Chaos Warriors w/ Great weapons - 180
10 Chaos Warriors w/ Great weapons - 180

3 Flamers - 160
3 Flamers - 160


I've found decent success with this list, I play it fairly aggressively and walk up troubleshooting units with spells and flamers and grind things down with the Chaos Warriors which can still output decent damage with staying power.

Interesting, I had heard flamers weren't that great but have some from the start collecting boxes so I'll give them a shot.

On a sidenote, I know I am going to run into at least 1 stormcast player there and I am concerned about how good their shooting is. Any advise in dealing with them?

What shooting is he bringing?

Flamers are good (prefer exalted flamers myself) just remember to split shots to make as many mutagenic whatsit rolls as possible since that should be a big source of damage.

Last time I played him he ran 2 units of judicators and 2 ballistas with the lord ordinator. Those ballistas and exploding crossbow shots really messed up my chaos warriors. Also worried about the ballistas just sniping out my heroes.

Well the ballista's main danger is if it is in 18" range, and it only moves 3". As Tzeentch you can keep your characters out of that 21" threat range and still remain effective while using bubble-tactics to prevent him from deep striking it into close range (9" minimum deployment from the enemy means you can have units 18" out from your character blocking units from deploying between them). From the exploding crossbow reference I think you mean castigators, for which I recommend trying to get in melee with a non-daemon unit. They only explode against daemons and nighthaunt.

Sorry for some reason remembered them having crossbows , it was definitely judicators as they were troops and the leader had the bow that has the same exploding hits rule as the ballista.

Alright ill give the screen a go, although what do you use to deal with the ballista? I don't think I can ignore it but I am worried ill lose too many warriors footslogging towards the ballista.

One really good potential trick for a small Tzeentch army is use the Changeling and some nasty Endless Spell. Redeploy Changeling to a key location, and then use (hopefully you have them) 2 6's to cast the spell, or minimum required to be unbindable. There are very few counters to a turn 1 of that. Brazen Rune comes to mind, but shouldn't be enough Blood Tithe points to do the reward to auto unbind turn 1.

Yeah he's 200 points, but can also halve an enemy unit's movement, and also if they fight him he can use an enemy's weapon.

Warriors are solid and resilient, but have never killed much for me. They are good for gumming up the field. Is the event going to use 4x4' areas or 6x4'? Hopfeully the smaller. Really helps even things up for slower armies.

Do you have any Screamers? Those might be good for zipping across really fast and getting to a backfield shooty unit. I really hate those shooty Stormcast!

Flamers can be decent, still think they're too many points for what the bring. I'm working on selling mine and getting burning chariots instead with a herald on chariot to make them battleline.

Beasts of Chaos summoning for small games, Ill have to keep that in mind for the Vanguard event at Adepticon.

KingPin42 wrote:
Sorry for some reason remembered them having crossbows , it was definitely judicators as they were troops and the leader had the bow that has the same exploding hits rule as the ballista.

Alright ill give the screen a go, although what do you use to deal with the ballista? I don't think I can ignore it but I am worried ill lose too many warriors footslogging towards the ballista.

Ah, I see. Unfortunately there isn't much you can do about that. The upside is judicators do cost a bunch; 160 per 5 as I recall.

Oh well, can't expect to be able to handle everything at 1000 points.

So I do have screamers but wouldn't it just be better to run enlightened? They seem to get a decent amount for 40 points even without a shaman.

Anyways, thanks everyone for the feedback and tips. Will be try out these list ideas over the weekend.

Enlightened are good, I'd run them.

Oof, did Gaunt Summoners really get nerfed by 60pts? Ouch. I’ve only skimmed the 2018 handbook, and missed that! Losing the power of the 2017 Balewind Vortex was enough, a 60pt hit on top...ouch. Still worth it, but ouch. Honestly, at 1000pts I’d throw in Kairos, a LoC, minimal troops and a G. Summoner, if you can squeeze it in. If the one on disc is cheaper, put him in for character (bravery) squishing.

A fun 1K Tzeentch Daemon list would be the Warpflame Host with 3 burning chariots/exalted flamer, and then a herald on chariot for the general.

I hadn't thought of splitting the Flamer shots before, that would certainly up the potential for damage from the mortal woundage. I always focus fired them on the same unit.

So an update from how the tournament went.

Relics from malign sorcery were not allowed, the tournament took place on Hysh giving everyone access to the Pha’s Protection spell and the Strike Quickly command ability.

The list I went with was:
Gaunt Summoner w/ Chaos Familiars (General) [180]
Wellspring of Arcane Might
Illusionist
Bolt of Tzeentch
Herald of Tzeentch[140]
Unchecked Mutation
Chaos Warriorsx30[480]
Halberds
Pink Horros[200]
Tzeentch’s Firestorm

I ended up going 2-1. Memory is a bit hazy but will give as best descriptions as I can.

Game 1
Scenario: Battle for the Pass
I was paired against a nurgle list with:
Great Unclean One [General]
Chaos Sorcerer Lord
Putrid Blightkingsx10
Putrid Blightkingsx5

I don’t remember exactly what was on the GUO but basically it was completely unkillable, so tried to just go for objectives. Going second, I used destiny dice to get a 10” charge with the chaos warriors to grab an objective and tie up the bigger unit of Blightkings. I sent my pink horrors to grab the other objective. With Pha’s protection on the chaos warriors the big blightking group was basically neutered and the game was going well until I left my Gaunt Summoner exposed and the GUO squished him. My herald was also out of range to put Pha’s protection on my chaos warriors and then they were immediately dropped by the blightkings. Game was pretty much over at that point.

Game 2
Scenario: Scorched Earth
Daughters of Khaine[Khailebron]
Morathi
Bloodwrack Medusa
Sisters of Slaughterx10
Blood Sistersx5
Khinerai Lifetakersx5

My memory on this one was particularly fuzzy so I apologise.

My opponent was pretty new and made a couple of mistakes. I made my opponent go first so his infantry could get closer. There was a big piece of LoS blocking terrain in the middle so I used that to keep my heroes hidden from Morathi while they could still see his infantry. After taking out a couple of the sisters of slaughter, I used destiny dice to get my chaos warriors in combat with them. The pink horrors went up the other flank of the board and just slowly plinked away at his blood sisters. His following turn he teleported his blood sisters and brought in the lifetakers on one of my back objectives. He charged in with morathi and the lifetakers into the chaos warriors but didn't do much. The warriors managed to get a wound or two back on morathi and killed most of the lifetakers. On my turn managed to clean up the lifetakers, the blood sisters, and take another 1-2 wounds off morathi. Had the pink horrors charge into the medusa and took the nearby objective. Burned 2 of his objectives with the chaos warriors and pink horrors. At this point morathi transformed but had lost a good number of wounds and couldn't chew through the remaining chaos warriors.

Game 3
Scenario: Total Commitment
Gloomspite Gitz
Arachnarok Spider w/shaman
Grot Warboss
Grotsx60
Spider Ridersx10
Sneaky Snuffersx6 (I think)


Turn 1 threw Pha’s Protection on the Chaos Warriors, got up the board and had the pink horrors throw some pot shots at the spider riders. Opponent box-carred the spell to give the spider riders and the arachnarok mortal wounds on 5+ to hit so couldn’t stop it. Spider riders made the charge but arachnarok failed, they got off some mortal wounds but saved most of them with the shields. Chaos warriors struck back and killed half the spider riders. Next turn he managed to deny most of my spells but got Pha’s off and then killed the remaining spider riders. He charged in with full buff grots but still couldn’t do much to my chaos warriors. Arachnarok also charged in but also struggled to kill more than a few chaos warriors. Next few turns was basically a slap fest as he stopped the Gaunt Summoners infernal gaze but I managed to keep getting Pha’s off so the chaos warriors and grots just bounched off each other.

Finally managed to kill the Arachnarok and got off Infernal Gaze killing most of the grot blob while my herald ran into his back line and summoner some screamers to nab the backline objectives.

Overall, I liked how the list performed, although having access to Pha’s protection put the chaos warriors over the top. Main mistakes I made was being overprotective with my pink horrors (the price tag keeps throwing me), if they had died earlier in my first game couldve summoned in some blue horrors to tie up the GUO to prevent him from getting to my summoner.

Thanks for the update, and good work. Surprised Morathi didn't stomp face, I guess I'd have to see the game.

Now that I've done more than just glance at Morathi's snake form I can understand your confusion. Basically, I got my chaos warriors to her mostly unscathed and my opponent waited too long to transform her. I had managed to take off 3 or 4 wounds (over a couple of rounds) so by the time she transformed she was too weak to chew through the remaining 20 or so chaos warriors. If she had transformed at full health with that mind razor spell, I could definitely see her mulching the squad.

Edited my previous post so its more clear what happened.

Ohh they didn't transform her. Usually she gets transformed immediately.