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HQ:
333 Fateweaver
305 Lord of Change w/ Master Lvl 3, 1x Exalted Gift, 1x Greater Gift

Troops:
144 16x Pink Horrors
153 17x Pink Horrors

Heavy Support:
355 Daemon Prince of Tzeentch w/ Lvl 3, Flight, Armor, 2x greater, 1x lesser
355 Daemon Prince of Tzeentch w/ Lvl 3, Flight, Armor, 2x greater, 1x lesser
355 Daemon Prince of Tzeentch w/ Lvl 3, Flight, Armor, 2x greater, 1x lesser

So this is what I was considering for an upcoming tourney. Trying to make this a pretty competitive list here. The only thing I've heard argued is since these types of lists suffer horribly from troop issues I should maybe run one of my DP's as 1x exalted, 1x Greater as well. Other than that the other list I was considering trying to run was something like this

HQ:
333 Fateweaver
290 Great Unclean one w/ Exalted Gift, Greater gift, ML 3
290 Great Unclean one w/ 2x Greater Gift, 1x Lesser Gift, ML 3
290 Great Unclean one w/ 2x Greater Gift, 1x Lesser Gift, ML 3

Troops:
144 16x Pink Horrors
144 16x Pink Horrors
144 16x Pink Horrors
144 16x Pink Horrors
99 11x Plaguebearers

Fast Attack:
120 10x Seekers of Slaanesh

This list would be more of a to heck with flying circus approach. I'm just going to put a whole bunch of super survivable, High toughness models on your table end and see if you can't deal with them.

I'm pretty sure Big Bird is 300 points, not 333.

Anyway, this is the flying circus, something everyone has seen a lot of since the start of 6th edition. Two deviations you have from what people might consider a better list:

1: you have a LoC instead of Be'Lakor
2: you dont have any exalted rewards for the portal glyph and grimoire

You'll want Be'Lakor to hunt down any key units and for the utility hallucination, invis, and all the other telepathy goodies have. Puppet master is also great if there is that one Str D weapon or something like that that you really would love to use against your opponent. His skill set far outweighs a durable lvl 3 divination psyker that is the LoC

The strength of the famous Flying Circus list is that your troops are off the board for a few turns so they cant get shot at, and you can spawn up to 1 or 2 hundred points of troops from the portal glyph, so you can spend all those extra points you didnt spend on troops on those tasty flavor-of-the-month FMCs. Take the glyph as well as the grimoire to give someone a boost to their invuln save. Use it on whoever you think will take the most fire next turn. Be'lakor does especially well with it as he'll get a 2+ invuln. Use fatey to reroll the grimoire roll if you fail it.

If going for super competitive then I would say CSM allies with Be'lakor is necessary. He is a flying utility box, guaranteed invisibility can cover your grimoire holder, puppet master is great in a game that is seeing larger and more powerful models. Also EW and fleshbane let him go toe to toe with the hardest hitters out there, again, especially with invisibility.

If you have to run 33 horrors in your troops, I'd run them as 3 units of 11. This will let you hold more objectives, potentially keep more of your troops off of the table for longer and give you 9D6 shots instead of 8.

Personally I'd run something more like this:

HQ
Fateweaver
Slaanesh Lash DP

Troops
Horrors x 11
Horrors x 11

Heavy support
Tzeentch DP Everything + Gimoire
Tzeentch DP Everything + Portal

Allies
HQ
Be'lakor

Troops
Cultists x 10
Cultists x 10

This list has more scoring units, better anti air, and Be'lakor for guaranteed utility. Princes tend to work better than LoC when holding the grimoire, Due to having a 3+ save and the possibility of iron arm.
Be'lakor should be taken in the ally detachment, as if he is in the daemons list then he must be your hq (LD10). On the plus side, he is not effected by daemonic instability.

Curious why I take the chaos allies for Belakor? I can just take him as my second HQ instead of the slaanesh DP. I forgot he has the 4++ save constantly like fate. I hate putting exalted on my Tzeentch DP since if i do that I lose out on taking the exploding staff lesser reward. Do you use greaters for staff of change?

Be'Lakor has LD 10, so if hes in your primary detachment, Fate weaver will not be your warlord. so you'll never get to reroll the warpstorm.

Ohhh, That is a really good thing that I didn't think of. It would be nice for his normal all enemies suffer a -1 LD for fear checks and such, but most armies are immune to fear anyways. Downside to him is that weird extra warp charge thing he has is only if you opponent fails his tests in his own turn I think. Which means I can only force that if I'm in melee with them for their turn also or they keep running after falling back.

even though big blinds bill's listi probably what what most people would consider to be the most competitive circus I still think a csm main has potential at 2k

C:SM (primary)

Be'lakor

Daemon prince
wings armor black mace

Cultists x 14-15 (depending on kairos or a lord of change)
Cultists x 10

Heldrake
Heldrake
Heldrake

Daemons (allies)

Lord of Change (or Kairos up 2 u...its very close)
lvl3 greater, exalted(portal)

Horrors x 11

Tzeentch DP
lvl 3, armor, wings, greater, exalted (Gimoire)

4 flying monsters and 3 drakes with a portal and gimoire not bad...

and as an addendum, change you are completely right. I was thinking points cost for old fate back from 5th ed daemons days. I like the lash prince since he would be a very good protection against other air models like drakes or crones.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I was considering the hell drake potential for this as well. I like the idea especially because it controls hordes for me very nicely, but I have been seeing non stop Tau and a lot of higher MC lists which drakes flamers don't help as much with. Downside to the list you have is I could get portal and grim if I did a LoC, but I also find I like the warp storm. It's random, but I've had that kill more people than my entire army sometimes.

Fateweaver is absolutely necessary for any flying circus list. Not only is he the best gunboat (you can usually cast a random power then 4D6 FF shots), I find he is very durable and his reroll is paramount to rerolling the grimoire/grounding checks. His warlord trait also does a great job to make sure your enemy has the warp storm working against them and not you.

Another general rule is that you need about 1 troop minimum for every 500 points, and the portaglpyh can count as one of those.

However, I also find that using 2 slaanesh soul grinders with baleful torrent instead of one of your DPs is the way to go. They add a lot to pressure on your enemy.

Here's a 2000 point list I owned a local tournament with:

Fateweaver

Lord of Change, ML3 (roll twice on divination and use your last one for flickering fire), exalted reward (grimoire)

10 Pink Horrors

10 Pink Horrors

Daemon Prince of Tzeentch, wings, ML3 (roll twice on biomancy then take flickering fire), Warp-forged Armor, Exalted Reward (portaglyph)

Soul Grinder of Khorne (it's free) with baleful torrent

Soul Grinder of Slaanesh with baleful torrent

Be'Lakor

10x Cultists with 5 autoguns

Heldrake with Baleflamer

This list has 4 FMCs and 1 very powerful flyer

It also has 2 very strong walkers that put extreme pressure on the enemy, and take away the motivation to drop down your FMCs.

Keep the troops in reserve and walk on the cultists, and DS the Horrors. Throw the portaglyph down where it won't be able to scatter far without stopping on terrain (my favorite was throwing it down behind an enemy's Aegis after I cleared out his troops, so my portaglyph was unseeable and my horrors were able to go to ground for a 2+ rerollable cover save). Keep all your FMCs in the air as long as possible, and possibly drop them all down on one turn when your enemy is weak to clear them out. A prescienced Fateweaver with 2 S10 attacks on the charge is great for taking out vehicles.

I did read somewhere that the portal glyph can even be represented by a small blast template which makes me happy because it's very easy to hide that way. Not so sure on the Grinders, I know they are super resilient guys, but I've never had the luck with him. Trying to remember which one the baleful torrent weapon is and why MoS? Thought Tzeentch or Nurgle for shrouded might be better?

Fleet and +3 inches to their run move so you can get in range quickly is the reason for MoS I believe. Baleful Torrtent is S6 AP4 torrent weapon.

This what i usally run and it does fairly well

Be lakor

10 cultis

hell turkey

Fateweaver

deamon prince
demonic flight
mark of slaneesh
mster level 3
greater reward
lesser reward

pink horrors

pink horrors

daemon prince
level 3
tzeech
wings
exalted

daemon princes
level 3
exalted
demonic flight
warp forged armor
Tzeech

I never thought of that honestly, but yeah sticking them on the field and having them running forward as well as the DP's flying forward seems pretty deadly. Also wouldn't there str 6 AP 4 flamer have rending per the daemon of slaanesh special rule? That seems awesome

Ha yeah I totally missed that too. Even more reason for it then!

First off no the flamer does not have rending, rending is only for cc attacks.

The thing about grinders is you don't throw them forward expecting them to take on the enemy. You throw them forward as relatively cheap distraction units that take a ton of fire to put down. Their flamers are awesome at clearing out troops.
With 4 attacks they aren't too shabby in combat and are great for taking care of vehicles.

They are the undisputed best walker in the game.

I'm curious as to how they don't have rending on them, but yes either way a str 6 AP 4 template is deadly to a lot of different types of units.

As far as I read Damon of Slaanesh have the Daemon, Fleet, Hatred Daemon of Khorne, and Rending special rules. I would assume that would apply to everything they use.

icefire78 wrote:
I'm curious as to how they don't have rending on them, but yes either way a str 6 AP 4 template is deadly to a lot of different types of units.

As far as I read Damon of Slaanesh have the Daemon, Fleet, Hatred Daemon of Khorne, and Rending special rules. I would assume that would apply to everything they use.

The rule for rending states that a model with the rule has rending in close combat. A weapon with the rule has the rending effect when it is used. Because the model has the rule, and not the flamer, the rending only effects attacks made in cc.
The same is true for Slaanesh DPs with a lash, no rending there either.

Don't let this dissuade you though, Slaanesh torrent grinders are great. I rate them more highly than nurgle phlegm grinders.

kk, I never read the rending USR in the main rulebook apparently. The lash still works with iron arm though if I'm correct because it doesn't say unmodifired str value. I will definitely blow the dust off my 2 grinders and start testing them out again

ah boo that did sound a little too good to be true.