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I managed to snaggle myself an early copy of the latest Battletome for Age of Sigmar this week, and have been busy ploughing through it. Covering all things Tzeentch, and at the vanguard of a wave of miniatures releases that have been gaining a lot of attention, this is one of the most awaited books for the game yet. As always, lots of piccies of the book here: https://ttgamingdiary.wordpress.com/2017/01/20/review-battletome-disciples-of-tzeentch/

So, we must ask ourselves the question... is it any good?



Weighing in at 136 pages, Disciples of Tzeentch is a £20 hardback, in keeping with GW's recent policy of low(er) cost books.

One change, however, is that it does not cover a single faction, as with previous Battletomes, but now covers all Tzeentch-based forces - Daemons of Tzeentch, the new Tzeentch Arcanites, and even the likes of Slaves to Darkness who take the Tzeentch keyword. Basically, if Tzeentch is your thing, this is the book for you.

The book starts off with a basic overview of who Tzeentch is, and what he is up to. With regards to the main storyline, you rather get the feeling the Tzeentch forces are going to be a Big Deal in the next round of campaign books (as Khorne and Nurgle were in the Realmgate Wars), and there is a steady progression through the first part of this book about the Changer of Ways having waited as he enacted all his various schemes to claim ascendancy among the other Chaos Powers (particularly over Nurgle, as the old rivalry is well highlighted in this book).

As well as the familiar daemons, a fair amount of weight is given to the Arcanite Cults. While they have sort of been around since Grand Alliance: Chaos came out, it is only with the release of the new Kairic Acolytes and Tzaangors (the latter going on pre-order next week!) that the mortal followers of Tzeentch have been given any real focus beyond the Slaves to Darkness in the Realmgate Wars.

The basic idea here is that the many, many cults of Tzeentch have sequestered themselves in all the major cities of the Mortal Realms (not just Sigmar's - the cities of the Chaos Powers have them too, especially, once again, Nurgle), and are now just starting to make their moves, casting off their disguises and taking over.

There is an ever-so-slight shade of 40k Genestealer Cults here, keeping in hiding as they grow and expand their influence, before finally engaging in a massive uprising to topple those in power.

The next section of the book, Servants of Change, takes a traditional approach to reviewing the background of every unit in Tzeentch forces (as opposed to the formation approach used in Beastclaw Raiders and Bonesplitterz). There is nothing massively new here (a Pink Horror will always be a Pink Horror), but the new Lord of Change is front and centre, with Kairos Fateweaver waiting in the wings.

All the usual suspects are here, including the Changeling (new model coming!) and the Blue Scribes, all integrated into the current Age of Sigmar source material. Added to that, there are some 'new' daemons, in the form of Blue Horrors and Brimstone Horrors who, as veterans of Warhammer (and the Silver Tower) will know, appear when Pink Horrors are slain. More on that a bit later...

The mortals of the Arcanites follow, starting with Tzaangor Shamans (who, among many other things, like to track down Chaos monsters - the Mutalith is mentioned here, which fits in well with a Tzeentch army) and the Ogroid Thaumaturge. One small negative here is that the Ogroid has been kept mysterious, as there is no hint of what they are and where they actually come from. Fitting enough for a Tzeentch follower though.

Gaunt Summoners will be familiar to all Age of Sigmar players, and the Magisters (the leader of most Arcanite cults) is what used to be called a Sorcerer Lord of Tzeentch. Hot on his heels are the Fatemaster (used to be Lord of Tzeentch on Disc of Tzeentch - Fatemaster is less of a mouthful) and the Curselings, who are now 'standard' heroes rather than a single special character. They are now formidable warriors who also act as inquisitors and lie-seekers within cults.

The 'hobby section'comes next. I won't dwell on this too much, but feast your eyes on some of the new models, including the Changeling, and Blue and Brimstone Horrors.

The rest of the book, from page 72 onwards, are full of rules, making this the most rules-concentrated Battletome yet.

In one respect, this is to be expected, as the book has to cover two (and effectively three) armies, and efforts are made to keep them distinct (as opposed to separate).

First up are the Allegiance Abilities. All Tzeentch armies have the same Battle Trait, namely the Masters of Destiny, which allows the rolling of Destiny Dice at the start of a game, which can then be substituted for dice rolls throughout the battle. This alone makes Tzeentch armies very, very powerful, as just a modicum of restraint will mean a Tzeentch player will always be able to make that one critical charge roll, spell casting, or Battleshock test. Anyone who has played with the Celestant-Prime will know how good that can be - and the Tzeentch version is better.

Every other Allegiance Ability is broken down between the different Tzeentchian factions. For example, Command Traits are divided between Arcanites, Daemons, and Mortals, selected depending on which keywords your general has. The same applies to artefacts and spells, the latter sporting two new Lores; the Lore of Fate (for Arcanites and Mortals) and the Lore of Change (for daemons).

Regular visitors to this page will know that of everything in new Battletomes, it is the added Battleplans I like the most, integrating them into our long-running Realmgate Wars campaign.

Well, this Battletome has two Battleplans... but no storyline behind them. Just two pages each (I am sure this was done for space considerations, but I am hoping it is not a new policy, as I really enjoyed those background pieces), demonstrating 'typical' battles daemons and Arcanites (respectively) might engage in.

Yes, I could (and will) write my own background to these battles, but... I liked the way each built upon the Age of Sigmar background, adding just a little extra weight to it each time.

Narrative Play is supported by the introduction of Warband tables for Path to Glory campaigns... which is nice, glad to see them. But, frankly, I am still quietly fuming about those Battleplans.

The next just-under-40-odd pages are taken up with Warscrolls, both for Battalions and single units.

And it is here that the full weight of Tzeentch forces begins to make itself apparent.

If anyone has played against a Tzeentch daemon force under Narrative Play without summoning restrictions (yeah, I know I have lost most of you at this point), they will know that Tzeentch fields a real brute of a force. With even Pink Horrors able to summon (and then chain-summon), it becomes a game of whack-a-mole as you hunt down any unit that even has a whiff of the Wizard keyword.

Well..' it just got a lot tougher. First off, the summoning has not been reduced in the slightest and, in fact, with the likes of the new Lord of Change, it has gotten a lot deadlier. Add to that, Pink Horrors now split into Blue Horrors and then Brimstone Horrors. So, you can wipe out that unit of 10 Pink Horrors in a single turn, great - you are now facing 20 Blue Horrors. Kill them, and you still have 20 Brimstone Horrors to deal with.

Now look at the Multitudinous Host in the picture above. It adds (not heals or replaces) D6 Pink or Blue Horrors to every unit in every round. Even Brimstone Horrors get D3 new models. Every. Round.

You will find that while this is happening, Arcanites are cheerfully turning your models into more Tzaangors, making Tzeentch forces possibly the most durable in the game under Narrative/Open Play, possibly even more resilient than your typical Nurgle army.

Under Matched Play... well, you will have less to worry about (though the sheer amount of magic this force has, along with the Destiny Dice, makes it a serious contender - expect to see Tzeentch forces at the GTs this year). However, if that is the only way you play, I think it might be a shame that you will never get to see Tzeentch Unleashed, as it were.
Personally, I am looking forward to defending a Sigmar city against that force!

After the Warscrolls comes the 4 page ruleset, as per normal - but it is not the last thing in this book.

All the Pitched Battle Profiles are included for all Tzeentch forces (the single Slaves to Darkness entry is for a Tzeentch Chaos Spawn - no different to vanilla ones aside from keyword - included among the other Warscrolls). So, you have all your Battlefield Riles and points costs from the get go.



Conclusion
Well, it is a good book. Tzeentch forces are now definitely born again hard, even with summoning toned down by Matched Play. And the new models are gorgeous.

As for this 'new style' of Battletome... please, please, please GW, make it be that those shortened Battleplans appeared because lack of space, not because of lack of interest in the story elements of Age of Sigmar. I promise I will paint up all the models needed!

Sadly most guys I know don't give a fig for any of the story elements and petition all the time for just books with the rules and nothing else.

 auticus wrote:
Sadly most guys I know don't give a fig for any of the story elements and petition all the time for just books with the rules and nothing else.

Then we have to make ourselves known to GW!

 auticus wrote:
Sadly most guys I know don't give a fig for any of the story elements and petition all the time for just books with the rules and nothing else.

Which will thankfully never happen I enjoy my fluff to go with my armies.

Hey Matt.
Nice write up as usual, thanks.
Are the warscroll points in the book?
Has the rule of having to pay for summoned units changed in any way for the horrors?
If I want a unit of 10 pink to split in to 20 blue then I'm still paying for all 30 models right?

Thanks for this, while I have somewhat of a Gutbuster force I actually have a lot of love for the Tzeentch models and now an excuse to buy them.

 usernamesareannoying wrote:
Hey Matt.
Nice write up as usual, thanks.
Are the warscroll points in the book?
Has the rule of having to pay for summoned units changed in any way for the horrors?
If I want a unit of 10 pink to split in to 20 blue then I'm still paying for all 30 models right?

Yes. No. Yes.

Thank you for the excellent review. That's a shame about the battleplans; do you think that's how the books are going to go from now on?

 amazingturtles wrote:
Thank you for the excellent review. That's a shame about the battleplans; do you think that's how the books are going to go from now on?

I think they did so because they represent "generic" uprisings. Meaning this is a formulaic scenario that could happen ANYWHERE. But I'm not sure of it.

Thanks for the review Matt, as always a great read.

Lord Kragan wrote:

 amazingturtles wrote:
Thank you for the excellent review. That's a shame about the battleplans; do you think that's how the books are going to go from now on?

I think they did so because they represent "generic" uprisings. Meaning this is a formulaic scenario that could happen ANYWHERE. But I'm not sure of it.

I get that. And i don't think more generic "could be anywhere" battlescrolls are a bad thing. But i think i'd prefer a mix of narrative and generic.

Question.

You still get the Masters of Destiny as long as everything has keyword Tzeentch, right? You're not limited to what's just in the book?

Because I can think of some fun shenanigans with Lil Archaon on his horse to grab some destiny dice for his own use.

 Lou_Cypher wrote:
Question.

You still get the Masters of Destiny as long as everything has keyword Tzeentch, right? You're not limited to what's just in the book?

Because I can think of some fun shenanigans with Lil Archaon on his horse to grab some destiny dice for his own use.

Uhm... interesting.

Lord Kragan wrote:

 Lou_Cypher wrote:
Question.

You still get the Masters of Destiny as long as everything has keyword Tzeentch, right? You're not limited to what's just in the book?

Because I can think of some fun shenanigans with Lil Archaon on his horse to grab some destiny dice for his own use.

Uhm... interesting.

Archaon has three of the necessary keywords: Tzeentch, Mortal, Demon, so yes. That should work.

If you get two 6s on your Destiny Dice (and there are ways to manipulate Destiny Dice in the book to get what you want/more of them), save them for Archaon and send him straight for the biggest monster/hero in the enemy army. Four attacks hitting on 2s with the Slayer of Kings practically guarantees you will get two hits, then turn those two hits into 6s for the wound rolls. Bam, instantly dead enemy. Works best against enemy Archaons/Gordrakks/Alarielles/Nagashs/Star Drakes/Dread Saurians/etc.

There's a lot of shenanigans you can pull with this army. It has an inferior version of Kunnin' Rukk that is good enough to be decent and not make you TFG among your friends (Kairic Acolytes in a Witchfyre Coven as part of one of the Pyrofane Cult, they can shoot in both the hero and shooting phases and get stacking to-wound bonuses in both phases the more Acolyte units you shoot at a target). You can make Fateweaver basically unkillable (he knows the spells of any friendly Tzeentch Wizards near him, a mortal one picks Treacherous Bond so Fateweaver can then slag wounds off onto a unit, combine with a unit of Burning Chariots and the Fold Reality spell to have two or more six-wound models resurrected per turn while eating wounds for Kairos, use his dice-manipulation rule in case you fail the Fold Reality roll). You can make a Lord of Change pretty darned strong in combat (-1 To-Hit Command Trait, +1 to Rend on all melee weapons Artefact, Arcane Transformation spell). Both the Lord of Change and Kairos are nuts in Omniscient Oracles where they re-roll 1s for everything, then combine with those spells while Kairos can even use Infusion Arcanum to add 1 to all his To-Hit and To-Wound rolls by having a mortal wizard know that spell.

Give Mystic Shield and Shield of Fate to a 30-strong unit of Tzaangors; not only will they bowl over everything in combat, they then have a 4+ save and can re-roll 1s, 2s and 3s for their save rolls if you have 7-9 Destiny Dice left in your pool. In general, the two spell lores are phenomenal and doling them out to your Wizards as free additional spells makes units like Pink Horrors super competitive now and opens up so many crazy combos, meaning an army with over a dozen Wizards will never run out of spells to cast (what other army can say they can do that). Also, combining a Lord of Change's Command Ability with the Blue Scribes makes it near guaranteed that you will get all of your spells off; the Lord of Change gives +1 to casting and unbinding rolls for Tzeentch Daemon Wizards within 18", then the Blue Scribes with their spell give all friendly Tzeentch Wizards (not just Daemons) within 9" the ability to re-roll their failed casting rolls; seeing as a few of the Arcanites Wizards have the Daemon key-word (Gaunt Summoner, Tzaangor Shaman) you can get a lot of mileage out of both of those abilities. A Lord of Change or Kairos with their Mastery of Magic and the spell-casting buffs are hands down the most reliable Wizards in the game, even more so than Nagash!

The amount of mortal wounds this army will dish out between all the spells, formation benefits, movement abilities (Screamers and Burning Chariots), Artefacts (a few do conditional mortal wounds), Tzaangor Icons, Skyfires, etc is beyond even what I originally estimated in the Age of Sigmar News thread. Almost everyone I've seen talk about this book already thinks they will be top tier and it's really hard to argue with that. When you consider that Tzeentch Daemons are arguably the most broken army in Narrative/Open Play thanks to their uber-summoning and splitting with Horrors alone, I think we can definitively say that this is indeed the Year of Tzeentch

And then comes the Duardin with their anti-magic and ability to unbind spells quite well.

We'll see, at the moment the Tzeentch magic "phase" looks pretty unstoppable to me. So many bonuses to cast and ways to guarantee super high casting rolls on whatever spell you want. You can make it impossible for anyone (perhaps aside from the Veritant?) to unbind a spell cast by a Lord of Change or Fatweaver if you get a 6 on either casting dice and add other bonuses in. Unlike other armies though, you're not going to have one or two wizards, you're average Tzeentch Daemon list for example will be slinging well over ten spells a turn. Unbinding becomes super difficult if you physically can't unbind more than a few spells a turn

Well yeah, casting spells really should be Tzeentch's thing (Looks over at 40k for a moment... )

But considering Duardin's thing was better anti-magic for getting no magic, I do hope that they'll be a good counter against such when they get updated, or at least provide a decent challenge when it comes to dealing with their magics.

Hmm. If one pink horror dies, in order to spawn two blue horrors you would need to pay the points for 10. Is that right? I like that summoning actually costs points in AoS, but that seems a bit rough.

 Lansirill wrote:
Hmm. If one pink horror dies, in order to spawn two blue horrors you would need to pay the points for 10. Is that right? I like that summoning actually costs points in AoS, but that seems a bit rough.

The alternative is having to chew 40 extra wounds for no extra cost.

 Lansirill wrote:
Hmm. If one pink horror dies, in order to spawn two blue horrors you would need to pay the points for 10. Is that right? I like that summoning actually costs points in AoS, but that seems a bit rough.

"Split" rule for horrors is not a summoning effect. You get those two blues for "free" if one pinky dies.

It is indeed adding a new unit to the table, which is clearly covered under the GHB.

You do not get them for "free". You pay for them in points.

The rules for paying points for adding new units to the table is not strictly and solely based on if they were "summoned" via the spell. It is for any unit or model added to the game in addition to what you started with.

If you have a friendly Blue Horror unit that's within 6" that's suffered casualties earlier in the game you could add the split Blue Horrors to that unit for free though (you just can't take it above it's starting size).

 Xyxel wrote:

 Lansirill wrote:
Hmm. If one pink horror dies, in order to spawn two blue horrors you would need to pay the points for 10. Is that right? I like that summoning actually costs points in AoS, but that seems a bit rough.

"Split" rule for horrors is not a summoning effect. You get those two blues for "free" if one pinky dies.

Reinforcement Points never once uses the words 'summon' or 'summoning'. Auticus is correct, you must have the points for the Blue Horrors.

Yes, you pay those points but only if You play Pitched Battle.

 Xyxel wrote:
Yes, you pay those points but only if You play Pitched Battle.

Since Matched Play is the only time you use points, saying you don't pay points when a Pink Horror splits in and of itself tells us you're talking about Matched Play.

Since Matched Play is the only time you use points, saying you don't pay points when a Pink Horror splits in and of itself tells us you're talking about Matched Play.

The GHB makes it clear that you are free to use points outside of pitched battles, and the other rules that go with them. People are indeed doing that, so that statement is wrong.

puree wrote:

Since Matched Play is the only time you use points, saying you don't pay points when a Pink Horror splits in and of itself tells us you're talking about Matched Play.

The GHB makes it clear that you are free to use points outside of pitched battles, and the other rules that go with them. People are indeed doing that, so that statement is wrong.

Then any rules statement ever is wrong due to a chance of house rules being in play.

Define house rule. The book goes to great lengths to say use the points or indeed any other section outside the context they are presented in. The GHB is not an atomic set of rules that need to be used all or none, they are a set of bits to choose from. It isn't a 'rule' book, it is a ways to play book with a variety of ideas on how you might want to approach the game. You don't have to play the scenarios that each section gives you, you don't have to run a campaign exactly as outlined, many people will want to use the points outside pitched battles.

You are getting to focused on playing by exactly how the book is showing and some concept of is it 'official'.

I'm excited about this. Read a lot of the book last night and I think this is going to be a very competitive book. Question is if it's just going to be units added to existing armies (Tzaangor & Skyfires being the standouts) or if we're going to see pure Tzeentch lists become the primary. Either way a lot of fun stuff in this book and a lot of neat things that can be done.