How does Tzeentch race work on the battlefield?

Pede#6322

Most people know how the other demon factions will likely be.

Khorne - brutal up close melee (dmg > def)

Nurgle - slow brutal melee grind (def > dmg)

Slaanesh - very fast damagey units (speed > def)

Is Tzeentch kinda like semi reverse Vampire Counts with mostly magic ranged, caster and weak/few melee choices?

How were they in tabletop?

Bloodydagger#9716

Heavy on the magic for sure.

Rob18446

Pede said:

Most people know how the other demon factions will likely be.

Khorne - brutal up close melee (dmg > def)

Nurgle - slow brutal melee grind (def > dmg)

Slaanesh - very fast damagey units (speed > def)

Is Tzeentch kinda like semi reverse Vampire Counts with mostly magic ranged, caster and weak/few melee choices?

How were they in tabletop?

They are as capable in melee as regular WoC, they just have some ranged options to help round them out and good magic.

brago90#3911

Tzeentch specializes in projectile and magic.

kevManiac#4754

Yeah I guess so. And a bit more focus on flying units like the Screamers and Flying Discs (did Flamers also fly? Can't remember). But mostly ranged and heavy on the magic. I guess the melee side will be somewhat weakly, but doing quite some magical damage

Captain_Rex#1635

Lots of magic and fast moving Daemonic units.
I assume Tzeentch would also heavily rely on Flying and Ranged Units in comparison to the other gods.

I’m also hoping for 3-5 Tzaangor Units.

Uagrim#4644

Like all the monogods faction their main line units are sitll chaos warriors, chosen and chaos knights so no they aren't weak in melee.

The tzeentch deamons have a bunch of short ranged attacks similar to irondrakes and some are capable of magic to spice things up.

Draxynnic#3149

Kinda depends on what sources they draw from and how they interpret various units, really.

In 8E WFB, the mortal followers of Tzeentch really weren't any worse off in melee than their counterparts following other gods. Their Mark ability was to give them a 6+ wardsave, which made them a little bit tougher, and they were the same Maruaders, Warriors, and so on as everyone else.

If they take inspiration from Disciples of Tzeentch, that brings the Kairic Acolytes and Tzaangors into play. Kairic Acolytes are essentially hybrid missile/melee - having a magic ranged attack which would probably have around 120ish range in TWW terms, while also being decent, if lightly armoured, sword-and-shield troops. Regular Tzaangors are a bit stronger in melee than regular Gors. Tzaangor Skyfires are Tzaangors with greatbows (think Ushabti) riding Disks of Tzeentch - long range, highly mobile, possibly flying (although CA might interpret them more as floaters than flyers, similar to Slann), probably hard to balance.

From the daemonic side of things, Pink Horrors (the basic Tzeentch daemonic infantry unit) split into Blue Horrors when killed. In 8E, this was represented through having what was essentially a deathblow mechanic, and I suspect that will be how it works in TWW too, since members a unit turning into something else when they die will probably otherwise be incredibly difficult for CA to pull off. Horrors are also innate spellcasters - which will probably be represented through giving them bound spells, but there is precedent to simply giving them a magic ranged attack.

Other Tzeentch daemons focus on mobility while staying out of combat (at least until the time is right). Screamers fly and can go into melee, but are only about as strong as Ripperdactyls, so you'd want to pick your targets - however, they would have Anti-Large, and they do have a special ability whereby they can swoop enemy units, dealing damage without being locked in melee. Since Screamers never actually land, this could probably be represented by them having to go into melee normally, but they're very difficult to pin into melee because they can pretty much always just fly out (unlike other flying units that normally need a runup to take off).

Flamers of Tzeentch would be basically high-mobility flamethrower units. Think Salamanders, but a little weaker in melee - good for burning up enemy ranged troops or getting into a flank and releasing the flames. Said flames, incidentally, are pure Warp energy rather than actual flames, and generally kill by mutating the enemy to death rather than actually burning. Expect them to be treated as magic damage rather than fire damage. Burning Chariots take this principle up to 11, putting an extra-strong Flamer on a flying (but CA might again treat it as floating) chariot with two fire modes: Pink Fire is longer range, while Blue Fire is stronger. (Both are still warp energy rather than actual flames).

Characters are mostly spellcasters, and can be mounted on Discs of Tzeentch (among other choices) for lots of mobility. Tzeentch Sorcerers are decent melee combatants and heavily armoured. The use the Lore of Metal or the Lore of Tzeentch - the Lore of Tzeentch is pretty much a "multiple ways to deal damage" lore, even more so than the Lore of Fire. There's one spell that would have the effect of sapping Leadership, one that reduces the magic available to an enemy spellcaster (which I expect won't make the cut, like Drain Magic from the Lore of High Magic), and everything else is pretty much damaging spells of increasing power.

Overall, Tzeentch's army is probably the most versatile of the gods. Tzeentch's forces should have decent melee capabilities - below those of the other Chaos Gods, but what is effectively the baseline for Chaos is still going to be decent by most race's standards. No artillery, but the Flamers at least offer the potential for a pretty strong close-range assault supported by spells, and if they get Horrors who use their magic as a ranged attack and/or Kairic Acolytes, there could be a pretty potent set of magic ranged attacks from a hybrid battleline.

How extreme this turns out to be depends on which version they use. If they stick to 8E tabletop, it's still likely to largely play like other Chaos armies, but with access to flanking flamethrower units and with a lot of casts of whichever bound spells get attributed to Horrors. If they draw more inspiration from Disciples of Tzeentch, it could be similar in style to a High Elf army that builds a core around Seaguard and Sisters of Avelorn: lots of ranged firepower with troops that are decent, but not great, if they do get caught in melee. If they draw from both then... well, it will be somewhere in between those.

Red_Dox#2328

if we talk pure Tzeentch DoC army you have several Horror blocks with Warpfire spells. You have an Lord of Change for Tzeentch magic and he probably has the "Club of intense pain", which makes the LoC a harder melee murder machine then a Bloodthirster.
That all means in magic phase you get either bombarded with a bunch of small spells burning your troops away, or you block the small spells and give the DoC player the opportunity to bring down the heavy spells from Tzeentch Lore.

You can't ban all spells and even while the dmg output of the Tzeentch lore was pretty random, the randomness could really hurt a lot.
Keep in mind here that TWW has no random factors. And Horrors might not get actual magic spells, but probably rather a ability to shoot fire balls around.

Besides pew pew in magic phase, we have Tzeentch Flamers as units. Tzeentch Flamer on Burning Chariot and a Exalted Flamer as hero. So a lot of shooting flames attack on close range. If we look over to Dwarf & Skaven flamers, maybe not sooo close. You migth get the idea here. And just have to adapt to a flying Chariot circling and spewing flames around. Tzeentch flamers as unit were brutal in 7th edition. If an enemy came into 18" inch and gave them a shooting phase, tehy usually could kiss their ass goodbye. Hence the unit got hit by the nerfbat at the end of the edition. And again later with the new 8th edition armybook, but they were still pretty good.
Oh I forgot, in 6th edition we had Flamers on flying discs as monstrous cav...

Screamers of Tzeentch could fly over regiments and attribute some hits during that without being actually in melee.

Now you can throw in the Soulgrinder for a walking Stonethrower (or Flamethrower or Bolthrower) to add further firepower.

"But then they are weak in melee", and yes, Horrors are basic humans, so not that tough there [still had Fear & wardsave]. Flamers however had strength 5 in 7th edition AND 2 attacks. So sending some cannonfodder into melee with them to stop them from shooting, did not work out well. As mentioned the nerfbat hit them hard so in 8th edition they were down to Strength 4, but that is still good enough to fight of a lot of cheap stuff combined with all daemon special rules + stand&shoot reaction to a charge.
Soulgrinders are walking monsters and can hold their own. The LoC with the "Stick of superior pain"

could be a 10 attack strength 10 monster after a few magic phases. We also have the Screamers of Tzeentch as pretty good in melee too. You could add flying Daemon Princes as addition for mobile melee power, but most people rather went LoC + Herald [Herald could get magic item to get the complete Lore of Tzeentch instead of just two spells. So more possible magic to throw around].


We don't know yet how the roster will look for monogod DoC TWW wise, and I have finished the Tzeentch topic not yet. But as with my other two topics,
https://forums.totalwar.com/discussion/273013/daemons-of-chaos-slaanesh/p1
https://forums.totalwar.com/discussion/280094/daemons-of-chaos-khorne
we can spice Tzeentch up with Fyrewyms (Chaos Spawns), Giant Chaos Spawn & Spined Chaos Beast.

Also, there was this.

Along with the deadly bears, Kislev will field a variety of cavalry, infantry, and armaments, but like Cathay we'll have to wait and see what Creative Assembly and Games Workshop come up with. They'll be facing off against some truly horrible daemons, like Khorne's gruesome Bloodletters and hulking Bloodthirsters, so they'll have their work cut out for them. There will be plenty of monstrous units to fight with and against in Warhammer 3, and Roxburgh says that Creative Assembly's designed some brand new ones, too. Fingers crossed for some spectacular battles.

https://www.pcgamer.com/total-war-warhammer-3-is-going-to-be-absolutely-massive/
Obviously that can be interpreted in many ways, espcecially in regards to Kislev & Cathay or possible Nippon later, but it could also apply to Chaos in general and might boil down to some new daemon stuff. We don't know, but we will learn one day when they reveal their rosters

------Red Dox

Crossil#2134

My take makes Tzeentch a strong flyer, spellcaster and range roster. Moreso than the rest.

Revoran#8044

Red_Dox said:

Keep in mind here that TWW has no random factors.

------Red Dox

Starting Winds of Magic is semi random. And miscast chance is random.

Seswatha#7633

It really depends on what the roster is, and we don't know.

If it's mixed Tzeentch marked WoC + Tzeentch DoC, as people said if would not really be any worse in the melee infantry department than the other 3. Ward save stacked with parry save from shields on TT meaning that Tzeentch warriors with shields were pretty tough to kill in melee.

The big differentiating thing are the deamons, with Thzeentch deamons having some good ranged and flyer options as well as powerful spellcaster hero or lords (though ironically lore of tzeentch itself sucked on TT, but doesn't have to be the case in TWW).

So strong infantry, ranged, flyers, spellcasting. Average cavalry and melee monsters.

LennoxPoodle#1380

Well, Nurgle specializes in attrition - slowly but inevitably wrestling you down, just like sickness -, Khorne specializes on shock power - overcoming you in one sudden overwhelming blow, just like a fit of rage -, Slaanesh in (melee) skirmishing/hit and run tactics - hitting you with small attacks again and again, just like temptation - and Tzeentch in ranged combat - destroying you without getting caught itself, just like deception and intrigue.

Actual it is kind of interesting how the Nurgle-Khorne and Slaanesh-Tzeentch pairings, dos that are kind of okay with one another, kind of counter each other (range beats hit and run, but speed beats range and shock and attrition are counters to one another).

Sry for kind of repeating OP, but I just wanted to correct the language to strategy rather than rpg (attrition over grind, shock over dmg/melee and skirmishing over fast damaging).

Asamu#6386

Well, the Tzeentch Daemons, in total war terms, would be the following:

Tzeentch: Improved ward/physical resist compared to other Daemons, ranged units, skirmishing, magic specialists, fire damage
- Lord of Change: basically Sarthoreal; caster (Metal/Tzeentch)/monster hybrid
- Herald of Tzeentch: Horror wizard hero with a passive buff to nearby Tzeentch units; can ride a Disk of Tzeentch or Screamer Chariot
- Pink Horrors: ranged(?) infantry with flaming attacks; +bound spell and/or boosting WoM generation (scaling down as they take damage); Split! (chance to explode or turn into blue horrors when destroyed/low hp?; maybe per model death explosions like keepers of the flame?)
- Flamers: fast skirmish missile infantry with flaming attacks; small entity count like weapon teams (~48-60 speed)
- Exalted Flamer: short ranged skirmish hero or monster (similar to a medusa) that can switch between pink fire flamethrower for anti-infantry or anti-large bolts of blue fire. It'll probably be treated as a monster rather than a hero in TWW, considering there's one on the Burning chariot. (~60 speed?)
- Burning chariot: extremely fast short ranged skirmish chariot that can switch between pink fire flamethrower for anti-infantry or anti-large bolts of blue fire. (90+ speed)
- Screamers: anti-large flyer with some kind of fly-by sweep or ability to damage surrounding units. (100-110 speed?)
- Blue Horrors (?): chaff missile(?) infantry. I expect we'll probably see these, but it's not guaranteed.
- Brimstone Horrors (?): chaff missile(?) infantry. I doubt we'll see them, but they are mentioned in the 8th ed lore.
- Soul Grinder (?): Artillery monster (Phlegm bombardment = indirect fire, warp gaze = direct fire, baleful torrent = breath attack)
- Furies: basically harpies.

For mortal units, from tabletop, we have the following, all with a bonus ward save over the non-tzeentch versions:
Lords:
Chaos Lord of Tzeentch - can ride a horse, Disc of Tzeentch, or Chaos Dragon
Sorcerer Lord of Tzeentch - Lores of Metal or Tzeentch; can ride a horse, disc, or chaos dragon

Heroes
Exalted hero of Tzeentch - can ride a horse or disc
Chaos Sorcerer of tzeentch - Lores of Metal or Tzeentch; can ride a horse or disc

Infantry:
Marauders
Chaos Warriors
Chosen
Tzaangors (?)

Cavalry & Chariots:
Marauder cavalry
Chaos Knights
Chaos Chariots
Gorebeast chariots
Chaos Warshrine

Monstrous infantry and monsters:
Chaos Spawn
Chaos Ogres
Mutalith Vortex Beast - bound spell/missile attack and regeneration. Relatively weak in combat for the cost.
Chaos Dragon(?): if any faction gets them, it'd be Tzeentch, as all chaos dragons were mutated by Tzeentch.

Everything together makes for a pretty balanced faction. It's a mix between the melee rush of undivided chaos with the extra tough mortal units, and a skirmish/missile core of mostly squishy (for the cost) Daemon units.

Its magic is oriented towards dealing damage, and they get a lot of it. The lore attribute for Tzeentch will likely be similar to the death/beasts/big-waaagh lore attributes of increasing power generation, and pink horrors will likely increase magic generation, and/or have bound missiles, so if someone really wants to go for an army that overloads on magic, spamming pink horrors would be a good way to do that.

On tabletop, full Tzeentch Daemon armies were all about doing damage outside of combat with magic superiority, then using the Lord of Change (with a wand of whimsy to buff it with extra strength and attacks based on how many spells it's cast over the game), Soul Grinders, and/or screamers, to clean up the weakened units in melee.
While Kairos was an absurdly powerful wizard on tabletop, he couldn't fight, so the regular lord of change was actually far better.

Pink horrors didn't have a normal missile attack in 7th/8th ed tabletop, but they did primarily to damage at range with spells, and in AoS, were just made into a ranged unit, which, IMO, makes a lot of sense to do for total war purposes.

Pede#6322

Aight thx for clearing that up for me guys!