by Calvin Rarie

Some people say that hardwired into everyone’s head is the person they’re going to be, and how better to take advantage of that than if you’ve got two heads, and you can see your own future? Well if that sounds enticing, then you’re going to LOVE my newest obsession in Age of Sigmar, the Disciples of Tzeentch. Just like the AOS3 Flesh-Eater Courts guide I wrote, this article is going to be a general run through of my personal opinions about how the army plays out, and there will be a follow-up article where we go through all the competitive and not-so-competitive-but-still-cool lists you can build in Tzeentch. Let’s go!

Why Play Tzeentch?

Did you ever watch Lost and get real pissed off that they tried explaining everything at the end? Do you love complex play patterns that involve preventing your opponent from scoring points in a turn to win the game? Do you love rolling D3s? Boy do I have the army for you!

Tzeentch is possibly the highest skill floor army in the game, besides maybe Kruleboyz. This is an army that DEMANDS mastery, and rewards it. When everything starts clicking into place, a great Tzeentch list feels unstoppable, and in return feels like it can counter everything. You won’t table opponents–often, anyway–but at the minimum with enough practice you can REALLY manipulate the flow of a game in a way that can make your opponent feel helpless.

It’s not a flashy army, and doesn’t have the “Haha, dice go brr” kind of thing that other armies have right now, but it’s the kind of army that can really improve your play and make you a better player as long as you’re willing to learn from it.

Battle Traits

Destiny Dice

At the end of deployment, you get to roll 9 dice and set them aside as Destiny Dice, which can be used to replace basically every important roll in the game, and it can’t be modified. Need to cast a teleport spell on your opponent’s turn guaranteed? Destiny Dice. Need to banish a Manifestation guaranteed? Destiny Dice. Need to make a specific charge roll (excluding charges on your opponent’s turn)? Destiny Dice.

This is the most powerful battle trait available to the army, really letting you pull plays off that could normally be high-risk-high-reward, and instead turning those plays into just high-reward plays. Just remember that once spent, you aren’t getting any back (unless you take a bad Spell Lore or a really bad Heroic Trait).

Burning

This is really three Battle Traits in one that we’re going to be talking about here, but only two of them are worth remembering. The first thing to know is that certain spells and shooting attacks have the WYRDFLAME keyword, which when those attacks/spells are applied to an enemy unit, each turn you get to pick ONE of those units in the shooting phase of that turn to gain the Burning keyword. So what does it do?

Well, nothing on its own! That’s because GW wrote an entire Battle Trait that you are not really ever going to use except in VERY niche circumstances–at the end of each turn, you CAN–but are not required to–roll a D3 for each unit with Burning, and on a 2+ you do d3 mortal damage. Well that’s pretty cool right? It would be pretty neat if the Burning keyword did not drop off if you rolled a 1.

Basically, unless you ABSOLUTELY NEED something to take d3 mortal damage, you’re not really ever going to do that for two reasons:

1) If an enemy unit has the Burning keyword, instead of healing or returning slain models to that unit, instead the Burning keyword falls off, which is a pretty good ability by itself, and;

2) The best battleformation in the book (Wyrdflame Host) utilizes the Burning keyword, and Flamers of Tzeentch get +1 to wound when shooting at Burning units.

Battle Formations (Tier List)

Wyrdflame Host

Anything with the Burning keyword is -1 to wound. This is a stupendously powerful Battle Formation, since the army is really, REALLY efficient at handing out Burning keywords left and right and bonuses to wound rolls are fairly rare in the game. A+++, no notes. Really hard to justify NOT taking this.

Tzaangor Coven

Tzaangor units roll an extra three dice when Rallying–so 10 for Tzaangors on foot (thanks to the musician), or 9 for flying Tzaangors. Neat, but Rallying’s a tough sell in this meatgrinder meta, since you need to be out of combat to be able to rally and a lot of times you’re going to end up locked in combat anyway.

Arcanite Cabal

All your Arcanite Wizards–Curseling, Tzaangor Shaman, both types of Magisters–get +1 to unbind and if an Arcanite wizard unbinds a spell, they can cast a spell via Magical Intervention without spending a command point. Playing against Tzeentch, Seraphon, Lumineth or Nagash? Pretty good. Otherwise, this ranges from okay to stone-dead in some matchups.

Changehost

Okay, so, get this: ONCE PER BATTLE you get to do a combat teleport:

Pick a Daemon unit that is in combat, roll a dice, and on a 3+ you remove that unit from the table and set it up anywhere else on the table…except you have to set back up in combat with the same unit(s).

Possibly the worst battle formation in the game? Just don’t take it, ever.

Enhancements

You’ve got three Heroic Traits, three Artefacts, and two Spell Lores (Fate and Change)–but in reality, you’ve only got one Trait and one Artefact that you’re ever going to take, and between the two Spell Lores you’re only ever going to take the Lore of Change.

Before I continue, be aware that for the most part this review is going to be Daemon focused–the tools and abilities present in the book REALLY incentivize you to go deep on Daemons synergy because while there are some cool tricks in the Arcanites side, they just aren’t as high value. So with that in mind, just know that generally speaking, the best heroes to carry the following enhancements are either a Lord of Change for Daemons, and the Curseling for Arcanites.

Heroic Trait: Illusionist

Any friendly units wholly within combat range of the traitee (traitor?) are -1 to be hit in both melee and shooting. This is a SPECTACULARLY powerful ability, since debuffs are the primary defensive tech that you have. Your whole army is squishy, relying almost exclusively on 5+ saves at best in most cases, with wards available for the Daemons in your army. As we’ll get into later, your only two real choices of Enhancements go together excellently with a Lord of Change, who is projecting that -1 to hit bubble on top of projecting ANOTHER -1 to hit bubble for your Daemons in melee wholly within 12″ of the Lord of Change–all on a large 100mm base.

Artefact: Nine-Eyed Tome

The bearer gets +1 to cast and banish, with the latter being one of the only sources of +1 to banish in the whole game. The other artefacts are straight garbage, requiring your hero to be in combat with another wizard to do some mortal damage and subtract 1 from casting rolls, or hand out the Burning keyword to enemy units hit in combat with the bearer’s weapons. Why would you ever use those instead of the casting bonus artefact in THE spell casting army?

Anyway, again strapping this to your Lord of Change–a Power Level (2) Wizard–and keeping him near Kairos means your Lord of Change is +2 to cast, +1 to unbind, and +1 to banish. For the Curseling–in the Arcanites-matter battle formation–he gets to +2 to cast, +2 to unbind, and +1 to banish. Don’t ever leave home without your book!

Spell Lore: Lore of Change

Okay, so before we begin, let’s remind ourselves on how Unlimited spells work: unless the spell itself says otherwise, an Unlimited Spell is just one that you can cast with any number of wizards–not cast it with the same one over and over.

This is important because between the Lore of Change and the Lore of Fate, Lore of Change has a great Unlimited Spell, and the Lore of Fate has a TERRIBLE Unlimited Spell. The Lore of Change gets the Bolt of Tzeentch, a Wyrdflame keyworded spell (which can apply Burning to a hit unit) that deals D3 mortal damage at 18″. Great!

The Lore of Fate’s Unlimited spell has you set aside any 6s in your Destiny Dice pool, then re-roll the rest of your dice–or add a destiny dice to your pool if you’ve spent all your dice already. Terrible.

From there, the differences just become more stark–the Lore of Change has Fold Reality, a teleport spell without combat range restrictions letting you teleport a friendly Disciples of Tzeentch unit wholly within 12″ of the caster and put them somewhere else. Most other teleports in the game require you to pick a unit that is not in combat, but Tzeentch is the true master of magic unlike some fat elderly toad or elf who gets high on his own farts.

The last spell in the Lore of Change is Turned Into Spawn, which is a 12″ spell that deals d3 mortal damage to the target, and if any models are slain by the spell you can add a Chaos Spawn to the table within combat range of the targeted unit. The big part here is that you don’t NEED the Chaos Spawn to cast the spell, since you are not required to use that part of the ability. Meaning, you just have a another damage spell on tap all at the same time.

If you’re curious what the other Lore of Fate spells are, it’s pretty straightforward: pick an enemy unit within 18″ and roll a number of dice equal to your Destiny Dice pool (with a minimum of four dice to roll if you just burn through your Destiny Dice), and for each 4+ you do a mortal damage, meaning 2-4 mortal damage on average. Yawn.

Lastly, you can pick a friendly unit wholly within 12″ and give it a 5+ ward, and have it be -1 to hit until the start of your next turn if you had four or more Destiny Dice when you cast it. Pretty good on a block of Tzaangors, not really good on much else, considering Daemons have a natural 6+ ward and have multiple ways of being -1 to hit without needing to cast a spell. The one HILARIOUS exception to this is that since the spell isn’t keyword bound, you can slap that 5+ ward and -1 to hit bubble onto a Mercenary Mega-Gargant.

With all of that out the way, let’s jump into Warscrolls! Starting off with what I think is the single best unit in the game:

Kairos Fateweaver

The Big K. The Twin-Headed Seer. Ultra Mega Chicken himself.

Kairos does it all. Decent combat profile, 12″ movement, 5+ ward, three cast wizard, Warmaster.

When he casts spells he changes the lowest die to match the highest die, letting you flip a 1 to a 1 on a miscast. He also has a wholly within 12″ bubble of +1 to cast AND unbinds to friendly Tzeentch wizards, getting you to +2 to cast on whomever is carrying the Nine-Eyed Tome. In most lists, that means you’re casting 5-7 spells a turn at +1 to cast at minimum, and +1 to unbind which is EXTREMELY rare in the game. That’s basically two Battle Traits right there!

His spell is ultra powerful too–and again, is probably the best spell in the game. It’s got a Casting Value of 8 (meaning you need at least one 4+ on his two dice) at 18″ with a single unit target, and if successful then until your next turn either:

1) That unit is -1 to hit and wound, or;
2) That unit is -1 to save, or;
3) That unit cannot issue/receive commands.

But that’s not all, because what pushes Kairos into WTF territory is his warscroll ability that–once per game when you go to select a tactic–lets you either:

A) Attempt a battle tactic that you’ve already attempted before, or;
B) Pick two tactics to attempt and only complete one of them at the end of the turn.

Your opponent left their backfield open? Pick Take Their Lands as a tactic, auto-teleport a unit with Destiny Dice into their backfield, and then on your turn again just pick that tactic again. Or Seize the Center. Or Take the Flanks. The longer you hold on to Kairos’s ability, the better it gets.

How he is currently 440 points when a Mawkrusha is 420 points melts my brain. He is so aggressively costed that he pushes Tzeentch straight into S-Tier, and unless you’re playing with your buds around the table drinking beers and playing loosey-goosey games, you have zero reason not to just windmill slam him into every Tzeentch list you make. Just don’t be like me use Magical Intervention twice only to miscast twice with Kairos on your opponent’s turn in the same game in back-to-back turns.

Which means you’ve got 1560 points of support to go with him, so where do we start? Like mentioned above, we’re going to split our choices into two categories–Daemons and Arcanites–and work our way from there.

But uh, spoilers, the Daemons are ludicrous. Arcanites are fine.

Daemons

General note about Daemons here: they all have a 6+ ward except for Kairos and the Lord of Change, who have 5+ wards. Additionally, the Changeling and the Changecaster can be taken as units in regiments led by Kairos, a Lord of Change, or either version of Gaunt Summoner.

Lord of Change

Just a regular Mega Chicken this time, but Lords of Change (referred to from now on as a LOC) are the best non-unique heroes in the army. They’re the best platform for enhancements and have a pretty good warscroll spell, letting you blast an enemy unit at 18″, rolling 9 dice and doing d3 mortal damage for each 6 you roll. It casts on a 7, but is really a 5 since the Lord of Change is almost always going to be nearby Kairos while carrying his favorite book which makes him a GREAT Power Level (2) Wizard. Comment below or on Twitter on what you think the Lord of Change is reading about in the Nine-Eyed Tome!

He also has his aforementioned 12″ wholly within bubble of -1 to hit in melee for friendly Daemons near him. With the Illusionist trait, that means the Lord of Change is -2 to hit in melee at all times, and boy can that series of debuffs make him excruciatingly annoying to kill–especially if your enemy’s units are all Burning and thus -1 to wound as well!

Also–trending with other Greater Daemons in other Chaos armies–the LOC lets you bring back dead Daemon units at half-strength for the measly cost of a Destiny dice. Just chuck out a 1 and get back 10 Pink Horrors wholly within 12″ of the LOC, more than 9″ away from enemy units.

I wanted to leave weapon options for last, because talking about combat in this army is weird. For the most part, you’re not fighting your way out of things in Tzeentch, as the entire army hits on 4s–except for the Changeling for some reason–and that’s especially true if you lean into Daemons. So you’ve got a choice–either you give the LOC a Staff which grants him an 18″ shooting attacks with 2d6 shots at 3+/3+/-1/1 that has the Wyrdflame keyword (and thus can hand out Burning), or give him a bigass sword that gives him 4 attacks in melee at 4+/3/-2/3.

I recommend the sword, namely because you’re basically never going to waste command points on tickle-fighting things with Horrors, and stacking debuffs can make a LOC very hard to reliably kill in combat, so just slam Big Bird into melee and pop that All-Out Attack and watch him chop things to death.

The Changeling

The most annoying unit in the game to play against! He’s a relatively cheap two cast, unique wizard with a weird warscroll spell that almost never gets cast in lieu of casting Bolts of Tzeentch or Endless Spells. He has a pretty cool deployment phase ability that you re-deploy him anywhere on the battlefield more than 3″ from enemy units. You can definitely use him to aggresively put Soulsnare Shackles in your opponent’s face, but most of the time you’re better off keeping him in the castle with the rest of your wizards.

Big shout out to him acting like a Wizard assassin though–3A/3+/3+/-1/D3 is SUPER useful sometimes when you’re teleporting him in your opponent’s backfield and harassing support heroes.

Changecaster

A 1 cast wizard that lets you rally Daemons with 3 extra dice and gives friendly Daemons +1 to hit in combat against Burning enemy units within 12″ of him. Now your Horrors hit in on 3+! Meh.

Gaunt Summoner With/Without Disc

Another pair of good, non-unique two-cast wizards who unfortunately cost too much for what you get. The flying one moves 14″ which is pretty cool, while the one on foot moves a paltry 5″. Their schtick is that during deployment you can put a friendly unit–not a Tzeentch unit, just any unit–into reserves and during the game you can set them up wholly within 12″ of the Gaunt and more than 9″ from enemy units (or wholly within 18″ and more than 7″ if you get the foot Gaunt’s warscroll spell off). Nifty with a block of 20 Tzaangors, and hilarious with a Mercenary Mega-Gargant. Otherwise you’re going to have a hard time justifying their cost.

Fateskimmer, Herald of Tzeentch

A flying WAR MACHINE, Power Level (1) wizard hero that flies fast, has middling shooting, and two warscroll abilities that interact with Burning:

1) In your movement phase you can pick an enemy unit that it moved over and give it the Burning keyword, and;
2) At the end of any turn you can pick up to 3 Burning enemy units within 12″ of him and inflict 1 mortal damage on them.

That last one isn’t restricted, by the way, so I’m sure there’s a hilarious build out there where you take five Fateskimmers and as many Burning Chariots as possible and just do an absolute fuckload of mortal damage the end of each turn to your opponent’s whole army. Otherwise, pass.

The Pink Horror, the Blue Horror, the Brimstone Horror

Gone are the days where 10 Pinks = 50 wounds! Thank god.

Instead, Pinks and Blues are now, well and truly, completely separated units. Pinks come in units of 10 at two wounds each, while Blues come in units of 10 at 1 wound each. Brims can’t be taken directly, and instead pop out of Blues. Their shooting and melee profiles are all basically the same, with the shooting being a decent 2 shots each at 12″ at 4+/4+/-/1, getting better with Kairos’s Warscroll spell or a nearby Purple Sun. Their shooting also has the Wyrdflame keyword, so they are great choices for Covering Fire if you need to hand out Burning to something about to charge them.

The big difference between them is their application:

A) Pink Horrors have a warscroll ability that each slain Pink Horror lets you either put back two SLAIN Blue models to a nearby Blue Horrors unit, or roll a dice and on a 4+ do a Mortal Damage to an enemy unit in combat with that Pink Horror Unit.
B) Blue Horrors have the potential to split when they die–basically, every time a Blue Horror is slain, you roll a dice FOR THAT MODEL and on a 3+ it turns into a Brimstone Horror. Otherwise, that Blue is just slain and removed like normal.

A reinforced block of Pink Horrors is 40 wounds that is usually -1 to hit and -1 to wound thanks to Wyrdflame Host, meaning it is FRUSTRATING to kill most of the time. Blues, meanwhile, have to get killed to the wound in most cases, because if you don’t and any Pink Horrors die nearby to them, the Blues get to return models, and you can end up with 20 Blue Horrors and 20 Brimstone horrors out of a unit that started with just 20 Blues to begin with.

Paired with the Lord of Change being able to put half of each unit back after they die, and you’ve got two VERY good units.

Flamers of Tzeentch

Super cheap mobile shooting platforms that can hand out Burning from their 3-shot shooting attacks. They have Wyrdflame shots that are anti-infantry, get +1 to wound in shooting when aiming at Burning units, and a unit of 6 aiming at a Burning target has 19 shots at 12″ with a profile of 3+/3+/-/d3 damage. With Kairos’s Warscroll spell (see a recurring theme?) or a Purple Sun (or both, because of course you’re taking Morbid Conjuration) you can get up to Rend -3 with these shots aiming at infantry, or Rend -2 against everything else. They’re overall pretty good, and a strong contender in any list given that they move 9″.

Exalted Flamer of Tzeentch

Basically a singleton Flamer that gets one extra shot and can once per turn (army) let you pick a Flamer unit nearby and give it crit 2 hits… on a 3+ roll. Costs 10 points more than an actual unit of Flamers. Bad, don’t take it.

Burning Chariot of Tzeentch

Does what the Fateskimmer does, handing out Burning to anything it flew over, but isn’t a Wizard, doesn’t pulse out burning damage to other units, and still has a middling shooting/melee profile for WAY too many points. Pass, unless you think it’s cool looking, then definitely play it!

Screamers of Tzeentch (Beast)

These little guys are great tactics monkeys (mantas?) for a low cost given that they move 14″. They do mortals when they fly over an enemy unit on 4+s, they’re not terrible in combat–I love them, personally, and they are my pet unit.

Chaos Spawn of Tzeentch (Beast)

Okay, look, here’s the deal with the Chaos Spawn of Tzeentch. The only way you can EVER get it on the battlefield is if you used the Turned to Spawn Spell and… well, turn something into Spawn. Otherwise, it just hangs out in Reserves forever. At a current 60 points, it’s cheap, but it’s still a tax. I think it’s a fine pick for casual play, but not really for competitive play.

Daemons: Overall Thoughts

Overall, the Daemon side of Tzeentch is BONKERS with how good it is, and if I were to play Tzeentch in any event with the intention of doing well in it, I’d windmill slam Daemons all day.

Arcanites

With that being said, let’s take a look at the Arcanites:

Battle Profile note: The Curseling, Ogroid Thaumaturge, and the Magister on Foot can be taken as a unit in a Regiment led by either a Tzaangor Shaman or a Magister on Disc.

The Curseling

The star of the show for Arcanites, and the only Power Level (2) wizard in the lot, with a funny warcroll spell that adds +1 rend and damage to his attacks, which can bring him up to 5A/4+/4+/-2/3 each. Also has a shooting attack with Wyrdflame attached, but it’s nothing to write home about.

Besides being the only two cast wizard for Arcanites, he has a pretty nifty ability that lets you roll a dice every time he unbinds a spell, and on a 4+ that enemy wizard whose spell was unbound loses a Power Level until the beginning of your next turn. What this means is if you unbind a two cast wizard’s first spell, they go to Power Level (1) and since they’ve already cast a spell that turn, they can’t cast anymore.

If you’re taking the Arcanite Cabal, he’s a slam dunk choice. Otherwise he’s still pretty good, but a bit expensive compared to other options.

Magister With/Without Disc

Boy oh boy, if you want an ARMY of cheap Wizards to cast Bolt of Tzeentch, the Magister on foot is your ticket–because that’s basically all he’s good for. Both magisters have an ability where they can add 1 to their power level after successfully casting a spell, but if they roll doubles on their next casting roll the spell fails and they take D6 mortal damage. The REAL benefit to this ability is you can cast a spell and then use the extra power level to attempt to banish something.

The Magister on Disc however has a neat ability that lets friendly units riding Discs of Tzeentch run and still charge while they are within the Magister’s combat range, which is cool but only really has any application on Tzaangor Enlightened on Discs of Tzeentch, since every other unit on a Disc is just not good at melee. Overall he’s a skip, because Enlightened on Disc already move 14″, and there’s a much better choice anyway in the Tzaangor Shaman.

Tzaangor Shaman on Disc

If you’re running Tzaangors on foot, you need at least one of these guys. He’s a flying, 14″ movement wizard with Power Level (1) and two really critical support abilities for Tzaangors on foot:

1) In your hero phase the Shaman can pick a non-flying Warflock unit–meaning Tzaangors or Tzaangor Enlightened on foot–and a on 3+ dice roll they get to run and shoot and/or charge later in that turn. This is implying–by the way–that there are foot Tzaangors coming in the future who can shoot, because right now the only shooting Warflock unit is the Tzaangor Skyfires.

2) At the end of any turn you can pick an enemy unit within 12″ of the shaman that is in combat with a friendly Tzaangors unit and roll a d3–on a 2+, you do that much mortal damage to the enemy unit and return that many slain models to that Tzaangors unit. Bonus points for not having the (Army) tag so you can keep doing this over and over with however many Tzaangor Shamans you bring!

If the idea of blocks of Tzaangors on foot strikes your fancy, you really can’t go wrong with 1-2 flying chicken shamans.

Ogroid Thaumaturge

It’s an Ogor that can cast one spell, hand out Burning to an enemy unit that is punched in combat, and hits better if it’s been wounded, but there aren’t any good ways to really make him dangerous in any capacity since he still has to–y’know–get to the opponent. Pass.

Kairic Acolytes

Do you need a cheap screen unit in your Arcanites army that shoots and does mild amounts of damage? Here you go!

With 18″ shots (but only 1 shot/model), and the option of taking 2 damage weapons for every 3/10 models in the unit, these aren’t the WORST unit in the book, but they’re outshone by most other choices out there.

On that note, I do want to mention something about 4th edition and screens–namely that screens just aren’t good anymore. Random damage output is just too high now to throw away 100 points on, since unreinforced units just die arbitrarily now to most things in the game. I’m a big believer that if you’re taking a unit, either you reinforce it if it’s slow or your hammer, or run MSU if it’s cheap enough to run around the battlefield scoring tactics for the rest of your army.

Tzaangors

The meat of an Arcanite army, coming in blocks of ten with 2 wounds each and the full command model suite. These bad boys can put out a LOT of damage when things go right, and with 40 wounds in a reinforced block it takes a while to kill them even when they aren’t being backed up by a Tzaangor Shaman. They have a really neat ability that gives them Crit (2 Hits) when they are wholly within enemy territory, which ranges somewhere from super useful to absolutely useless depending on the terrain map.

For what you pay, you can get a whole lot of bird and just really stack the battlefield with bodies of the chicken variety.

Tzaangor Enlightened (On Foot)

They cost under 100 points, and that’s the only positive I can say for them. Their combat profile sucks, they have ZERO board presence, and their ability to turn off commands only works when they charge and only if you roll a 3+ to do it. Hard pass, never take them.

Tzaangor Enlightened on Disc

They’re flying Enlightened that cost twice as much, move three times as fast, gain two Companion attacks each, and have a nifty ability that gives them Charge (+1 Damage) on turns when you’re going second in a round or if you’re the underdog. The big draw to the Disc cavalry is that they have 4+ saves, meaning that killing them requires at least some effort unlike the rest of your Arcanite troops. While they’re pretty good, combat for Tzeentch really isn’t a big deal, and they don’t hit THAT hard. But still, for their points you can do much worse, and they’re quite good at harassing enemy support pieces.

Tzaangor Skyfires

Mobile shooting Tzaangors! They’ve got a pretty solid 18″ shooting profile, being 2A/4+/3+/-1/D3, so a reinforce unit of 6 comes with 13 shots each turn. What really pushes them over the edge, though, is their two abilities:

A) You can pick an enemy unit damaged by the Skyfires shots, and for the rest of the turn all your other Tzaangor units get +1 to hit against that enemy–which is pretty cool, but the real sauce is the second ability;

B) They ignore negative modifiers to hit and wound rolls for their shooting attacks!

Covering fire -1 to hit? Nope. Shining company giving out -1 to hit? They’ve got shades. -1 to wound from opposing Wyrdflame Host armies? Don’t give a shit.

This makes a unit of six a GREAT pick for Priority Target, since it means they are ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS hitting on 3+ and wounding on 2+ vs whatever is in your enemy general’s regiment. A unit of 6 is so good it’s usually the one non-Daemon unit you take in a Daemon army.

Jade Obelisk

These guys are the one exception to the “screens are bad” rule out there, and it’s exclusively because of their Stone-cursed Resolve ability which lets them ignore all modifiers to their save rolls, which turns every attack against them into a coin flip. It’s possible that this unit of ten just refuses to die sometimes, tying up significantly more expensive units than themselves for far longer than an opponent would want to. If you’re looking for a cheap unit to score Seize the Center T1 with, these are it.

Arcanites: Overall Thoughts

The best that I can say about Arcanites–outside of Skyfires–is that they are interesting. Do I think they’re effective? Not really. Could they be fun to take to an event? Absolutely! The army doesn’t really have any bad warscrolls in it, except for Tzaangor Enlightened who are possibly the worst unit in the game. I genuinely don’t know how cheap you’d have to make them to ever justify taking them.

Skyfires, meanwhile, are All-Stars. I’m SUPER high on them personally, having played with and against them several times now. A unit of 6 is just too much value to pass up.

We do have one last set of Warscrolls to through before we wrap up, and that’s Manifestations!

Manifestations

Burning Sigil of Tzeentch (CV 5)

This is a static manifestation that gets set up wholly within 12″ of the caster, and in each movement phase you roll two dice for each unit (enemy AND friendly) within 9″ of the Sigil and pick one result:

1-2 = Nothing happens.
3 = -2 to movement characteristic
4 = -1 to hit
5 = -1 to wound
6 = D3 mortal damage and +1 attacks to melee weapons

This is a great choice to cast via Magical Intervention from a Changeling that you’ve forward deployed, or if your opponent has moved up their army within 21″ (12″ casting range + 9″ bubble) of your wizards. You’re basically fishing for 6s a lot of the times if there’s sufficient distance between your enemy and you, but any of the other debuffs are just always going to be good.

Funny interaction: Companion weapons don’t get buffs from friendly abilities… but they can get buffs from enemy abilities! So think real hard before letting those Squig Herd near the Sigil get extra attacks!

Daemon Simulacrum (CV 7)

A predatory endless spell with the class “must be set up wholly within 12″ of the caster and more than 9″ away from enemy units.” To be honest, this is just a bad version of Gnashing Jaws, with only 4 attacks that have Anti-Wizard and an ability that gives them extra damage on its attacks for each Power Level a wizard has while its attacks target a wizard. It gets real funny when you target Teclis with it, and downright hysterical when you fight Nagash with it, but otherwise you’re probably only ever casting this if you run out of other things to do.

“Alright, that’s three saves on your Nagash.”
“Looks like I failed all three, how much damage?”
“That’s uh, 27 + 3d3 damage.”
“What the fuck?“

Tome of Eyes (CV 5)

Another static manifestation, but this time it’s something you WANT near your own units, particularly your wizards. Every time a wizard within combat range of the Tome casts a spell, that Wizard can add 1 or 2 to the casting roll. If they do, you roll dice equal to the amount added to the casting roll and for each 1-2 rolled, you allocate 1 damage straight to the caster, causing the spell to fail if the Wizard dies. Heads up–damage allocation is AFTER ward rolls, so be careful.

Ah, who am I kidding, why be careful when you can go BIG on spells! Imagine a whole casting phase with everyone getting to add somewhere between 1-4 to their casting rolls!

Real talk though, while cool, this is a Manifestation that loves loves loves being in other Factions via the Tzeentchian Regiment of Reknown, which we’ll be talking about in a future article.

Thoughts on Tzeentch Manifestations

Look, it’s a tough sell to not take the Morbid Conjuration Lore, but 2/3 of these manifestations have solid applications, and you won’t be remiss taking them. That said, in any serious competitive environments, just take Morbid Conjuration. (Boy I can’t wait until I don’t need to say that anymore.)

Closing Thoughts

This index rules. Personally, the army feels STRONG without being overbearing, and in my opinion it’s hands down the best index GW produced out the gate. Lumineth feels absurd with all the free shit they get with no drawbacks, and Nighthaunt is Nighthaunt–if you want to turn vast parts of your brain off because you don’t want to have to seriously think through your plays, go with either of those two armies.

But if you want to feel like a master manipulator and live out your biggest puppet master dreams and really pull your opponents apart bit-by-bit, this is the army for you.

Just don’t roll as many miscasts as me, please.

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