Great news for Age of Simar Tzeentch Daemon players. New Age of Sigmar Battle Tome, Battle Tome: Desciples of Tzeentch has been released.
With new units for the followes of Tzeentch, new Allegiance Abilities, Battle Traits, Warband Tables, and a full set of Pitched Battles Prifes and points for the more seriouse gamer.
The Tzeentch Lord of Change is the post potent of the Tzeentch Daemon Lords. However the Lord of Change skills is not in close combat, but through the the manipulation of magic.
The Lord of Change makes for a natural general if you are fielding a Tzeentch army. His command ability ‘Beacon of Sorcery’ means that Tzeentch Daemon Wizards in the area ( including himself) can cast and dispel spells easier with a +1 bonus. This bonus can be used in conjunction with other bonuses like familiars and Arcane Ruins. Think about this for a moment. Spell casting on 2d6 means that the lowest roll is 2, plus 1 for a familiar, plus 1 for arcane ruins, plus 1 for the Lord of Change’s skills, means that the Tzeentch wizards will automatically pass difficulty 5 spells and difficulty 10 spells will pass most of the time.
The Lord of Change can fly too. This gives him a 10″ move. You can use this range to cast the Lord of Change’s influences where it is needed most, and gives him a good chance to run away if he is threatened by larger forces.
Apart from the Lord of Change’s Command ability, he is also a powerful wizard in his own right. The Lord of Change can cast two spells in his turn and dispel two spells too. By default Change has fault the Lord the two basic spells plus his own signature spell ‘Infernal Gateway’. I say by default because the Lord of Change has a chance to steal spells that he unbinds.
In the abilities section we see that the Lord of Change can steal spells. Be aware that ‘stealing’ is not the right word as the original caster does not loose the spell taken, so plagiarising the spells may be more accurate!
What happens is that if the Lord of Change dispels a spell on a roll of 9+ ( after modifications) then he learns that spell and can use it later in the game. A roll of 9+ is usually well above average so it should not happen often, however if he evoked his command ability ‘Beacon of Sorcery’ in his last command phase then you get a +1 to dispel rolls. In addition if you can get any other bonuses to the roll that will help too.
In addition to the bonuses the Lord of change has an extra card up his sleeve, his ‘Mastery of Magic’ ability means that you can change the lower dice roll to match the higher one. So if you roll a 2 and a 6 you can change the 2 and have a double 6! This means that you have a 27 in 36 chance ( 75% ) of rolling 8+.
This ability to take use wizards spells may affect with spells your opponent uses. If he uses mystic shield or other spells that affect his own troops then you will not get a chance to steal it. If he uses Arcane Bolts on you then you have this spell already so no change there. And lastly, if he uses spells over 18″ away from your Lord of Change, then you will not be able to steal those either.
At the moment you can only buy the Tzeentch Lord of Change from the Games Workshop website.
Also buy: Discount Archeon Models from Wayland Games
“It was hidiouse! Truely hidiouse! Out of the darken clouds this creature if true evil dived down apon us, and riding this hell creature named Dorghar was Archaeon himself!
Archaeon did not waver, he struck for the General and his retenue. A roar rippled through the Chaos ranks, and the Chaos Heroes where energised with an unholy fevor.
Even befor the cry had died down Archaeon was smashing though the Silver Helms ranks. There was an Archmage on a Dragon. We thougt that it would be more than a match for Archaeon, but with a swipe of his sword the dragon’s head was lost, and with a snap of jaws Droghar took the mage. I swear Draghars head glowed!
I’m just glad Archaeon is on our side! Now pass that meade.”
Archaon’s warscroll comes with half s page of special rules. My top tip is to make sure that you know them all. The best way to do this is to set up a few models and roll the dice to see what happens!
Archaon only has 1 weapon, The Slayer ok Kings, however it is a moster killing weapon. With 4 attacks hitting on 2+ and wounding on 3+, you should be getting 2 wounds in each combat turn with 3 Damage with each unsaved wounds Archaon can mess up enemy units without assistance. However The Slayer does have another trick. If you focuson killing just the one Hero or Monster, and you roll two or more 6’s to wound, the target is slain instantly. They don’t even get a save of any type.
The Daemon Dorghar has a number of attacks using his claws, tail, and three snarling, gnashing heads. At best this gives Dorghar 20 attacks per combat round.
Azan the Arcane and Herald of Tzeentch gazed over the green skin horde menacingly. “You will know the power of Tzeentch today and kneel before your new god!” With that Azan bellowed his incantation and a host of Tzeentch daemons materialised in response to his call!
The Herald of Tzeentch is a Daemon, Hero, Wizard. He has access to the two basic spells and his own ‘Blue Fire of Tzeentch’ too.His close combat skills are not great, but he does get a shooting attack using ‘Magical Flames’. The other main feature is that the Herald of Tzeentch is riding a Disc of Tzeentch. This means that he has great speed and the fly special rule. This in turn means that you can zip him around the gaming table offering magical support where ever you need it.
Games Workshop have recently recreated the Herald of Tzeentch model, and I have to say that they have done an excellent job! The detail of the new model is stunning and makes for a worthy figure head for a daemon army.
When building the model there are areas that are visible but hard to paint once the model has been created. This means that you will want to build the disc and figure as separate sections, paint each section individually and then glue them together.
The Herald of Tzeentch model is detailed and very delicate. Be aware that you will want a quality storage case. This is specially true if you are playing games away from home and need to carry your models to games.
If you have one or more Chaos wizards in your army then have the ability to summon up a Herald of Tzeentch as their spell for that round.
The summon spell for a Herald of Tzeentch has a casting value of 5. This means that it is fairly easy to do and you can expect it to go off most of the time.
The Herald of Tzeentch can ride a burning chariot. This gives the Herald the fly special rule and 14″ a turn moment around the gaming table. The downside of this is that you may find it difficult to have a unit keep up with him as a bodyguard. There are stable units in the Chaos Daemons army if you want to organise bodyguards. Screamers of Tzeentch fill this role nicely. Otherwise have your Herald jump from unit to unit so that there is always some support to hand.
Riding on a Burning Chariot gives you an extra attack called ‘Wake of Fire’. This attack comes in your movement phase. If you pass over one or more enemy units you can select one of these units and on a roll of 4+ you inflict D3 mortal wounds. Be careful when you plan your move. You want to make sure that you finish your move somewhere safe.
Notice that the Herald of Tzeentch on a Burning Chariot has a casting value of 9. This means that summoning the Herald will be much more difficult so you may want to start the game with the Herald on the table.
The Screamers of Tzeentch pulling the get the Sky Shark special rule that regular Screamers of Tzeentch get,and as there are 2 Screamers you get 6 attacks. Note that they do not get the Skyshark special rule as this attack has been replaced by the ‘Wake of Fire’ special rule.
In this post we will have a look at Gaunt Summoner of Tzeentch and how to use him in the Age of Sigmar games.
A Gaunt Summoner of Tzeentch is a figure head character for the Tzeentch Chaos Daemons army. You can find his stats in the Chaos Everchosen section. This is not a named character so it could be reasonable to have several Gaunt Summoners in your army.
The Gaunt Summoner is a great figurehead model to lead a Chaos Daemon army. It’s not only a great model but has some useful powers too. However if you try to build the model and then paint it you will find that there are sections that you can see but not reach with a paintbrush. The best option is to build the Gaunt figure and disc separately, paint each section and then glue the two sections together.
The main special rule that a Gaunt Summoner has is that they can summon up extra units of Daemons to enter the fight. They can do this in two ways. The first is to use one or two of the spells they can cast in the hero phase, and the other is by been near a Realm Gate in the movement phase.
Summoning units in the hero phase with magic for a Gaunt works exactly the same way as any Daemon Wizard can summon up further units except that the Gaunt gets two spells a turn. So I will cover that option with each unit that can be summoned and concentrate on the Realm Gate special rule here.
The Book of Profane Secrets states that a Gaunt needs to be within 9″ of a Realm Gate at the start of the movement phases to summon a unit. So the first point to notice is that you need a Realm Gate on the table to start with! Now Realm Gates cannot be summoned so you will want to have one or more on the table at the start of the game. If you do not have a Realm Gate then the usefulness of the Gaunt is reduced but is still a useful magic user.
On the expedition that there is a Realm Gate in play, the next objective is to get you Gaunt within 9″ of it. This may be a challenge if your opponent knows what you want to do and if the gate is towards the centre of the table like it should be. In this case expect your opponent to throw everything at the gate to stop you bringing in extra forces. Also notice that to bring re enforcements you need to be near the Realm Gate by the start of the movement phases, so a full turn will pass from reaching the Gate and being able to summon support. Expect your opponent to use this interval to remove you from the Realm Gate.
Summoning a monster like the Soul Grinder can really spoil your opponents plans!
Ok, so you managed to get to the Realm Gate and stay there long enough to summon up support; who are you going to summon? Well for starters you can summon any ‘Daemon ‘ unit. This can be any Daemon unit and not just a Tzeentch one. This means that you can summon anything from another Gaunt Summoner to a Soul Grinder! What’s more there’s no upper size on the unit that arrives so units with no upper size on their warscrolls can arrive en mass!
Do remember that you do need to have the models that you want to summon. This means that you may want to think about your army composition when you are looking for new models to add to you army.
Yes!
Arriving through the Realm Gate counts as the units move phase, so if they arrive within 12″ of an enemy unit they can attempt to charge in the assault phase. The Book of Profane Secrets special rule says that a summoned unit can not arrive closer than 9″ of a enemy unit, so you have a chance to arrive and charge in the same turn.
Please note that the chance of completing a 9″ charge on a roll of 2D6 is small (8 in 36 Chance = 2/9 or 22.22% ). However it is great to get your own back for all the attacks suffered while waiting for the Summoning to work!
What the Gaunt Summoner gains in magic it looses in assault. Ok, they are flying on a disc of Tzeentch which gives them 4+ save most of the time, and the ‘Warptongue Blade’ may get a lucky strike against heavenly armoured characters, but I recommend avoiding close combat at all costs!
The Gaunt Summoner has a shooting attack from it’s Changestaff. This has one attack with average chance of hitting and wounding, but at least you get D3 wounds if you do cause wounds. Also as the Changestaff is a 18″ range so you can fire off bolts from behind a bodyguard unit!
The Screamers of Tzeentch are the fast flanking units of the Tzeentch army. They are designed to swoop around the flanks and attack the weak spots in the enemy army.
Screamers of Tzeentch come in small units ( usually ). This means that you will need to pick your targets carefully. If you take on too large a unit then they will just walk over, or squash your Screamers.
The Screamer are fast. They can move around the table at 16″ a turn and can fly over obstacles. This is 3 times faster than most foot troops, so if you are in a tight spot you should be able to fly away.
Screamers have a Bravery score of 10. This should mean that they hang around during the battleshock phase. Having 3 wounds per model helps too. Just be careful of the 5+ save. Keep in cover when you can to increase the Screamers survivability.
The Screamers of Tzeentch has a ‘Sky Sharks’ special rule. This rule gives the Screamers D3 damage for each unsaved wound against Monsters. This gives the Screamers a mission – ‘Kill the Big Things’.
The Screamers of Tzeentch have a special rule ‘Slashing Fins’. This allows you to have extra attacks on a unit that the Screamers fly over during the movement phase. The trick here is to start and finish far enough away from danger if you end the turn too close to the enemy then you risk a counter attack. The Slashing Fin attacks can be used to take wounds off a target unit (Monster?) that you plan to assault in the assault phase.
If your Screamers of Tzeentch is within 9″ of a horror hero them the screamers are harder to hit. Note that any model from the unit of screamers needs to be in range, so if you create a Congo line of screamers then you can extend the range the screamers can reach.
I often have the screamers providing a bodyguard for a Herald of Tzeentch on a burning
If you have a Chaos Wizard on the table they can use one of their magic spells slots to summon a unit of Screamers. The summoning spell has a casting value of 6. This means that it will go off most of the time, but if you can improve you odds by being near a Chaos Familiar or Arcane Ruin, then you should.
The Pink Horrors of Tzeentch are the food solders of the Tzeentch. As you would expect from any Tzeentch unit they are not great at hand to hand combat but they do have some sneaky tricks up their sleeves.
Pink Horrors are fairly average where it comes to speed, wounds (1), and saves (5+). Pink Horrors do have a high bravery score (10), so they should not be running away too often!
The Pink Horrors main weapon is a shooting attack called Magic Flames. Magic Flames has an 18″ range. This means that you can stand back and if possible keep a close combat unit between the Pink Horrors and the enemy. When you do unleash the Magical flames they can be devastating. They have an 4+, 4+, (25%) chance of wounding, and cause 1 wound each, but you do get 10 to 20 shots per unit.
The Pink Horrors have an additional special rule that if there are 20+ of them then they all hit on 3+. Units of 20+ are large numbers for small games, but for larger games it’s well worth considering.
The unit of Pink Horrors can cast one spell and unbind one per turn. That means one spell for the whole unit. You do not get one spell per model. That would just be too much!
Pink Horrors get the usual Mystic Shield and Arcane Bolt spell by default. The good bit is that *any* of the models in the unit can cast the spell. This gives you the chance to spread out and spread your options.
The Iridescent Horror, Icon Bearer, and Hornblower collectively are known as the command group. You need to have an Iridescent Horror lead the unit, but the Icon Bearer and Hornblower are optional.
If you have a Chaos Wizard on the board, and a squad of Pink Horrors in the wings, then you the Chaos Wizard can attempt to summon the Pink Horrors. Summoning is a spell and the Wizard can attempt to cast it in the Hero Phase as usual. The Casting Value is 6, so should happen slightly over half of the time. If you can improve your odds where you can. Being near an Arcane Ruin will help, so do familiars
Blue Horrors of Tzeentch have been in the Warhammer Fantasy Battles universe for some time, but as Games Workshop stopped making Blue Horror models, they have dropped out of favour. That is until now. With the release of the Warhammer Silver Tower board game Blue Horrors have come back in to the spot light. You still can not buy Blue Horrors on their own officially, but you may find sellers on eBay that split up the Silver Tower game to sell off Blue Horror models. Hopefully GW will do boxes of Blue and Brimstone Horrors after the sales of the Silver Tower has quietened down.
When a Pink Horror dies (but not when they run away in the Battleshock phase), and if you have some Blue Horror models, then you can replace the dead Pink Horror with two Blue Horror models.
Blue Horrors have similar flaming shooting attacks that the Pink Horrors do. The difference is that the range is shorter at 14″. This means for the best effect you want to place the Blue Horrors in front of the Pink Horrors.
Blue Horrors do not have magic and are not wizards. As the Blue Horrors are ‘free’, thin is no great loss!
Brimstone Horrors of Tzeentch seem to be new Tzeentch horrors that have been added with the Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower board game. Because of this the only place you can get these models is in the Silver Tower game. However there are sellers on eBay that have split the box set and are selling Tzeentch Horrors separately .
Blue Horrors get two attacks with Magic Flames per turn, but do not get too excited, the chance of wounding is low (5 to hit, 5 to wound).
The Blue Scribes of Tzeentch are one of those trick options that you can add to your army that shows that Tzeentch is not only the god of lies and deceit, but is also a prankster! In this section we will look at how to use Blue Scribes in a Age of Sigmar game and the tactics you can use.
“Oooh”, “arrr!” as the scribes watched the brilliant green firework show emitted from the Orruk Shaman’s eyes “I want that one!” P’tarix shouted with glee as he furiously scribbled on a new page. “Let me have a go!” Xirat’p exclaimed looking over his twins shoulder. All of a sudden another florescent green firework display emitted from Xirat’p fingers catching the Orruk Shaman and a couple of other Orruk units by complete surprise.
The Blue Scribes of Tzeentch is a model with two blue horrors on a disk of Tzeentch. They can fly, they are Daemon Horror Heroes, and they are Wizards.
It is easiest to start with what not to do with Blue Scribes, and that is close combat. Do not get in a fight with these guys if you can help it! What they are good at is magic, and what they are brilliant at is making other wizards in your army much more powerful!
Blue Scribes of Tzeentch are fast! They have a basic 16″ move, and because they fly they can leap over units and obstacles. Use this to keep your Blue Scribes out of trouble, and in the right place to support your other wizards.
OK, the good stuff! The Blue Scribes are wizards and can cast and dispel as usual. They also have a neat signature spell that I will go through later. However that is not the really trickery part of this models abilities ( yes really!). It best feature of the Blue Scribes is that they can learn spells from the Wizards around them! And YES that is FRIEND OR FOE! These guys vacuum up spells like I don’t know what, working really really hard!
Each time a Wizard successfully casts a spell ( ie rolls high enough) within 18″ of the Scribes, you get to roll a dice. On a 4+ the Blue Scribes learn that spell and can use it in their Hero Phase for the rest of the battle. As you are within 18″ you can then attempt to dispel the opponents spell.
Remember that the Blue Scribe can only cast one spell per Hero phase. This ability just means that you have a wider choice of spells to choose from.
Chaos Demon Soul Grinder
OK, if you think that the Frantic Scribbling was Chaos enough, the Blue Scribes have another trick up their sleeves. This ability allows the to cast one spell per game on a 2+ regardless of the spell difficulty. In addition to this, this casting can only be dispelled on a roll of 9+ on 2D6 ( plus any dispel bonus ).
As this spell is almost certain to go off, use it for something big. Like summoning a Soul Grinder (difficulty 10), and if you are doing something big you may as well do it early in the battle too!
Games Workshop do not sell an official Blue Scribes of Tzeentch model at the moment, however if you but the Herald of Tzeentch model, there are enough bits inside to create a Herald of Tzeentch, a Exalted Flamer of Tzeentch, and The Blue Scribes too! You will need to find bases for the Exalted Flamer and Blue Scribes separately, but it can be done with very little modelling skills.
A Chaos Prince makes for a great Cohort of Tzeentch leader.
The Daemon Prince ErfAn stepped out of the mist and on to solid ground. Sniffing the air ErfAn thought to himself “Yes this will be a good place to wave mischief for the Lord of Fate”. Letting out a blood curdling cry he called forth the Daemon Cohort of Tzeentch. In reply Tzeentch Daemons came flooding through from the mists behind him. “Yes the presence of Tzeentch is strong here. We will cause much mischief!”
The Daemon Cohort of Tzeentch is a Force Organization for Tzeentch in Age of Sigmar games. In this post we will have a look at the tactics you can use when playing a Cohort of Tzeentch organization.
You can find the rules for the Daemon Cohort of Tzeentch in the Age of Sigmar app available for Apple and Android devices. If you have an Apple or Android device I highly recommend installing this free app!
The Cohort of Tzeentch consists of heroes, troop units and fast units. Together they make up a useful core force that can be used in a Chaos Grand Alliance army.
Possible units for the Cohort Organization are:
In addition to the abilities that individual units have on their warscrolls, The Cohorts of Tzeentch units get two further abilities. Note that other Tzeentch units on the table that are not specifically with the Cohort do not get these abilities.
The power of Tzeentch is washing over the Cohort during the game. This allows each ‘Wizards’ unit in the Cohort to cast one extra spell in your hero phase. This means that most units will be casting two spells a turn.
Note that the Boon does not grant extra unbinding attempts Tis means most units will only be able to attempt one unbinding per enemies hero phase.
‘Just when you thought it was safe to get back in the water….’
The trickster Tzeentch strikes again! Just as the last model from the Cohort is removed you get a chance to set the whole organization back on the table again! Ok, there is only a 1 in 6 (16.666%) chance that this will happen, but the despair that this will cause in your opponent if it does happen will be priceless.
The Cohort of Tzeentch can be used as stand alone army or as a core or sub-set of a larger force. If you do use a Cohort of Tzeentch within a larger force make sure that your opponent can easily distinguish the Cohort units from other units in your army.
Regardless of the composition of your army, the main strength of the Cohort formation is magic. At least 5 unit from this force organization can cast spells, and each of these get to cast an extra spell in each of your hero phases. That is a lot of spells! As most spells have an 18″ range there is no need to rush on to hand to hand combat. For this reason I would recommend holding back as long as possible.
So what spells should you weave? Well if you have none cohort assault units, beef them up with Mystic Shield spells and send them in to the enemy. Otherwise summoning other Daemon units is always popular ( OK not popular with your opponents, but that’s the point!). If you are running a Cohort of Tzeentch as a stand alone army, blast the enemy forces with Arcane Bolts and the Herald’s Tzeentch’s Firestorm spell. The idea is to ‘soften up’ the enemy before they can get in assault with you. Once the enemy units have been decimated, use the Screamers and clean up!
