Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch
This is the general tactics page on how to play Tzeentch in Total War: WARHAMMER.
Why Play Tzeentch
- You love magic, and want every opportunity to cheese the FUCK out of it.
- The thing that appeals to you about Chaos are the strange, almost Lovecraftian creatures that swim around in it, and this is the best option for that.
- You want to act like everything is going Just As Planned, even when everything is going horribly, horribly wrong.
- You enjoy the hit and run style of the Wood Elves, but want to insert just a little bit of Chaos into the mix
Pros
- Magic: While you do only have 3 magic lores to pick from, you still look to be strong in the sense of just how many spells you will be able to pump out. The fact that you will have large magic pools, gain army spells are rewards for casting and the ability to pump up your magic on the campaign map will make you one of the most magic reliant armies in the game.
- Firepower: And not just because half of your projectiles are literal fire. You will likely be the best ranged faction not just of all the Monogod faction, but of all the Chaos factions in general! (Not that you'll really have much competition in that regard.)
- Fire: You will have it aplenty with Flammers and Horrors in your roster. Anything that is weak to fire is going to burn and burn hard.
- Air Game: You have flying Daemons, flying chariots, Lords of Change, discs that allow your lords and heroes to fly, and flying cavalry on Frisbees of doom. Point is, with all the flying shit you have you should have a good amount of air control.
- Survivability with Skill: Barrier helps keep your units alive in the face of destruction. If you are good at cycle charging and keeping the barrier alive, you can go through a battle taking minimal casualties.
- Trolling in Campaign: The shit that you can do in campaign is hilarious. From transferring settlements between factions, breaking alliances, forcing enemy factions to stop moving and forcing wars you can do so much fun meme shit that will make Warhammer's best troll proud.
- Doomstacks: patch 1.2 gave greater demons bound spells instead of being crappy spell casters, now all the monogod factions except khorne can get the up to 2 uses of their entire respective demonic spell lore as bounds spells for each greater demon they bring, this has made bring 17-19 of these in a doomstack by far the most overpowered army comp in campaign, Every single greater demon now provides like a hundred extra WOM worth of spells for free. once you can afford a pure stack of these there is basically no reason to use any other unit anymore. you can easily wipe 2-3 full enemy stacks and cheese your way through the endgame. ironically this means that in campaign Bloodthirsters went from being probably the best greater demon to the worst overnight. This applies equally to slaanesh, nurgle, and tzeentch but not khorne or legions of chaos.
Cons
- Limited Range: Describing your maximum effective range on most of your units as "spitting distance" wouldn't be out of place. You certainly have it better than factions with no/limited missile units, but factions like the Wood Elves, Skaven, Empire, Cathay and High Elves will generally be able to start wearing down your shields/health before you get close enough to return the favor.
- Magic and Fire resistance: If you're fighting an opponent who has Magic and/or Fire Resistance, you may be in trouble. With the rework to Magic Resistance this won't be the worst thing ever for your infantry, but the reduced spell damage will suck because you will have a massive mana pool that you'll dump on buffs, debuffs, and heals instead of shooting mind bullets.
- Micro Intensive: This is not an army for beginners. It encourages cycle charging and keeping out of an opponents range all without much in the way of a frontline. Though the rapidly recharging shields offer more wiggle room for errors than the likes of the Beastmen/Wood Elves, who are similarly squishy, it can still be very unforgiving when it comes to mistakes so play these guys at your own risk.
- "Friend" is another word for "backstabber": As with most of the daemonic factions, diplomacy is not your forte. While the Skaven are insane and duplicitous enough to consider working with you, the ogres who are willing to help you if you offer them anything shiny, and your mortal followers in the Beastmen, Warriors of Chaos, and Norsca are of course willing to help, you will not have too many options for diplomatic gestures beyond them.
- OP AF: You might be thinking to yourself "how the fuck is this a downside?" Well, remember when Vampire Healing was considered overpowered? Then the Ancient Salamander? Than the Vampire Coast? Then Greenskins? Then Skaven? Yeah, that's Barrier right now. Barrier is broken and pretty much negates your one weakness of being squishy and bad in melee. To be fair, the Game 1 and 2 races aren't playable yet so we don't know how Tzeentch stacks up to them, but compared to the game 3 factions you are the definitive #1. If you're a campaign player, expect nerfs to be coming your way and if you want to take the Changer into multiplayer expect everyone to hate you even if you just want to have fun.
- DLC: This is just a fair guess from the past. The mortal half of the army is very shallow and could use some fleshing out, something like Tzaangors can really help out with that. Expect units to be held back for future Lord Packs.
Faction Traits
- Barrier: You know how on the table top Tzeentch's mark typically gave an invulnerable save or +1 to an existing save? This is exactly that. A magical barrier that all Tzeentch units have. As long as some of the barrier is left, it will absorb the damage of anything that hits the unit. It's not too big, but it'll be enough to buy your troops some time to do what they need to do. It recharges when out of combat, so it encourages a hit and run ranged style of combat that Tzeentch loves. Make sure you keep it up because the vast majority of your units are squishy and won't take much of a beating from pretty much anything.
- Daemonic: Undead with extra steps, really. Once your daemonic units lose enough leadership, they'll begin to lose health and fade back into the Warp in the same vein that undead units crumble away. The good news is that even if your daemons are doomed to evaporate, they'll at least stick in and fight to the last model.
- The Eye of Tzeentch: As you cast spells a meter on the right hand side of the screen fills up, unlocking three different abilities at three tiers. This meter can fill up more than once, meaning that as long as you keep casting spells you can unlock these abilities pretty much endlessly.
- Arcane Surge: This is the first ability, granting an 80% Winds of Magic recharge for 14 seconds with a 60 second cooldown. This ability encourages you to spam lots of low cost spells like Pink Fire or Blue Fire so that you can fill the meter quickly and replenish your Winds.
- Bolt of Change: The second ability is essentially just a Doombolt from the Lore of Dark, only it applies a Sundered Armor effect. Can be cast anywhere on the battlefield and has a 90 second cooldown.
- Storm of Fire: The final tier unlocks a bombardment spell with a massive area of effect and plenty of armor piercing damage. Can also be cast anywhere on the map but has a 120 second cooldown
Lords
Legendary Lords
- Kairos Fateweaver: Kairos is one of the best magic users in the entire game. Every battle Kairos can pick spells from the other lores of magic on top of his Lore of Tzeentch. Stat wise he is actually pretty pathetic, being weaker than a normal Lord of Change in melee. He makes up for this by being very strong in casting, having Greater Arcane Conduit and a mixed spell lore in Multiplayer. With Regrowth in his multiplayer kit, he is going to be one of very few Non Nurgle Chaos characters with the ability to heal. He'll be the only flying monogod chaos legendary lord at launch. His Staff of Tomorrow allows him to reset the cooldown of his spells and his Gaze of Tzeentch allows him to root an enemy in place and allow your little friends below to burn them to pieces. He is a perfect example of Tzeentch's combat as a whole, strong with magic, but keep him the fuck out of melee.
Generic Lords
- Exalted Lord of Change: Budget Kairos. These guys are powerful spellcasters and come with the Lores of Metal and Tzeentch. One big advantage they have over Kairos is that they're significantly better in melee, with decent melee stats and AP damage. Now obviously a Bloodthister will still clap them if you're stupid enough to charge them in, but they can be used as flying flankers to back up an infantry engagement or a monster duel. You'll probably be mostly using them for spells though. Has a passive ability that reduces ability cooldowns whenever it's casting.
- Herald of Tzeentch: A wizard with ranged attacks, along with having some more support abilities for helping out units outside of magic. Compared to the Lord of Change he's weaker in terms of magic in exchange for having more buffs and supportive elements. He can be mounted on a Disk or a Burning Chariot. Get ready to see a lot of these guys in early campaign because you'll need to level them up and evolve them if you want to get your hands on an Exalted Lord of Change.
- Chaos Sorcerer Lord of Tzeentch (DLC): Your Mortal Lord in the Champions of Chaos DLC. Provides a much more heavily armored alternative to the Herald and with better melee in exchange for a lack of a missile attack. In multiplayer they can also summon spawn so they can be great for shutting down missiles or getting a surprise flank. Comes with magical attacks, the Lores of Tzeentch and Metal and is able to mount a Warhorse, Disk or Warshrine.
- Daemon Prince of Tzeentch (DLC): Comes with the Champions of Chaos DLC. Will be the magic focused Daemon Princes though the weakest in a pure melee fight. Will likely come with Lores of Tzeentch and Metal. While they're cool in campaign, in multiplayer they're way to expensive to be useful as everything from a Lord of Change to a Herald can do the same things they do for much cheaper.
Legendary Heroes
Generic Heroes
- Iridescent Horror: Budget version of the Herald, allowing you to take one for a Lord of Change army or for your Legendary Lord. They have some Loci abilities that allow them to buff troops in combat without using magic. Like the Herald they have ranged attacks. They come with the Lores of Metal and Tzeentch and can mount up on a Disk or a Burning Chariot. burning chariot ranged attack is very potent. have powerful winds regen as a locus skill.
- Cultist of Tzeentch: Your mortal hero and the only mage in your army that can use the Lore of Fire. The big reason to bring them is to summon more Daemons to the battlefield. In MP he can only summon a single unit of Pink Horrors but in campaign this can be upgraded to multiple Pink Horrors or even a Lord of Change. He'll get his ass cheeks handed to him by any decent melee fighter but makes up for it with spell casting and his Daemon summons. Can be mounted on a Chaos Steed for greater maneuverability and durability or a Tzeentch Chaos Shrine to buff up your spells.
- Chaos Sorcerer of Tzeentch (DLC): Marked Sorcerer hero for Tzeentch, coming with Lores of Metal and Tzeentch. It's pretty much a hero version of the Lord variant, down to the mounts and the lores. If you want a mage who might actually survive if the enemy decides to sneeze on them for half a second than this is going to be the mage for you.
Units
Infantry
- Blue Horrors of Tzeentch: Your chaff infantry, who the game considers to be melee units but who get a flaming range attack to pepper enemies from afar. The range attack is pretty pitiful, with only 5 ammo. Blue Horrors are meat shields for your Pink Horrors, meant to throw off some magic volleys then run in and die to hold for your more important troops. That said thanks to Barrier they can be a lot tougher than they seem, depending on how good your micro is and if you can cycle them out of harm's way long enough for the Barrier to replenish.
- Blue Horrors can function as a better frontline in certain situations than your Forsaken. Against AP-heavy ranged factions your Forsaken will be shot to pieces, rapidly thinning your front line due to the relatively small model count of Forsaken, and when they rout it’ll hurt your demon’s leadership. Blue Horrors on the other hand have twice the unit size, don’t give a shit about AP damage, and their own ranged attacks means you can put out a staggering amount of fire on the enemy in the opening engagement, which can disintegrate low armoured and/or mostly shieldless frontlines very quickly. Generally speaking, Forsaken are better at holding a line, but these little blue shits can have use in the later stages of a campaign.
- Chaos Marauders of Tzeentch (DLC): Early game frontline infantry. These guys will serve best as screens for your horrors so they can shoot without fear of being rushed. Comes with Barrier and most likely magic attacks, so they will trade up with units with a physical resistance. Will more than likely lose against the Mauraders of the other gods but will be better at fighting than Horrors. They also come with a spear variant to help you fight Cavalry.
- 'Forsaken of Tzeentch’ They work very similar to the WoC version, though due to Barrier these guys will be slightly more resilient and make up more of a front line role rather than a fast flanker role. They'll make up your main frontline for most of the mid game, protecting your squishy Daemons, but given the fact that they're mortal they can rout, so keep that in mind. Also keep in mind that despite their armor and good melee attack they don't have good armor piercing.
- Chaos Warriors of Tzeentch (DLC): They're here and they aren't recolors this time! Tzeentch Chaos Warriors comes with Barrier and Magic Attacks. As such, they will probably be the best of the Chaos Warriors at fighting Daemons, though they're less efficient against normal troops. Also comes with a halberd variant to ward off heavy cavalry. They're pretty much a straight upgrade to normal Chaos Warriors since the Mark of Tzeentch doesn't actually come with any downsides like with Khorne or Nurgle (for now at least).
- Chosen of Tzeentch (DLC): Pretty much the same thing as above, only applied to the more elite Chosen. Magic Attacks, Barrier, and comes with a Halberd Variant. These guys will serve as your elite infantry and will hold forever so your shooting units have all the time that they need to light shit on fire. Plus with the statline of Chosen PLUS Barrier, nothing is going to beat these guys without insane states and/or a TON of AP.
Missiles
- Pink Horrors of Tzeentch: Upgrades to the blue guys. Have a better flaming range attack, and actually decent melee stats. Sadly, they don't split into Blue Horrors upon death. In the early game these guys will play the ranged support to a front line of Blue Horrors but over time you'll want to replace them with...
- Exalted Pink Horrors of Tzeentch: ...these guys. They come with insane ranged damage, out damaging the elite skirmishers of other factions, and increase the Winds of Magic recharge rate for your army as long as they're alive. These guys will be a mainstay of your armies in the late game, as strong missiles combined with extra magic is something no one will want less of. No AP on the ranged attack, but with a missile damage of 35 heavily armored units still won't like being hit by these guys.
- Blazing Squealers: The first RoR for Tzeentch, the Blazing Squealers are an upgrade to Exalted Pink Horrors that boast better melee stats, higher leadership, and stronger missiles that imbue Warpflame. If that wasn't strong enough, they have a bound ability that replenishes the ammunition of ALL allied units within 55m of it. In an army that quickly runs out of ammo, such an ability is ludicrously powerful and there's no good reason not to take the Blazing Squealers along, as they can support your other Horrors and replenish the very limited ammo of your Exalted Flamers and Burning Chariots.
Cavalry
- Marauder Horsemen of Tzeentch (DLC): A Tzeentchy version of the WoC javelin cavalry. These guys however come with the Warpflame contact effect on their javelins, so not only can they buff up their own flaming attacks but if you pair them with Horrors or Flamers they will help them pump out even more damage. They can be useful in melee but they're primarily a missile cavalry so try not to get them murdered by other heavy cav.
- Chaos Knights of Tzeentch (DLC for Lances): Your heavy cav, designed interestingly to be a more durable holding unit. They lack the heavy charge of most cav but in return they have heavy armor to block damage thrown at them. Combine this with Barrier, and this is a Cav unit actually designed more so to hold the line rather than to flank and cycle charge. They also cause fear, so are great against low leadership armies. These can be used as a replacement for Forsaken, they are more than tough enough to front charge anything that approaches your ranged units and can still be cycled out if you need to regen barrier. Try using them as a mobile front line. Chaos Knights have the best melee stats in your army, with great MA and MD. The DLC gives a Lance version which abandons the holding role of the sword and board unit in exchange for more traditional heavy charge.
- Doom Knights: Chaos Knights riding discs of Tzeentch, equipped with polearms and shields. They are much squishier than the normal knights but in return are faster, can fly and hit much harder. These are your best flying melee troops and one of the best ways to keep enemy fliers off of your Lords of Change and Burning Chariots, and can handle or tie down most enemy fliers long enough for your oodles of magic and ranged attacks to deal with whatever they're fighting. Interestingly despite having Halberds they don't have AP or Anti Large, though they make up for that with an insane charge bonus and weapon strength. Once again, they encourage cycle charging, though Barrier should help keep individual models alive when pulling out, which is a problem with most flying cav. They do worse in a straight fight than Chaos Knights but mobility and flying make up for it.
- Knights of Immolation: Doom Knights that have the ability to drop bombs on the enemy. The unit can drop little eldritch bombs that do significant damage, allowing you to easily dispose of tightly packed blobs. However, the ability has a 60 second cooldown that will only go down when it is in melee combat, so eventually you will have to send them into melee before they can pull off another bombing run.
Chariots
- Chaos Chariots of Tzeentch (DLC): Nice Tzeentch Chariots, very good at running down heavily armored infantry and comes with magical attacks and barrier. What the fuck else you want me to say? It's a chariot unit, go out there and makes some Dwarfs cry with it.
- Burning Chariot: A flying ranged focused chariot that has one of the most devastating ranged attacks in the entire game. Like other flamers, Burning Chariots require good positioning to make the most out of them, as they have a low ammo count and pitiful armor. More so than other flamers, Burning Chariots will die fast if caught under concentrated missile fire, so make sure your enemy's ranged units are engaged elsewhere before sending this in. Try to hold it in reserve for particularly valuable engagements, as you'll want to make the most out of every shot.
- As noted, the lack of ammo will be a problem, so do yourself a favor and turn off automatic fire, at least until you have the Chariot in range of what it is you want to kill.
- Speaking of, their attacks are identical to and Exalted Flamer, and like an Exalted Flamer tend to do the most damage to single entity targets. Very good at sniping lords when you're facing an army without much of an air force like ogres and greenskins. Park them on top of the enemy lord and BBQ him to death. You can avoid missile fire with erratic movements + good micro and barrier means you can tank a few shots on the way in without any permanent damage.
War Beast
- Chaos Furies (Tzeentch): Flying skirmisher harassers who come with Barrier, allowing them to soak up slightly more damage than the Furies of the other gods. They have vanguard allowing for better ambush and flanking potential. Will die if something so much as looks at them funny, so be careful with how long you leave them to fight.
- Conversely, you can throw them at an enemy to keep them tied up while the Screamers and Burning Chariots cycle-charge.
- Screamer: Flying Steve Irwin killers, who for some reason have human faces. Seriously go watch the World of Tzeentch trailer, his face is hilarious. Closest thing you have to light cavalry, these sky "sharks" (they're obviously manta rays, why the fuck does GW keep calling them sharks? Actually some sharks have a similar body shape to rays and both are cartilaginous fish in the same suborde- *ZAP* Nobody cares know-it-all) are designed for counter charging cavalry and monsters with their AP Anti Large. They will be put on the endangered species list if you throw them against most heavy large units on their own, they are meant to counter charge enemy cav and monsters while they're dealing with something else.
- Fast, pointy, and anti-large, these dudes are pretty much tailor-made to shred Cathayan Airships and Dwarf Copters, especially when you cycle-charge.
Monsters
- Spawn of Tzeentch: Chaos Spawn but blue this time. Debatably the most durable Spawn on its own thanks to Barrier, what sets Spawn of Tzeentch apart from their monogod counterparts is that their attacks are armour-sundering in a faction that can struggle to deal with armour, so they can be good for tying down heavily armoured units for your Horrors and Flamers to shoot to pieces. They're still Spawn, and they have the lowest damage output of all Spawn types, but as Tzeentch your damage comes from ranged attacks and magic, why were you expecting to have a good melee combatant? One recommended tactics is placing a spawn unit inside a unit of forsaken to add killing and staying power to the forsaken.
- Flamers of Tzeentch: A mobile flamethrower unit that can pump out ludicrous damage to unarmored targets. Apparently still ok in melee, though don't expect them to last long against most dedicated melee units. They require good positioning to use effectively, especially since they only have 10 ammo. Notably it's the first flamethrower unit that has AP damage, which might signal some hope for things like Irondrakes or Warp Fire Throwers. very deadly if used correctly. also good vs large single entities.
- Exalted Flamer: A single entity purple version that has one of the most devastating ranged attacks in the game, able to deal heavy damage to anything, but is ideal against single entity targets. Downside is that it has very limited ammo so every shot has to count. It also applies Fire weakness in both melee and ranged, allowing it to set up your other units to do more damage to the enemy
- Like the Chariot, you're going to want to turn automatic fire off until the right moment. While you're not as fast as Slaanesh you're still quite mobile, so you can afford to have your Horrors and Forsaken distract your opponent's line while the Exalted Flamer looks for a good shot. Spreading Weakness to Fire drastically increases the efficiency of all your other missiles, too, so even Horrors will find their shots putting dents in the enemy.
- Fuck up Nurgle's day by pointing the Exalted Flamer at whatever's regenerating, then pepper it with cheap Horror fire.
- Chaos Warshrine of Tzeentch (DLC): Just like the warshrine of the other gods and undivided, it provides a buff for your army, in this case being increased Spell Mastery. As things around it die you will get up to 20% power recharge rate and up to 10% additional spell mastery, and the unit doesn't have to be the one to actually do the killing to pump it up. Which is great because aside from having barrier the rest of the stats on this thing really isn't that great. If you really want to bring one of these things, bring it as a mount for a Cultist or Sorcerer lord/hero. It's not strong enough as a unit on its own and it can give your mage a strong amount of HP in order to survive a beating.
- Soul Grinder of Tzeentch: This thing channels the power of Zeus to chuck lightning bolts from its hands that do AP and Anti Large damage. It's a very versatile unit as it can deal with large units from afar and still deal some good damage up close. It also has magic attacks, so it will also be hitting for most of its damage. The low ammunition is a bit of a pain and it hits less hard than you would hope. An exalted flamer or burning chariot is much better at single entity killing.
- You've got missiles for days, but your anti large melee is lacking. This is practically a must when the opponent has other large single-entities, and Barrier will ensure that you can tank a few artillery shots (but not all, so send furies or screamers to harass those that are a problem). Keep in mind your range is still less than that of most dedicated artillery, so long range duels can "hurt."
- Lord of Change A Skeksis by way of HP Lovecraft. The LoC is a big flying monster that has decent stats but is outclassed by most similar monsters. Don't expect it to go toe to toe with a Bloodthirster. Like most of the other Greater Daemon units it has access to two spells from its god's lore, in this case Pink Fire of Tzeentch and Blue Fire of Tzeentch. Both of these spells have a low Winds of Magic cost, meaning LoCs will be useful for spamming cheap spells to fill your Eye of Tzeentch meter. In campaign there are technologies that can unlock more spells for them. Probably best used as a hit-and-run monster, with the spells as an added bonus.
- Praise the Changer of Ways, update 1.2 has changed the spells of Greater Daemons (and the War Compass for Cathay) from WoM spells to Bound Abilities, meaning a Lord of Change can bring its own firepower rather than eating away at the WoM of your Lord and Heroes. That said, in multiplayer it only has 1 bound use of Blue and Pink Fires of Tzeentch each, but it's a more viable pick if you're running a Herald Lord if you still want a big flying monster to rule the skies with. Just, as above, keep it as far away from any Bloodthirsters or Dragons as possible. Up to 2 casts each of every 2 spell for free from campaign techs means that each one brings a massive amount of anti infantry firepower, with a little anti-single unit from blue fire. A Doomstack of these can drop 19 vortexes (each made of 3 smaller vortexes) then drop 19 Infernal gateways to mop up the rest, and they can do it twice. Its insane. Any single entities or hero's that survive can be blue fired and melee'ed to death.
Multiplayer Strategies
Barrier is one of the most interesting passive abilities in the game, and combine that with your focus on range, flying and magic, you are a heavy hit and run faction. The main strategy is to get your troops in to blast the enemy from range or fly them in, have the barrier soak up any damage they take, pull them out to have the barrier recharge, then send them back in again. You are designed for cycle charging and keeping the opponent as far away as possible while still being able to blast them to pieces. Because if any dedicated melee faction gets into your troops and you can't pull them out, they will be going to kiss Tzeentch's blue feathered ass faster than Magnus after Prospero burned down. You will be an incredibly scary ranged faction with a ton of great fliers and mages, just stay out of melee. Here is how you can formulate your plans for Tzeentch:
- Beastmen: Getting your units away from the Beastmen is going to be hard as Slaanesh is really the only faction that can reliably out pace them. As such, getting away from them long enough to recharge your barrier might be a bit of a problem. For a frontline I would go for Forsaken, as they can beat all Beastmen infantry aside from Bestigors and if they do bring Bestigors you got more than enough Missiles to bring them down. Beastmen might try to beat you in the Kite game with Throwing Axe Centigors and Ungor Raiders so I would grab a few Furies to tie them down longs enough for Chaos or Doom Knights to get their charge off and finish them off. As for their big monsters, if you can hold off the Hounds and Centigors from getting to your ranged units them I wouldn't worry about them as they have low armor and Pink horrors should be able to melt them. Just make sure those Minotaurs and Ghorgons are tied up with something so they can't get to your backline. As for your lord, a Lord of Change or Kairos should be able to take advantage of their poor leadership and cause a lot of goat people to run from the field. As long as you don't charge one in to fight a Ghorgon or get absorbed by missiles you should be able to keep them safe in the air to cast and let the rest of the army slaughter some cows.
- Bretonnia: The first of the notable micro-heavy armies is not one to be trifled with. Their cavalcade of cavalry will prove downright devastating to any frontline you can muster and any Pink/Blue Horrors would be lucky to get a shot or two off before their knights plow through them. Soul Grinders are basically your best/only option for dealing with their high-value cavalry, supplemented with some Screamers to help chew through their thick armor. Just beware of their Pegasus Knights, who can cut down said Screamers and any (Exalted) Lord of Change hapless enough to be airborne with them. At the end of the day though... this just isn't your matchup.
- Daemons of Chaos: The forces of Daniel have every daemon unit at their fingertips, meaning they can minmax to ruin your day; unless they try to out-Tzeentch you in which case you'll roll over their faces. However, they lack virtually all mortal units, so you can use this to your advantage. A Bloodthirster is a likely pick for killing your LoC/Herald on disc, so Doom Knights backed up by Screamers are a good pick to maintain air superiority; then it's a matter of killing as much of the enemy as possible before they reach your squishy horrors.
- Warriors of Chaos: Slow, heavily armored and virtually helpless at range? Your mortal servants are practically begging to be torn asunder by your magical might. Take an Exalted Lord of Change with the Lore of Metal to punish them for all that armor plating, some Screamers and a Soul Grinder to deal with their cavalry and monsters, and a Burning Chariot or two to help mulch the rest of them. You'll can absolutely stay out of reach if you'd like to, but it wouldn't hurt to bring some disposable chaff to help pin key units down so that your vortex spells can eviscerate them.
- Dwarfs: This matchup kinda sucks, not going to lie. All their gunpowder and artillery will make approaching them a daunting prospect and their faction-wide magic resistance will temper your attempts at blowing them up with magic. But not completely. As another heavily armored faction, the Lore of Metal will still do ample work at softening up those tin-can soldiers and they are far from suited to chasing you around the map. If they brought some Gyrocopters, use your Screamers to tear them out of the sky. If you can, drop some Doom Knights or Chaos Knights on their artillery to take them offline before they deal too much damage.
- Empire: This matchup works out for you a bit better than the prior entry simply because the Empire isn't quite as heavily armored. Unfortunately, they're also more versatile and swifter due to their cavalry options.
- Grand Cathay: Your #1 Non-Daemonic rival, this will mainly be a match up of who can get the most value out of their ranged units. You heavily out maneuver them with Furies and Doom Knights, and the combination of the two should allow you to overwhelm any Longma riders (If you get the charge on them, otherwise they might mess you up) and tear up those war balloons. Of course if they get shot out of the sky that won't matter, so maybe it's better to keep them hidden until you see a chance to nab their guns and artillery. Overall, Cathay actually seems like it'll win out in a prolonged melee, though without their guns they have no real way to stop you from kiting them to death. Once the guns are down use your Chaos Knights to block their cavalry and have Horrors and Flamers roast them alive. They'll never catch you without cav, and if your pullout game is strong you can keep your barrier alive if they still have some missiles. A Herald will likely be your best Lord option as it will be a lot harder for Cathay to shoot down than a Lord of Change.
- High Elves: This might actually be a hard one for you for several reasons. For one, they HEAVILY out range you, so they will be able to poke down your Barrier and do damage before your troops will actually be able to get into position. With the low armor on most of your troops, even basic Elf archers can be deadly. Plus, Tempest is a damn good way to deal with flying cavalry and monsters, and with Alarielle being a staple in all High Elf armies, she is sure to bring it. Your best bet might actually be to rush with Forsaken and Chaos Knights, and use Furies or Screamers to tie down the archers and bolt throwers so your troops can get in. A Soul Grinder can also help out with the Cav and Dragons elves love to bring. A Herald and Cultists should be your Lord/Hero combo, as any Lord of Change will get tempest and shot down and Lore of Fire is good at dealing with compact formations. This is one of the few match ups you might want to actually play aggressive and get into melee ASAP.
- Khorne: A difficult but not unwinnable matchup. While Khorne's frontline is slower than yours, they have warhounds and flesh hounds to pounce on your Horrors, and Bloodthirsters will rip apart any flying unit of yours they get their hands on. Perhaps more than facing any other faction, maintaining barrier is vital to your success as you will lose the melee fight, thus your best bet is avoiding the melee fight for as long as possible. Against a mortal-heavy Khorne roster, Forsaken, Spawns and Flamers of all kinds are your friends, Forsaken have high armour and Spawn will help crack open their Warriors of Khorne, and Flamers have good AP damage to delete blobs of infantry. A daemon-heavy roster will give you more trouble, Bloodletter's innate spell resistance will hamper your damage output, and flesh hounds are purpose-built for fucking up your day. Screamers will shine here, they can hold down Bloodthirsters for a bit (but don't expect the Screamers to kill them), and they can help cut off any of Khorne's hounds trying to munch on your Horrors. The relatively low speed of most of Khorne's roster means the key to victory will involve a lot of kiting and staying the fuck out of melee (which frankly playing Tzeentch you should be used to). Avoid using Blue Horrors as they'll just feed the enemy's Hellblade units, and try to take control of the skies as quickly as possible so your Burning Chariots, Heralds, Iridescent Horros and Lords of Change can yeet off projectiles and spells with (mostly) impunity.
- Lizardmen: If there's a particular factions that could potentially rival you in magical potency, the Slann of the Lizardmen could give you a run for your money... not that they'll run. At all. This is a sentiment shared by a majority of the Lizardmen roster; if you keep on your toes, you should have little issue out maneuvering and kiting any infantry-based army. This is something you'll have to do, because if any Saurus Warrior manages to get his claws on your barrier, they'll crack through that with frightening ease. Skinks are substantially less threatening in melee, but they do have the potential to tie down your forces for the slower/clumsier heavy-hitters you'd otherwise be juking for days. Screamers will be quite potent harriers in this matchup; their penchant for chewing on larger, armored creatures gives them a notable edge against them, so long as they're not fighting those monsters head on. Use a Soul Grinder or two as well as some Chaos Knights to hold key beasts in place so that your Screamers can chip in without dying in the process.
- Nurgle: As befitting your polar opposite, fighting Nurgle is an absolute pain. For one, Nurglites get buffs the more damage they take (a plague of slowness at lvl 1, a plague that heals you at level 2, and a plague that hurts you and SPREADS at level 3), and get better on the defense the longer they're stuck in. In comparison, you can only shrug off the first few hits you take, and your barrier won't regenerate until you're out of combat; your army abilities are a recharge, a special Doombolt, and a super-sized Tzeentch's Firestorm. When the anons say your army was micro-intensive, they really mean it. Nurgle has rotflies that can tie up and screen your flyers, and unfortunately, only the Screamers are anti-Large AP (Doom Knights are too nerdy to know how to properly use their Halberts, apparently); Plague Drones can also be equipped with death's head plague grenades, so watch out for that when you think your chariots are safe just because they pulled out. Nurgle also has poison artillery in the form of Ku'Gath and the Grinders, you only have Grinders, that admittedly do pretty good AP lightning bolts. While you never wanted to stay in melee for very long anyway, it goes double against Nurgle, since his forces will debuff you in all sorts of ways when you're close. You're going to want to make full use of your air superiority here, flying in and out of range to cast spells and throw fireballs at his bigger fa/tg/uys; one advantage for you in this regard is that some of his tougher units come with regeneration, which your fire attacks are SUPER EFFECTIVE against, and you can make that weakness worse with an Exalted Flamer/Burning Chariot's Warpflame ability. So long as you keep an eye on Nurgle's units and keep track of what's actively regenerating, your ranged fire weapons should be able to put in work for you. Finally, Tzeentch is all about betrayal, so don't be afraid to have some chaff whose sole purpose is to get stuck in and die of warpCovid. Nurgle has abilities that spreads from unit to unit, so you should throw Furies or Blue Horrors to take hits while the rest of your army flanks them and sets the Nurglites on fire.
- Ogre Kingdoms: Ogres are a mixed bag to fight - they'll crush you into paste on the charge, but the majority of their unmounted ogres have poor armour and will die to concentrated fire. They can potentially outshoot you with leadbelchers and artillery spam, but their complete lack of air units leaves them wide open to fly-by shootings from Burning Chariots. Abuse your air superiority as much as possible - use Furies and Screamers to intercept cavalry charges, and send Doom Knights to deal with ranged units. Soul Grinders are a good pick, and consider using some Spawn to bolster your frontline against the inevitable ogre charges.
- Skaven: The good news? Swarms of Skaven make easy pickings for bombardment and vortex spells. You can also wreak havoc with your Doom Knights, Screamers and (Exalted) Lords of Change who'll be free to pick their engagements with impunity due to the complete lack of aerial presence the Skaven have. The bad news is that the Skaven will be firing upon you long before you can tie them down and well before any of your ranged units can contest them. Pound for ethereal pound, you will generally deal slightly more ranged damage against the rats than they will against you (especially if you're savvy with your barriers), but you'll run out of ammo much more quickly than the rats. To this end, you'll definitely want to focus on the faster aspects of your army and keep on the move.
- Slaanesh: Uh, yeah.... maybe it'll be best to avoid this one if you can. Your whole schtick is to avoid direct combat with your enemy for as long as possible and these guys are literally designed to get into direct combat as fast as possible. Combined with the fact that your core units are squishy ranged troops and this could be a really bad match up. You do have one undeniable advantage though, air power. Slaanesh has no ranged troops and their only air unit are furies, so you are free to dominate from the air. Bring either a Lord of Change or a Herald/Iridescent Horror on a flying mount and use them primarily to cast from a safe position. Since the Lord of Excess has no real way to threaten them you are free to cast and skirmish to your heart's content, especially if you have a Burning Chariot or Doom Knights. Of course the more you invest in the air the less you'll have on the ground and Daemonettes will catch Horrors eventually. Get a ton of Blue Horrors to block and screen for your more important Pink Horrors and Flamers. Chaos Knights won't catch Slaanesh Cav but they can probably beat them in a one on one fight. Slaanesh doesn't have any armor to speak of so there is no point in investing in AP. Still, with how much Slaanesh out-speeds you they will catch up and tear some of your boys to pieces eventually. Again, maybe best to avoid this one.
- Tzeentch:
- Wood Elves: Another particularly micro-intensive faction with a bit more of a skip to their step than any of your daemons. Wood Elves will be challenging to pin down; much of their missile infantry/cavalry selection is able to fire and move at considerable ranges; many of which outrange your dudes by a lot. Additionally, this constant moving can make it trickier to land breath/vortex spells on them. Having said that, you do have a few good things going for you. If that Wood Elf player was foolish enough to bring Forest Spirits against you, you can easily smoke them with your ample fire-and-magic based attacks. As far as the meaty elves themselves? Virtually none of them are armored, so if you can land a few volleys of...practically any of your own missile units, you'll all but incinerate the lot of them. Just try to stay away from their Bladesingers/Blade Dancers, as they'll carve through your forces just as lethally if you allow them to catch up.
Domination
General Tier Rank: S
As stated before, Tzeentch is just kind of bullshit right now. Barrier is stupidly good, bugs make certain spells way stronger than they should be and all your range means you can obliterate your enemy before they can really hurt you. You have the mobility to take points and due to barrier, magic and range you have the means to hold them too. Of course, you still need to play Tzeentch Like Tzeentch. If you face roll on the keyboard and blob into a melee fight against Khorne or Nurgle then yeah, you're gonna lose and you'll deserve it. However, you have so much good shit right now that that your only real iffy match up is Kislev. The only thing that you have to fear is that CA is inevitably going to beat you half to death with the nerf bat and no amount of future sight is going to protect you from it. Enjoy being top of the meta while it lasts.
Campaign Strategies
Kairos
- Don't expand into Cathay early: I know Kairos is advertised as the Anti Cathay faction, but expanding into Cathay early is actually a really bad idea. Not only will you be surronded by enemies, but two thirds of the territory there is either unpleasant or uninhabitable for you. As such, spend your early game expanding in the Chaos Wastes, build up your economy and allies, then expand into Cathay when you're strong.
- Immortal empires In immortal empires you've got a secure start position at the bottom of the southlands. By the time you start expanding northwards currently skarbrand and the other aggressive AI factions have already mulched half the continent by turn 15. Take it slow(ish) and abuse changing of the ways and you should be in for one of the most chill and smooth-sailing campaigns
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