Editing Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch (section)

==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 the Red|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:

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| 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.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''': This used to be a poor matchup for you because of the fantastic mobility of the Bretonnian knights and their ability to fill the screen with chaff making it hard for your shooters to get value. However, as of CoC, this has changed. [[Tzeentch| Just as planned]]. You'll want to focus on a mortal army. Chaos Warrior Halberds are damn solid units that will trade well into anything large, with the Severed Claw RoR turning up the heat even further. Marauder horsemen of Tzeentch are difficult for your opponent to shoot with their barrier, and will be great at harassing anything with physical resist. <s>Tony Hawk</s> a Chaos Sorcerer lord on his disc w/ sword of change for Pink Horror summons and his barrier replenishment skill can be a real terror in this matchup, as he is able to outrun even the Bretonnian airforce with good micro, and overcast blue fire gets TONS of value vs expensive knights. Screamers and furies are of course a must to tie down anything mobile, or harass peasant bowmen. 

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Daemons of Chaos| 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.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| 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.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''': An interesting matchup. Besides Wood Elves, the Dark Elves may be the only faction that can rival you in terms of mid-to-short ranged power. Luckily, this means your get to fight on your terms, but so do they. They outclass you in melee, but unlike other more one note factions, they also have plenty of skirmish prowess. On the other hand, they're quite squishy (like you), but they don't have any barrier to protect them. First off, it's best not to rely on Chaos Warriors/ Chosen much. The northern elves excel at taking them out with their fearsome amounts of ap. You're not going to rely on winning the melee fight anyway, and marauders with their magical attacks will trade upwards into Witch Elves/Sisters if your opponent is dumb enough to bring them. They'll also stuff up Bleakswords/Dreadspears enough for your real units to get the killing done. Their skirmishers may do more damage than yours, but your Marauder Horsemen of Tzeentch outrange them and have barrier, so they're a great choice to zone out any Dark Rider crossbows. Do watch out for the melee Dark Riders though, who are cheap and fast enough to keep up with even your faster land units. Dark Elves don't have a great air presence, so mobile air units such as Doom Knights or Burning Chariots can put in a lot of work if used right. Flamers and Pink Fire are also fantastic against that tightly packed elven infantry. Don't even think about bringing Vilitch here as he will get absolutely devolved. Chaos Sorcerer on a disc or maybe Kairos is probably your go to lord. Bottom line: you need to be on top of your micro even more so than other factions because if those ap volleys find valuable targets with their barrier down, things are going to get real scary, real quick. 

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': This matchup kinda sucks, not going to lie. All their [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|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.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire| 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.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| 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.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins| Greenskins]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/High Elves| 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.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne|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.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev|Kislev]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| 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.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Norsca| Norsca]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle| 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.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| 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.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| 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.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh| 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.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''':

*'''Tzeentch''': Skip the marauder horsemen here, barrier makes them a cost-inefficient choice. This matchup will basically come down to "who can micro their knights better". You're both going to be losing sleep over how to get through the others barrier and ridiculous amount of spell resistance. Bring Lore of Metal to buff your knights and cycle-charge like a madman. If they bring lots of chaos warriors with halberds to counter knights, Horrors and Screamers are probably the cheapest way to deal with them. Don't bother with Vilitch here, he's too slow to be reliably kept in melee and gain all his buffs. 

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''': Weakness to flame? Slow, plodding infantry? Reliance on spells? Yep, you have a lot of advantages in this matchup, but don't make the mistake of underestimating the Counts. Their Blood Knights WILL beat your Chaos Knights one-on-one with healing support, and while your Doom Knights can beat Vargheists with their anti-large, a smart Counts player will just stuff them up by spamming so many cheap, fast Fell Bats that you'd think you were in Gotham City. Luckily, Lore of Tzeentch is fantastic here, with Pink Fire being great for clearing out zombies and the like, and Blue Fire being able to target their cavalry and single entities. Gateway/Firestorm are also handy for punishing blobs. However, don't bring LoC due to the aforementioned Fell Bat difficulty. Vilitch will happily carve through chaff all day, and give bonuses while he does it. Sure, he won't be able to duel a vampire lord, but you should really be focusing down their lord with your Horrors flaming missiles. 

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| 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.