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Flamers no longer OP

Flamer’s of Tzeentch – painted by me

Late last year I said Flamers were not OP here.  The world, and Phil Kelly disagreed.

Points to consider (revised):
  • I have not yet found a compelling reason to spend waste 5 points on a Pyrocaster upgrade.  While it is unlikely that you get charged, I’ve taken to deepstriking them with a disk of Tzeentch (Blue Scribes or Herald) as I can get a much larger frontage and generally hit a target with 5 -6 templates off the deepstrike this way vs 3-4 in a normal small cluster.  The pyrocaster protects your HQ from instant gib.
  • I won’t go into the warpfire/breath garbage that is now going around to allow you to hit people outside your range. Note: GW please read your FAQs before you post them and stop letting the interns write them.
  • I don’t think they are over powered costed now.

The change:

  • Wounds MEQ 1/3 of their previous (S4 AP4 – wounds on 4, MEQ save on 3+)
  • Invuln save is 8.5% better (re-roll 1s)
  • Loss of Eternal Warrior will cost them dearly

I can only surmise that the WD Codex update was a ploy to sell models (of course it was) but broke an important compact with customers.  You can’t sell a shiney object and then smash it 6 months later.  It’s one thing to nerf a model or two after a 5 year codex cycle and entirely something else when done in 6 months.

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Pink Horrors Point Efficiency (part 1)

While screamers and flamers are the damage dealer in an all Tzeentch army, you have to take Pink Horrors to round out the army.  I like taking them in squads of 10-20 to keep them alive and deal some damage.  I routinely run squads of 20 horrors, which is a mixed bag.

Pros:
Survivable
Massed fire (60 shots at 18″)

Cons:
Large deepstrike footprint
360 points that can mishap

The most recent rumors suggest:

Pink Horrors – 9pts each (minimum 10)
ws 3 bs 3 s 3 t 3 w 1 i 3 a 1 ld 7
Psychic tests on a 10
Brootherhood of sorcerers
Blue horrors: if a pink horror is slain place a blue horror marker.. at initiative 1 the blue horror attacks causing the enemy unit to suffer one s2 hit with ap –

horrors can only cast change dicipline, not divination.
horrors get 1 warppoint, 2 at unit strength 11-15 and 3 at 16-20. they generate psychic powers at the start of the game like normal psykers but can only roll on tzeentch lore.

primaris: 24″ s 5 ap 4 assault 2d6, warpflames, soulfire. 1 warpcharge.
for each additional warpcharge you gain a additional d6
So I wanted to see how the “new” units stacks up to the old as an MEQ killer.

Aside from the range difference (now 24″) and the fact that the new horrors will have more random results (pschic test, deny the witch, and random number of shots) what I found is that point for point the new (when taken in a squad of 20) has about a 20% worse first turn killing efficiency vs MEQ than the old Pink Horrors.  This does not factor in taking a Herald with divination.

The unit is almost 40% worse at killing Guard Equivalent in a 5+ cover.

 
 

So, on the numbers the unit is cheaper, giving you more flexibility, but not quite as good at these tasks.  You can buff with a Herald if you want (see above right).  As soon as you take a wound you shooting drops of by 75% immediately, rather than in a linear fashion (model by model) but you have access to other powers as well beyond the normal Bolt of Tzeentch and you range is extended by 6″ giving you some more holding power and reducing the risk of deepstrike mishaps.

 

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Warp Storm Table Odds

I figured I’d take a look at the potential for each result on the Warpstorm table to occur.  The percentage chance of a result occuring at least once doesn’t change with more rounds.  I started down that path initially but had to remind myself of come basic college math.  Now, the odds of a result occuring a specific number of times (greater than once) during a game of varying length does change.  I’ll leave that for another day.

2.78% – All units take a Daemonic Instability test
5.56% – One daemon Character tests on Leadership with 3D6 and takes wounds like Daemonic Instability
8.33% – All daemons -1 invulnerable save
11.11% – Roll D6 for all enemies and nurgle units, on a 6 hit by a 5″ template S4, AP5 barrage
13.89% – Roll D6 for all enemies and tzeentch units, on 6 D6 hits with S4 Ap3, poison, ignore cover
16.67% – Nothing
13.89% – Roll d6 for all enemies and khorne units, on 6 D6 hits with S6, Ap-, ignore cover, rending
11.11% – Roll d6 for all enemies and slaanesh units on 6 hit by a 3″ template S8, ap3
8.33% – +1 invulnerable save for daemons
5.56% – one enemy psyker test on Leadership with 3D6, if failed he explodes and you get a new herald in his place (Perils of Warp, we are here!!!)
2.78% – a new troop unit of your choice (bloodletter, plaguebearer, horror, daemonette) is summoned, 2D6+3 models

So in any game, the odds of getting a 2 or 12 at least once is less than 3% each.  While this will happen, it will be rare.

Now, assuming that your enemy has at least 6 units on the board (on average throughout a game – for giggles) you’ll have an 8.33% chance that an enemy unit will take a hit at least once during a game.  Granted it will be a random unit and a random hit type from the 4 types above, but that’s still something.

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Final thoughts on the current Chaos Daemons Codex

 
The tail end of 5th Edition and all of 6th Edition has been good for my Tzeentchy Chaos Daemons.  I’ve enjoyed the book for what it is – not like anything else.  My only real hope for the new book is that it continues to be very different from everything else.  Aside from that I’d love to see some real synergy between Daemons and Chaos Marines.  I’m still bummed that we didn’t get DA Fallen and we don’t currently get Traitor Guard in 6E; hopefully in the next edition of the book in a few years.

In my opinion the upcoming CD codex will be a success if (in no particular order):

  • You can take viable mono-God builds for all 4 Gods and get rewarded for playing a fluffy army.
  • If there is still a major random component to the army, but one that doesn’t auto win or auto-lose.
  • I’d like to see Tzeentch stay super shooty.
  • It would be nice to see Nurgle and Slaanesh get a little shooty in their characters, etc.
  • I’d like to see Khorne shut down psykers.  Something like Eldrad’s powers wouldn’t be OP IMHO or DTW on a 2+ (as an upgrade would be fine).
  • Here’s wishing, but let me mark EVERYTHING in the book that isn’t marked (Soul Grinders, etc.)
  • Daemonic Assault – or something like it that makes me play the game in a totally different way than everyone else.  Come on, we’re fans of Chaos, don’t make us play by the same rules!!!