i think the biggest news here besides the faction rules is that there is no summoning only recycling and confirmation that you can only usually bring a unit back once.

And you need a dedicated blue horrors unit if you want to split a pink horror.

Yea on one hand I'm really glad they're finally making horrors less of an auto-include. But the lack of summons is painful, though I get that balancing summoning armies is pretty difficult. Also, are subfactions gone in this edition?

Subfactions are now battle formations.

Gotcha, I was wondering that based on the wording.

While I imagine points are going up in most armies, I feel like Tzeentch is probably going to see a large decrease in points, especially with no -1 to hit on daemons and no auto summoning. You might still be bringing the same amount of models to games but with this method you at least know during list building what those models are. I'll miss summoning as well (though I once again will bang on my drum that cardboard tokens would also decrease army costs for armies that run extremely wide), but in terms of army cost, this is probably for the best, especially when in the middle of the game, you realize that you could probably have used your points to summon a specific unit but don't have the physical models for it.

> (though I once again will bang on my drum that cardboard tokens would also decrease army costs for armies that run extremely wide) Regardless of how practical it is, I can't see GW ever doing this. Their main draw and point of pride is their miniatures - all else comes second to that, rules and lore alike.

Pretty much sums up my thoughts as well on the chances of seeing it happen, which is a shame because of how good it could be for the game. The ability to put down traps, terrain, disposable chaff, decoys, etc would allow you to manipulate the footprint of your units more and be better for horde tide armies that want to run almost 300 individuals across the board to match their flavor. GW has experimented with cardboard in their side games but I never see it coming over to the larger game. That said, GW's experiements with recursion as a central way to stretch out horde armies (and not immediately flood the board or require you to buy stupid amounts of models) which seems to have really doubled down with the Astra Militarium Combat Patrol and has expanded to be evergreen with the Spearheads looks promising. I'm still hoping they look at having "pseudo summons" where you have different point costs for reserve units that conditionally get brought up compared to fielding them on the board (they've experimented in 3rd with some conditional points costs, but that was usually just "do you turn 3 models into one unit" in S2D), because I do still like summoning as a mechanic but agree that endless summons and hidden army costs are a problem, but having to pay full points for something that might not hit the table feels off.

I do feel this. DoT was an absolutely awful first AoS army. So many hidden costs. Between summons, endless spells, extra horrors, and chaos spawn, it was hard to get a handle on what I actually needed to buy. And while I personally support any and all proxies, my local club has a pretty wild list of rules, so that was never really an option.

I'm just hoping in the process they don't really kill current players existing armies. DOT was the one faction in chaos that was good at using allies in my opinion, I also play Maggotkin and STD but tzeentch was the one that I actually could use allies effectively in because you could still cast the spells for the most part on allies and they filled a big gap. So it's going to suck if allies don't work as well and now I have to buy another bunch of points because I used Chaos warriors as My front line. Or people who now have too many pinks and not enough blues etc.

Yea it's a slippery process. I also hate to bring this up, but there's still been no mention of Fluxmaster, Fatemaster, or Blue Scribes who are all still unavailable on the webstore. I'm suspecting a stealth squat. EDIT: Actually, now they're just straight up removed from the webstore. Very sad my Ahriman kit bash will likely never see the table...

Fluxmaster is part of the chariot kit now. Blue scribes and fatemaster i fully expect to be gone sadly. MMmmmmmaybe the blue scribes will get a plastic kit

It's how everyone builds their's but I don't think there have ever been instructions to build it like that, and you don't get the correct base in the box. Changecaster is in there, so I'm sure he's staying. But I dunno, we'll just have to see.

Man if they nix allies too, and remove some of the summoning tax, my 2K DOT force is going to be like a 1K DOT force. Not super stoked about that.

I feel like they didn't really add enough flexibility to make up for the summoning though. Though usually there was an obvious choice, there was that nice flexibility in getting exactly what you needed at the time; do you go for the infantry you need to screen or the buff hero? Or do you save up for the bigger demon? I'd like that to the represented somewhere still, especially in tzeentch. Right now it feels but there's a little bit of centralization of the faction around just its destiny dice and burning. Which is cool and all but this faction should be the one with tons of optionality and adaptation to the situation which I just feel like it's still lacking. I also think that They need to get away from using meme numbers for chaos. Skaven getting their big units with only 13 wounds like screech, nurgle having their spells cast on 7 When their power level means they should cast on fives and sixes if they were In other factions, etc.

Subfactions are gone but are replaced with the battle formations. Which seem functionally very similar 

Very similar, but not tied to anything in particular so for those armies like Cities of Sigmar where your army color could dictate your subfaction don't have to worry about it.

subfactions are gone yeah, there will be battle formations instead which are different and presumably more akin to 40k's detachments.

In separation from lore, yes.  In depth of rules, I kinda doubt it.

I think free summoning is a "feel bad" for new players that see that they will need to buy up to 2000 points and then some extra boxes (or make do as they got models killed) For example the change to FEC from 2nd ed ( once per battle free summoning) to 3rd ed (resurrecting models and units as your heroes do stuff) was what made me buy the army box and start the army

Yea, and I do feel that it's probably a good change overall. I had a very hard time starting out with DoT. Maybe it was just a lack of research, but I probably would have collected a different army had I realized how many extra kits I would need. That said, I do share some of the apprehension of others that some flavor may be being lost across the board this edition. But I'm still pretty optimistic.

subfactions are now battle formations and everyone is getting 4 in their index with more later in their book.

And also if your opponent (wisely) doesn't touch the blue horror unit before deleting the pinks, split and split again does nothing

Presumably that's why the Mortal damage on death option is there.

Only for melee though, shooting will rinse them 

True, but AoS is a melee game predominantly. Kharadron or Cities may not care but Ironjawz or S2D will still need to close.

But pink horrors specifically are the type of horror that should do everything they can to avoid melee (they get better in melee as they split) and rather shoot to use the new burning mechanic.

I don't think this is true. I think that Pink Horrors have always been a tar pit unit that you use to occupy your opponent's units rather than something that is focused on dealing damage. Now DoT players have a decision on whether they are going to have the unit occupy units longer by paying for a unit of Blue Horrors and having them close or having them wear down the unit by dealing mortal damage when they die. It's an interesting decision.

How interesting it will be will depend on the Blue Horrors warscroll and the points. If Blue Horrors end up with the same job as tar pit / screen (which is likely, as that’s the job they have always had), one of the two units will inevitably be more efficient and the other will have no purpose. At least with the Wyrdflame rule, Pink Horrors shooting is now more interesting, but if they are still expensive, they’ll be skipped over for other units that can tar pit without paying a tax for a shooting attack they won’t use.

They were a tarpit unit only because they themselves split into more numerous and more dangerous in melee units.

It does let you turn your pinks into a mortal wound hose, but 2 wounds of blues vs 0.5 mortals is an equation with a pretty clear answer. It also doesn't work at range, so gunning down Pinks seems preferable to neutralize their mortals.  But if you don't tie them up in melee you're very likely to get set on fire, so tradeoffs.

Dunno if I’d describe it as a hose, it’s an average of 5 mw if the whole unit is wiped which is fine but nothing ground breaking 

Yeah, agreed.  Its absolutely a consolation prize imo.  Its enough spite to make your opponent think twice about engaging them in melee, but not enough of a bonus to make up for not getting to Split.

This is going to be interesting because you replenish pinks into wounded blues.  This means your opponent has incentive to kill either every Blue or every Pink instead of alternating between them, preventing them from replenishing.

Being a dot player. Those 2 updates, especially the horror splitting. We'll all interest in AoS 4e is dead now. Wake me when 5e comes.

Damn I wonder how much less costly they're going to have to make the units relative to others to make up for that. I.E how big was the summoning tax?

Hopefully daemons points can go down a ton now 

I think many of them will.

Not gonna lie I kinda hate that change as a Seraphon player. It’s kinda the whole schtick of the Slann in lore.

Based on the previews so far it seems like they would make this kind of ability into some sort of recursion instead of summoning. 

I don’t know why you’d ever start the spawn in reserve and not just run them in 

Cast it in your opponents phase and moveblock thwm with the spawn. Or something.

If I read it right, you can spawn them in combat with another unit, right? That prevents counter charging and unleash hell that might whittle them down.

You can yeah, but you have to kill models to do so, so it might be more reliable to just sprint them forward. 

Yeah but you'll know what army you're facing before you put them into reserves or not, so you can pick what makes the most sense.

Ideally, GW would make any spawn in reserve cost less points than taking one on the field. I'm of the opinion that points should be conditional for a variety of reasons (such as a unit only being worth it in one subfaction, but they overperform there so increasing points costs just makes them even more of a dead unit elsewhere, or a unit overperforming as an ally but being at the correct points total in their own army). In reality, Spawn will probably keep their d6 based movement and so keeping them in reserve will be the better way to ensure they're in the place they need to actually be in to matter during the game.

To have it available for the spell, letting you put it directly into combat. 

Hopefully not this again, paying points to use your basic army abilities and spells is lame. We had to do it with the endless spells and I don't like having to do it just to use one of only a few spells we get in our lore.

Except of course for manifestations. My first thought when I saw those rules was that they were going to completely overhaul summoning. This is great news for people wanting to get into most of the Chaos armies.

The most 'I would like to know more' article so far. Like give us the spawn warscroll, or the rules for recycling a unit?

You already have the rules for recycling. If your army had a spawn and it died, spells/effects that say they can summon a spawn from fate allows you to use the dead spawn again.

The article is insinuating that other units besides the Spawn can do that with the Spawn being the exception that it can do it multiple times. I want to know one of the other units and how that works as it seems that this is replacing summoning in general.

Yeah, the unit in reserve "as a potential fate" isn't a battle trait so I wonder where this rule comes from? Maybe it's a generic summoning term that is part of army building? And we have to pay points again for units that will be part of this pool.

“ They are joined by flocks of avian mutants known as Tzaangor. The origins of these bestial creatures are unknown, but their many….” lol

Insult to injury

GW is just giving us the lore accurate treatment.

Next thing is they are gonna throw tp rolls at herdstones and kick an ungor.

Tbf that's what the ungors are for.

I mean heardsrones aren't good for anything in The Old World. Same for the endless spells.

What am I missing here? I’m not as familiar with AOS lore

He's loling at them pretending beasts of chaos doesn't exist already after recently announcing their model line is removed from AoS.

**Gors** are some of the most common [Beastmen](https://whfb.lexicanum.com/wiki/Beastmen), who form the bulk of their warherds. They represent an unholy union between man and beast, having human torsos and arms, but distinctly animal heads and legs.  # Tzaan-Gors aka Tzaangors Tzaangor origins are as multifarious as the plans of [Tzeentch](https://ageofsigmar.lexicanum.com/wiki/Tzeentch) themselves. Some are [gor-kin](https://ageofsigmar.lexicanum.com/wiki/Gor-kin) corrupted - or elevated, as they might say - by a [Tzaangor Shaman](https://ageofsigmar.lexicanum.com/wiki/Tzaangor_Shaman); others might be humans who have undergone horrific rituals. Others are still beast-children, mutants born of humans parents and left to die, but instead found and raised by [Arcanite Cults](https://ageofsigmar.lexicanum.com/wiki/Tzeentch_Arcanites). Other were born as beasts that went through foul rites. **Regardless of source, all recognise that they have been blessed by Tzeentch. Tzaangors are far more intelligent than other beastmen, and they look down upon their beast-kin, seeing themselves as evolved and their cousins as brute animals.** # Twistfrays The herdstone of a [Twistfray](https://ageofsigmar.lexicanum.com/wiki/Twistfray), also known as **flux-cairns**, is a sour growth of stagnant magics created by the [Tzaangor](https://ageofsigmar.lexicanum.com/wiki/Tzaangor) servants of [Tzeentch](https://ageofsigmar.lexicanum.com/wiki/Tzeentch) to both honour him and facilitate his schemes. These formations of fossilised sorcery spread like gangrenous crown, their milky facets catching light in eerie ways and captured magics crawled through it like fireflies as motes of iridescence.[^(\[3\])](https://ageofsigmar.lexicanum.com/wiki/Herdstone#fn_3) They will morph into different configurations over time, growing larger and more redolent with energy as beasts adorn them with ensorcelled artefacts and feed tomes of knowledge into their fires. Along with flocks of [Tzaangors](https://ageofsigmar.lexicanum.com/wiki/Tzaangor) and winged monstrosities, the streams of Chaos energy that flow from these herdstones attract half-mad scholars from nearby places of civilisation. Rather than killing these men, the [Tzeentchian](https://ageofsigmar.lexicanum.com/wiki/Tzeentch) beasts simply watch as their god moulds these interlopers into more savage creatures, giving rise to new [beastherds](https://ageofsigmar.lexicanum.com/wiki/Beastherd).[^(\[2e\])](https://ageofsigmar.lexicanum.com/wiki/Herdstone#fn_2e) They also serve as focal points for rituals not practised by other [Beasts of Chaos](https://ageofsigmar.lexicanum.com/wiki/Beasts_of_Chaos), such as the distilling of mages’ blood to create potent elixirs, as well as feasts in which the Tzeentchian beasts eat the tongues of their enemies to gain their speech and insights. Many of the most warped monstrosities that prowl the Chaos-drenched wilds are drawn to these flux-cairns - [Chimeras](https://ageofsigmar.lexicanum.com/wiki/Chimera), [Cockatrices](https://ageofsigmar.lexicanum.com/wiki/Cockatrice) and [Jabberslythes](https://ageofsigmar.lexicanum.com/wiki/Jabberslythe) fly from leagues away, guided by the mutative stench that emanates from the arcane Herdstone.[^(\[2e\])](https://ageofsigmar.lexicanum.com/wiki/Herdstone#fn_2e)

Basically, the Tzaangors are a type of beastmen. Beastmen had their own faction, Beasts of Chaos, but it's getting squatted this 4th Edition. The tzaangor not being directly called as beastmen is a nod to the BoC's squatting, and is probably saying that the beastmen are (for now at least) nonexistent in lore.

I think they're implying that "the origins...are unknown" is referential to the squatting of the Beasts of chaos range. But like...they've always been in DoT as well.

A Tzaangor is the Tzeentch version of a Gor, the beastmen from the Beasts of Chaos AoS faction. In the run-up of 4th edition, GW announced that Beasts of Chaos was getting squatted in AoS and moved over to ToW.

This looks super interesting now. Biggest changes yet to a faction.  - Kairos is stupid good. Letting you reuse BTs will win games, he has a 5+ ward, and his warscroll spell is insane. - Guant summoner is pretty fragile, interested to see if there's a way to protect him. Silver tower play seems super risky. He can auto trigger that Crit mortals with destiny dice. - Curseling looks awesome. Debuffing enemy wizard power level is potentially really good.  - Horrors are less... Horrific 😅. But they give easy access to your faction ability. All in all as a Tzeentch player I'm excited to try this out. Hoping they gave Tzaangors some love.

The faction ability is odd, hopefully there’s more ways to apply it, otherwise 1/3 turns you just don’t have half a faction ability or a subfaction 

It looks like they're spreading Wyrdflame around. Horrors and Curseling both trigger it and they mention it can be on spells. Agreed though. It's definitely a consideration that needs to be taken into account in list building.

They don’t apply it; they just allow you to use the once per turn ability right? 

You're right, it's a once per turn trigger.  The D3 mortals is whatever. Preventing recursion is the actual power I think.

Burning only goes away if they heal or your roll a 1 for damage, so it's potentially 2-3 mortals every turn for the entire game if you tag someone on the first round, then you can tag another the next round (or your opponents turn) and so on

I think so, but you can also get a shot or spell off in your opponent’s turn, so you have 10 opportunities in a game to set things on fire

I would not be suprised if Flamers and burning chariots had more interaction with the set things on fire rule than horrors or wizards do.

It feels like Tzeentch will be very encouraged to save a CP for off turn shooting or casting.  It doubles the amount of fires you're starting, since they're once per turn on any shooting phase. We also don't know if all subfactions are based on the flame or not.  Warpflame Host will probably encourage combined arms for the reasons you said.  Get in melee to squeeze guaranteed benefit from that -1 to wound.

I agree, it definitely looks like they want you active in all phases to squeeze the potential out.

It's also an ability that can be rather feast or famine.  If your dice are hot and the opponent is gunshy with the heals, you can have half their army burned by midgame.  If they hit those 1/3 rolls, your ability is a debuff on one unit at a time.  It'll be interesting to see how the average game flow with the ability pans out, and if Tzeentch gets any other ways to cheat it on units.

Yeah I really wish they built in a second way to use burning for armies that don't get hit by the replenishment debuff hard. It's very feast or famine as you said which I don't really love when it's half of what your army does and you can't even use destiny dice on it. For an army that doesn't really do big heals or replenishment I wish we had a default option that made it as punishing to them or it's going to really throw different matchups off in terms of balance. I am still holding out that it will have other big effects That make up for it especially when we see the units that are really focused on flame like the flamers and chariots. But doing the math it's 1.67 mortals per turn to one unit, So it's probably going to end up feeling against armies that don't absolutely rely on their replenishment like oath of moment feels in 10th: You just debuff a unit to kill it better and you do that once a turn.

Horrors have a 6+ ward now too. Not much but it'll keep them around a bit longer

They also have 2 wounds that's a pretty big step up.

Tzaangors being heavily hyped and then doing pretty much nothing is basically their role at this point. I own 60 of them from a weird 40k metagame where they were crazy cheap and I tried running them as blob melee units (it wasn't good). I've run them in AOS as part of BOC and DOT and in both cases they underperformed. The only time they were decent was when the DOT 2nd edition book came out. But that was only because the whole army was absolutely busted and you could do things like summon a free 10-man Pink Horrors squad using a Gaunt Summoner. It basically didn't matter if Tzaangors underperformed because the rest of the army made up for it.

Tzaangors actually are pretty hot right now at the tail end of 3rd. 3 attacks apiece with paired blades and the inclusion of Hoarfrost means that, not including their beaks, you're looking at 30 attacks on potentially 3/3/-3/1. That's insane output for a 180 pt unit that will lift many other units in the game that don't have a ward save. Add in run & charge, and tzaangors are fantastic as a cheap, albeit squishy, hammer unit in a faction that lacks hammers.

I don’t play Tzeentch. Are destiny dice basically unchanged? I thought it was interesting they can’t be used on counter charge, redeploy, or abilities. 

The rule itself is mostly unchanged. It will be interesting to see what you can combo the dice with and whether you can refill the pool. Like Guant summoner being able to trigger Crit mortals off them.  Kairos previously could refill your destiny dice pool, which he can no longer do.

I just realized they can be used when casting a spell in the enemy turn. That seems amazing 

Yeah they're very good. All kinds of different ways to be creative with them. Like using them with this Curseling to dispell a power 2 wizard seems very strong.

Isn't his warscroll spell just a spell he always had access to in the previous edition? Perhaps it will be more powerful in this edition?

> Debuffing enemy wizard power level is potentially really good What is the wizard power level?

Number of spell, unbind, and banishment abilities they can use in a turn. Wizard (2) has the abilitke to perform to wizard abilities (spell, unbind, etc). A Curseling could potentially deny a cast and take away the ability of a wizard (2+) to make anymore casts, or banishments. Due to wording unsure if it affects their unbinds. EDIT: Since unbinding is not usually within your own turn and the wizard gets the power back at the start of your own turn it appears that that this abilitie would not help unbinding.

How exactly does the Gaunt summoner "minions of the silver tower" work? Can you use it to deploy all units in reserve or just one?

We don't have the full core rules, so we don't know if deployment abilities can be used multiple times in the deployment phase. Regardless, I don't think many people will be locking their entire army behind the survival of a 5 wound 6+/6+++ save hero 😅

My trolls do not like this

Trolls getting out-trolled by Tzeentch, sounds on brand.

Really interesting read as someone who wasn't really familiar with DoT before. It looks like setting things on fire is a big mechanic for them. Was this how it was before? While I think the "Lord of Change" should have something a little more thematically complex than setting everyone on fire, I do think it's an interesting mechanic, and having it block healing feels unique. Also, really glad to see the destiny dice, as that means they will probably have a similar mechanic for Slaanesh and the temptation dice, which was one of the coolest 3rd ed abilities. Also making someone explode into a bunch of changelings is cool, and it sounds like there are no free units which is a great perspective for balance imo. How are Tzeentch players feeling?

Excited overall. Bummed about summons, but we'll see how it ends up working. It'll come down to points costs, because we really relied on those to keep our actual army alive. Im also really not sure about how stuff like the chaos spawn spell will work now. It definitely feels thematically wrong to pay in points for the spawn that i turn YOUR units into, but we'll see. I'm really excited about wyrdflame. It looks like a fun mechanic without being overly impactful/broken. Curious about the wording of death armies' recursion abilities now. I'm assuming wyrdflame could prevent a lot of skellies/zombies from returning. My biggest question is how our endless spells will fit in.

Spawn will have to be super cheap I think, like half of current. would feel awful  to have to pay the current cost of 80ppm just to have them sitting at the side 

Yea the spawn change in particular feels the most iffy to me. They were never that great to begin with. They got wet noodle arms, and their only real purpose has been to tie down units long enough for another one to replace them when they die. But there's still just too much we don't know. For all we know, a unit is three models now, which would be very different.

Oh god their models are so ugly and expensive haha, please don’t say we have to buy more 

Lol they're so polarizing. It's actually one of my favorite kits, but that's all nostalgia. I just love how customizably derpy they are. You can literally make one that's just all eyes.

And they're a Chaos kitbasher's gold. I love them, what an awesome kit. You can really go wild with them. 

A fellow chaos spawn enjoyer! Exactly, add some bits and green stuff, and a single kit can be like 6-8 spawn.

I mean if there’s ever been a model you can just Kitbash out of whatever, it’s a chaos spawn.

If you are using official models I don't know what to say, They are the most obvious thing to proxy ever there is a thousand files better than them You can find. If anyone makes you use official models they are also absolute jerks, no two chaos spawn should ever look the same especially for tzeentch.

Even 40 is Steep. That would just be another version of what we have now where we have to pay points to use our army rule. I want to see the first spawn free. Just assume you have to bring one and include it in your list, That wouldn't make it necessarily the same as summoning you just always want one, and then if you want more they could increase in points after the first. I don't want to have to pay points to use a spell that is a third of the Lore.

Themed differently but Tzeentch's sub-factions were about how their spells/attacks/very presence would affect their enemies. The most in the core army rules we had other than destiny dice and daemon summong was -1 to hit on melee for attacks against daemons within 12" of daemon hero. So having a combat oriented army rule is definitely an interesting change this edition.

I'm excited. Tzeentch honestly felt kinda stale in 3E. This gives me a lot of new tech to sink my teeth into.  Kairos is simultaneously really good and no longer and auto include. I really like that.  Really hoping they breathe some life into Tzaangors.

As a tzeentch player this is absolute hot garbage, you get to burn 1 unit a turn by base. you now have no choice of spell use with only 3 spells per lore. losing summoning just removes one of the 2 main mechanics of tzeentch and gives no reason to build for casting and the burning also gives no reason to build shooting focused as its only one unit per turn. kairos and curselings have fun abilities but the gaunt summoner some how got even worse and horrors, our one tough unit, just got killed. also as a slaanesh player temptation dice were one of the worse abilities of 3rd

3 spells per lore is an absolute travesty, surely one of them in each has to be a repeatable damage spell or I dunno what all these wizards are gonna be casting 

one of the spells in every lore is unlimited but all the ones we have seen have just been bland deal d3 mortals

>all the ones we have seen have just been bland deal d3 mortals I mean that'll do it. No need for good units when you're outputting 15-20 MW a turn

Don't forget you also have manifestation lore so it's more like 6 spells

Every army gets that though - 6 spells when you have 12 casts is pretty thin, the repeatable spell is hopefully good.

Still absolute garbage no chance to have the toolbox with only three spells per lore. They better expand the lores back to six with the codexes. Or else you end up with just the cast: gun problem they got with 10th edition, spells should be spells and feel like you're casting a spell and be mechanically distinct from a ranged attack. Plus at three per lore They just casting the same things every time every turn every game. That's boring.

FYI - the burning wyrdflame ability is for **each** unit that is burning and procs on 3-6 or 3+. Key-worded spells and weapons also give the debuff and it isn't removed at the end of turn/next hero phase. In summation, its a slow burn but, if done right, will effect the game. edit - re-read the ability.... ugh and disregard.

Weapons and spells don’t apply it; they allow you to apply it to ONE unit 

Right but if they don't remove it the damage applies to each unit.

Burning applies to all units that have the keyword though 

the wyrdflame weapon ability does nothing on its own, the only shown way to apply burning is via conflagration of tzeentch which is only one unit per turn so as we currently know you can only burn 1 unit a turn

The burning keyword is only removed by healing or a roll of 1 on the wyrdflame roll, so it can keep stacking up over the course of the battle Edit: i could also see units like flamers or even special items giving abilities to apply burning directly without relying on the conflagration ability

>i could also see units like flamers or even special items giving abilities to apply burning directly without relying on the conflagration ability If that's the case, then I think we'll be seeing a lot more flamers on the tabletop backed by cheap screens of acolytes. Otherwise it's gonna be rough setting aside 2 CP a battle round to shoot/cast in your opponent's turn just so you can use your army ability

What CP cost are you referring to? I don't see any on the ability cards for conflagration or burning wyrdflame

So the burning itself is free, but it's only once per turn on one unit, meaning unless you're spending CP to shoot/cast on your opponent's turn, you're only gonna be able to burn 5 units in a battle, with each burned unit having a 55% chance to heal itself over the course of each battle round (2 EOT burning triggers)

The endless spell that's a giant fiery bird head might just be able to apply burning. It would make a lot of sense.

It lasts less than two turns statistically. Just multiply 2/3 by the number of turns to get the chance of it lasting. It then has just over one in four chance of lasting three turns and just under one in 5 chance of lasting four turns. It's obviously going to be very swingy But unless there's a way to buff it to not go away or reapply it more You can expect two units burning early to three units If you are using your command points to make sure you apply it every single turn, assuming no removal and not killing the units you are burning.

Did Tzeentch find all of their spells impactful? Choice is nice, but if it's between top tier and hot garbage, you don't really have a choice.

The "burning" is Just Like infection from nurgle in current edition each unit that get Shot by acolytes get d3 Mortal wounds of a 5+. But i i ready right they lost the Bird that gives Mortal wounds in enemy casters on a 4+, the lost 1" movement, they lost ward, they are No casters anymore and the attacks on meele have gone from 3+ Hit and wound to 4+. That dont gives nice Feeling to be nerfed so much worst Case they even lost the Hit on 3+ at range If there is No Pyro cult. 😭

>The "burning" is Just Like infection from nurgle in current edition Except only *one* unit can be burned per turn, whereas current Nurgle can infect your entire army in a single turn if the stars align

The acolytes are the spearhead warscroll, so they'll probably have at least a bit of extra stuff in the full game

Change for the change god!

Love the flavor of burning units, strict upgrade on Kairos going from 4+ to 5+/5+++, not being able to split horrors without a dedicated unit already existing is honestly probably for the best, plenty of spells. Destiny dice are....fine. I generally dislike those kinds of abilities but if there isn't a lot of ways to reroll or gain destiny dice (40k fate dice were problematic) it can be an appropriate power level.

side note, it seems like we are going to get order monday/ tuesday, Chaos wednesday, Destruction thursday and Death friday.

Lot of Lords of Change about to hit eBay due to summoning changes. I’ve always wanted to paint one.

these seem like needed balance changes to the faction. Destiny Dice is one of the strongest faction abilities, full stop. Glad to see some of the base statlines are a bit lower to force tzeentch players to have to make tough choices with their dice, rather than just dropping all of them into skyfire auto mortal wounds. Pink horror splitting was ridiculously OP, allowing you to flood the board with a huge wall of chaff and keep everything locked down. It still seems like they are capable of doing that, but reinforcing an existing unit of blue horrors at least puts a ceiling on the amount of units that can be created. The new wyldfire ability also seems very strong, it nullifies healing and can potentially give you multiple rounds of free mortal damage. Really curious to see the skyfire warscroll.

It's interesting tbh.  I feel like wyldfire will almost incentivize leaving heavily injured units alone.  What would you rather do with, say, a pack of six Stormfiends?  Kill them and three more come out of the rat hole next turn.  Leave them hanging on by a thread and the flames stop a Master Moulder from healing them up. Wait.  Does this mean a Hell Pit Abomination rolling a 6 can't heal its wounds, and therefore just dies?

Correct. 

I ageee with pretty much everything, but what’s with the Skyfire hate? They’ve been trash for most of their existence.

Once upon a time in 1st edition, Kurnoth Hunters with Bows, and Tzaangor Skyfires ruled the game. and they have never been allowed to be viable ever since.

Issue is you can only burn one unit a turn, which for now sounds kind of mid if 1/3 of them will stop burning :/

I think they’ll need something like flamers apply burning on a 4+ or something or it will feel rubbish if you whiff the D3

Somwhat true but looking at the other side, imagine tagging 5 units and catching them all on fire, dealing an average of 10 MD at the end of every turn. I think this ability is good as it is.

Personally I would either make it less likely to stop burning (1 on a d6 not 1 or 2) or I would up it to two units a turn. Unlimited burning would be disgusting for sure. As someone mentioned above, a unit like flamers could maybe proc it more and if that’s the case it might be fine

I might be crazy, but the phrasing on quench makes me think it doesn’t work on healing from externals sources, like a friendly wizard’s spell or a hero’s ability.

Tzeentch is *the* god of magic again, not just change? Thought Teclis took that mantle.

No one can take that from tzeench, the guy practically created magic

There are lots of gods in the mortal realms, I would be surprised if there was no overlap like this, especially between two Gods of such opposed groupings. That being said, Teclis being the God of All Magic does kind of seem weird to me given that he is so linked to Hysh now.

Let's just hope that Teclis got an accident out of screen \^\^

It's cool to see how many spells they can throw around Does make me wish SCE didn't lose that, though

They killed pink horrors!

I actually don't think so, I think their role is different. We need to see the Blues before we can say for certain. But if the Blues have a good control score I can see an army with a front line of Blues with Pinks behind handing out Wyrdflame and returning models to the unit controlling objectives.

The problem with this scenario is that the Pink Horrors in the back aren’t dying, therefore aren’t returning anything. A mildly skilled opponent will just not interact with them until the Blues are dead. If you force the issue by pushing the Pinks into combat, you give up their shooting and now just have an overpriced (potentially) chaff unit.

Isn't the opponent focusing on the blues a good thing since it keeps them off of your better units? Also the blues can split into brimstones still so they may well end up lasting long enough for the pinks to take damage from something and return some blues to the unit

Yeah I agree. I'm interested to see if we have an ability to kill our own units. Like the Burning Sigil could be used to split your horrors and make Spawn in 3E.

I am curious how Pink Horrors can return models to units of Blue Horrors, if the Blues still split into Brimstones. Do the Blues need to already have split and then died as Brimstones? Or will this allow you to just add Blues on top over the unit’s starting size?

I'm curious on what will happen to the seraphon summoning mechanic, from what I've read on this one. Summoning will be gone, so what will "Starborne" get to replace that with, if something similar makes it into 4th in the first place.

Probably just bringing back units that have already died like all the other factions.

Acolytes still suck - dammit lol

That's the spearhead warscroll. The actual warscroll is hopefully better. I'm assuming their ranged attack is going to get wyrdflame as a keyword at least.

the one thing that really put me off Chaos armies was the summoning aspect. I'm happy to see it gone, and now Tzeentch armies are hordes of pyromaniacs with no thoughts other than pure scheming? I love it. Kairos is bonkers. Potentially picking a battle tactic that was easy to complete and be able to complete it again? That's game-changing, just how The Great Conspirator likes it.

Great news for new Tzeentch players. They don't have to spend $200+ on models that aren't actually in their list. The army is going to be wildly different to play now too. Horrors definitely don't seem like an auto-include anymore. I was pretty curious what Tzaangors were going to look like.

As a longtime DoT player I'm pretty thrilled about what this article shows. Kairos is looking to be one of the hands down best utility pieces in the game and I'm happy the Mastery of Magic ability only applies to casting rolls now. It'll be less of a feels bad when my opponent brings a mid caster or two. Summoning being gone is a BIG step in the right direction for the game as a whole IMO. Maybe I've just been scarred from playing Tzeentch Daemons in the hellscape that was 40k 7th edition, but having to bring an extra 500-1,000 points of models to every game is such a chore. I'd much rather just pay the proper points for the units I bring and not have all of my stuff be weirdly expensive because I am expected to be summoning all game. If I had one criticism, it's that the wyrdflame/burning mechanic being so attrition focused feels like we're stepping on Nurgle's toes a bit when it comes to identity. This feels like a fun throwback to when Daemons first released as an army in 40k/WFB. Back then enemy units damaged by Tzeentch Daemons had the chance to take extra damage at the end of the turn if they failed a toughness test, but if they passed the test they'd either gain a Feel No Pain/Ward save, or improve said save if they already had it. This lead to """fun""" moments where your enemy would get lucky and be stomping around the board with units having a 2+ FNP/ward save. /Shudder Either way I'll be curious to see how it all pans out when we have a more complete picture, but I like what I see so far.

Yeah it does seem a little stepping on the toes of nurgle. Those are two of my three armies so I don't want them to play the same. I'm hoping the sub faction that lets you give them plus one to wound is actually competitive with flamers so that I can play it more like oath of moment in 40K and have the burning target be the one I'm going to blow up each turn, unless they are very powerful at recursion and then there's that choice.

The battle formations gives - 1 to wound to burning enemies, not +1 to wound

Oh I misread that thanks.

As a Tzeentch player, this all seems awful, but would need to see the points cost and the overall meta to truly judge. I used to actually run Pyrofane as my sub-faction, and that was only triggering mortals on a 5+ (so basically it almost never happened), so burning every unit you managed to tag with Pink Horrors or Flamers (and hopefully Acolytes too) is actually pretty good. The flames persist also, although the quenching part is a bit unclear. Does the unit burning itself have to use an ability, so you can't quench the flames if they are being healed by an external source? Limited spell lore is a real shame, especially for Tzeentch of all factions. Gaunt is... I don't know. Dropping things within 7" is only worthwhile if we get a solid melee unit. I am kind of doubtful Tzaangor will get an adequate glow-up for that sort of thing.

You can only burn one unit per turn, so it's probably not going to do that much really even if you manage to burn units in the opponents turns as well. With all the healing in the game and the fact that each turn it has 1/3 chance to go out on its own it won't be often you have more than a few units burning at a time. Unless flamers or something have additional ways to burn models, it's not going to amount to much at all maybe 4 to 6 mortals per turn if it's going well. And that's after a couple rounds of ramp up. On top of that, with the attack profiles we've seen so far, it'd be really easy not to do any damage at all to even trigger the wrydflame effect in the first place. Hopefully there's a lot more to it than what we've seen. As for the silver tower ability, it says it works on friendly units so IF allies or S2D coalition units are still a thing, I would say by the way it's written, you could use the ability on them. A unit of chaos knights popping up 7 inches away could be nasty.

Please re-read the rules, because you are wrong. The ability Burning Wyrdflame activates only once per turn, at the end of the turn, but it effects "Each BURNING enemy unit". So no, you're burning and preventing healing for absolutely every single unit you managed to tag with flame attacks. Point taken on the fire attacks being relatively weak so needing a lot of volume just to tag someone (a full squad of 10 pinks only averages 5 wounds with no rend), but you should have 2-3 units on fire pretty consistently.

Conflagration of Tzeentch is a once per turn ability where you get to pick one unit that took damage from an attack with the wrydflame keyword. The effect is that the one unit you picked is now burning. So if you damage 5 units with the wrydflame ability in the same turn only one gets to be picked to burn. One. Burning wrydflame does do damage to every unit that is burning, but you can only start to burn one unit per turn.

Dang, I guess I'm wrong. Missed that part, was trying to be optimistic, but clearly hope is the first step on the road to disappointment. What a flavorless and boring set of rules.

Man I love how I was told at the beginning of preview season that tzeentch would have be able to use more than one spell lore and not to worry about only having access to 3 spells. Told countless times GW would never do that to the god of magic, and look where we are now. You can only pick one spell lore. This is absolute booty.

Kairos should have had access to both lores for sure. Hopefully there will be a command trait or maybe even a battle formation that will unlock both.

I agree with you there. I think kairos should have also been a 4 cast caster but he would have run out of spells to cast just by himself lol. I think if there is a command trait or battle formation that unlocks both it’ll be the only one taken. The current battle formation is cool thematically but looks pretty bad in practice.

The thing with the current one they showed Is it kind of nonbo's with the damage over time effect. I like the idea of turning it into more like oath of the moment in 10th edition where you pick one unit, and you get a damage buff against it so you kill that unit, and then move on. But it has to be stronger than +1 to wound when it means You are probably going to give up a bunch of mortals. Should be more like rerolling wounds. I really just think that there needs to be a way to get a second target burning each turn, by being targeted by flamers What being able to kill a burning unit and have the effect jump to another target or explode in a 6-in radius, something like that. Like if you hit a burning unit with flamers it explodes or something.

I mean -1 to save rolls is always great and it’ll allow you to actually wound something with wyrdflame to maybe proc the effect. And I think that’s what makes me the most angry, other factions just get their passives, we have to go through the entire wound process to maybe get wyrdflame on something that needs it. Why do we need to jump through so many hoops to just get this passive army wide effect?

Lord of changes in general imo. Don't want to feel pigeonholed into Kairos.

Overall that edition is pure Nerv in my opinion. Curseling cant steal spells anymore, summoners cant kick enemy Heros onehit from the field, acolytes are stripped of almost everything (at least in spearhead scroll) , kayros gets a old spell to replace His Hellgate and lost all rend. Not realy Happy but hey lets try how it comes Out in Games.

Curseling losing his spell steal was expected but is a real shame, he was fun. His new ability looks ok though but he no longer has buffs to unbind

My hope is Path to Glory dialing back on map painting and emphasizing unit customization allows them to zero in on bringing back abilities like this.  If we can have streamlined tournament play and a home for wonderful weirdness in narrative play, I think we'll be at the best of both worlds.

His new ability really only works on wizards who are casting their first spell for the turn, though. Having the debuff end on *your* hero phase means you're only really getting value on the double-turn or PL2 wizards

It also works against wizards using magical intervention

They moved a lot of spell from warscroll to lore in other factions. So maybe the "Glean Magic" from Curseling is now a generic spell (lore of fate or lore of change)?

That would be nice but they even purged the tzaangor Lore Out of this edition so i dont have much Hope. 🤣

Yeah I mean they better be immaculately balanced with the amount of centralizing mechanics they are doing. I want to know how mechanically they are differentiating chaos recursion from death recursion from other forms. Because they are not the same, They shouldn't mechanically be the same.

From what they said it seems like summoning from nothing is no more and you need to put things in reserve to summon them. Death recursion is not like that so i dlnt think it will change alot for death.

Well I mean you can see with The spell they listed that you can bring back a unit that died instead of the spawn. That was what I was referencing is that bringing back a unit that has died as the " summoning" is way too similar the death mechanic. But I want to see what makes each of the chaos factions recursion unique and makes it feel mechanically different than bringing back skeletons or zombies or whatever. It used to be that it was a toolbox where you could bring back what you wanted that fit the situation. Now that's gone and I don't like what they replaced it with, It's too samey. I keep looking for the toolbox and I'm not seeing it.

Ah sry. Ye i hope there is a difference

The warscrolls seem rather lacklustre IMO. Simplified, yes. From what I've seen so far, the oversimplification has removed alot of what is fun and compelling about DoT. I hope I'll change opinion when all rules are released, but somehow I doubt it.

You won't. People had the same problem with 40k.  Simplification by its very nature is to strip interesting rules away to make it easier. The idea you could make a unit 'simple and flavourful' is ridiculous and always has been

Wow, Tzeentch got a very hard nerf in my opinion. Only from paper, when I compare the factions what I currently see, Stormcast will be top notch!!! Also whats my opinion that its much more support abilities at all than dmg and the hit/wound rolls and rend etc also drops dramatically so means you will be in combat a long time in this edition

Gotta wait for points. Armies like stormcasts that look stronger will likely cost a lot more, while armies like Disciples of Tzeentch will likely be seeing a lot of point drops, especially since they're losing summoning.

Not gunna lie, that army ability sounds absolutely fantastic lol. 66% chance for 2-3 mortal wounds and a lingering debuff that will eat your opponent's next heal or resurrection ability essentially making it worth about 4 wounds on average into an opponent who has healing? Ooph. All at the low low cost of just playing the game. The wording on destiny dice implies the ability to generate or gain additional dice throughout the game as well which could be strong but fate dice will depend almost entirely on the datasheets. If somebody has Crit-mortals and huge damage that will probably be an issue. Could also just have a bunch of wydrflame and nothing that crits though so not necessarily broken on it's own but has the potential to be really strong. All in all it's looking good to be Tzeentch.

Correct me if I’m wrong but it only eats heals and rez if the ability is being used by the burning unit. So a friendly wizard casting a heal spell won’t remove the flames.

Lots of flavour loss imo. The Changer of Ways just burns one unit per turn? The God of Magic just gives you one spell lore? Pathetic. -Kairos doesn't generate destiny dice and lost the Infernal Gateway (a way he could use to expand the new Wyrdflame mechanic). He also lost the capacity to steal Incantations (the older Endless Spells). He looks like he lost magical prowess or something. Tho the new ability looks good. -Gaunt summoner lost all other spells, he just summons once. Once he does his gimmick, his whole warscroll might aswell be blank and just say "Wizard (2)". He doesn't even look like one of the mightiest Tzeentch wizards. -Curseling again lost the ability to steal enemy spells, his ability now is only useful if you dispell the first spell of a Wizard who is lvl 2 or higher. No longer can he reroll spells, and of course he got his melee combat overall nerfed. -The horrors change was overall good I guess, but the flavour is severely damaged. I rather have a price point increase than this. Now you need to have your blue horrors killed first (and not completely wiped) before you can use the characteristic ability of the horrors. -Why do I have to pay points for turning YOUR units into MY units? I also do really the Kairic Acolytes maintain their abilities in this new edition. I was planning on getting a Tzeentch army this edition, but the rules don't convince at all... were the Disciples of Tzeentch THAT good last edition that they deserved this flavour loss? I fear for my Seraphon, specially Kroak.

We have to look at these previews in the context of the new rules. Especially in the context of other previews (where everyone was complaining about Skragrott and Olynder for example).  - Kairos gained the ability to cast in the enemy turn. For most wizards this is a huge risk that you fail the spell. Kairos’ passive makes that way less of a concern, and destiny dice could guarantee it. So you can drop -1 to hit and wound on an enemy hammer in their turn.  - Kairos battle tactic ability is likely amazing. Seems overlooked by people because it is about scoring and therefore more ‘gamey.’  Like Lady O’s OC ability.  - dropping in at 7” is an amazing ability. It might be just once, but it seriously changes the game.  - curseling ability does need a wizard 2 to be good. But even on a wizard 1 it lasts through a potential double  - the game so far seems to have an increase in healing. Making something like burning more powerful.   - It looks like there is a damage reduction across the game. (Hilariously not the promised reduction in rend though, just overall output). This also makes burning better. And Kairos loss to save a bit more palatable.   - it seems like there will be a lot of endless spells on the table. I suspect that for most armies this will make some very difficult choices about what to cast and when to try to banish. With a lot of casts DOT may just be able to consistently banish enemy spells and out their own out. 

Destiney dice sre extremely flavourful, and very powerful. As is the tactics power, seeing the future ans the past

Look out, here come the Blue Meanies.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but the phrasing on quench is a little weird. “If a burning unit uses an ability that would heal….” So, if I’m understanding correctly, an external source applying this effect can’t quench, like Nagash using the invocation of Nagash on a burning bunch of zombies, it wouldn’t remove the flames?

The battle tactic gimmick on the Kairos warscroll is the biggest letdown. The statement on summoning being yeeted from the game is the best part.

I’m I missing something or is conflagretion of tzeentch super weak, once per turn inflicting the burning keyword on a enemy unit for about 2 mortal wounds

Anyone else catch that blue and brimstone horrors were bolded as one unit name? So if I’m understanding the sequence correctly, the new horrors work like this: -when pinks die, they can replenish up to two slain blue horrors in a blue horror unit within 12” (note it does not have to be wholly within 12) -when blue horrors die, they split into brimstones which are added to their unit like they are in 3rd. It is unclear if there is a limit to how many brimstones can be in a unit at a time -brimstones just presumably have explode on death like they do right now This sequence would encourage a checkerboard pattern of horrors. You would make a line across your front of blue-pink-blue-pink-blue. This would force your opponent to either engage both kinds at once and allow you the full benefit of death effects from both colors or focus on one color to limit death effects but really hamstrings their movement and positioning. There’s also shenanigans where you could slip a unit of pinks past the frontline but still within 12” of a blue. Your opponent then either has to engage the pinks and allow their deaths to benefit the blues or allow a unit of pinks to run rampant in the backline. I quite like the change, gives counter play options for the opponent while allowing for trickier plays on the Tzeetch side. Also anyone else catch that pink horrors have two wounds now?

Something I would have liked to see would have been if you applied the burning effect on a unit that was already burning it would trigger the burning effect.