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.

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.

Cons

• Lack of CQC: Expect to be the worst of the Monogods in melee. Your Demons will have low armor and defense, and your Chaos Warriors likely won't hold up as well as their brothers from the other Chaos gods don't actually exist.
• 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 and will want to use it.
• 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. It will be very unforgiving when it comes to mistakes so play these guys at your own risk.
• Lack of options: Not only do you have the smallest roster of the game 3 races (so far anyway), you have the smallest roster of any core Warhammer races. DLCS will likely fix this problem, but for now you don't have many choices to pick from.
• "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, 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.
• 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. 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 probably won't be 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 the Tzeentch loves. Makes 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.

Lords

Legendary Lords

• Kairos Fateweaver: Kairos, if done justice, will be 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. According to the Tzeentch roster article he is a fierce melee combatant, so it seems that they retconned him being weaker than a normal LOC in melee to make up for his absurd casting potential. He'll likely 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.

Generic Lords

• Exalted Lord of Change: Budget Kairos. These guys will be uber powerful spellcasters, likely with Greater Arcane Conduit and Comes with the Lores of Metal and Tzeentch. Apparently they are still pretty strong in melee combat, so while they won't be able to go toe to toe with a Bloodthirster, they can still lay the whooping on most mortals. The Ability to fly also gives it a good chance to choose it's battles and get around the fight quickly.

• Herald of Tzeentch: He will be your standard Daemon mage, along with having some more support abilities for helping out units outside of magic. Compared to the Lord of Change he will probably be weaker in terms of magic in exchange for having more buffs and supportive elements. He can be mounted on a Disk and a Burning Chariot.

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 Lotuses that allows them to buff troops in combat without using magic. They come with the Lores of Metal and Tzeentch and can mount up on a Disk and a Burning Chariot.

• Cultist of Tzeentch: Your Mortal hero and the only mage in your army that can use the Lore of Fire. The big reason you bring them is to summon more Daemons to the battlefield, all the way up to a Lord of Change (which will likely be campaign only, but then again the beastmen can pull a Cyrgor out of there asses so a LoC might be possible in multi, who knows.) Will probably get his ass cheeks handed to him by any decent melee fighter but makes up for it with spell casting and his Daemon summons.

Units

Infantry

• Forsaken of Tzeentch: Your only dedicated melee infantry. 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. Will likely be your main frontline to protect your squishy Daemons for most of the game.
• Blue Horrors of Tzeentch: Horrors will have a flaming range attack to pepper enemies from afar, though they will likely be the worse of the lesser daemons in combat (not that they will be useless). They will serve as your chaff infantry, meant to throw off some magic volleys then run in and die to hold for your more important troops. The range attack is meant more so as a precursor attack before charging into melee

Missiles

• Pink Horrors of Tzeentch: Upgrades to the blue guys. Has a better flaming range attack, and actually decent melee stats. Sadly, it has been confirmed that they will not split into Blue Horrors upon death. Will likely replace Blue Horrors once you have the money for them, as they do everything that they do but way better.

• Exalted Pink Horrors of Tzeentch: And the Pink Horrors will be replaced by 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. This will be one of your likely Doomstacks in the late game, as AP missiles combined with extra magic is something no one will want less of.

Cavalry

• Chaos Knights of Tzeentch: 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 they will be great against low leadership armies.

• 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. They are said to be the best melee focused unit in the roster. With the Halberds, they are very likely to have Anti Large as well, making them good monster killers.

Chariots

• Burning Chariot: A flying ranged focused chariot that has one of the most devastating ranged attacks in the entire game. It can apparently shred infantry formations and monsters but has low armor to compensate. Probably won't be the best chariot in melee, but the ability to fly and shoot flames will likely make up for that.

War Beast

• Chaos Furies (Tzeentch): Flying skirmisher harrassers who come with Barrier, allowing them to soak up slightly more damage than the Furies of the other gods. They hav 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.

• 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 cycle charging infantry and taking out skirmishers and artillery.

Monsters

• Spawn of Tzeentch: Chaos Spawn but blue this time. Ok I guess Barrier makes them a bit more durable so they have more of a cycle charging role rather than a holding role of normal spawn. That's it, moving on.

• 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.

• 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 both infantry and large units. 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 unit to do more damage to the enemy.

• 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 seems to be 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.

• Lord of Change A flying bird that is said to be a full spellcaster. Whether this means it has a bunch of bound spells or can use the Winds of Magic like a normal mage is unclear. It is a decent monster in melee, though don't expect it to go toe to toe with a Bloodthirster any time soon. Can get more spells through campaign tech.

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:

• Bretonnia:

• Warriors of Chaos:

• Dark Elves:

• Dwarfs:

• Empire:

• Grand Cathay:

• Greenskins:

• High Elves:

• Khorne:

• Kislev:

• Lizardmen:

• Norsca:

• Nurgle:

• Ogre Kingdoms:

• Skaven:

• Slaanesh:

• Tomb Kings:

• Tzeentch:

• Vampire Coast:

• Vampire Counts:

• Wood Elves:

Total War: Warhammer Tactics Articles
General Tactics	Tactics Magic Banner Immortal Empires
Total War: Warhammer	The Empire Dwarfs Greenskins Vampire Counts Bretonnia Warriors of Chaos Beastmen Wood Elves Norsca
Total War: Warhammer 2	High Elves Dark Elves Lizardmen Skaven Tomb Kings Vampire Coast
Total War: Warhammer 3	Kislev Khorne Tzeentch Nurgle Slaanesh Grand Cathay Ogre Kingdoms Daemons of Chaos Chaos Dwarfs