New ETC restrictions, Which daemon lists will shine?

By spamming I do not mean it that you got 4 wizards that all can cast the spells freely. Spamming might be wrong term here, but let me explain it a bit. With 2 wizards you can spend 3 dice for each spell for example, getting a good chance on succeeding on it and getting some extra pressure on opponents dispelling. Since ETC focuses so heavily on big creatures and smaller unit sizes in general, having reliable bolt of Tzeentch could be very usefull indeed and lets not forget 2 reliable mass destructions with glean magic either. Not only you could bypass those normal magic restrictions (4 max cast dice on shadow magic), but you could also do it twice if winds would be good. So by spamming I mean more like getting spell much more reliably through rather than having 4 mages throwing the same spell.

There is a good reason why only LoC was loremaster of Tzeentch and in my opinion ETC team just wrecked the balance more with that comp, even though I didnt first realize it. Now daemons can have 2 tzeentch mages throwing reliable mass destructions and super bolts twice per round AND can bypass some of the restrictions. I suppose that wasnt what they intended...

I get what you're saying Kitsune.
It's just the word 'spamming' that threw me off really.
ETC keeps chasing their tail. *fun*

You are probably right Kitsune, BUT... LoC is a large target with 5 wounds and only a 5+ ward save... most of the armies will make short work of him, or any other greater daemon (excluding GuO maybe?). So, lets take a look:

Beastmen- They have no solution for any GD, but i dont think we'll be seeing them much on the ETC

Bretonnia- trebuchets+tons of cheap archers, they have a good chance of getting even the GuO down

DoC- Other daemons wold have trouble hunting down that LoC thats for sure, gives you an edge in that matchup

Dark Elves- Those Xbows are spooky, the shades most of all, but lets say if you can deploy well, you will get outta range of the normal Xbows and not let those shades deploy too close to your GD

Dwarfs- Too much artillery EVEN in the comped enviroment, 4 war machines will likely make short work of any GD.

High Elves- if bringing out ~40 archers with the range of 30-35 inches, it is hard to escape them, but not impossible, and a good thing if the opponent focuses all his shooting on your daemon, even better if he fails to kill him.

Lizardmen- A tough one, lots of poisonous shots, really one of the hardest matchups for DoC if you ask me.

Ogre Kingdoms- We are fine here if the cannon is dodged

Orcs and Goblins- still lots of catapults, lots of shots, and sniper spells, not looking good for the GD here.

Skaven- shooty scouts, cannons/catapults, doomwheel, potential S6 shooting attacks, not looking good for the guy either.

Empire- 2-3 war machines, guns and arrows

Tomb kings- nasty 'hitting on fives' arrows, catapults, ouch.

Vampire Counts- i experienced the Terrorgheist kill my GD on turn 1 first hand.

Warriors of Chaos- other then hellcannons we are fine here.

Wood Elves- even though they are considered an underpowered army, those arrows can really make a mess in the DoC army.


So, when you look at this, is it really wise to bring out the LoC, or any GD at all i ask you? Or just go for the heralds and another large block (even horrors maybe?)? And once again i ask you, what are the good matchups for daemons with the GD, and which ones are good for us without one?

all of those threats are terrifying on paper but they just aren't that bad in-game. ETC makes large monsters king of the hill. and GD's are easily the meanest things on the hill.

we're playing an ETC team-style event in June and tons of people are bringing monsters, so i would suggest doing the same since ours are so much better.

besides, all of those threats you listed are not only present in less comped tourneys but are far more powerful in those tourneys, yet people still bring GD's and do well. and with TLOS no less.

You have good points Runidis, but like Maynard said, they aren't that bad in game as they look on paper. I will try to explain this in two ways, math and counter strategies. First of all let me note that Will of Tzeentch is what makes LoC quite resilient against war machines, but lets look at some numbers:

Catapults are usually the bigger threat as they cannot be blocked by fiend shields. Unless your opponent rolls a hit though, it is very likely that catapult hit will scatter away and miss the GD, so theres only 1/3 chance on hitting the GD. Wounding will be on 5/6 chance, but then you got 1/3 chance on warding and yet another one with Tzeentch will. After that opponent would have 1/3 chance on finishing the GD with a single shot. That means that with Trebutchet theres only around 4% chance to get LoC down with one shot. Without Will of Tzeentch this chance would be around 6%. For cannon ball to do the same through Fiend shield the chance would be 2%, not very likely. With Phas protection on, the chance to get through fiend shield and kill LoC would be 0,6%

Archers can be bit more troublesome, but nobody rushes their greater daemons directly to them. You seem to underestimate greater daemons T6 here though. And very likely your opponent will be having only one round to shoot GD and even that is from the long range. This means that even 40 elves with BS4 will only deal 2 wounds to unarmoured GD. 40 BS3 units like Dwarves and Empire would deal 1,48 wounds with their shooting. After that one round of shooting the GD would be in combat or out of line of sight, protected from all of the shooting. On my list LoC will be using lore of light and commonly brute forces Phas protection through with Tzeentchs will to protect him and whole army making him tough model to shoot down with BS penalty, protection from war machines and tzeentch will.

Ofcourse you can argue that every single war machine and archer will shoot the greater daemon and it would be enough to kill it on first turn, but that means that rest of the army will get through unscratched. It is also worth noting that you can dodge majority of shooting with good deployement and can easily force opponents poisoned scouts to deploy either infront of your lines to fiends/hounds/letters charge arc or too far from your GD to be useful.

So far my LOC (or any other GD) has died on shooting only once and that was long time ago when I didn't trust its skills and didnt play it offensively enough. Even LoC has tons of good targets that it can safely charge. It can also deal with the war machines if you dont trust it could take anything else down. I will give you some examples for each army you listed:

Beasts: Everything is ok target.

Bretonnia: Knights. Since they do not get lance bonus or the lance formation bonus you will be facing only 9-10 S3 hits from basic knights AND you actually prevent their devastating charge. Positioning your LoC to the flank will give you even higher advantage. First or second round charge to big knight unit works really well even without other support.

DoC: Fiends, Flamers, Daemonettes and use the LoC for flank charging.

Delfs: Hydras, Cauldrons, Spearmen, Archers. Pretty much everything but witches, black guards and Exes. LoC can even go fetch the sorcerer from the spearmens block. Scouts can be nasty, but here you really should deploy wide to force them out from your flanks and rear. GD has good amount of targets that it can safely charge.

Dwarfs: Here LoC can be very vulnerable. If there is any shooters here I would fly my LoC directly next to them. Being 4" from them makes every warmachine risky to use as they can so easily hit the own models instead. Getting 20 shots from close range wont kill the LoC and being so close means usually being at out of LoS from other shooting units that are all move or fire on this army. Your targets on Dwarf lists would likely be everything that shoots. Those greatweapon units can be bit too risky for LoC.

Helfs: Same as with delfs, but you got more soft targets and less shooting to be afraid of.

Lizardmen: Tough as nuts, tons of poisoned shooting combined with light magic. I will usually try to park my LoC to Stegadon or support other daemons when fighting sauruses. For LoC this is really the toughest fight.

Ogres: Ironblasters, Mournfang and all other big monsters are good targets. Support charging bull units work too. LoC usually spends no time outside melee against Ogres.

O&G: Charge anything if there is too many catapults or get your LoC near a goblin unit for example. Any GD is pretty safe against almost every unit when facing O&G, shooting isnt an issue.

Skaven: Hunt Abominations, Doom wheels and if you start to ge to trouble charge clan rats. Theres nothing that can harm you there. Gutter runners are much more of an threat than war machines in here.

Empire: You can charge anything in range to get away from war machines. They really do not have much time to shoot your LoC. Again you can park him close to his units that it makes it risky to shoot you.

TK: Arrows? Really? Apart from Sphinxs your GD can charge anything to be safe from all magic and shooting that TK can throw. Their shooting sucks. Even 100 archers would only deal 3,7 wounds to unarmoured GD.

VC: Terrorgheists are the only big threat. Deploy far from it and charge something to stay safe. Optionally bomb his big monsters down with lore of light and flamers.

WoC: Not much places to hide as melee opponents hit hard. Fortunately 2 cannons rarely are enough to take down GD.

Welfs: Arrows alone really do not make the difference. We are pretty safe here.

So what I am trying to say here is that GDs should usually be played quite offensively. If you give your opponent only one chance to shoot them, they are close immortal =)

its also worth noting that the LoS rules that ETC uses makes hiding a greater daemon (especially a flying one) INCREDIBLY easy.

List I ran which was pretty solid under ETC restrictions.

LoC
Lvl 3
Master of sorc (Life)
Tzeentch's will

Herald of khorne
BSB
Great standard of sundering
Juggernaut
Armour

Herald of khorne
Firestorm Blade

2 x ~30 (can't remember exact) Bloodletters
Full command
1 w/ endless war

2 x 5 Furies

2 x Single Fiend

6 Bloodcrushers
Muso

A good read there Kitsune, thanks! I have tested the 2xTzeentch lore combo and it works out quite well i must say, although you are mentioning light there, in that case, would you be running another TzHerald in that list or rely only on the casting of LoC? The only thing i found hard to do while using Tzeentch lore on the LoC is picking combats, as I'm always trying to put him somewhere where he can see the opponent's wizard, otherwise he is left with only one spell to cast...

Nicks list seem quite reliable with all that life lore resurrection and healing going on. Basic structure is same as always: GD, 2BL hordes, fiends and furies. Well theres no flamers but for this I would definately recommend juggers. I could see lots of lists struggling against that, good list.

Yes Runidis, you would be correct on this one that you would need LoC with your herald to have double Tzeentch lore here. I forgot on my earlier post that gifts are restricted to 1 on ETC. Still 2 lores of Tzeentch might be quite fun thing to play.

If LoC is using lore of Tzeentch he is mainly a support unit especially if you want to use his glean magic. You only charge small units or opponents flanks so that you can reform after combat or see whole battlefield for glean magic. Depending on wizards location and opponents army in some cases you can go directly to wizard, challenge him and blast the spells while there in combat.

this is what i'm taking to an ETC style event in june. my team mates are going to be using skaven, vampire counts, and empire.

GUO level 2
balesword, mucus

HoK
firestorm blade

HoK BSB
armor, standard of sundering

HoT
MoS (tzeentch), scroll

2x30 bloodletters
FC, endless on one of them

5 furies

6 flamers

2 fiends

2 crushers

i might drop either one of the fiends or some letters for another unit of furies

Good looking list that again follows the basic ETC scructure, I like the sundering standard on this list. It can really mess up some opponents nicely and combined with spellbreaker it should give solid protection against magic. Even though the list is perhaps bit too character oriented to my taste I'm sure it will easily slash its way through most foes. I wouldnt go dropping the fiends or letters though. 2 Fiends work bit better against most set ups and are much more reliable on taking down stuff and you really need all that core on your list. While furies seem tempting, I think you can control game quite well with your crushers, fiends and furies combined.

I myself have been toying with the idea with multiple single monstrous units in rare instead of my normal big unit of fiends. At present my list looks like this under ETC:

Thirster
Collar
Immortal Fury
Armour
Spell breaker

Tzeentch herald
BSB, standard of sundering
WIngs
Master of tzeentch

Herald of khorne
Firestorm

Herland of khorne

28 BL
Full command
Icon

27 BL
Full command

2 x 5 Furies

5 Fiends

1 Fiend

6 Flamers

Instead of the 5 fiends, I'm thinking of investing the points instead in to:

1 Fiend

2 x 1 Bloodcrusher

Bringing the BL units up to 29 a piece.

Thoughts?

Why not leave 3 Fiends in that unit and use the 110pts for a lone Crusher and one or two extra bodies on that 27BL Horde?

To make a long story short, that's my off-the-top-of-me-head reaction here.

I was playing the same list in 4-5 games. It's thesame in gifts and icons.

It works really well. Fast and hard hitting. Only problme is preserving BT alive in 1st and 2nd round from warmachines. If you magae it, you'll be on the edge. So, yes it sa great list for "quick punch in the face" playstyle.

And one more thing, my 5 fiends unit usualy did nothing good.