It does come from a position of perceived gaps in rules writing inside of the recently released Chaos Daemons Codex. I will be speculating and inferring design intent from the flavor text, and hopefully demonstrate what I perceived as lost potential for some better gameplay interactions and flow. The end result will invariably beg the question of whether its balanced or not, but arguably, with the proper points-costs and restrictions, a little elbow grease would find a good fit for all the rules I will touch upon.
Setting the tone: Tzeench weakness to melee
So let's start with the aforementioned design intention inferring, and I will state the following design pillars and product constraints:
- Player Agency is the way: Rules that provide players with more agency are better than ones that don't. Player agency can be summarized by giving players meaningful choices that offer windows for them to demonstrate skill or express their personality through the gameplay.
- Player Interaction is better than non-interaction: Player interaction is the opportunity for both players to play around and counter-play their opponents via rules. A crude example is a defensive ability that provides a fixed +1 to armour saves versus one that does the same but only when the unit is the target of a charge. The addition of the condition allows players to set-up moves and counter-plays both as the receiver of the buff (I can position the buffed unit to force a charge) or from the opponent (who maybe sets-up a multi charge and tarpits the buffed unit on pile-in/consolidation).
- Basic Troops should be extremely viable: Most start collecting boxes have basic troops, most players think of armies with basic troops, and the indexation on grabbing and controlling objectives as well as the focus on performing actions to earn victory points means that troop choices, and their supporting rules, should get extra care to be viable.
- Model availability restrictions: Units and options must conform with available box restrictions, and no model releases are dictated by rules requirements/changes. If players have no option on how to kit out their units, the upgrades/weapons should be free, if not mandatory (this is more of a reminder when we discuss the free banner/instrument and 10-model limit on daemon troop sizes).
With the above understood, let's infer some intentions from high-level description of some characteristics of the basic Tzeench infantry: Horrors. Notice that I'll leave these descriptions high-level for the time being, as the intention and feeling of the army is our goal right now.
- Tzeench demons should be highly resistant to ranged firepower, but rather fragile in melee.
- They have a blanked daemon save of 6+ vs melee and 3+ vs ranged with lots of shooting options and very few melee attacks with weak profiles.
- Pink Horrors should have extra durability in the form of splitting into smaller daemons, meaning it can take some effort to clear them out, especially shooting at range.\
- Because Pink Horrors are extremely weak in combat, both offensively and defensively, we'll provide some options for players to at least get some value out of them:
- A specific Tzeench Warp Storm effect, Rampant Mutation, will give Tzeench Demons extra punch in combat, dealing extra mortal wounds.
- A specific Tzeench stratagem, Flames of Mutation, will let you dish out Mortal Wounds when Horrors are destroyed, so you can at least get some value back out of the extremely fragile and expensive unit.
- Changecaster can allow Horrors to better wound their targets in melee, specifically, with auto-wounding on hit rolls of 6.
If we take the broad concepts above it does paint the picture of an army that relies a lot on Psychic and Shooting, as it melts in melee and doesn't have any punch. However, in a pinch you can throw a few CP and Warp Storm effects to get some value back in melee, specifically with the combo of splitting horrors in a large unit and triggering Flames of Mutation to return mortal wounds back when horrors are destroyed. If you really want to play aggressively you could even setup a sacrificial pink horror charge, buffing them with a Changecaster and Rampant Mutation to deal some damage and trigger the combo mentioned above when they invariably get wiped in the counter-charge.
The devil in the details
The aforementioned rationale, however, fails to be delivered thanks to a myriad of rules interactions that contradict and nullify the above intention. And if the intention was never there in the first place why build a Tzeench-specific Stratagem and a Tzeench-specific Warp Storm effect that focus melee, it's wasted opportunity. So let's expose the issues for the sake of completing our arguments.
The issue with splitting
Splitting has finally been reworked as a "free ability" (granted its cost is built-in the unit, but the intricacy of summoning reserve points is gone) and that's a good chance, albeit one that removes some agency. However the part that was also changed and results in what I have to believe are unforeseen consequences is the timing on triggering. Splitting was originally done on a model-per-model basis as you removed them, so you could interact with it and as a result each Pink Horror was a guaranteed 5-wounds affair – 1 Pink + 2 Blues + 2 Brimstones – the change however is that the splitting now works at the end of the attacking unit's full attack sequence (similar to Necron reanimation). The result is that a unit of Pink Horrors that gets wiped out in a single attack does not have a chance to split.
This rules change works fine for Necron Warriors specifically, but that's because they are inherently more resilient than horrors. Granted Horrors have the 3+ save versus ranged, but both units are usually in peril when being charged against, and the opponents firepower is usually better used elsewhere, and in this concept we are comparing a T4,Sv4+ to a T3,Sv6+ unit. Add to that the fact that Necron Warrior blobs are x20-man strong and that Pinks are now capped at a mere x10 and you can see a grim picture forming. A clever opponent will never shoot at pinks (its generally going to be a waste of rolled dice) as its just far easier to tag them in melee where even an unsupported guardsmen unit will have the upper hand, especially points-for-points as the pink horror unit is costed at 150 points!
This would not be a problem if the unit had shooting potential, see the efficiency and fraily of the Flamers unit, but any perceived staying power of Pink Horrors is only realised against exclusive shooting armies like T'au and Imperial Guard.
The issue with max unit size 10
The inclusion of the max 10 models per unit with free upgrades is a clear result of product goals – that you must be able to pick a unit box and play as is – having an influence into the tabletop. I have no problem with that, but it feels like the impact was overlooked, specifically for Pinks who rely on their splitting mechanic to justify their cost.
If Pinks had a unit size of 30 the splitting rule would play a better role despite being triggered at the end of the attack sequence – it arguably works for T4/4+ Necron Warriors on a x20 unit – but I firmly believe this is a lever we cannot tune, so we have to design around the 10-model unit size, but my impression is that the repercussions have been overlooked.
Flames of Mutation, why bother?
Flames of Mutation lets you dish out Mortal Wounds back for every Horror model destroyed in a unit. If you think of a big horde of horrors exploding as they get destroyed, well think again. It only triggers on a 6+ for a single Mortal Wound, caps at 6 mortal wounds and it is triggered at the end of the Fight phase. Meaning the target unit of Horrors must still be alive.
So let's break it down, if an enemy unit manages to kill 9 out 10 Horrors you get 9D6 rolls of each 6+ dealing a Mortal Wound back, in that scenario you get an average of 1.5 mortal wounds. Even if we had a unit of 30 pinks, rolling 29D6 the average roll results in about 5 mortal wounds. It begs the question of why it is capped at 6 mortal wounds.
The stratagem is also in a paradoxical situation balance-wise where anything that fails to kill 10 the pinks is not worth the CP investment, and anything you want to plink wounds on will undoubtedly kill the x10 T3/6+ save pinks (or any larger amount of blues/brims).
This stratagem is so out of touch with the actual mechanics of Warhammer that it does paint a grim picture to how rules are written, playtested and changed over time, with no unit testing, recursive testing or destructive testing done to surface something that I found out on my first game with the new book.
Damage buffs, lack of synergy
The aforementioned mechanic is all about defense and squeezing some value out of loss, but the conjunction of Change casters and Rampant Mutation on the offensive realm is equally underwhelming.
Specifically how Changecasters letting horrors auto-wound on hits of 6 loses synergy with the Warp Storm effect of Rampant Mutation that give Mortal Wounds on 6s to wound.
Coupled with the drop in horrors from 2 attacks down to 1 and the max unit size of 10, it is simply not reliable and worth it to even consider these as the return won't materialize and the Tzeench player will be down in Warp Storm and down a unit as the Pinks will simply be wiped in melee by whatever it charged in.
Repercusions
The repercussions of these is that any horror unit ended up over costed for a perceived power within their splitting and 3+ ranged save that simply doesn't materialize. Outside of Flamers and Exalted Lords of Change, Tzeench daemons really don't work to the point where lists are built with blue horrors as simple detachment tax or lists going straight to a Vanguard detachment with no troops, not because the options there are stellar, but because the troops feel like wasted points in a competitive environment.
Simple solutions
To make matters worst all of the above mechanics are easily fixed to retain this inferred intention of a "last-ditch effort" for melee Tzeench units, horrors specifically.
- Change splitting timing back to when a model is removed. This simple change would bring back the feeling of Horrors being a nasty unit to shift instead of the current "touch them and wipe them" reality.
- Change the Timing of Flames of Mutation, adding to "at the end of an attack sequence" or "when a Horror unit is destroyed" alongside making it trigger on a 4+.
- Change Rampant Mutation to hit rolls instead of Wound rolls.
The three changes above would already make Tzeench troops be hard to shift, albeit still extremelly fragile in combat. It would make the Tzeench-specific melee driven Stratagem and Warp Storm effects be viable instead of a gimmick and would raise the agency of the Tzeench player and introduce interesting interactions as each Pink Horror unit can be burned alongside a stratagem as a "dive bomb", albeit most likely losing the unit for that effect.
Balancing wise points-costs can always be adjusted, I don;t have the proper tools at hand but the 150cost for a pink horror unit would still be something to be looked at.
Expanded changes
I would take things one step ahead and offer mono-Tzeench players added functionality from their horrors, on top of the changes listed as simple solutions above.
- Add a detachment ability where, on a mono-Tzeench detachment, horror units with an Icon of Tzeench would get to either: re-roll splitting results of 1 or Have a single guaranteed split per phase. This would add more value to horrors on daemon lists that lack the melee resilience of Khorne/Nurgle.
- Allow daemon troop choices could be merged into a single larger unit, allowing the formation of x10, x20 and x30 daemon troop units.
Conclusion
It saddens me to see such obvious lost potential and poorly written rules interactions. From my game development experience I can tell that a more rigorous QA structure would benefit the rules writing team into surfacing these issues, specifically:
- Unit testing: each rule at each revision to guarantee outcomes (clearly the 6-wound cap is never reached for Flames of Mutation, a red flag that something is broken)
- Recursive testing: at each major milestone all unit tests must be revalidated.
- User-case criteria checklists: I feel like a more rigorous user-case criteria listing should drive the development of stratagems and unit abilities.
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