The raven host... count as BA?

[carnosaur93]

so, here we go, for a long long long time ive wanted to make a pure Tzeentch army, and eventually i ended up falling in love with the concept of the dornian heresy raven guard (fallen raven guard dedicated to tzeentch, but thematically focussed on mutations and change rather than sorcery and magic).

Then, the new starter box hit the market, and i realized that the plastic chaos within fit this theme perfectly, being very organic in design, so i split the set with a friend, and bought 3 extra sets of the chosen squad, and converted them all into fallen RG assault marines, which would be the backbone of my army and theme

 

however then it happened, the new chaos got released, and i bought a set of the new plastic raptors, however, reading the new'dex i realized how hard tzeentch in general had gotten shafted, i mean, you can make a very effective khorne or nurgle army, hell, even slaneesh, but the tzeentch components just outright stink compared to just going undivided, and worse yet, raptors are pretty much as useless as before, along with the new super-jump packers.

This let me towards allies, and i invested in a sizeable chunk of horrors and flamers, which i then recently had to see go into the drain ASWELL due to new changes, all in all, this leaves me with a pretty much useless half build army

 

 

However, i now remembered that back when i started to tinker with this army, i looked into count as BA (being frustrated with the old dex aswell, just like everyone else) and now i have done so yet again... so, could it work for this theme?..

Assault marines as troops, DC as posessed, crazy dreads that can do magic, SG as jump-packing mutated super chosen, astaroth's ability to randomly change units into more fearsome combatants, scouts as empowered cultists with some actual skill...

i mean, all of this seems to fit my theme, but is it worth it compared to going plain ol' chaos?

on the chaos side we have things being what they are, but to enchance the theme of birds mutation and fire, there is the potential for the heldrake (which would however eat my raptor slots), the daemon-weapon flamer, and oblits which could be build as crazy terminator sorcerors, or even heavy weapon teams (fitting either the tzeentch or original RG themes), Ahriman as a super sorcerer and Horun as a sneaky HQ with a big nasty claw (very RG) and random psychic powers (very tzeentch)

 

what are people's thoughts? should i do the jump for BA, or is there ways to make this theme work AT ALL with the current official Tzeentch stuff?

 

:EDIT:

just remembered that theres even abit of potential for a couple of non-tzeentch devoted allies in the BA dex, such as Seth as a khorne guy, and sang' priests with FNP-bubbles as nurgle guys.. Not that theese could not be made into fitting tzeentch though

[Vesper]

 

(being frustrated with the old dex aswell, just like everyone else)

We are both part of a huge brotherhood full of bitterness. Come join the Black Legion and scream your hatred to lacerated skies.

 

On a serious note, your project seems great. But I think on a power level, BA and CSM are more or less equivalent. CSM doesn't allow you to go with a ton of raptors, but two or three squads is already a lot. Not gonna lie, I'd have loved a full Raptor Cult list. But we are CSM, we don't get that.

Tzeentch is pretty crappy indeed. But I guess you didn't wanted Thousand Sons anyway. You can still take stuff from other gods and model it to look tzeentchy. It can be both awesome and quite competitive.

[carnosaur93]

iam not really worried about being super competitive. What really bugs me that if iam to stick to my theme, i have to use pretty much all the worst options in the dex, safe for Horun and oblits, since iam really not a fan of using count as for something when the actual unit/gear/whatever is literally listed right next to it (iam currently running into the same wall with my DE Coven which got completely broken aswell)

my point is, ill either have to do it right, or completely different, so either go raptors and MoT on everything, or use a whole substitute dex (which would be BA as that is what otherwise fits the theme best)

 

in short, i just dont wanna automaticly lose unless i swap out all the themed things for APCs, cultists, bikes, hell-turkeys, and unmarked/slaneesh/nurgle sorcs (note two of those alone takes up precious raptor slots)

 

 

alternatively, a solution might be to simply make a custom RG-character that makes raptors troops, or atleast a single squad... but then theres the problem of not having a legal army...

[Vesper]

Raptors are fine. Just don't put the retarded MoT on them.

[Polaria]

I think you can do just fine list by using non-marked Sorcerers, non-marked Chaos Space Marines and non-marked Raptors. Maybe Oblits or Havocs for heavy choices. Just don't waste any points of MoT and make a hordeish footslogger list and you'll probably even be more competitive than using BA codex with assault marine troops... I mean its not like the BAs are some sort of super-codex nowadays. 

[Brother Ambroz]

Fateweaver with a grimoire isn't bad. You could even use it on a unit of warp talons or even possessed to give them 3++ for a turn. Horrors are kinda meh but if you're not going for competitive then they're not horrible if taken in large units. I'd just leave most of your units unmarked with the exception of talons, lords, oblits and maybe possessed. I think the idea is very unique just don't give up on it.

[GenEngineer]

If you're not looking for competitive, then I still think you can do fairly well while working solely with the CSM codex. I've been planning out something similar myself, and can't see why for the life of me a small force of Warp talons marked by Tzeentch working with a jump-packed Biomancy sorcerer to make a nasty Death Star. Just fill out the rest wit generic shooty CSM as the neophytes who haven't quite gotten to shapeshift yet. Few plasma guns on ten man rhino swayed and you can take a very thematic ~750 pts that works wonders as allies to Daemons.

 

The Warp Talons serve as incredibly potent CC, which your Tzeentch daemons will lack, and as the Warp Talons are so much more survivable, they can either serve as pseudo-meat shields, or be ignored in favor of killing the weaker Horrors.

[carnosaur93]

hmm. yeah, i guess you guys might be right, i might just be overly dissapointed by raptors, i would love to be able to run them in a CC blob as the core of my army or so, but VotLW are for some reason 2 points on each, so its simply not worth it, add to that MoT being literally a waste of points just makes them a really demotivating unit for this project

 

also, mechanizing are abit out of my wallet-range, so rhinos are not really an option (one of the reasons i started tinkering with jump infantry to begin with, from where then i fell in love with the mobility)

 

furthermore i HATE how crowded the fast-attack section is, especially since all the cool and thematic stuff i want is in there... in other words, if i wanna use raptors, i wont have the slots for a talon deathstar, becouse of how thigns are set up...

if just warptalons were atleast elites, or posessed remotely usefull, then it wouldnt be this hard to make any of this work, hell, just having a character making raptors troops and making VotLW 1 point on them could solve it all aswell

 

/end rant.

 

so either way, i guess for chaos my options are to cram in raptors as cheap suicide melta/plasma/flamers, but saving a spot for talons if iam going with a jumpy killy HQ.

in terms of troops, cultists are not really an option becouse of $... i can go with CSM, but since i cant afford tons of rhinos, i will have to use Horun or Ahriman for infiltration, both of which atleast fit the army theme REALLY well (though they run into the problem of not being jumpy, making it hard for me to get them into the action or make a suitible escord unit).

In elites this army faces pretty much the same problems as any other chaos army, having most of the stuff in there being kinda lame, safe for termicide (which i could go for, but again $) or 5-man blastmaster squads which iam not too big on since its very clearly slaneesh... what are peoples thoughts on mutilators with MoT?..

finally, for HS iam quite open in terms of posibilities, maulerfiends should actually work kinda well with this army due to the 12" movement, oblits are great and fit the theme very well too, and havocs are really universal and way way cooler than devs will ever be

 

so in conclusion, my problems seems to be in the HQ and troop catagories, mostly with how to make them work together in this kind of army (especially while also making sure i have some objective campers for scoring), ive been tinkering with trying to solve theese problems + having more raptors by making a homebrew HQ that makes raptors troops, but i havnt really gotten any real feedback on the thread.

so what are people's advice? i really really REALLY want this army to work, so would love all the feedback i can get of my options or how to work around the glaring problems, while still retaining my themes

 

 

PS: i do kinda really like the idea of infiltrating CSM as troops, like spec ops or something, i dunno, i just really like the idea of sneaky marines, especially evil spiky ones :P

[Brother Ambroz]

Well you could take a CSM primary detachment with Huron as WL, a couple CSM squads with melta/plas whichever you prefer, a MoT sorceror with an axe (for added AP 2 in the WT deathstar) and jump pack (he'd have a 3+/3++, AP 2 force weapon and you could take biomancy for added goodness), your WT squad and some maulerfiends for a pretty in your face sort of list. Not super competitive but its definitely good for fun games.

[carnosaur93]

sound cool... gotta ask though, how would one actually go about using horun on the board, after utilizing his obviously great 'master of deception'

 

do you put him in a blob of CC-equipped csm?.. is he not really worth using for actual fighting? iam really abit lost at this, as he seems to have many potential uses, but i cant seem to wrap my head around just what to do with him other than infiltrating

[Brother Ambroz]

Good question, I haven't used him before but he seems like a good all around HQ. He's no slouch in CC but he's not amazing either. I'm not sure.