I'm preparing for the Seattle GT with my Chaos army and here's the rough list I'm planning on. I'll make some general comments, then explain each of my choices and how I intend to use it.

Overall, I decided that I wanted a fast army. I tend to like speed in my armies, and with the emphasis in Fantasy being on mobility, I figure that having lots of mobility will help make up for my lack of experience in the game. In addition, cavalry models tend to be more expensive than other models, which will leave me with fewer models to paint. Since I'm continuously striving to improve my painting, that will be helpful. Although I had a start on my Orcs and Gobbos, I was called on to make a small Chaos army for the Storm of Chaos this year, and after playing around with the idea for a bit, I decided on using Chaos Knights, lots of (relatively speaking) Chaos Knights. Chaos appealed to me (partly because it was fewer models to paint!) and I decided to go with Chaos for the Grand Tournament.

I had originally had the concept for going with Slaanesh in my army. One reason is that Slaanesh, at least on the 40k side, is almost never used, so I figured it would be different. Another is that I had an awesome conversion idea for a pair of Champions, using Daemonette heads with sculpted-on hair (and facial hair on one) to make them look like twins. At every turn, however, I was tempted by the subtle siren song of Tzeentch. When I first conceived of the army (all Cavalry) I went into a GW store to ask their opinion and get some ideas. Well, when I first mentioned it, one of them recommended the Liber Chaotica and specifically mentioned a Tzeentch character that lead an all Chaos army. (I had asked about Slaanesh, but figured I'd take a look at the Tzeentch stuff, since he mentioned it. It was pretty cool, but not enough to sway me by itself.) Later, I was deciding how to paint them and I narrowed it down to 4 color schemes, one of which was very Slaaneshi, another more Tzeentchy. After painting a model in each scheme, it came down to those two, but the Tzeetch one looked better to pretty much everyone. Still later, I got to play a game with a friend and was beset with my lack of magic. Although it didn't win him the game, it certainly hurt my army a lot. I decided that I needed magic, but found that Chaos Sorcerors aren't great in close combat, and would take up one or more of my character slots, which would lower the punch of my army and not really give me much magic to use anyway. "Tzeentch does magic," the voice whispered in my ear, "Tzeentch Warrior-Wizards are VERY good at magic..." it said. Eventually, I decided that I'd been listening to Tzeentch long enough that I should try it out, so here I am now, following the Changer of Ways.

663 3x Exalted Champion on Disc w/GW, Shield, Mark of T.
-The idea of putting my General, or at least a Champion, on a flying disk came from a number of sources. I, however, was the one who decided to go over the top and put all 3 of them on flying disks! Each one is now a Fear-causing Flyer, meaning they have a Movement of 20" and really amazing mobility. Being Tzeentch characters, they can sling around a good bunch of magic and are every bit as good with a weapon as other armies champions. This mobility coupled with magic should give me good options for getting line of sight or range with different spells. The mobility and magic coupled with the hard hitting the character can do with a Great Weapon should allow me to cut down enemy wizards and warmachines very nicely, plus stop some flankers or charge in against the rear of a unit that is being hit by Knights in the front, adding my Combat Resolution to the mix to hopefully break the unit quickly. Finally, with three of these guys, I should be able to suddenly concentrate my power whenever I need to, weighting battles in my favor quickly.

340 6xChosen Knights of Tzeentch, Full Command.
-Hard Hitting, Fast Riding, the original bad boys. Well, sort of. I wasn't pleased with the way standard Chaos Knights looked. (They aren't bad, but the poses are a bit static and they all look pretty much the same.) I picked up some Brettonian Knights, however. They've got much more active poses and they are much cheaper as well. Being plastics, they are also easier to convert, so I can further vary their poses and gear and give them funky conversions like Tentacles for arms. I definitely like the way they look now, though I'm planning on adding more chaosy stuff to them. Chosen Knights are really expensive, but with a 1+ armor save and 2 S5 hits each, they act like a blender in close combat. (Recall, if you will, the practice game where I lost 2 units of Chaos Knights with Exalted Champions on the 2nd turn, and still almost managed a draw with the single unit of Chosen Knights.) Many players will put a character in a unit like this. My feeling, however, is that they generally don't need the extra help, and it simply adds a lot of points to the unit and makes them a single target for the enemy. Before I hit on the Disc idea, I had planned on each of the other Knight units to get an Exalted Champion to up their hitting power, giving me three units that were roughly equal in power and making it harder for the enemy to take out my army in one go.

268 6xKnights of Tzeentch, Full Command

268 6xKnights of Tzeentch, Full Command
-Now that my Champions are on Discs, these units don't have as much punch as they did before. While I can still augment their power by getting flank or rear charges with other units, and they are still Chaos Knights after all, I'm not as happy with them now. I'm considering dumping one or both of these for something else, but I'm not sure yet. (Plus, I already have the models AND they are painted!) I'll most likely keep one to use in combination with the Marauder Horsemen to get combined charges. If I end up keeping both, I'll try to combine their charges together as much as possible, using my mobility and flankers to try to set up situations where one can flank charge while the other hits the front or at least threatens the unit, setting up the flank charge from the other.

96 6xMarauder Horsemen, Flails, Musician
-Ah, now we have the Fast Cavalry. These guys are much cheaper than my Knights and, although they do some damage, they can't take much punishment. On the other hand, they have even better mobility, so they can be used to help take care of enemy flankers and set up combined charges with my units of Knights. The flails are there to help them add some kills to the Combat Resolution when they get a flank or rear charge in combination with some Knights from the front. Alternately, those flails may come in handy when opposing enemy flankers, since they'll hit pretty hard against lightly armored troops.

30 5x War Hounds

30 5x War Hounds
-Although they are not Fast Cavalry, the dogs do have a movement of 7, equalling my Knights. They are also quite inexpensive. They will make good screens for my Knights and they can also be used to bait enemy charges. If they fail to rally when they flee an enemy charge, I've only lost 30 points and hopefully set up an enemy unit for a nasty charge in return. I could probably use some more of these guys, but I don't want to take points away from my flying flankers, and I don't want to take anything away from my Heavy Hitters, so they are stuck like this for the moment. I'm not enamored with the standard models and they are monetarily expensive, so I'll probably be using the Wolves from my Goblin Wolfriders. (Poor bow-legged gobbos have to hop around all day without their wolves, so sad. Ah well, it'll make them grumpy and they'll get in fights more often, so it's really a win-win situation!) Playing Tzeentch, I don't have special bonuses to leadership, so I'll have to be careful that losing a unit of these doggies doesn't drag a unit of Knights with it (ouch!)

135 9xFuries
-Ah, some more flyers. With their excellent mobility, a unit of Furies is a great addition to any army. They will help me hunt down those pesky Warmachines and enemy wizards, plus lending a bit of weight (and a rear or flank charge) to assaults that might need a little help. An extra 1 to 3 Combat Resolution never hurts! (1 or 2 for a Flank or Rear charge, plus a possible 1 for outnumbering, depending on how big the enemy unit is and what else I've got charging it.) On the other hand, the models are bad. I decided early on that I wanted to convert my Furies from something else. I heard of someone doing a conversion using Daemonettes with Dark Elf Harpy Wings. That sounded really cool, and I really like the Daemonette models and I was planning on playing Slaanesh at the time, so it all fit well and I ordered some. Since then I have changed my mind about the patron deity of the army, and Daemonettes would look a bit out of place in a Tzeentch army, I think. I already had the models, however, and I do like them. Eventually, I hit on the idea of converting them a bit more to make them less obviously Daemonettes. I'm currently planning on smoothing down their head ridges and giving them hair and a pair of small devil horns, plus replacing those oversized claws with a regular hand or something. I think that will change their appearance enough and still look good. (And yes, I still plan on using those Harpy wings, this is a flying unit, after all!)

165 5xScreamers
-More Flyers! Although they are more expensive individually, they've got twice the wounds, better strength and that interesting Slashing attack. Mostly, however, they are way cool models and they are another unit of Flyers to help me outmaneuver the enemy and take out warmachines and wizards.

1995pts. 11Power Dice, 5 dispel dice, 51 models. Slowest model has Mv7.
-Based on what I've seen and heard, for an average magic phase you need 6-9 Power Dice for casting your spells and about 3-4 dispel dice, maybe with a couple of scrolls. For a heavy magic phase, you want 10-12 Power Dice, and maybe 5-6 dispel dice, with or without scrolls as backup. I figure that this gives me a pretty good dice pool to put some hurt on, without going too far overboard. (I read a list the other day where someone was recommending a Tzeentch army with 17 Power Dice! Yikes!) While I expect to be outnumbered, with 51 models I doubt I'll be outnumbered too heavily except by specialist lists. (Skaven Slaves units, Gobbo armies, etc.) The fact that my slowest model has a Movement of 7 means that I can (hopefully) use my mobility to concentrate power and set up favorable charges, while preventing the main part of my opponent's army from coming to grips with me in their terms.

Alternate possibilities
This army list is not set in stone. I have a couple ideas that I may need to experiment with to see what the best option will be. I may decide to switch some of the points around between my two flying units (giving me more of one or the other) or I might take a few models from the flyers and add some to my Warhounds. A more radical adjustment would be what I may do with the Knights. As I have said, I'm not entirely happy with my non-chosen Knights right now. They don't have quite enough punch for me anymore, but I don't want to lose one of my Discs by putting a character back in them. I may swap them out for something with a little more hitting power. One option would be to replace a unit with 2 Chariots. Chariots add a lot of hitting power and have a smaller base size, meaning I could get a charge with a Chariot and a Knights unit against the same enemy unit more easily. The disadvantage, however, is that Chariots cannot march, which would make them the slowest thing in my army. (I haven't decided if this is a show-stopper or not, I'll have to get in some test games.) On the other hand, a unit of 3 Dragon Ogres with Light Armor and Great Weapons gives me a speed equal to my Knights and better hitting power. (9 S7 attacks, vs 7 S5 and 6 S4 attacks) On the other hand, even though they do have 4 Wounds each, they don't have as good an armor save as my Knights would.

One thing that I've been trying to do so far, is keep the army a little toned down. I don't want anyone to look across the board and think that I've got an unfair or "Cheesy" list. On the other hand, given the way Composition was scored at last years GT (on the 40k side, anyway) I'm not sure I should worry about it. Maybe I should just create as hard an army as I can and rely on fluff and sportsmanship to take care of potential bad feelings. This is a hard one, as it's about feelings, which are very subjective and thus difficult to judge. Currently I'm sort of walking a line here. I am trying to make an effective army without going overboard, and I don't want to seriously powergame, but I can certainly see some reasons for doing so. (Battle was the bulk of the score last year, and I understand that it's that way this year as well, so I might well be hamstringing myself if I don't make the army harder. My mind isn't made up here, so we'll just have to see.

Well, it's obvious that I've got a lot of work cut out for me on this one, plus I've got experiments to do to see what changes will be best for me. Ultimately, however, that means Charles is a happy boy, 'cause he gets to work a lot with one of his armies, always a Good Thing!

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