Total War: Warhammer 3 – Tzeentch Beginner Guide

If you’re looking to play as the Chaos God of Magic, we have the perfect set of tips for you.

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Quick Links

• Tzeentch’s Playstyle

• Key Units

• Unique Mechanics

• Legendary Lord

• First Ten Turns

Tzeentch, the Changer of Ways, the Chaos God of Magic, Destiny, and Treachery, enters Total War: Warhammer 3, fielding one of the strongest ranged rosters ever before seen. Unleashing terror upon your enemies in clouds of pink and blue fire only adds to the chaotic fun, and the faction possesses one of the most visually stunning arsenals currently available.

Playing Tzeentch comes with great opportunities to influence the campaign map via the Changing of the Ways mechanic and strongly affect his allies and enemies alike. This beginners guide will provide an overview of the various facets that come with playing the Tzeentch Faction, including army and campaign advice, as well as a breakdown of his unique mechanics.

Tzeentch’s Playstyle

General Battlefield Tips

• Best Matchup: Nurgle – his lack of speed gives you a great opportunity to kite his units around and unleash powerful ranged attacks.
• Worst Matchup: Slaanesh – very fast flanking units can outmanoeuvre your defences and get on top of your backline.

Tzeentch’s roster specialises in ranged and magical attacks. Many of your units are high damage dealers, and if properly protected, they can melt enemy lines with a barrage of magical firepower. However, your overall army compositions tend to be fairly squishy, and the difficulty comes in micromanaging and protecting your ranged units with your limited front-line options.

Fortunately, Tzeentch can utilise his unique Barrier mechanic to help protect his army. A magical shield that recharges over time, Barrier can provide your troops with the vital seconds needed to launch another barrage of missiles. Buildings and Lord skills that increase your Barrier strength are a great way of passively preserving your unit health without kiting or micro gameplay.

Barrier:

• A shield that absorbs damage until depleted.
• When not taking damage, the Barrier will slowly replenish.
• The maximum barrier size is proportional to the max health of the unit.

You have strong wide options with Chaos Knights of Tzeentch and Doom Knights of Tzeentch, and you can effectively shut down attempts to flank your core of ranged attackers. A variety of Flyers means you can compete in the skies, as well as threaten enemy Artillery, and these strengths only leave you with one major weakness: your Infantry.

Forsaken are mid-tier at best, and Spawn of Tzeentch have never been a strong unit type. Some of your ranged can cope decently in melee, especially Exalted Pink Horrors, but don’t count on your frontline holding up long, especially against factions such as Khorne.

Quickly bursting down enemies is vital to battlefield success, as it will help preserve your mediocre frontline. While your spell casters will excel in longer fights, they won’t typically have the durability to tank and wait for Winds of Magic to recharge.

Campaign Tips

Tzeentch is a late-game monster. Your full builds and doom stacks are extremely powerful, especially in auto-resolve. The number of missile units in your roster means you will have a slight edge when it comes to a lot of passively securing victories, which helps you to progress through the campaign map steadily. While fielding weak Infantry, your other options are varied and powerful, and you have the ability to mix up your army builds to suit which opponent you are currently facing.

The major difficulties you will encounter happen in the early game. Your casualty replenishment rate is somewhat lacking, and you can become bogged down waiting for your troops to heal. You begin your campaign in a nice area, with multiple options for expansion, but your extremely squishy army can take heavy damage if poorly managed.

A slow early game is recommended, securing safe settlements and provinces while building up your infrastructure. Once you can start fielding armies with a large number of Flamers of Tzeentch, and a frontline consisting of Forsaken/Spawn of Tzeentch, you can really begin to pick up the pace.

Possessing some of the strongest spell casters in the game, levelling your Lords and Heroes is a top priority for you. You possess great flexibility with your spell selections, and single entity doom stacks are a very viable late-game option with your Lords of Change and Soul Grinders.

Key Units

• Low ammo, low range but very high damage ranged unit

• These are the go-to units for powering up your armies, and while squishy, they can prove useful in melee with their Warpfire ability.

• Extremely fast flying cavalry unit

• Able to compete with most flying units, these flying Beyblades can keep you safe from aerial threats and remove an important angle of attack from your enemies.

• Devastating caster Lord with powerful offensive spells

• Possibly the strongest caster Lord in any Total War Warhammer game, these units come with either the standard Lore of Metal or the new and powerful Lore of Tzeentch.

Utilising these three units will be important when designing a strong army composition, although Tzeentch has plenty of lesser options that can fulfil similar roles.

Unique Mechanics

Grimoires

Tzeentch’s unique currency, Grimoires, are required both for certain technologies and for activating the Changing of the Ways. Grimoires can be acquired in various ways, including battles, buildings, quests, and Unholy Manifestations.

Changing of the Ways

Your primary way to spend Grimoires, the Changing of the Ways, gives you a good variety of options for influencing opposing factions and armies.

• A fantastic way to secure settlements, using this on cooldown efficiently secures territory.
• Faction capitals cannot be controlled via this mechanic

• Useful for large settlement sieges

• Niche, as the rebel army is small and weak

• Situational, only useful for enemies trying to flank you

• Potentially useful for outmanoeuvring enemies

• Similar in use to Reveal Faction Intentions

• Good for when you need to take a settlement quickly without enemy reinforcements

• Niche, but can be used to snipe key enemy armies or settlements

• Especially useful to prevent potential Confederations

• Very useful for creating turmoil, especially if you plan to invade the subsequent area and need to weaken the owners

Winds of Magic Manipulation

Fitting for the Chaos God of Magic, you can alter the flow of the Winds of Magic, either increasing or decreasing the amount in regions of your choice. As a spell reliant faction, you benefit greatly from increased magic reserves, and you can reduce the levels in regions you are not currently fighting in.

Daemon Factions receive penalties to various stats when at low magic levels and receive bonuses when it is kept high. Tzeentch is arguably the most reliant faction on this mechanic.

Your Teleport stance also requires sufficient Winds of Magic to use, so keeping an eye on your current levels is recommended if you need an easy attack/escape route.

• Teleport Stance: A unique stance available to Tzeentch, it acts similarly to the Underway stance used by Dwarves, Greenskins and Skaven, bypassing terrain.

Unholy Manifestations and Corruption

As you accumulate Tzeentch Corruption across the map, you will unlock Unholy Manifestations. The equivalent of Total War: Warhammer 2’s Rites, these powerful enhancements come with a cost and cooldown attached but can really push you ahead if utilised correctly. When Tzeentch is the Ascendant in the Great Game, his Manifestations are greatly enhanced.

• The Great Game: The Chaos Gods will cycle through who is currently the Ascendant, granting the holder stronger Unholy Manifestations. There is currently no way to influence this.

Tzeentch has the following Manifestations available:

• Very useful, especially if your army remains stationary to heal; this can net you large amounts of Grimoires if you can afford not to move.

• Situational, but possibly useful if an enemy army needs to travel a long distance to your settlements.

• The buff only lasts for three turns, and while Barrier increases are strong, it can be hard to make full use of this.

• Three turns spent stationary is quite detrimental to your momentum, but it can effectively build up both Corruption and Winds of Magic in a region.

• As well as unlocking later Manifestations, your levels of Tzeentch Corruption come with benefits to you and negatives for your enemies, dependent on the region level.

Cults

Like all Daemon Factions, Tzeentch may create a Cultist settlement nestled within another Faction’s settlement. You can create buildings that provide such benefits as extra income or increasing your Grimoires per turn.

• You will normally want to prioritise building either Sanctuaries or Repositories, as Grimoires tend to be much more impactful throughout the game than a small amount of extra income.

Legendary Lord

Kairos Fateweaver, the Oracle of Tzeentch, is the God of Change’s chosen Legendary Lord. The Keeper of the Destiny Scrolls lives up to his reputation as one of the Warhammer world’s most powerful spell casters. With unrivalled flexibility thanks to his Fragment skills, Kairos can mix and match his Lores of Magic to suit his current situation. While not a great melee combatant, Kairos can hold his own for a short time and is not as squishy as a typical caster. Decently tanky thanks to his Barrier, Kairos also possesses the option to turn and fly away, allowing both his shield and Winds of Magic time to recharge.

His Lord effects are:

• Can unlock unique items that can be used to customise Kairos’ spell selection

• His best trait, this grants Kairos unparalleled Lore of Magic choice.

• Enemy Hero action success chance: -50%

• Weak, but can help with avoiding potentially crippling Wound attempts.

• Ambush defence chance:+50% (Lord’s army)

• Situational but useful for avoiding sneaky ambushes, especially from Skaven.

It is a testament to the Fateweaver’s power that despite his somewhat weak lord effects, he is still one of the strongest Lords in the game.

Important skills to level on Kairos include:

• Oracle of Eternity
• Thaumaturgic Rejuvenation
• Reckoning of Transmogrification
• Binding of the Walls
• Prismatic Plurality
• Greater Arcane Conduit

Kairos has many fantastic skills in his tree, but these are some of the best, as they will increase his own spellcasting potential and enable you to perform more frequent and cheaper Changing of the Ways.

First Ten Turns

When playing as Kairos Fateweaver, you will begin your campaign in the Eastern Steppes province, holder of The Volary settlement.

• Attack and destroy Shou Lu’s army (auto-resolve will be fine)
• Move to Northern edge of the territory and recruit two Blue Horrors On Tzeentch
• Upgrade your Slither of Potential building in The Volary to Rank Two and build an Infrastructure building in the empty slot (your choice)
• Research Locus of Transformation

• Transfer Bloodwind Keep to yourself via the Changing of the Ways
• Place your new Iridescent Horror into your army
• Move Kairos as far North as possible and recruit one Chaos Furies of Tzeentch and one more Blue Horrors of Tzeentch.
• Build a Cultist Camp (Obsidian) in Bloodwind Keep

• Move Kairos right up to your border, and recruit two Pink Horrors of Tzeentch.
• Upgrade your completed Infrastructure building if able

• Move and attack the Foundry of Bones (auto-resolve win should be possible, but it is better to fight the battle manually)
• During the battle, keep your army tight together, and snipe down the approaching Norscan troops.
• Occupy the settlement
• Level Route Marcher, Fires of Change and Glean Magic on Kairos, and Training on the Horror

• Move Kairos up to the North border and recruit two more Pink Horrors of Tzeentch.
• Research Cult Whisperer

• Either move and attack the Fortress of Eyes or move and colonise if it has become a Ruin.
• This battle can be slightly tricky if your army has previously sustained heavy damage. If so, play it slowly and bring down your enemies with Karios and his spells while your Soul Grinder tanks for you.
• Loot and Occupy the settlement, and recruit another Blue Horrors (or Chaos Furies/Pink Horrors if one has died)
• Level Prismatic Plurality on Kairos and Blue Fire of Tzeentch on the Horror
• Upgrade and repair any available buildings (income is nice to focus on at this point) and choose the Foster Cults Province Commandment

• Attack and kill the possible Rebel army next to you
• At this point, there will be different possible outcomes, either Miao Ying will have colonised the Snake Gate or will be on her way, and there may be Kurgan armies roaming around your lands
• Attacking Cathay directly is not an option for beginners, as their starting army is very tough for you to handle at this point in the game
• Advancing North and claiming more territory along the Great Bastion is an option, but it leaves you very open to Khorne attacking you from behind
• This guide will recommend you turn back South to deal with Khorne and allow Miao Ying to occasionally pillage the Fortress of Eyes (she rarely extends further than this)
• Move Kairos as far South as possible and only recruit more units if you have enough income

• Keep moving South on March stance
• Level Glean Magic on the Horror
• Keep upgrading your settlements, except for Fortress of Eyes, as Miao will likely attack and raid it at some stage.
• Improve your Diplomacy with Dreaded Wo Warriors of Chaos, and command Sathroreal’s Watchers (your allied Tzeentch faction beyond the Great Bastion) to attack Po Mei

• By now, you should be back in The Volary and can decide whether to recruit more troops for your upcoming contest with Khorne or to save money and rely more on your ability to outplay him on the battlefield.
• Upgrade any Infrastructure buildings
• Level Infernal Gateway on Kairos, this spell will be devastating at this game stage.

• You should now be free to attack and Occupy Floating Mountain, setting you up for your campaign into the Road To Damnation province.
• You want to save up enough Grimoires to use Transfer Settlement on Zerulous and avoid conflict with the Ogres for the moment.
• Kharneth’s Sons can be tough opponents, as Khorne will dominate the melee matchup, so play it safe and don’t allow him to get on top of your Pink Horrors.
• Level Infernal Gateway again on Kairos and Training on the Horror

At the end of this period, you should be well established with your starting province, fostering important diplomatic links, as well as beginning to build up strength to take on Khorne. Tzeentch’s early game will usually be quite slow, so don’t rush things and focus on improving your army and levelling Kairos as much as possible.

Further Tips:

• Once you have defeated Kharneth’s Sons, you should have secured your second province and can level The Volary up to Tier Three, where you can now unlock the recruitment of Flamers of Tzeentch.
• Keep upgrading your Infrastructure, and focus your Research towards Transmutation of Ore for higher passive income.
• Being raided by Cathay may be annoying, but it is easier to build up strength elsewhere before beginning your campaign against them.

Link Source : https://www.thegamer.com/total-war-warhammer-3-tzeentch-beginner-tips-tricks-strategy/