Tzaangor Enlightened

[Raven1]

I wanted to know everyones experience and tactics of the Tzaangor Enlightened. I have run them a few times with fatecaster bows and they are good until they die to a stiff wind.

 

How do you guys run them?

 

Has anyone tried large units with the Divining Spears. I want to try them. With a Shaman and an allied Herald of Tzeentch either on disk or chariot. With Warptime they could probaby pull off a T1 charge. With thier bonuses i think they could put in some solid work against even the tougher characters.

 

Opinions?

[Prot]

I've just started running them in my last... 5 or so games. They are okay. Basically as Bows they seem to be like low level Heavy Bolter guys flying around with a similar killing power.

 

I'm running about 3 in the squad this way and I originally (when the codex came out for 8th) was running them with spears and did not really like it as I'm hurting more for shooting.

 

I'm not really getting a good vibe from them so maybe someone else has better experiences with them than I do. 

[Paladin777]

I do t have any, but it seems to me that they are a squad you really have to commit to if you’re going to run them and expect them to do work. 6 enlightened on their own as a harassment unit isn’t going to do much. However, if you invest more into the unit and take say 9 with a shaman and run near a sorcerer and use prescience you end up auto-wounding on 4’s rerolling ones. Put them next to a MVB and get them an additional -1 to rend and they are crazy potent. For all this you’re probably going to want to protect your investment with a couple defensive buffs. -1 to hit and a 4++ are pretty good protection from a lot of things!

 

Yes, this is a pretty heavy investment, but it seems like the more you synergise the more effective the whole package becomes.

 

In other words, you’re going to have to sell your soul for power... just as planned...

[Marshlands]

I run up to 27, 9 with bows and 2 lots of 9 with spears.

 

Ahriman is a must really with prescience and warptime for the spears. The fight twice stratagem is also very good. They add a lot of presence and die very easily but they are fairly cheap for it.

 

The spears can be very powerful, powerful enough to take on really big targets. A nice trick is to charge something like a knight with a unit with spears and something else dangerous like a defensively buffed daemon prince. Swing with the spears, if they interrupt they might go for the DP, who may survive, and then you can swing again with the full unit using the stratagem

 

Obviously both units are most efficient ainstt higher toughness due to autowound effect. They suffer against penalties to hit like eldar.

 

Also don't be afraid to charge chaff the bow unit. They still fight okay, still get some autowounds and can fly away and still shoot

 

With the new scenarios I expect to use small units of 3 much more often, for objective grabbing

 

I often use the Herald but often the extra strength makes no difference, partly because their strength 5 and with the wound mechanism strength 6 doesnt make that much difference. Perhaps moreso becuase with +2 to hit they autowound a lot anyway making the extra strength even more situational. The same applies to flickering fire on the bows. Boon of change can be more useful though. I'd say the changling is a better bet for the defensive buff, even if only for 1 turn. Damn I wish that guy could take a disc!

[Tyriks]

I run up to 27, 9 with bows and 2 lots of 9 with spears.

Ahriman is a must really with prescience and warptime for the spears. The fight twice stratagem is also very good. They add a lot of presence and die very easily but they are fairly cheap for it.

The spears can be very powerful, powerful enough to take on really big targets. A nice trick is to charge something like a knight with a unit with spears and something else dangerous like a defensively buffed daemon prince. Swing with the spears, if they interrupt they might go for the DP, who may survive, and then you can swing again with the full unit using the stratagem

Obviously both units are most efficient ainstt higher toughness due to autowound effect. They suffer against penalties to hit like eldar.

Also don't be afraid to charge chaff the bow unit. They still fight okay, still get some autowounds and can fly away and still shoot

With the new scenarios I expect to use small units of 3 much more often, for objective grabbing

I often use the Herald but often the extra strength makes no difference, partly because their strength 5 and with the wound mechanism strength 6 doesnt make that much difference. Perhaps moreso becuase with +2 to hit they autowound a lot anyway making the extra strength even more situational. The same applies to flickering fire on the bows. Boon of change can be more useful though. I'd say the changling is a better bet for the defensive buff, even if only for 1 turn. Damn I wish that guy could take a disc!

This. I don't have them but when I expand my TS they're a priority. Against something like a knight, 9 spears with shaman, prescience and rerolling 1s averages 17.238 wounds on a knight after charging even without fighting twice.

[Sonoftherubric21]

I own 12, I often do I do 4/4/4 or 6/6 as my standards. 

They are cheap enough and well priced for the threat they output, and with a nearby shaman get great mileage out of the Bows, as I think spears are 9 or bust for use and need lots of buffs to get the job done. Doing a big unit of 9 is good but the problem I have found is that a full unit of 9 tends to be shot to death by Multi-damage weapons so I favor several smaller units rather than one bigger unit. 

 

If doing spears a full unit of 9 will be required, hit them with prescience and chuck them headfirst into anything that needs to die to multi-damage weapons. 

[Heliomanes]

Spears have the ability to use the Cycle of Slaughter stratagem, and fight twice. I think that is a pretty big deal, when deciding between the different loadouts. 2 or more units of 5-9 seem ideal. You need a big unit to get the most out of the buffs and stratagems, and you need redundancy. If you run 1 unit, then you need at least one or more big herds of tzaangors to stack up some redudancy and target saturation.

[Raven1]

Thanks for the responses, and everyone has great ideas but brings up why dont expand on my lowly 3 Enlightened. The large amount of dedication that is required for them to be of any real use. I do want to get more so i suppose i might as just bite the bullet and go whole hog on them.

[Tyriks]

Thanks for the responses, and everyone has great ideas but brings up why dont expand on my lowly 3 Enlightened. The large amount of dedication that is required for them to be of any real use. I do want to get more so i suppose i might as just bite the bullet and go whole hog on them.

That's where I am. My TS are a side project so I am hesitant to drop $200 or whatever on 2 units plus shamans.

[Prot]

I was just going to mention the money factor. That’s a really expensive squad to purchase. And it appears the larger spear squad is a must. Lots of great advice.

 

I have fun with my 3 bow enlightened, but I often imagined I’d do much better with 5+.

 

Before I sold my last Thousand Sons army I used 3 Spear dudes and I think it suffered from the same small squad issue. Plus you don’t want to waste a buff or Psychic power on a small squad.

 

The good thing about a small bow squad is people ignore it and it can finish a high toughness unit off. But I use the Shaman in principle to buff the Taaangor goat herd.

 

So if I win a lottery I might buy a larger squad one day! The one question is.... do you build a large bow squad or spear squad. Both would seem too expensive, and time consuming to complete.

[Skerr]

Great point, it's not cost effective ($$) for me right now when there are other options I want to purchase. All though a small squad might work for small games under 1000.

[Ahzek451]

Echoing a few thoughts others have had, but my 2 cents is that they can put in some work. They are the subtle quick blade we have in an army of golems. I have tried them with spears lately and love the effect they have on knights. The trick is managing to NOT use there speed to throw them ahead of your main force unless terrain is on your side and you can hide them. Distract the opponent with your main force and use these guys as the sneaky sneaky come from the side and gut something because they ignored them 1st, and possibly 2nd turn. Because we all know unless you commit to a ton of defensive buffs, they go down like fairly quickly. But it feels oh so sweet to have an intact squad come from the side and kill a 400-600 pt knight with fight twice for roughly 150 pts(+90 for shaman). I'll take that even if they get shot off the board after. 

 

[Raven1]

@Azhek

 

Killing double thier points would be certainly worth it if they got shot to death afterwards. Which if you kill a knight is going to happen.

[Prot]

Playing Devil's advocate.... is a spear squad better than my normal Spawn Blob for close combat against a hard target such as Knights?

 

I haven't done this myself. 

[Ahzek451]

Playing Devil's advocate.... is a spear squad better than my normal Spawn Blob for close combat against a hard target such as Knights?

 

I haven't done this myself. 

Worth a look into. I'm going to take a look when I get home. For the moment I prefer the tzaangor for the strat, keyword synergy, 5++, quicker speed, and lower points. 

[Raven1]

Playing Devil's advocate.... is a spear squad better than my normal Spawn Blob for close combat against a hard target such as Knights?

 

I haven't done this myself.

On paper, with proper support i would say yes. More expensive but better save, better numbers, more synergy. You can make them +1S and then the whole the number misses thing from a Tzeentch herald specifically a fateskimmer with its chariot would be decent in combat too.

[Marshlands]

The real trick with them is warptiming 24" with fly, it's a huge threat range. Spawn might not be able to get past the guardsmen congo line.

 

Honestly thousand sons spawn are good, especially with the new point cost, but they work as part of a steadily moving line whereas the enlighted gives you something that isn't a character to play like eldar in a fast moving list.

 

I.e. rubrics + spawn + horrors etc

 

Enlighted + DPs + teleporting etc

 

If going small squads I'd lean towards the bows but would still prefer multiple squads to maximise the shamans benefit. I'd probably take the Chainswords over spears in squads of 3 to just generate more attacks vs chaff

[Zodd1888]

One big bow blob for characters. Playing cat and mouse droppings whatever character I was able to put some MW on the Psychic Phase prior.

 

One spear blob to drop down a single knight in a round. Great counter punch but they're basically hiding in cover or taking objectives from OBsec troops. They're actually great against Nurgle on the charge.

 

Get one or two rounds out of them doing their job and they'll typically payback their points.

[Skerr]

Has anyone used a unit of Spears as a bodyguard to a Seer's Bane ES?

[Marshlands]

Has anyone used a unit of Spears as a bodyguard to a Seer's Bane ES?

No but they've worked well with a DP, which is basically just a better version of that. Not really bodyguards tho, they're not tough.

 

If anything the DP was their bodyguard...

[Skerr]

True, more screens or meat shields if you will.

[Marshlands]

True, more screens or meat shields if you will.

Yeah lol, they worked well together either way!

[Raven1]

Well i have been convinced more or less to at least try them. I think after i get down with my 1500 points of deathwatch i i'll pick up a couple more squads of the enlightened to make a mess of things.

 

Through in a fate skimmer, shaman and DPoT i think it will be a pretty potent ball of death for like you know 1 turn.