Two damage spells from the Lore of Tzeentch are called Red Fire and Yellow Fire, and their descriptions talk about flames engulfing the enemy troopers. Does that mean they are fire-based, even though nothing in the rules indicates it?

I dont know, but I would certainly say so. Does it really state in the lore of fire that each spell is counted as a fire attack for instance? :)

6th edition errata somewhat clarified this - there is this High Elf armour, IIRC, that protects the wearer from "pure" fire attacks - for example, it doesn't stop a flaming cannonball, as it would stop the flames, but not the cannonball. Tzeentch spells are not affected by this armour. I've always taken this to mean that they were not flaming attacks.

As for the Lore of Fire, I know it did explicitly state that the spells were flaming attacks in 6th ed, but I ... can't ... remember ... this edition. Generally speaking, a spell will be explicitly stated to be flaming if it is (an exception to this was Flames of the Phoenix, again which the 6th ed errata cleared up).

lore of fire explicitly states it in the lore description

No, from my understanding the Lore of Tzeentch spells do not count as flaming, the "fire" part is just fluff. So, no double damage vs treemen, etc.

Pretty sure they actually address that in a FAQ somewhere, you may want to go hunt that down.

No need. I think Thragka brought the right arguments.

In fact, I asked this question only out of curiosity (and boredom). I have never played against Tzeentch and I have no intention of collecting Tzeentch. But still, it's useful to discuss about stuff like that, in case someone else needs the answer.

I used to play Tzeentch mortals as my main army, but gave it up for a few major reasons:

1) They are the worst Chaos for psychology tests. They don't cause fear, they aren't immune, and they aren't frenzied. Terror & Panic is a Bad Thing when most everything just has LD8 (max 9) with no rerolls or immunities.

2) Tzeentch magic sucks for a melee-focused army. You pay tons of points to be able to cast, but 5/7 spells can only be cast on enemy units that aren't already in combat, and the other 2 are RiP, and you leave up. Once you're in combat and they're up, those casting abilities are useless.

3) There is a HUGE prejudice among players against magic-heavy armies. Having 11-12 power dice, regardless of the utility of the spell list, is an immediate ticket to zeros in comp scores, and prejudice against you on sportsmanship scores too.


I would bet that Daemonic Legion Tzeentch is much better than mortals, as it's far easier to design it as a flying circus of ranged specialist harassment units, with minimal infantry support, which thus plays to the strengths of the spell list. Mortals, however, blow chunks as Tzeentch.

What about Tzeentch Beasts? Agreed, like other Chaos armies, they are more close combat oriented, but the vast majority of their units can't benefit from Mark-related leadership/psych bonuses anyway (with the exception of Bestigor and characters)

Even there, I think you've got better options.

I mean, Beasts are still a close-combat oriented army, yes? Close combat army with spells that are a) not wholesale destructive and B) work best for a mobile ranged army as a kind of magical version of, say, elven missile fire doesn't seem to sync up to me. That's why I think that it works much better for Tzeentch Daemonic Legion than anything else, simply because so much of the daemonic legion is fliers and has ranged attacks, etc.

One of the other considerations is, is there much point to a ton of casting dice, unless they're being funneled through a L4? Plus, do you want to risk funneling all those dice through a L4 without any way of avoid miscasts, etc? Somehow, I don't think so. So, that would leave you either Beastlord with Staff of Change, and LD8 across the board, or a Daemon Prince, and between the 10 pts to let him be a general for a beast army and the 75 pts for Tzeentch's Will, you can't get the gift to give him a real ward save. Oh, and since he never takes break tests, you can't reroll that unlucky 10 after a combat by using a BSB.

About the only way I might do it with beasts is to view the magic as highly secondary. Take a Doombull general and a couple Wargors, and hope to hell that as many of them as possible get Orange or Yellow fire. Take 3 units of Minotaurs, mark them, and put the Wargors in Beast Herds. Basically then, this army isn't doing much with magic besides buffing up the units with the characters in them, and for long-range sniping with red fire. That could work, I think.

That said, I still think you'd be better off going with Nurgle, for fear + getting to 4+ armor on the minotaurs, or Khorne perhaps (in which case you could take Bestigors and have them work OK), and focusing on increasing the basic strengths of the army than side-stepping the base army function and hoping to hell your spells get off to enhance it.