I don't have any to offer myself sorry, but was wondering what would be good for them?

I plan to use a Slaanesh/Tzeentch themed army in my first session of playing epic in years in the not too distant future, and to take them to my first epic tournament, so I'm curious.

What are good upgrades to take?
How many demons and altars to field?
Any particularly good or bad units / combinations / tactics?

damn! my computer crashed and ate my 'Really Good Post' ™ but i promise to put a semi comprehensive reply up by lunchtime :-)
R>

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RIght; just about to go fiddle with scrap bikes but here's the goods.

As is probably obvious from the way the army list is structured what you're looking to achieve is an infantry horde; however, covens can get quite costly once you start upgrading them so i find that it comes down to striking a balance between access to support formations and having aformentioned horde.
One of the problems with LatD if that most formations on thier own are relatively weak and short ranged, the trick lies in making sure that (due to your low Stratagy Rating) that wherever you plan to attack on the battlefield you have plenty of formations queud up to assault with.
The Altar is always going to be quite a vulnerable piece of kit seeing as it's the only WE in the formation and can thus be targeted seperately by TK shots; however, combined with a Demagogue it does almost always guarentee summoning of Greater Demons. It's AA is also good but i feel it to be an eggs in one basket case.  On average  a demagogue alone should usually be able to summon a greater demon anyway. In fact use of demons at the correct time is usually the best way to boost covens to a decent assaulting force.  Due to the loss of activation count however i wouldn;'t want to spend more than around 200pts on a demon pool; depends on if you want a greater demon in there really.

Good upgrades for covens:
Land Transporters; although only LV's (so you can't claim a cover bonus from them)for 10pts a pop they do add some armour saves and decent speed to the covens.
Big mutants; max out on them if you can to make a scary formation; beware of MW shots though especially from gargatns and the like!
Demon Princes: 50pts for 2TK CC attacks? Yes please! Rememeber you can have multiples in the LatD list! I've got 3!
Hydra; i don't rate t.bolts and aircraft usually preferring the flexibility of multiple hydra on the ground; keep them in formations with other AV or LV units so as they don't die quick; also adds that vital extra 15cm range to most formations for BM laying.

At 3k tourney games you want at least 9 - preferably more - activations so bear this in mind when taking support slots.  The army is slow and not great on the defense so make sure to take a couple of Roughrider Formations as fast scout screens; this also gives a great oppurtunity to use all those old Chaos Cavalry models of old like Juggernaughts and the like.  Other models are good proxies for sentinels; like Disk riders for example :-) Another cheap formation.
Some of the big demon engines give that range boost you need as can the leman russ company, unless you plan on staying still though i wouldn't take artillery.

For reference here's the list that i took to the OW11:

Coven
-Hydra
-5big mutants
-Demon Prince
Coven
-2 big mutants
-demagogue and icon bearer
-Pact
Coven
-Demon PRince
COven
-Demon PRince
-Land Transporters
-Hydra
-Pact
Coven
-Land Transporters
-Hydra
-Pact
Rough Riders
Rough Riders
Lord of Battle
Lord of Battle
Demon Pool
-1 Greater, 5 Lesser

As you can guess if i got ride of the lords of battle i could up the activation count but they are real beasts!
One thing i would like to see is the use of multiple hellcannon formations; just two slowly creeping up the field protected by infantry could be really nasty! They'e got an OK FF value too!
R>

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Thanks for the tips!    Gives me more of idea and I’ll run with your rough rider counts as suggestion.

It seems like you could make some very different armies with the list and that a Khorne assault one would play very differently to a Nurgle artillery one, though possibly the basis stuff makes them more alike that I think.

Of all my armies my LatD will probably be the one I most build around cool looking models and loads of conversions, with playability coming second, though I hope it will do alright. I’d like to avoid fielding too much borrowed imperial troops/tanks – there are other armies where I can use them – and focus more on the weird stuff like Altars (I know you advised against but I have some very cool conversions for these and want to use them), Spawn, Demons, Defilers and a selection of as many different types of the two power’s Demon Engines I can cram in a list.

Would maybe 2 x Chaos Altars + Doomwings and a Firelord be acceptable AA for a 3k tourney style list or would I need more?

More than enough! And it sounds like a really interesting build that i've never thought of; i demand that you bring it round when we meet up for a game :-)

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I've just started putting my LaTD together and wondering how to go about it... glad to find a few pointers listed here. Cheers MoK

Any one else have gems of wisdom they'd like to share?

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DPTextys (Dave Thomas) was playing Slaneesh this tourney season I think, ask him too :-)
R>

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MoK's Painting Blog
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The Tzeeeeeeentch aircraft are nifty, the bombers as single units good and the fighters interesting.

I think it plays well with demons as the base cost is low, even greater demons are do-able. Numerous infantry is the typical mainstay, in addition they kick out a surprising amount of AT fire on sustain. Think of it in terms of defensive cheap roadbumps and your mass of attacking troops. Tim had a very interesting L&D army numbering around 150 units in the last tourney of 2008 I beleive.

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Tournament winning LAtD army-

1) Coven 1 Daemon Prince + 12 cultists + 2 chimeras + 5 land transports + hydra + Pact 440 pts
2) Coven 1 CMA champion + 11 cultists + 6 land transports + hydra + Pact 335 pts
3) Coven 1 CMA champion + 11 cultists + 6 land transports + hydra + Pact 335 pts
4) Coven 1 CMA champion + 11 cultists + 6 land transporters + hydra 310 pts
5) Coven 1 CMA champion + 11 cultists + hydra 250 pts
6) Subjucator 225 pts
7) Subjucator 225 pts
Questor 275 pts
9) Questor 275 pts
10)Rough Riders 150 pts
Daemon pool 9 lesser daemons 180 pts

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NetEA NetERC Human Lists Chair
NetEA Chaos + Black Legion Champion

I’ve had a go with a few types of LatD armies. Last year I used this:

1) Coven + Land Transports + Hydra
2) Coven + Land Transports
3) Coven + Land Transports
4) Coven + Land Transports
5) Coven + 2x Cultists + Land Transports + 2x Hounds
6) Coven + Land Transports + Hydra + 3x Hounds
7) Coven + Hydra
Coven + Hydra
9) Doomwings
10) Doomwings
11) Doomwings
12) Firelord
13) Firelord

155 units of LatD fun. It did alright until I faced TRC’s scratch built orks and totally failed to do anything against a big gun mob.

This year I experimented with this:


1) Coven + Land Transports + Hydra + Daemon Pack
2) Coven + Land Transports + Daemon Pack
3) Coven + Land Transports + Daemon Pack
4) Coven + 2x Cultists + Hydra + Daemon Pack
5) Plague Zombies
6) Thunderbolts
7) Defilers
Slaanesh Daemon Knights
9) Slaanesh Subjagators x2
Daemons – 1 Greater Daemon & 12 Lesser Daemons

98-113 units. List did ok until it self destructed against a Warlock titan.

I must admit that my experiences have lead me to believe that if you are going to use lots of daemons then you need Icon Bearers, but with all the other benefits the character has they are too expensive. I would also like to see a dropping of daemon stats and resulting price decrease.

To be honest in the future I’ll probably be leaving the daemons at home as well as the upgrades to the covens and trying to fit as many support choices as I can into the army.

One thing that I’ll say though is don’t be afraid to have factions that hate each other as a 6x4 table still gives you plenty of space to keep them apart.

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NetEA Ork + Feral Ork + Speed Freak Champion

Has anyone tried garrisoning a coven and summoning a GD first turn, already halfway across the board?

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Neal

Not in a tournament, but did set that up for a practise game once. After losing strategy, the two front covens disappeared in a hail of fire, including Big Mutants.

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www.epic-uk.co.uk - home of the UK Epic tournament scene
NetEA NetERC Xenos Lists Chair
NetEA Ork + Feral Ork + Speed Freak Champion

heh.  wow.

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Neal