Varnias Tybalt said:

Table top doesn't accurately represent the stats of a whole lot of beings, notably C'tan, Greater Daemons, and Space Marines. In the background material and in DH rules, you need an act of the Emperor just to injure an armoured Space Marine with a lasgun. Not so in table top. An Avatar of Khaine can walk through an Ork mechanized army, ignoring all the Orks except for those in his path and kill the ones who get in his way, and not suffer significant injury. Not so table top. Don't use WFRP stats: daemons are much weaker statwise in that game.

Take the stats for an Unbound Daemonhost as a starting point and juice them to the sky while adding appropriate powers based on the abilities of the greater daemon.

Cynical Cat said:

To be fair though, Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader doesn't accurately represent stats of many of these creatures as well. Like your example with the Space Marine. A Space Marine can (both statwise in the table top and according to several fluff sources) be killed with a lasgun (or several lasguns). There is also fluff sources mentioning the slayings of daemons and greater daemons made by non-astartes people armed with non-epic weapons as well.

So you could say that each and every game contradict eachother all the time. There is no game or fluff source that stay consistent...

Varnias Tybalt said:

Where are these fluff sources for greater daemon killings? Lasgun kills on Astartes only take place with repeated massed fire or very early sources. You certainly won't get any anything written in the last few years. Abnett did it in the early Ghost novels, but its vanished since then. They didn't even try to use lasguns on them in Traitor General.

The material does evolve and change (like beefier hellguns), but table top has always been about being able to field an army and playability over accurately reflecting the universe. Weapon range alone shows you that. In universe, daemon princes (not greater daemons, merely daemon princes) blow up Titans (Eisenhorn). So can Alpha plus psykers, but you'll never see anything remotely powerful table top, even though their powers are clearly quantified as being that great in the table top rulebooks. You all set get all sorts of idiocy like tanks not being able to shoot on the move (20th C tech) even though the novels (Honour Guard, Gunheads) and common sense clearly contradicts this.

C'tan are cosmic horrors, not equal value to a few IG platoons.

Greater Daemons are horrifically powerful.

Lesser Daemons are nightmares that treat humans as prey (have you seen that nightmare stated out in Rogue Trader or the Rakasa from Disciples of Dark Gods? Those things are lesser daemons. Scale that way, way up for the big guys).

You better bring something better than a lasgun to kill a Marine.

Cynical Cat said:

Like I said, neither game nor fluff sources stay consistent, and your post just proves my point.

Which means that everything will ultimately bottle down to GM fiat...

I've not fully statted up a Lord of Change (yet), but I've got a Bloodthirster all ready for slaughter and mayhem in the name of the Blood God... at the very least, it ably demonstrates approximately how powerful I feel that a 'baseline' Greater Daemon should be...

Bloodthirsters

Rage Incarnate. High-Handed Slayers. Lords of Slaughter. Wrath Given Form. By these names and more are Khorne’s Greater Daemons known. They are towering avatars of death and destruction, roaring behemoths of warfare bound into terrifying form. There are few alive who can stand before their might and survive; fewer who can triumph against such a monstrosity.

Their massive armoured and muscular bodies contain unrestrained physical might, their contorted faces exhibit nothing but rage and malice, and every aspect of their bodies is a living instrument of death, from their great tusks and fangs, to their horns and claws, the talons of their mighty wings, their iron-shod hooves, and simply their mass and raw ferocity. As if that was not enough, however, they wield great and terrible weapons with which to slay in Khorne’s name. Massive axes and swords of vast power, forged in the flames of the Blood God’s fury and containing the bound essence of other mighty daemons are commonplace amongst Khorne’s Greater Daemons, but long barbed whips, throwing axes and other tools of destruction aside are also employed.

When a Bloodthirster appears on a world, reality shudders under its presence, the abhorrence of such a creature causing the laws of nature to rebel nearby. The arrival of such a monstrous creation upon a battlefield results in panic as men flee for their lives or blaze away with whatever weapons are to hand in the desperate hope of driving off such a deadly foe.

WS BS S T Ag Int Per WP Fel
88 32 64 (24) 56 (30) 56 (5) 64 (6) 64 (6) 72 (7) 32 (3)

Movement: 7/14/21/42 or 10/20/30/60 when Flying; Wounds: 64

Skills: Awareness +10 (Per), Command +20 (Fel), Dodge +10 (Ag), Forbidden Lore (Daemons) +20 (Int), Forbidden Lore (Warp) +20 (Int), Intimidate +20 (S), Psyniscience (Per), Scholastic Lore (Tactica Imperialis) +20 (Int), Speak Language (All) +10

Talents: Battle Rage, Berserk Charge, Combat Master, Crippling Strike, Crushing Blow, Disturbing Voice, Dual Strike, Frenzy, Furious Assault, Lightning Attack, Lightning Reflexes, Melee Weapon Training (Primitive), Mental Fortress, Precise Blow, Resistance (Psychic Powers), Strong-minded, Sure Strike, Swift Attack, Talented (Command), Talented (Intimidate), True Grit, Two Weapon Wielder (Melee)

Traits: Brutal Charge, Daemonic (TB 30), Dark Sight, Daemonic Presence, Embodiment of Slaughter*, Enormous, Fear 4, Flyer (10), From Beyond, Fuelled By Slaughter, Natural Weapon (Itself, see below), The Stuff of Nightmares, Unnatural Strength (x4), Unnatural Toughness (x3), Warp Instability

Daemonic Presence: Reality rebels when a Bloodthirster is near, causing objects to bleed and heat up for no reason, enhancing the sounds of battle to the point where they are almost deafening, and inspiring inexplicable feelings of rage within all creatures. All characters within 72 metres of a Bloodthirster suffer a -10 penalty on Willpower Tests.

Embodiment of Slaughter: Daemons of Khorne are the aethyric manifestations of rage, fury and the desire to kill. For them, unending rage is as natural as breathing is to a human. A creature with this trait can enter a Frenzy as a Free Action.

Fuelled by Slaughter: Every time a Bloodthirster slays a living creature, it regains 1d10 wounds.

Weapons: Horns, Tusks, Fangs, Claws, Hooves, and sheer Ferocity (1d10+26 R or I), Axe of Khorne (3d10+33 R; Pen 9; Tearing, Warp Weapon, +5 to Critical Results, ignores all armour, psychic defences and fields, and enemies wounded must pass a Challenging (+0) Toughness Test or be immediately slain), Whip of Khorne (10m; 1d10+26 R; Pen 6; Snare, Flexible, Tearing. Range is the reach of the weapon.)

Axe of Khorne: True Axes of Khorne, those wielded by Bloodthirsters are massive weapons, too large for a human to wield and containing the bound essence of another Bloodthirster of Khorne. These weapons deal 3d10 R damage, Pen 4 as standard, and contain a Daemon with a WP of 72, conferring the Hungering, Sharp as Sin, Warp Touched and Aethyric Render attributes. This is summarised above.

Armour: Brass Armour of Khorne (All 10, counts as having Hexagrammic Wards (Inquisitor’s Handbook, page 189))

Threat Rating: Malleus Terminus

And that's a baseline. Nothing compared to the even bigger ones who are truly favoured by Khorne.

Using that for comparative purposes, I think Intelligence and Willpower 89, Psy Rating 9, and Unnatural Intelligence (x4) and Unnatural Willpower (x4) are entirely appropriate for a Lord of Change. Add in their Daemonic nature to make Psychic Phenomena inconsequential (it's a Greater Daemon; psychic phenomena are to it as wind and rain are to humans) and the Hellish Blast Major Arcana (Disciples of the Dark Gods, page 119), and you've got a being that on an average psychic test (with virtually non-existent personal consequences for using all 9 dice it possesses) scores 85 and deals 7d10+36 damage with the Warp Weapon quality at a single enemy within 180m using that Sorcery power... as a half action, as often as it likes.

And that's if you somehow get into a fight with it. Being ludicrously intelligent, hypothetically prescient, immortal master manipulators, that's not likely unless it wants to fight you...

Can't Lords of Change only be defeated if Tzeench wills it as part of one of his grant schemes and fouls their ability to forsee the actions of their foe?

Because that more or less is Stat: Can only lose by GM fait.

Also using one gives the GM 3d10 insanity points for being enmeshed in one of the many plots of the Changes of Ways

Hodgepodge said:

That's what I use for any Greater Daemon, yes.

Hodgepodge said:

Well what if the foe in question is a manifestation of the C'Tan known as The Deceiver?

Tzeentch might be the master manipulator in the realm of the warp, but The Deceiver is the master manipulator of physical space. What if the two of them clashed? Would the universe implode? I mean, it's not like one is really stronger than the other or anything, they are just manifestations locked into different dimensions.

My bet here is that the universe would implode, or the galaxy would at least suffer an apocalyptic battle that would dwarf the horus heresy in magnitude. ANd no matter what outcome, mankind would be dead or enslaved to Chaos.

As far as I know, the C'Tan hate and fear the warp because they cannot percieve it, but they are vulnerable to it. So that wouldn't be much of a contest. Though some blame a fight between Khaine and one of the C'Tan for the fall of the Eldar- Khaine merely destroyed the Necrodermis body of the C'Tan, and was poisoned by its shards.

Hodgepodge said:

Nope, C'Tan doesn't fear anything (not even the warp). The reason why they went into stasis during the enslaver plague wasn't because they were afraid of warp creatures like the enslavers, it was because the enslavers was killing everything else in the galaxy (no living creatures with souls = no food for the C'Tan), so they went into stasis and decided to ride out the storm until the galaxy was populated by new living and sentient species again.

It is rather the opposite that the warp fears the C'Tan, since the C'Tan invented several means to stop warp powers dead in their tracks, like inventing the Pariah gene and employing Pariahs as weapons against psykers and daemonic entities, and also having the means and ability to simply close the connection between warpspace and realspace with arcane technology (certain Necron pylons can effectively shut off extremely large portions of space to the warp).

Chaos is most likely just another enemy in the eyes of the star gods, but not something they actually fear. Although it is true that the C'Tan cannot survive "inside" the warp at all, because the dimension is in itself an anathema to them. But they have no reason to enter it (like most other spacefaring races have, because it is their only means of faster than light travel). I'd guess it's kinda like the same difficulty that daemons have when trying to manifest in realspace, the dimension will just try to make them go back to the warp and they grow incredibly weak in realspace. And as far as I know, no Chaos god has actually tried to manifest fully in realspace (posibly because they can't), but rather corrupting species already living in that dimension as well as sending their daemonic cohorts to influence things in the manner they see fit.

Backing up seriously here:

Cynical Cat said:

Mmm, i'd say that the table top stats and the accompanying back ground info are the closest thing we have to how they invisage the various creations and that is of course limited by the streamlining needed. Almost all of the stories contridict another story somewhere and you end up just believing others.

Space Marines stats haven't changed for about 4 editions and are pretty much used as a baseline. Not sure I remember anywhere that Space Marines are immune to lasgun fire, certainly highly resistant.

Greater Deamons vary hugely, what with being creatures of chaos, but that's not something that you can do in table top - even so there's a set of stats for Greater Deamon Lords in the Imperial Armour books which is more in keeping with the Apocalypse scale battles and I heard that they were planning doing the same with Ctan.

But you've also got to realise that GW aren't in the habit of creating things that are completely invlunerable (that take part in battles anyway) and part of the ethos is that if artillery doesn't work you aren't using enough / large enough artillery.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

That's some gorgeous work there, it seems horrifying and ridiculous, which is clearly what we were expecting.

Hodgepodge said:

I'm begging to think that maybe Tzeentch isn't quite as good at planning and manipulation as he likes to think. He's just got a great poker face

'Sure that Lord of Change got killed the instant it was summoned, just as Tzeentch had planned!'

Face Eater said:

Correction: Several hundred great poker faces.

To be fair, Tzeentch is the Chaos God of (amongst other things) deception and manipulation. And, while it is invariably a master of such things, it is a being that exists entirely outside of the normal limits of space and time, and is in and of itself not necessarily sapient in a manner we might understand. Amongst other things, this means that its goals and motivations may be completely incomprehensible for anybody, if it even has them (it has been speculated that Tzeentch is an inherent contradiction; a schemer with no scheme, a manipulator without a purpose - it lies and cheats and manipulates because those things are what it exists to do, not because of some vast and vile goal). Tzeentch plays a trillion games of chess simultaneously, starting a new one whenever a previous one ends, and it seems very much like the results of those games is irrelevant - Tzeentch just plays the game, the outcome is of no concern, because when the game is won, the manipulation ends.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

From what I've read, the goal for Tzeentch is change. Constant and perpetual change. If the death of one of his/her/it greater daemon will bring about change, then so be it.

So the earlier remark about having a really good poker face might not be the case. Tzeentch doesn't care much for either winning or losing, tzeentch just wants to keep the game going forever, with constant configurations and ruleschanges to it along the way.

Just my own extrapolation on your post.

What Tzeentch wants is a worthy opponent.

Oftentimes, the Changer of the Ways is the best opponent the Architect of Fate can come up with.

Varnias Tybalt said:

Every source I've read is very clear on the C'Tan being especially vulnerable to Warp-based attacks, which is why they're so eager to choke it off and create anti-Psyker weaponry such as the Pariahs. Likewise the Valismans of Vaul (and more generally, the entire Eldar race), which were created specifically to kill C'Tan by exploiting their weakness to Warp-based weaponry. Granted, "weakness" is relative. Adjusted for scale, I'd say it's rather like how Superman is vulnerable to magic- it's not like kryptonite, it's just that he can be hurt by it instead of being invulernable to it as he is with other forms of attack.

On the subject of Tzeench: it's actually a mistake to think of him as "outside of time." Maybe it's contradicted elsewhere, but the background for Fateweaver indicates that the Changer of Ways cannot see the future perfectly, and is uncertain that he could survive entering the Well of Eternity at the center of reality in order to overcome this weakness.

Conceptually, of course, he is by definition bound and limited by the concept of time- without it, change is an utterly meaningless concept. In that sense, Tzeench is very much bound by the materium, since time is not a metaphysical constant (as our limited minds tend to slip into imaging it even when we try not to), but just as much a physical concept as place, distance, or matter.

Of course, I imagine that he's just as happy with this state of affairs. What fun would his schemes be if there was no chance or uncertainty in how they play out?

Also, make Tzeench completely trancendent and you end up with Yog-Sothoth. And the Key and the Guardian of the Gate is not to be displeased.