Here's the list 'm taking to the crossroads GT:
Small and a bit undergunned, but the minis I want to field painting wise.

See below for my question on list design

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Valkia

Sorcerer on foot, favor of the gods, enchanted shield, scroll.
Sorcerer barded steed/1 scroll/one of the MR 2 items


Chaos Warriors/shield 15 full command (30)/Rapturous standard (25)/Mark of
slaanesh

Chaos warriors/shields/halberds 15 Full command (30)/banner of rage (35)

Chaos warriors 10 halberd/shields

Chaos hounds 5
Chaos Hounds 5
Chaos Hounds 5

Forsaken 6 (I know crazy but I think they can work as flank and rear gaurds)
Chaos ogres great weapons x 3

Giant
Warshrine/MoT
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They are also running an 'ard boyz qualifier at night during the GT. As I'm
already bringing a rock to a gun fight with this list at the GT I'm going to go
with the flow and bring my rock to a nuclear arms race in the no comp 'ard boyz
qualifier

So I'm thinking of adding a gateway caster, hell cannon and some marauder cav
while upping the mages to level 2's with a puppet.

What's the best gateway caster of these options:
Daemon prince tendrils of tzeentch
Sorcerer lord tooled up
Vilitch the accursed special character

Or should I take two and just drop Valkia?

Gary

By far it's the Gateway DP. It just makes the casting so much more dependable.

If you want to go with the 'GATEWAY FTW!' type gameplay, I'd back up that daemon prince with a sorceror lord on disc with the spell familiar. Together, they mean there's only a 1/18 chance that you won't have gateway on a key caster, and you have a pretty good chance of having it twice (55.6%).

Valkia is amazing, but IMO fits into a differently focused list. And obviously going magic heavy like that means you should be taking the puppet somewhere.

'Ard boyz isn't about balance. Double gateway action should smash through most any magic defence and can take out key units while you still have almost 2000 pts of actual army.

Any ideas on Vilitch compared to the DP?

Knows all six spells gets bonus power dice whenever an opponent dispells one of his spells, gets bonus dispell dice whenever an opponent succesfully casts a spell.

DP reroll is huge difference but the ability to potentially toss a lot of dice is kind of interesting - though not predictable in terms of how you allocate your dice.

Maybe both and drop Valkia (darn it. . .I'm having so much fun with my conversion. . . )

Vilitch is a tad too vulnerable. The thing about having the DP + Disc Rider isn't so much their casting potency, it's their points denial while they blast holes out of enemy units. Vilitch is a solid caster with nifty abilities....but he's really vulnerable.

If you're going to take a Gateway FTW!, make your Level 2s Nurgle, spamming that Level 1 spell is a sure fire way to take all their dispel dice...

Personally I'd prefer a Sorceror Lord, far cheaper and much less vulnerable imo. Golden Eye on a disc will keep you around long enough to spam cast.

Keep Valkia though, if only for the model.

Im just curious, what are you using for a valkia conversion?

Lilith hesperax archive fury wings some horns from the old VC skellie box dark eldar warrior left arm, archive chaos warrior shield, archive champion of khorne skull base.

Looks pretty good. I'm debating if I'm going to spend the time to sculpt the hooves.