Warriors of Chaos. Part One.

Righty, this was originally going to start as a guide to Warriors of Chaos. However, today a friend of mine ran a Warriors army by me and got me thinking "How would I do Warriors." I have a feeling though it's going to turn into a guide. Basically, it's my thoughts on the army. Now, let's start with the basics...

Warriors are slow. Sure, you can do all cavalry but then you'll have fewer models than my mordheim warband. So? They'll be rock hard with 1+ saves. No. No they will not. Think of this. Chaos Knights. 5 for 200pts. 5 T4 1+ saves. For that you can get around 12 Chaos Warriors with shields. Who will get a 3+ from shooting, which, while not as good is still serviceable, but the real thing is they have 7 wounds on the chaos knights. And that's what this all comes down to.

This is an edition where outside of combat, defenses mean pretty much fuck all. Dwellers, Plague, Purple Sun, Pit of Shades, Final Transmutation, Infernal Gateway, Curse of Years, Dreaded 13th, the list goes on. Basically what I'm trying to convey is that if I did warriors, my approach would be boots on the ground. Now, this army would be slow, so I'd need to put in some form of reach. Thankfully, that's doable. So then, what would I use? Well I'll run through the units, quickly.

LORDS

Chaos Lords, never. Just get 2 exalteds and win games.

Sorcerer Lord, always, unless you're running a DP. That's a rough call but I personally prefer the raw defense of these guys.

Daemon Prince, maybe. Not a bad unit but it definitely lost some of it's oomph (almost all of it in fact) with true line of sight and people being able to hit back. These things just aren't tough enough to survive in 8E.

HEROES

Sorcerer, you have no reason not to if you have the points. As this is Chaos, you do not have the points. I would run one and your lord at 2250-2500, but I think it's too tight in 2k.

Exalted Hero, always run one. As the BSB of course. Otherwise, if you have the spare points just buy another block of warriors or something.

CORE

Marauders, sure. Not a bad unit by any means. A unit of 30 with HW/S, Light Armour and the MoTz gets a 5+/5++ in close combat. Which is a damn nice tarpit and costs about 200 points. Cool. However for about 200 points I could have 12 chaos warriors with halberds and shields. We'll come to that. Ultimately I think one block of these is going to make it into the list, purely because WoC do have a rather large weakness, which we'll come to at a later point as well.
 

Chaos Warriors, yup. If Marauders are the potatoes, these are the meat. Like I said, for 200pts you can have 12 with halberds and shields. That's a unit that dishes out stupid amounts of strength 5 attacks, and has a 3+ save against shooting. Now it's not all meat and gravy. They do have weaknesses. Mainly stuff that hits before them (not much) that denies them their save. Like I dunno, White Lions. Yup, White Lions sure would rip this unit a new one. So Arch, what do we do about that? Well, a WoC fanboy who bought the army because he heard they would be leet and pro in 8th edition might tell you to buy 12 warriors with Shields and the Mark of Tzeentch. I would tell him "SHUT MOUTH SHUT NOW MOUTH NOW SHUT!". Lets weigh that one up shall we. Against those 14 white lions you could get for your unit of 12 Chaos Warriors with shields and MoTz, here's what happens: Combat starts. The white lions hack down about 5. That's 80pts down the drain before you can swing. You return fire and kill, let's be generous and say 2. That's 30pts.

What!? I thought this unit was meant to be good against stuff like this! See, this is why you can never trust the internet. Except me. And Chumbalaya (http://bnhblog.blogspot.com). Maybe. Anyway, the unit you want for this situation is the aformentioned MoTz Marauders. Because they'll only kill 6 or 7. Which is about 30-40 points or so. And then you'll be stubborn. See how this is all coming together? In addition, your return fire isn't exactly much worse than the Warriors in this regard, because you'll be getting your full 10 attacks.

Ok, the other core choices.

Warhounds are good little irritation units and they can tie stuff up while your warriors close the gap. I say tie stuff up, half it's move or just stop them moving (depends if the opponent is smart enough to swift reform or not). Sure they can backpedal, but there's nothing you can do about that anyway. Nothing wrong here. 30pts well spent.

Marauder Horsemen. Mneh. Now they'll be eating return attacks, they're really fragile. However 6 with the MoK for 120 points isn't bad as such. It is 12 attacks at S5 and initiative 4. On a flank it could hurt. But that's the same points as about 8 warriors. With 3+ saves against shooting. And Toughness 4. Hrm. They're a maybe if you really need speed. Personally I think 4 units of warhounds would do more (sure they wouldn't kill anything but they'd buy time).

SPECIAL

Chosen! Grrr. Unless you're running the Tzeentchi Deathstar (don't, by the way) they're not that great. Mostly because 36pts for one roll on the eye of the gods and +1WS (when you're WS5...) isn't really worth it. Unless you play elves a lot, like me. Not a bad unit, but suffers in the long run against warriors. Unless you can get really good rolls on the EoTG table. Basically, if you have points, feel free to upgrade some warriors to Chosen, it might pay off. If you do give the champion Favour of the Gods though.

Forsaken. Haha.

Ok fine. They're not as good as warriors. Extra attacks isn't as good as I5 and WS5 with halberds. M6 is glorious, sure, but again, they're more expensive. You guys might be thinking what's 36pts for a unit? Over an army, that's an extra unit or 2. So hush.

Chariots. Not bad, I'd rather have more warriors. It's actually a pretty good chariot though, all things considered. But 4 wounds and the armour save of a chaos warrior with only +1T is... not bad, just not for 120 points. Chaos are all about being constantly and consistently deadly, which a chariot isn't. In most games it's deadly once or twice. And it sucks in protracted combats of hacking through chaff. Which warriors don't, by the way.

Ogres. Shit. Something good!? In MY special section!? Ok seriously, these guys aren't bad by virtue of chucking out a metric tonne of high strength attacks. Unfortunately they (like almost everything else in this army) fall into the category of "you can do it better with a small horde of chaos warriors". 3 of these with great weapons will get you 9 S6 WS3 attacks and 3 S4 stomps, striking last. That many points of chaos warriors will get you 16 S5 attacks at WS5 and I5. Ho hum. Then they get even more expensive if you give them chaos armour. Ho hum. Can anything beat chaos warriors in terms of sheer killing power...?

Chaos Knights! Riding hard, high in the saddle! Winged Steed of Unwearing Flight! Sweeping through air just like fire! Swift of the foot great of might! Nah not these guys either. You see, I took you the other way with that one. That's humour. Now I get why Brent does this so much. Nah seriously, these guys used to be gods among mere mortals. At least in the WoC army. Because in 7E speed was really really important. To an extent it still is. But all your WoC infantry receiving an extra 3" to their charges (on average) helps somewhat. Now, I haven't said whether or not they're good yet. It's true, you can get in more killing power with Chaos Warriors, but they don't have the save of the chaos knights. My honest opinion is no, they're not worth it. Why? Like I said, this is an age where defenses mean fuck all. Sure the speed is nice, but I don't think that's as important anymore. Having lots of units is pretty important though, and these guys don't help you achieve that.

Trolls. I hate stupidity with a totally unfair bias. But having a unit of 12 cold one riders fail stupidity 3 turns in a row at LD8 made me so furious I never played with Kroq-Gar again. Trolls on the other hand aren't bad, but low weapon skill lets them down, striking last isn't that much of a big deal, but if you compare them to Warriors then they are found lacking. However, to be fair to the big lugs, they're not bad in big units (make the most of their mutations), especially with Valkia kicking about. Personally though, I'd rather have more Chaos Warriors.

Dragon Ogres. Hrm, interesting. Let us compare a dragon ogre with 2 hand weapons to 4 warriors of chaos with halberds. Same save, cool. Same wounds, right. The chaos warriors get one more attack (but one of the dragon ogre's hits automatically). Fair play. Ok then, well what about initiative and weapon skill? Chaos Warriors win in both, but WS4 is still good (better than most). Ok then. But the Dragon Ogres are M7. But I thought you said you don't need speed? I don't think we do really. But if it turns out we do, you can damn well bet this is where I'll be turning. But it's not a cheap unit. However putting out 16 S5 attacks and 4 S5 stomps isn't bad. Especially when you have 16 wounds.

RARE

I'm only doing the Warshrine, Hellcannon and Spawn. The others can learn to not suck and then come back to me.

Warshrines. Uhhh, it's not bad. It's essential in a Tzeentchi Deathstar army. But I personally wouldn't bother. They can be quite rough to kill and can put out a good amount of damage, to be fair. But not nearly as much so as the Hellcannon.

Hellcannons. Ho ho. This thing. Well, where do we start. It's also T6 (like a Warshrine). It has a 5+ "handler ward". It also has a 4+ Armour. And it has 5 wounds. Ok, so it's tough to kill. In close combat, it has 5S5 WS4 attacks, and thunderstomp. So it kicks arse there too. Finally, it fires a S5(10) stone thrower that causes panic at -1LD if you're hit by the template. He doesn't even need to wound. This is a fun thing to shoot at Hellpits. Ok great, so what else? Did I mention it's unbreakable. Yeah, it's unbreakable.

"Yeah but it's a War Machine so it can't charge except for rampage, and automatically dies to dwellers." SHUT MOUTH SHUT MOUTH SHUT NOW! It's a Monster with Handlers, Tool. This means it can charge. Basically if you deploy this thing 12" in, take some potshots and wait until something breaks through your lines or tries to flank you, this thing will run in and most likely absolutely obliterate it. All for 205 points. I'd take one, definitely. Mostly because it gives Warriors some reach, and helps kill monsters (which they struggle with, from what I've seen). Downside is it usually goes absolutely apeshit if the Dwarfs die (in that it charges the closes unit, not what you want). However it's very unlikely to do so while the dwarfs are alive, as they are LD9 for it's rampage check. It also has a funky misfire chart. Three is particularly lols in 8th edition. I just want that to happen to Teclis. It'd make my day.


Ok folks, so I'm going to stop part one here. Part Two will be the actual "How would you do Warriors?" part. I just don't want your fragile little brains hurt by my massive wall of text.

Hope you guys enjoyed the article.