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I've been hearing a lot of flak about chaos warriors, 'they're too slow,' 'too expensive.' As a guy whos used these things with a fair amount of success and loves the look and style of them I've got to ask the question; how would you use them effectively?

Mount them on horses.

I personally face them reasonably often, and frankly as long as you have a unit on horses to act as the hammer to their anvil, it works incredibly well. My only solution is to usually just magic the crap out of both units with spells that disallow armor saves.

I am sure if my dwarves were pulled out of retirement they would basically do the same but with warmachines.

Something that should also be mentioned by having both types of chosen you can inspire alot of desperate fear in your opponent. However if you ever see a Steam Tank just go ahead and surrender unless you have a flying demon or three.

Chosen warriors can be effective if armed with Halberds. Deploy a unit 6 or 7 wide and chop the enemy to pieces. Slaanesh warriors with the Slannesh Banner that halves the enemy's weapon skill can be pretty nasty, since most opponents will hit them on 5+.

The wealth of ST5 attacks that they bring is very useful for dealing with units that don't care about combat resolution, like Stubborn units or Undead. They can be very good at dealing with Treemen.

Chosen Warriors are similar to Ogres in that they hit hard, but don't have much combat resolution. Those things that give Ogres problems (to wit, heavy cavalry) can also kill the Chosen.

I wouldn't base an army on them (nor could you, since you're limited to one unit) but a small unit can be a good addition to a combined-arms Chaos force.

A 10 man unit of Slaanesh Chosen w/Halberds, shields and sparkly banner runs over 300 points. For 10 guys. That's over 30 points per model. Unlike Ogres, the only have M4, though, and so are much more vulnerable to charges. A 4+ save helps somewhat, but not really, as the stuff that tends to charge them tends to chew that up anyway. (Mainly it stops shooting- with shield that's a 3+ save.)

Against undead such a unit would be terrible if they have significant magic. It will be flanked and the either tied up for the rest of the game or lose combat on a bad round and run. Consider that a 6 wide unit with champs gets 13 attacks. Unless the VC player raises and then danses them into the flank. Then you are looking at 4-6. TK can cause similar problems with chariots.

And I can't imagine how going after a treeman would be a good idea- the WE player would most likely just treesing them into forest and then either charge them with a spited Treelord (hitting him on 6s is tough) or just laugh as they stumble in forest and take treesinging hits for the rest of the game.

I love how CWs look, but this edition they are a subpar choice (like alot of heavy infantry). Blame it on the increased focus on RnF or mobility. Regardless, trying to field them is an effort in minimizing a weakness. About the only way I include them anymore is a unit of 10-12 Khorne warriors packing halberds and shields to add some choppy beside the Khornegors. They don't tend to do much, but they look very pretty (I laboriously painted Khorne symbols on armor and cloaks, bone weaponry, NMM armor, etc.) On the plus side, they are good for building theme and helping your fluff score with knowledgeable opponents!

Well, I can only comment on what I have seen them do. They're not the greatest troops in the world, but there far from being as useless as many would have you believe. 13 attacks that hit on 3's and kill on 2's can be very good at wiping out stubborn or unbreakable troops.

And I don't understand what you're talking about with the Treeman. The Annoyance (hit on 6s) only works in challenges, and, while it is possible the chaos player could be stupid enough to get caught in a forest, that's a worst case scenario and easily avoided by judicious use of dispell dice or (even easier) the chaos player not being an idiot. The same could be said of your scenario with the undead.

Well, evey treeman gets treesinging, and most dryad heavy lists run 2 other spellcasters usu. one that can TS twice, so it is not unusual that after up to 7 treesingings, you have things in forest. Same goes for VC- If they are packing 9+ PD, they are going to get spells off. If they are the Therion style lists, they are going to get *alot* of spells off! As to the treeman, I was thinking you took the unit with a champ- remember that the treelord issues challenges. Even not in a challenge, though, a treeman is probably going to kill 3 or so of the warriors in base on the charge. That leaves one model attacking back. Not so hot. Killing stubborn or unbreakable is cool, but usually they are tarpit units designed to tie up anyway. What usually kills you is what hits you after you get stuck in the tarpit!

Nah, they are not "useless", just sub optimal (well, except for Tzeentch CWs- they are pretty useless ;-)). Which is often fine in friendly games. Otherwise, it is almost better to take faster hitty units like knights, bestigors, ogres, etc. and use cheaper block troops like marauders w/LA+S for your holding troops (Remember that 1 CW is almost as much as 3 marauders!).

Andy Potter has had some amazing results using chaos lists focused on warriors and the support needed to get them into combat.

http://warhammer.org.uk/PhP/viewtopic.php?t=30142

http://warhammer.org.uk/PhP/viewtopic.php?t=26073

http://warhammer.org.uk/PhP/viewtopic.php?t=21329

Nice links, Mannahnin. It is interesting that his success seemed to vary alot by opponent. His results against other Chaos lists were impressive. But his results against other lists were mixed. His Slaanesh list did well, but primarily against Chaos and didn't seem to hit any superhard lists (the Empire list was solid) except the WE one, which was an impressive win (very good work there!). His Undivided did well at Macclesfield Manoeuvres 06 but stumbled some at Merseyside Meltdown. He seems like a very good player, and I have no doubt that has much to do with his success. Of course, good players can get by with suboptimal choices sometimes ;-) But it does tend to illustrate CWs aren't completely worthless.

Interesting links Mannahnin, Potter seems to take the exact opposite perspective in feilding a chaos army that i do. Lots of small elite units compared to my as many hardcore models as i can get, my current list has over 80 models.
Very interesting thoughts, i once created a list that had two units of chaos warriors, one chosen and one khorn. The two units couldnt be beat in combat without some serious damage being done inat a distance. Even when flanked by saurus cav and salamanders they came out on top. The obvious problem of the army being that the whole army was M4 and could not take on a defensive army.
So the primary problem, which is hard to solve, is manuverability and getting accross the table. I dont want to just cop out and grab a bunch of knights, mostly because i have tonnes of warrior models, id much rather find a way to get them to work together consistantly.

On the subject of Chaos, I loves me an undivided exalted on foot w/GW, HOME and Armor of Re-roll hits (damnation). That guy is a killing machine! In a unit of marauders he is so cool, because even if charged, he makes a mess and has the cheapies to bolster numbers.

Leith: Two units of knights can be very nasty. Run one as Undivided or Slaanesh (for psychology) Chosen and the other as Khorne. Both crank out 2 S5 attacks per knight. I like FC on both and the War Banner on one if I have the points. Screen them with hounds to limit fire, control the Khornites, and draw other cav. I usually thunder one down each flank or stack a side, depending on army and terrain. They are wonderful hammers! (I played in one game against a VC player who Raised and Dansed a unit of about 13 skellies into the Khornites rear- big mistake. The whole unit disappeared after the knights wiped out 2 ranks plus change of skellies)

Hounds can also be great support for just about anything. They can screen or act as flankers against foes that aren't packing good saves. For warriors, a screen of 10 (or 2 of 5, but make sure 1 doesn't panic the other when it runs!) with a block of 10 running support (US 20) by a chariot or something would probably be a good idea.

Beast herds also make good support, but have really gotten popped under 7th. I would keep them small to run interference with a MU and Champ, but ditch the banner as the really don't do much for CR now that they only line up 4 wide and ranks need 5 (stupid GW.....). 5 Gors and maybe 7 or so ungors should be fine for cheap infantry screens.

For reference, my 2000 Und/Khorne Chaos List usually looks something like this:

Exalted General w/HOME GW, Armour of Dargan
MOK Aspiring BSB w/Armour of Damnation
MOK Wargor w/Darkheart, Chaos Armor, GW, shield
Bray Shaman Braystaff, Goretooth, Dispel Scroll

2x21 Marauders LA/SH Full Cmd
4 Chosen Knights w/Full Cmd
4 MoK Knights FC
15 Warhounds (3x5 or 1x5 and 2x10)
12 Khornegors FC
Herd 5 Gor/8Ungor Mu/Champ
6 Furies
Tuskgor Chariot

The Hounds stay in front of the knights, the herd in front of the bestigors. One champ runs with each marauder block, the wargor in the Khornegors, the shaman in the herd and the chariot usu. stays on the flank avoiding LOS to cannons until the furies get there.

For 2250 I can add 1 to both knights, War Banner to the Khorneates, 2 Slaanesh spawn (modelled as bestial spawn to reflect the speed), and drop an Ungor. Or, instead of the spawn, upgrade the Tuskgor to a CW chariot and throw another in.

I have thought about trying the Hell Cannon in there, but at 270 points, I am not sure it is worth it. Plus, people whine like crazy when I have seen them fielded.....

Posted By jmurph on 07/13/2007 7:38 AM

Beast herds also make good support, but have really gotten popped under 7th. I would keep them small to run interference with a MU and Champ, but ditch the banner as the really don't do much for CR now that they only line up 4 wide and ranks need 5 (stupid GW.....). 5 Gors and maybe 7 or so ungors should be fine for cheap infantry screens...

 

People seem to have a misconception about the Raiders rule.  That part of the Raiders rule about lining up 4 wide, only applies in a situation where the unit would line up less than 4 wide- for example, if they had charged a single character on foot.

Since herds are skirmishers, in most cases they wil be lining up 6 or even 7 wide, to get models on the corners.  That's why I usually run large units, myself, 12 gors and 8 ungors with full command.

I wish GW had errata'd that rule, to say that in 7th herds line up 5-wide in any situation where they would normally line up less than 5-wide, but I'm sure they will change it in two or three years when the new BoC book is released. 

So for 5 years we get... good crossfire?

You people must have phenomenal dice.  The reason I use a gigantic block of 18+ chosen chaos warriors is to make an attempt to equal the enemy's combat resolution and then win by damage.  People who run 10 chosen with halberds make me cry when I see them tearing through everything they touch.  My chosen constantly bounce off of whatever they touch and run away if I lose combat by 1.  I've lost to rat swarms in the flank.

"Ah, we got 3 poison hits" *fails three saves* "hmm no counterattacks - ok you have a rank, banner and outnumber me.  I have 3 damage and a flank.  We win"

Broke, chased down.  Had my lord in there [on the other side] as well.  Chosen, lord, +100 banner, +100 general, and now he claimed the table quarter = about 1000 victory points right there.

I've tried chaos knights and they don't cut it.  They get blown apart by globadiers, jezzails, ratling guns, handgunners, anything that reduces their save to anything worse than 2+.  When I finally get to combat their luck mirrors that of the regular chosen, but I don't have the static combat resolution to make up the difference.

People who take 10 chosen warriors and 5 chosen knights and cut a path through the enemy army make me sick ><

-Spellbound

What about people who take 3 units of 10 for the cost of your one unit of 18+general?
One dies on way, one loses a rank, the third makes it unscathed and gets to charge?



Hardly suprising since skaven are the masters of killing elite troops. So much so that nobody runs anything but cheep crap against my skaven now a days. Makes those easy vps just melt away.

I think the lesson here is stop using chosen. Use real warriors, still better fighters than anything else, and save you pretty penny you can spend on other things to keep them alive.