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Chaos Marauder list loosely based on the Wildlings from Song of Ice and Fire:

Characters:

Exalted Champ on Barded Warhorse w/ Mark of Slaanesh, Sword of Might, Armor of Damnation, Shield - 188

Sorcerer, Level 2 (Lore of Fire), 2 Dispel Scrolls - 170

Aspiring Champ, BSB, War Banner - 130

Core:

4x 20 Marauders w/ Light Armor, Shield, Musician, Chieftain - 155

3x 5 Marauder Horsemen, Throwing Axes, Chieftan, Musician - 103

10 Warhounds - 60

14 Warriors w/ XHW, Shield, Musician - 258 (BSB goes here)

4 Chosen Knights, MoS, Standard, Musician, Raptuous Standard - 260 (Lord goes here)

Viable? I don't expect to destroy min/max armies, I just don't want to get schooled.

In short, no. Here's why:

1) Standard Bearers!!!!!!! These little guys are the most important element of command. They add +1 CR AUTOMATICALLY. That's like someone giving you a cookie, and you saying you I don't want a cookie.

2) Unit Champions - While these guys may not seem important in units which contain characters, they are. With champions they always get their attacks even if the front row is decked. So in a unit with an Asp. Champ and a regular Champ, we're talking 5 attacks you'll still get even if they cause 5 wounds and wipe out your front rank with a nasty ass charge, savvy?

3) In respect to theme, while I like where your head's at (those are great books) the staggering number of marauders you employ will not change the fact that they are lightly armored decent units. Drop a unit for another unit of warriors perhaps? you need another "hammer" unit to the "anvil" of your marauder blocks. This could be accomplished (if we're sticking to the Hordes book) by a chariot or two, another unit of knights, or even some daemons. Consider also giving the warriors halberds or 2x HW. On another note, where are the yetis? Didn't they have big frost giant friends? Some units in the beast book could fit that archetype well and would make strong "hammer" units. I'm thinking of Chaos trolls or Ogres or Dragon Ogres.

Personally I'm not a big fan of marauders but I can see what you're trying to do here with this list. Other things I might consider is dropping a unit of marauder horsemen, they may be quick but they pack very little punch and those points could be better spent giving everyone standard bearers. I'd also consider giving the sorcerer a mount of some kind, or a good unit to slog it around in. Also, split the warhounds into two groups of 5 IMO. They are mainly used to get out in front of the army and tie enemies up, and having two smaller units accomplishes the same thing better. All around it's a good list, it just needs some oomph to back up the core. Btw, I didn't know you posted on dakka...

~Misc (Chris)

Those Ogre Cavalrymen (forget what they're called) seem pretty similar to how George R. R. Martin describes the Giants in his books. If I remember my basic WHFB, they're pretty strong too.

Frankly a Beastman army, purely from the rules perspective, fits the theme a lot better than mortals. I'd kinda like to do that, except I still want my dudes to look like dudes and not demigoats, and proxying it with Marauders would probably cause confusion, you get into wonkiness with stuff being on bigger bases than they're supposed to be, etc.

I think Marauders are better than you're giving 'em credit for, Chris; they're basically orks with WS4 instead of T4 (mostly a wash) and without Animosity (given my well-documented capacity to roll ones, a distinct advantange.) If I dropped the shields and gave them flails, they'd even have better-than-Choppas.

Initially I didn't give them standards for fluff reasons but after rereading the chapters on the battle at the Wall that's just dumb. I'll find room for 'em on the Marauders. The cavalry are too fragile to be worth risking the extra VPs for captured standards, though.

The Warriors have extra hand weapons, that's what XHW means. Sorceror does absolutely need a mount.

I have no illusions about the horse causing lots of damage, but basically all they're there for is to flank stuff and deny rank bonuses. If I can toss some axes before hand, awesome.

I thought about taking an actual Giant, except that they kind of suck. I don't have the Beasts book at hand, but when I get back down to school I'll see about working a unit of Minotaurs or Ogres in to rep the giants and give me another hammer.

First off, cool theme. Gotta love ASoIaF.

Now, to feedback.

First, Chaos ranked infantry is a challenging army to use. M4 sucks, and your guys aren’t so cheap (like Goblins or Skaven) that you can afford a zillion of them. Your LD is also on the poor side, which adds to the difficulty. This is not going to be a dominating army no matter what you do, but with some tweaking I think it can be viable, assuming you’re not going to pure cheese gladiator-style events.

Marks and the general: I don’t think the Rapturous Standard is really a convincing reason to go Slaanesh on the general. The theme seems like it would work fine as an undivided/unmarked mix, as they’re not really chaos-worshippers. You can obviously use marks to simulate other stuff, in keeping with your theme, but I wouldn’t expect the general to be ITP, with all that entails (such as inability to flee from a charge). Same goes for the Chosen Knights. I think they’re better represented using the Mark of Undivided they come with, which still makes them fairly resistant to Fear, Terror, and Panic tests, while allowing them to flee if they are going to receive a bad charge.

Conveniently, if you drop those marks and the rapturous standard, you save 90pts. That’s pretty darn nice. A great place to use it is on at least one more (preferably two more) chosen knights. Those guys hit hard, but you need them to be 5 strong to have a reasonable chance of taking on a ranked enemy unit from the front and actually breaking it.

Re: your sorcerer- L2 is really not going to do anything if your opponent has any magic defense. Now, if you and a friend were agreeing to play a low-magic game, with a single L2 each and no scrolls, that could be fun. Each would occasionally get off a spell, but not be a major influence on the game. But against any tournament list, or even against a low-magic defense army like your own, a single wizard is going to be lucky to get off a single spell all game. That said, take off the extra level for a scroll caddy. If you wanted to invest points in multiple mages, it might be worth taking extra levels. But that really wouldn’t be true to your ASoIaF theme. A horse could be good, though honestly a scroll caddy can just hide in a corner somewhere too.

The BSB is pretty good, and will be a big help in the protracted combats that a slow (as any M4 ranked army is) army trying to win on ranks & CR will often get into. But I’d strongly recommend putting him on a barded chaos steed. This gives him the mobility to join a different unit if needed, and improves his save from the marginal 4+ to a reasonably solid 2+. Remember that in 7th, mounted characters can attach to units without being picked out by enemy shooters (except for cannons, which don’t care if he’s on a horse or not) and spells.

The basic core of 4 marauder units is pretty solid. It’s a lot of guys, very true to the theme, and gives you a decent amount of rank bonus and unit strength. Not as much as the real horde armies like O&G or Skaven, or even Empire, but your stats are better, and you have harder-hitting support. I agree that you need standards, and can do without champions, except possibly in a unit that’s going to have a character attached, as this helps you use challenges better. (BTW: They are on 25mm bases, just like beastmen).

The marauder horse are great units. Fast cav is excellent in this game for many reasons. It really helps your overall mobility and ability to counter enemy shooters and war machines. It can hunt mages (I always take a unit of Furies in my lists for those last two, but they don’t fit your theme, making the marauder cav even more important). And it can flee from and redirect charges to help your block units get into combat. This use of them and your warhounds will be HUGE in allowing your ranked blocks to actually get the charge (as opposed to receiving it) occasionally. Learning the tactics to use the marauder cav and warhounds to their best effect will be a major part of making the army work and actually win games, assuming your opponents have any skill at all. Throwing axes are actually not that great. Their only real uses are against enemy fast cav (who tend to have poor armor and toughness, and low numbers, and against enemy mages who stray outside of units. This is one of the only reasons to take them. That said, they’re fairly pricey, and you honestly wouldn’t go far amiss just taking flails, a musician, and no other upgrades. For the price, this is about the most efficient and effective combination you can get. I’d drop the champion. He’s not generally worth the extra points. Their main purposes in the army are to kill enemy units which are weak in combat, and to bait and divert stronger enemy units. Generally the extra attack isn’t needed for either of these roles. And given their combination of high utility and low durability, your opponent will be targeting them, and you will be sacrificing them fairly regularly. They’re going to die a lot, so keep the cost down.


The warhounds are handy. That said, two units of 5 are much easier to maneuver and more useful. You can spread them out for screening, or form them into a “dart” (three wide in the first rank, two in the back, or 2,2,1) to zip around the sides of the enemy, possibly flanking to break rank bonus. If they wind up not useful for some reason, you can hide them in the corners and use them to cheaply hold/contest quadrants. The big concern with them, is that your opponent can use them to force panic tests on your units. With Ld7 base on marauders, and only Ld8 on your general, these can be VERY dangerous. So be very careful of your placement of these guys. Try to keep them more than 6” away from other units if they may be shot to death. Be conscious of their likely Flee paths, and try to avoid having them Flee through friendly units and force tests.

The most marginal unit in your list is the warriors. Warriors are simply overpriced in the current book. They’re too slow to project force and reliably get to the enemy. They don’t have enough attacks to inflict that many casualties (unless you use XHW, in which case their save in combat isn’t that good). They don’t have special Ld rules that allow them to be reliable anvils. Undead are unbreakable. Certain expensive/elite blocks in other armies (Hammerers, Phoenix Guard, Eternal Guard when led by a Noble or Highborn, Greatswords, etc.) are Stubborn. Lizards have their special rule for break tests (3d6 and take the 2 lowest. Chaos has none of that, unless you spend 100pts giving your BSB the Banner of the Gods. I think your combination of upgrades is good, but 258 is a lot of points for a unit that will have trouble engaging with units it can actually beat, and trouble avoiding units which can beat it. Andy Potter is a british player who’s done some excellent things with them, but he’s a very experienced and regular tournament player, and he builds his lists to almost FORCE the enemy to face the warriors. Usually by either threatening them with a hellcannon, or by making the warriors just about the only thing worth points in his list. Note that sometimes he uses the Banner of the Gods for Stubborn, that he almost always uses a really killer character in with them, and that nearly the whole focus of the army is to support and facilitate the success of the warriors. If you’re really attached to them, you can give them a try, but I fear they’re going to be the steepest part of the learning curve. If it were me, I think I’d try using Minotaurs or Dragon Ogres (or Ogres if they fit your Giant concept better, though they’re not as good) instead, to give you another hammer. Their speed and hitting power will be a much bigger help to the army overall, IMO. That said, whether you use the warriors or not, you should definitely read Andy’s battle reports to get a better sense of how to use a chaos army with infantry:

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

Okay, so revised with advice taken from here and elsewhere:
---------

CHARACTERS:

Exalted Champ on Barded Warhorse, Sword of Might, Armor of Damnation, Shield - 163 (General)

Sorcerer on Barded Warhorse, Level 1 (Lore of Fire), 2 Dispel Scrolls - 149

Aspiring Champ, BSB, War Banner - 130

Core:

2x 20 Marauders w/ Light Armor, Shield, Full Command - 165

2x 5 Marauder Horsemen, Throwing Axes, Flails, Chieftan, Musician - 113

9 Warhounds - 54

14 Warriors w/ XHW, Shield, Musician - 258 (BSB goes here)

4 Chosen Knights, Standard, Musician - 190 (Lord goes here)

SPECIAL:

2x Beast Herd - 7 Gor, 8 Ungor, Full Command - 116

RARE:

3 Dragon Ogres w/ Light Armor, Great Weapon - 268

----------

The beast herds seem a little small to me, and I'm still not certain that the 90 points I save is worth dropping the Raptuous Standard. 12 WS 10 attacks a round that are immune to terror and panic is pretty retardedly sweet, although I don't know what I'd drop for 'em at this point (Maybe drop back to Ogres or Minotaurs instead of Dragon Ogres?)

Actually if I drop the champs from the Marauder and Horse units I can afford the Raptuous Standard with 3 points left over. Champions are seemingly way overcosted in those units, so I'm doing that, because the knights should then be able to break ranked units in a frontal charge without particularly trying.

Looks better. Though in point of fact, the Knights are not going to "break ranked units in a frontal charge without particularly trying." If you run the math, your 4 chosen knights + Exalted beat the average (WS3 or 4, S3, T3, 4+ save) block by 2 points when charging from the front. The knights do 3.8 wounds, the Exalted adds another 2.2, and the steeds another 1.1. If your opponent has his general in range and/or a BSB, the odds are actually against him breaking. It gets worse with more durable units (Dwarves, Orcs). I usually take 5 Chosen and add the War Banner to them to improve the odds a little. It's still a good unit, though.

The characters are solid. Quick note on terminology- they ride Chaos Steeds, not Warhorses. The difference in the statline is S4.

You’ve got the points wrong on the Dragon Ogres. They’re only 237, which frees up 31pts for you. It’s a great unit.

The beast herds are okay, though you’re probably overspending on them. Andy’s lists usually just use two bare minimum units- 5 Gors (with xhw), 5 ungors, no upgrades. 55pts. These are still great for diverting charges, attacking enemy Scouts, shooters, and war machines, and cost less than half what you’re paying. In any list involving Warriors, you need to be efficient elsewhere in the list. Standard are debatably useful, because the herds are fragile. Foerenders are expensive but good, as they’re not just an extra attack. They’re S4 and Ld7.

The Warriors, on the other hand, NEED a standard. You’re already putting a big investment into them. The unit needs all the CR it can get. Remember that in 7th the unit standard and BSB CR bonuses STACK. So with a standard of their own and the BSB attached, they start the combat with 5pts of CR, or 4 if you deploy 6 or 7 wide for extra attacks.

4 knights is almost always a poor idea. You know that the general doesn’t get Look Out Sir against Cannons and Stone Throwers unless there are at least 5 regular models in the unit, right? I’d really look hard to find points for one or two more of these guys. With the Dragon Ogres as your only other hammer, the Knights need to make sure they’re still able to do damage after a couple of casualties.

Chieftans for the fast cav are a waste. 12pts is highway robbery for +1A, given their role.

I really don’t understand what you’re trying to do with 9 Warhounds. The unit’s almost as easy to Panic as a unit of 5 (one more casualty), it takes up a ton of space, and it’s not any better at doing anything except possibly screening. Spend the extra 6pts and split it in half. They’ll be much more useful and effective. The only reason to take a larger number of dogs in a single unit is if you want to do a fun “master and hounds” unit. A few times I’ve taken a huge ranked unit of dogs and attached a mounted character, so they still move 7, the character does the hitting, and the dogs provide ranks and outnumber. Its weaknesses are a) it takes up a huge amount of space, b) panic from enemy shooting, which also gets rid of your rank bonus, and c) if your opponent’s able to put attacks on the warhounds in close combat, they give up CR pretty quick. It's a fun "once in a while" idea, but not very good.

Here’s an alternative list with a few tweaks. You could obviously put the War Banner back onto the BSB, especially if you were thinking of having him attach to a marauder block. I just figured it would be nice to give the BSB a little more hitting power, and magical attacks in case you’re facing forest spirits, ethereals, or daemons. The Warriors desperately need the extra CR though, so I figured you’d be just as happy with it there.

Heroes:
Exalted on Steed, Sword of Might, Armor of Damnation, Shield - 163 (General)
L1 Sorcerer on Steed, 2 Dispel Scrolls - 149
Aspiring BSB, Sword of Striking- 135

Core:
5 Chosen Knights, Standard, Musician - 235
14 Warriors w/ XHW, Shield, Standard, War Banner, Musician - 295
20 Marauders w/ Light Armor, Shields, Full Command - 165
20 Marauders w/ Light Armor, Shields, Full Command - 165
5 Marauder Horsemen, Throwing Axes, Flails, Musician - 101
5 Marauder Horsemen, Throwing Axes, Flails, Musician - 101
5 Warhounds – 30
5 Warhounds – 30

SPECIAL:
Beast Herd - 7 Gor, 8 Ungor, Full Command - 116
Beast Herd - 7 Gor, 6 Ungor, Musician - 78

RARE:
3 Dragon Ogres w/ Light Armor, Great Weapon – 237

2000

The warhounds were there to fill out points, but I probably should have just snagged another minimum beast herd. They're dropped if I was running the standard. I'll probably try it both ways and see how it works out.

Thanks for the help!

Looks interesting. I have to agree that I didn't really get the Slannesh thing, fluff-wise.

coocl