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Hi i've got a few Warriors of Chaos miniatures and have been having mixed success at 1,000 pts games, now my collection has expanded i could do with knowing in which way to go, especially now i will be pushing into special and rare choices, i dont want to buy something which is ineffective when actually playing with it, any help will be greatly appreciated because high elves at the local club with the new rules are just nasty. I currently have the following

an Archaon on steed model
an Exalted hero on foot
A Mounted Chaos Sorcerer
12 Chaos Warriors with shields
12 Chaos warriors with 2 hand weapons
5 Marauder Horsemen with Flails
16 Marauders with Great Weapons
10 Warhounds
5 knights

any help on Mark's unit sizes and other units to add is what i am mainly after. please post because i really want to take it to the skirt-wearers

hey there, for starting out, don't be stingy on the warriors. Tzeentch sword and shield warriors are a pretty standard build now, khorne halberdier warriors are also popular. Khorne GW horded marauders seem to be a good investment, but I haven't personally tried it out yet. For warriors, people tend to like 12-18ish; I prefer a MSU approach to warriors of chaos since their superior combat abilities are where their real value is; then again, if you want to make a horde/death star unit warriors certainly afford the opportunity to do that. For rare choices, Hellcannons are getting a lot of positive press. Dragon ogre shaggoths with extra hand weapons are pretty nice, but beware war machines. Regarding calvary, they're pretty nerfed overall due to the new rules, but Chaos knights are still vicious and have a role as flankers or when involved in combo charges.

iv heard that Tzeentch with hand weapons and shield are very durable with the 5+ Ward, Khorne with Halberds seems a good idea as doing calculations against WS4 and T3 they're killing around 9 a turn. I've noticed that cavalry are much less effective as even Chaos Knights lack the hitting power they once had, not sure on the Hell cannon or Shaggoth as they seem a big points investment. I'm still using Marauder Horsemen for misdirection and general annoyance. Warhounds are now next to useless so they're out. I was thinking a pair of Chaos Chariots hitting the same target as I like the models and they seem to be quite effective. The Shaggoth is very tempting however as the model is gorgeous and has Thunderstomp any advice on magic items and wargear because i haven't played in a while, Thanks a bunch

Quick mod request: Could this be moved to the "Army lists" section?

@ Snackajack:
1)yes, those are the typical reasons people go Tzeentch Khorne in those configuration, the math and wisdom are pretty sound.

2) re: Knights- their hitting power itself is the same, but their unit breaking ability has been reduced. They're still very tough, even though the "step up rule" has been reintroduced. They were probably a 9/10 unit in 7th ed, but are still maybe a 7.5/10 in 8th. So the real use for them now is flanking and comboing with other units- a gang charge with a unit of warriors and knights is usually doom for the enemy. They're also still very fast, which is generally useful. I usually still like to have a healthy unit
of knights on the board; the only thing that gives me cause for pause is when war machines are ubiquitous (e.g., against dwarfs).

3) re: Hellcannon, shaggoth- To be specific- The hellcannon is probably in general the more useful of the two choices; most people here give favorable feedback, and honestly they're one of the nastiest anti-rank-and-file artillery pieces in the game. Just protect your casters in case the hellcannon goes bonkers (e.g., give them ward saves, keep them away from your own units of expensive troops etc). Shaggoths again are a cute idea, but you're right that they are a questionable investment. Probably better as a flanker/combocharger, and often times you can probably take other units for the same role without the risk of losing a lot of points in one big model.

4)Warhounds- haven't tried these much, but there are still a couple arguments in their favor: 1) they're an extra unit drop at VERY low points, allowing you more control in the setup before the game and 2) they are still a threat to tying up artillery and ranged units if they're ignored. and if they weren't ignored, the enemy just spent energy killing a cheap, nearly expendable unit anyway, giving your warriors time to get to combat relatively unscathed

5) I still like chariots, and running a pair of them together can work out well many times. Khorne chariots are worth exploring (though somewhat reduced in power in 8th)

6) Re: magic items,wargear. Ward saves plus Tzeentch are almost obligatory on many characters now- with Talisman of protection, you can get a Tzeentch character to a 3+ ward save, and their normal save to 1+. That's nasty. You can also get lower ward saves for cheaper and boost with Tzeentch. Some people don't like the chaos runesword since it may be pricey, but i find it works well (and a character swinging as hard as a dragon is a nice feature). Mounts are also easy attacks boosters- demonic steed or juggernauts are nice mounts for a character in a knights unit. The chaos daemonsword sometimes seems a wonderful idea, but limits your ability to get good armor/ward saves and I've had it backfire often enough to move away from it.

7) One last point: remember that sometimes it's worth simply taking more warriors than certain characters since chaos warriors are just that excellent in 8th. A battle standard bearer is often a great idea, though so far I've gotten by when risking without them since I try to ensure that all units support one another.

First of all its only here because i wasn't sure exactly where to put it and secondly im more than willing to change it to army lists but i dont know how :S hellcannon does seem very useful looking at the numbers and point taken about the shaggoth. i like runeshield personally as it negates the magic items and straight up a chaos lord will beat other heroes characters 9 times out of 10, iv tried hellfire sword and helm of many eyes recently which has been ok thanks for the advice

sure- didn't mean to criticize where you put it, mostly thought that many users might find it useful for army building considerations overall i asked a mod because I don't think we can move them once they're up; wasn't 'ratting out' or anything like that

Runeshield is good too- there's a lot of discussion about what the role of a chaos character (combat ones) is... I think the nice thing we have is that they're good at pretty much whatever you want, either stomping on troops or slaying other characters. I haven't tried runeshield out much but it might be especially useful for places where I think my opponent is deliberately trying to snuff out MY characters- for example, I run into that with mean Dwarf characters relatively frequently. Someone mentioned that you can combo the helm of many eyes with a nearby battle standard bearer so that the stupidity aspect isn't as concerned, so that might be a nice build. how do you think you'll use your heroes/lords?

also, one place that shaggoths do seem to be useful is
1) when you can bring more than one- basically two dragons on foot doing some major thumping
2) in an all monster army list (bringing Throgg), such that they're not such a huge focus of attention... the opponent then has to consider ALL the big nasties on the field, which makes it a little harder to decide if they should gang up on shaggoths early

oh no its fine i wasnt sure where to place it being honest because in my opinion it could go in a few :/ i just think that because they have to challenge enemy heroes they should stand the best chance they can of winning, theres so much useful magic items thats the problem. my chaos lord is leading a unit of knights and hopefully smashing whatever gets in the way. the sorcerer im using is mounted and i plan on taking the lore of death to deal with pesky hero level characters who pose the only real concern for my lovely warriors

that's true too, we're already partially talking tactics here anyway

good observation on the lord- I think a general wisdom is that there's little reason to NOT outfit with a ward save most times and give MoT. you can easily get him to 1+ AS mounted with a nice ward. sometimes I like a demonic steed w/ enchanted shield build. That still gives you flexibility for a 50ish points weapon, and I like chaos runesword as a nice all-purpose weapon. i'd be interested too though if you went a little lighter on ward saves to get ASF with helm of many eyes and use runesword or the common item that gives +3 attacks etc (that combo might surpass 100 pts though, ill check when i get to my army book later).

i agree on the ward save idea yet im thinking of running him on foot inside a unit of warriors as cavalry havent been as effective for me lately. today i did beat a high elf army though chaos runesword is a very good weapon for the points. i think having one unit of warriors with halberds and shields, and another with extra hand weapons is the best thing for different roles to use. i have 270 points left with enough infantry and cavalry, any help on how to spend it will be very handy. Thanks

I like the Salvage Pattern Helm of Many Eyes, Rending sword and save stuff, or my cheaper Halberd, HoME and Savestuff. The Salvage Pattern gets ASF and likely rerolls to hit (very important), rerolls to wound, and a ward. My pattern does ASf/Reroll and wounding just about everything on 2+ on the cheap(er).

Personally though I see little reason not to put him on a barded mount with MoT and 4+ward even in infantry, as the 2+(1+with Dragon Helm or such) 3+ ward is monstrous, even without LoS saves. Damned salty though.

Can you explain names of magic items etc instead of savestuff and salvage please I'm thinking of changing marauders to hand weapons an shields rather than gws their just killed too easy at the moment

Those pretty much are the names: Helm of Many Eyes, Rending Sword, and save stuff is "Best Ward save item you can afford from the BRB". ASF = Always Strike First,

Bought another box of marauders yesterday and sorcerer on foot. The sorcerer in 32 marauders looks great. I'm playing skaven on Thursday so I'm taking two sorcerers and lore of tzeentch with third eye letting me use his spells instead. Let's see how skaven like plague. Pandamonium seems fun too

Let us know how it goes- I'm also curious about how marauders perform against his rank and file. how many pts you doing?

At the moment I can put around 1800 out but that's with 2 sorcerers and a lord :/ I'll hopefully be loading army pics up on the relevant area soon but all my USB ports have collapsed, lore of fire and death should cause lots of problems