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I am looking for more input on chaos warriors here mainly because I want to justify to myself the use of CW/CW chosen with great weapons. The fact is... I just can't do it. Halberds give the +1 str and you keep your good initiative and shields are just plain out nice in the defense. So, first off which CW weapons do you use most frequently? Second... justify great weapons to me.

Here is the way I rank my CW weapons:
1. Extra Hand Weps
2. Shield and HW
3. Halberd
4. Great Weps

Hand Weapon/Shield is the best. The bonus you get from extra hand weapons is marginal versus points paid due to the "step up" rule.

Great Weapons are fine, as long as you're only up against str3 opponents. Because your opponent will struggle to wound you, and then you can bring the pain back.

They are also good against cavalry. Sure you'll take some wounds, but they'll also get wrecked.

Tzeentch should go hand weapon and shield to stack the ward save with the shield make them really hard to kill.

khorne its either halberds or extra hand weapon both are good it just depends how heavily armoured your oponent is.

Great weapons are kinda wasting your high initiative.

I have equiped my Marauders with Great Weapons, but thats because most of the time I'm going up against High Elves so striking last doesn't really matter when they already get ASF. I gave them MoK for that extra devistating hit with the Frenzy, but just remember to make sure the unit is big enough to throw a good number of attacks back (I ended up making them in rows of 6 for as many attacks as possible).

I've had good results even against Swordmasters like this, due to their low point cost and frenzy stopping them from fleeing prematurely as they march across the field. Besides, so long as the unit isn't made too large, they are generally overlooked as an important target over Warriors, Chosen, Knights and Sorcerers.

As for other armies though, I guess it would still be useful, though many may jump at the opportunity of throwing their hard-hitters at the ASL Greatweapons to try and break and remove them early on in the game. Of course, that can still be worked into your stratagy...

With other WoC units, I would probably give it a miss due to them becoming large targets, evident of doing alot of damage in combat to almost any unit (and evident of lacking that little bit of extra protection given from a shield)

If you are going to have your warriors going defensively then I would use HW/Shield. and only go 5 wide You may also add the Razor Standard to them to make them a little extra killy against armored units.

If you want to be offensive with them I would go with MoK, Halberds, Shields, Razor Standard and be 6 wide. Heavily armored units will get torn up quickly. A 2+ armor save drops down to a 5+ and be wounding on 2s or 3s.

I remember looking at a thread where Extra Hand Weapons and Halberds were compared. Halberds ended up being slightly more effective in most situations.If I can find that thread I'll link it. In either case I think that +1 Str on your attacks works in your favour better then forcing 5 or 6 more saves.

Infreak wrote:I remember looking at a thread where Extra Hand Weapons and Halberds were compared. Halberds ended up being slightly more effective in most situations.If I can find that thread I'll link it. In either case I think that +1 Str on your attacks works in your favour better then forcing 5 or 6 more saves.

Halberds vs EHW is +1 Str vs. +1 Att. With the average Chaos Warriors, in say rows of 5 and FC, you get 11 attacks at Str 4. +1 to Str means an extra 1 in 6 attacks will wound against the average opponent. They then take a total of a -2 penalty to armour.
The +1 Attack gives a total of 16 attacks in the same situation, and a -1 penalty to armour.

Putting statistics up against something of regular power/toughnes, lets say High Elf Spearmen, the average is as follows (rounded):
Halberds: 11 attacks, 6 hit, 5 wound, no armour save, 5 casulties
EHW: 16 attacks, 8 hit, 5 wound, +6 armour = 1 save, 4 casulties

If you used Great weapons, you can expect the result to be the same as Halberds in most scenarios, except that you don't get any chance of striking first. They may be more effective against higher toughness and saves (a Str 6 hits gives a -3 penalty to armour), but that would only be expected on the elite models you don't want to be losing the inititive to, and there would be the likelyhood of characters and some elite units having ward saves.

and remember Halberds, EHW and shields all cost 1 extra point, and Great weapons cost 2. You can buy your sorcerer a nice little trick with an extra 20-odd points, or add some more mauraders too.

(personally, I prefer regular weapon and shield becuase I deal with alot of Swordmasters and the like and with MoT, still getting a 5+ Armour save after the Str Modifier plus a 5+ Ward save in CC really pisses them off, and their base strength is enough to bypass their regular armour and still wound on a +3 )

Mathhammer says that halberds are better than EHW.
For the example of 18 (6x3) Warriors fighting Empire Swordsmen, the halberd will kill 8.2 while the extra hand weapon will kill 7.2. The key point is that the +1 st from the halberd adds to the supporting attacks, while the +1 attack is only good for the front row.

There is no need to worry about harming higher toughness values - a 6 will always wound.

My rankings for WoC weapons are:
1 - halberds with MoK
2 - hand weapon & Shield with MoT
and a rather distant 3-4 place
3 - extra hand weapon
4 - Great Weapon

Flip places 1 and 2 if you believe that defense is the best method to winning battles.

Pretty much what others have said...

Defense - Shield, MoT, Razor Standard
Offense - Halberd, MoK/Razor Standard OR MoT/Banner of Rage.

Remember, do not use Shields, hand weapons, MoT and something that gives them frenzy, as they would lose their parry save making the shield pointless.

I agree with Ran and Lehnsherr. Great weapons are just too costly for what you get. +2 Str YAY, but at 1 more point AND you lose Initiative? Blah. On Marauders, ok, but on warriors/chosen, losing a really good Initiative and paying more is just too much for that marginal +1 str that only gives you a -1 save bonus vs your common T3 targets. If they cost the same as halberds and lowered your Init it would be a tough call, or cost 2 but only lowered your initiative after the first round of combat, that would be something. As was said, I would rather have some extra marauders (or an extra Chosen) for the points differential.