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Right so I was looking over the shadow spells and noticed a little spell called okkam's mindrazor(leadership score used instead of strength), after frothing at the mouth for a while over the possibilities I decided the the simplest(!) way of delivering this spell in the form of facemelting damage would be to cast it on a nice big block of warriors with as many attacks as possible.

Ok so, I fire up army builder and check the cost of 40 chaos warriors of khorne with +hw standard of discipline(+1 LD) and full command, 731 points. Assuming the spell is in effect this would afford me 6 attacks per model in base contact (+1 for champion) at strength 9.

Is there something I am missing here? Maybe I am overestimating the value of such a unit for the point cost, but assuming I get the spell (As far as can gather if I spend a few extra points I can get a sorc lord up to 5 spells) and the spell casts then it seems such a unit would pretty much guarantee winning combat, repeatedly. I have not been playing long and I surely don't have an all encompassing understanding of the rules but I honestly can't see much wrong with this (though I fully expect someone to tell me otherwise).

So, my question is thus; is this unit worth the points, does it have any glaring weakness in the average game, and what would I have to do to make my roster viable if I based it around such a unit (lets call it a 2000pt roster).

A chaos warrior has 2 attacks base, +1 for MoK and +1 for AHW would be 4 per model in base contact, wouldn't it? Or does MoK supply both +1 attack and Frenzy? (Which would still be only 5 attacks per model) Or are you including the ranks of supporting attacks in there already (4 per front dude, +2 for ranks and horde)?

Either way, you are right about it being a nasty brutal CC unit. I'm not even sure I'd be able to tarpit it with slaves long enough to do anything about it, but then again poisoned wind mortars don't care about your T4, or your armor save, and at 40 men you're dropping almost half a 2000 point game (especially adding in the sorcerer it takes to get off Mindrazor) into one unit. I know what my Warp Lightning Cannons are firing at...

I can say it would be priceless to see the look on your opponent's face when you drop that huge block though

He's calculating it with the two supporting attacks for horde formation included.

Occam's is brutal when cast on almost any unit. It makes fighting shadow magic a bit of a scary prospect, as any combat that lasts longer than one turn has the potential to go south very fast.

Your main problem would be if someone shuts down your magic phase, or is able to delay/divert your main block and pick up enough points for the win elsewhere.

I'd also say that there's not really a need for so many strength 9 attacks. It's like running someone over with two cement trucks, when really, just one will do the job fine. I'd consider investing in some protection for said unit instead of pushing everything for more attacks...

Red_Zeke wrote:It's like running someone over with two cement trucks, when really, just one will do the job fine.

I'd also agree. The extra attack from the AHW is almost superfluous at that point. Investing in a shield for the +1 armor / 6+ parry save would be a decent investment

I think any strategy that relies heavily on getting a particular spell off is a pretty weak one in WFB. Firstly, because spell generation is random, sometimes you may not get the spell you want. With a level 4, you mitigate that a bit, but still.
Secondly, because you may fail to cast the spell.
Thirdly, because even if you cast it, it may have unwanted side effects if you miscast that could cost you a lot of points (especially in an expensive per dude army like WoC).
And finally, because even if all of those factors (which are not under your control) come in line, you still have to contend with your opponent's magic defense and ability to gimp your sorceror before he can cast it. A simple 25 point dispel scroll will stop you in your tracks before you can do anything.
So cheesey, no. Potentially hilarious and memorable? Hell yes! I'd go for it in friendly games no problem, but I think if you're going for the hard edge it's pretty lacking. (And do you need a horde of 40? 40 on 25mm bases...wow, that's a yoooooge footprint!)

I very much like the idea of fielding WoC armies that rely on risk, but I had not considered that my sorc could be shut down. Truth is there has been very little magic in my games thusfar and this is something I will have to look into. I get the feeling that spending further points to defend against this will end up making the concept very expensive points wise, if I were trying to build a more competitive roster I would probably apply the same ideas but skip the warrior horde, maybe have a marauder horde and some more unit variety.

Then again I would seriously enjoy the feeling of dropping a 40 warrior block into my deployment zone, the first problem ofcourse is where to find the money for models ^^

I agree with Da Boss. When your strategy relies on rolling a single spell your army will suffer.

WoC don't even need mindrazor to be that effective, take a smaller block of MoK Warriors with Halberds and it will be just as effective of a unit.

Casper wrote:I agree with Da Boss. When your strategy relies on rolling a single spell your army will suffer.

WoC don't even need mindrazor to be that effective, take a smaller block of MoK Warriors with Halberds and it will be just as effective of a unit.

With barely any risk comparably.

You are right, if you get off Mindrazor on just about any unit, while it's in combat, it is devastating. Okkam's Mindrazor is a game winning spell to be sure, but there is no need to cast it on a super unit. A regular unit becomes a super unit when it is succesfully cast. I love the lore of shadow and use it about 90% of the time (and not just because of mindrazor) so I've seen how good it can be. Trust me, there is no need to have a special tooled up unit to "recieve" the spell. Just cast it on something in combat and profit.

why use a bazooka when a knife gets the job done just fine?

WoC can be even more fun with shadow though, you do need festus the leachlord as well. Either drop an enemy units strength or toughness down to one, then cast curse of leper wich festus has automatically, BAM, dead unit.

I assume, given that there would be games/turns where okkam's fails to cast at crucial moments, a horde of warriors with MoK and +hw is not going to stack up so well point wise?

Having looked through some of the armies I identified this unit as the best possible delivery of the spell (number of attacks, high ld, access to magic banner) not to mention good WS, To and save (compared to other armies), however, looking at the other spells in the lore such a unit could take advantage of the hexes also, I wonder if playing with such a setup could result in a level of adaptability that came down to calculating risk/reward on a case by case basis. If I ran my horde of warriors into a T3 unit with not so great armour saves I may prefer to drop a hex to limit their retaliation for example (or do nothing) all the while being mindful of the gravity of loosing my sorc to a miscast or in some cases failing to cast any spells (because if I need to win combat a hex is better than nothing).

Indeed I would field such an army in full knowledge that it may all go horribly wrong if I loose the ability to augment my units, but that would be part of the fun. It is possible(likely) that I am being extremely naive, my experience of playing games is limited, my knowledge of the rules incomplete, and I have never even had a sorceror in my army... However I am aware that the unit I describe is going to be overkill in many situations (in terms of characteristics if not numbers), what I want to figure out is if a: I can build a rounded army list around it and b: would my army have any depth because of (or in spite of) simply having a lvl 4 shadow sorceror and an extremely hitty unit making up most of the points.

Certainly against elves, you're almost better off casting a hex on their weapon skill and/or strength. Making them hit you on 5s (or at least 4s for swordmasters) or better, crippling their ability to actually wound or reduce your armor will increase your survivability while your natural statline will get most of the way their as far as the killing goes.

Can WOC take lore of life? If they can just keep buffing that squad all game long, would annoy me soooo bad.