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I am writing in reference to some games i'm doing with a friend of mine. Lately im playing my empire army and he is playing his warriors of chaos.
Last time we were playing at 3500 points, I deployed one of each warmachine(cannon,mortar, hellblaster, hellstorm) + 1 steam tank some handgunners/crossbowmen one knightly order unit of 10,
2 mages (1 wizard lord) 2 warrior priests and Kurt helbort + 1 BSB captain and some state troops on 20 models each.
Well the whole matters begins from the fact he barely could reach me and once he get too close I was able to stop his charge by charging with my knightly orders on his big unit of marauders.
Basically last time we played he run 3 units of 40 marauders (shield, light armour, mark of nurgle), 1 unit of warriors of chaos, 1 unit of chaos knights (blasted banner, mark of tzeentch), 1 unit of 20 chosen, 2 warshrines (mark of tzeench) (the chosen champion is using the item that adds +1 to the eye of the gods roll and he can reroll a lot of times so as he can get the 4+ ward save with mark of tzeentch is going to 3+) , he is playing with 1 sorcerer lord (with the puppet that changes d3 on miscast roll), 1 chaos lord with some fat items and 2 exalted heroes as far as i remember, one of those was a BSB. Oh and 2 chaos spawns.
The fact is that he was able to reach me tho with less his half strength and he quited. Im still not sure if he should quit or not.
I told him I think it was bad having all those marauders unit without even some hero inside the unit cause as far as i know from my own army empire are too weak without a hero in their unit (low leadership, low survivability, low burst dmg back). I dont really know why but i really like the chariots as well even with my dark elf army, so I advice him to use 1 of them.
He is also thinking of having more than one unit of fast cavalry with not more than 5 men in it so as I am having a lot of targets to blast and concetrating to the cheap targets that are moving fast is going to give his rest of the army to opportunity to move safe to the other side. (most of the times we begin 24" close on the mission).
Im asking about advice on playing warriors of chaos against a gunline army like empire. In adition some empire advice concerning the fast list i mentioned would be lovely as well.

Empire gunlines can't move and fire. If you can limit the arc of fire, you can significantly reduce the threat.

He's got 120 marauders? Great.
Run them with a mark of nurgle, 40 wide, and 3 deep.
Attach a chaos lord with the stubborn crown, and an exaulted or two to whoop ass. Empire won't kill enough of them, and sooner or later, those chaos heroes will clean house. The marauders are just the delivery service.

Add in a couple of units of marauder cav (flails and marks of slaanesh so they don't panic). Vanguard them, and charge turn 2. You could also add in exaulted on steeds of slaanesh (145 points each), to vanguard in a move 10 badass. If empire doesn't get the 1st turn, you should be able to be out of the arc of fire, and that's all bad news.

If you like special characters (which it looks like you do),
Wulfrick is a train wreck for static gunlines, as is Throgg + trolls.

He should pick up hellcannon(s) to play with the steam tank.

-Matt

Chaos Sorcerer Lord of Tzeentch, 430 pts LVL 4 Gen
Biting Blade
Enchanted Shield
Talisman of Preservation
spell familiar
Disc
Bloodcurdling roar
Stream of corruption

Chaos Sorcerer of Tzeentch, 190 pts MOt,LVL2
talisman of protection
Infernal Puppet


1 Exalted Hero of Tzeentch BSB, 189 pts MOT
Halberd
Talisman of Endurance
charmed shield
Iron curse Icon

18 Chaos Warriors of tzeentch, 391 pts FC, Halberd, shield, rage banner

18 Chaos Warriors of Tzeentch, 348 pts FC, Shield, Flaming banner

18 Chaos Warriors of Tzeentch, 358 pts FC, shield, Rapturous Standard

18 Chaos Warriors of Tzeentch, 388 pts FC, shield, Wailing banner

5 Chaos Knights of Tzeentch, 290 pts Mus, STD, Blasted Standard

1 Hellcannon, 205 pts

1 Hellcannon, 205 pts

This is what I run for 3k ish I think its a bit under 3k but it does well (I hate marauders well not hate but I dont want to paint 50 or more of them).

I would run the knights up and the lord up make the lord puke on you because thats fun and cast magic like a boss.

Hellcannons possibly make a unit of yours run away or at least get a few kills and well prob target your cannon first.

Wulfrick with 50 mok marauders with gw will wreck gun line face as matt said.

Throgg with like 10 trolls is always a bad day for anyone that goes up against it.

He may want to drop the other hero or give him a disc and a halberd and to go up and kill stuff.

Drop the spawn.

Theofilos wrote:The fact is that he was able to reach me tho with less his half strength and he quited. Im still not sure if he should quit or not.

He shouldn't quit. Warhammer is a surprising game, and can produce sudden turn arounds in fortune. At the very least he should have waited to see how a turn or two of combat went.

It's also just plain poor form.

Im asking about advice on playing warriors of chaos against a gunline army like empire. In adition some empire advice concerning the fast list i mentioned would be lovely as well.

At 3500 points with only four warmachines, I'm not really sure I'd call your list a gunline. Unless you had a whole lot of handgunners and crossbowmen.

To be honest I'm kind of struggling to figure out where you spent your points.

I second that where are your points going? (not like war machines are super pricey in points).

My guess large infantry blocks several ranks of hand gunners.
Maybe a big unit of great swords.
Or maybe a lot of points in lords and heroes.

But ya isnt a gun line at this points level something like 4 cannons 4 mortars 4 helblasters and a few tanks?

Thank you all for the help. Appreciated!
I was using one cannon,mortar, hellblaster, hellstorm
2 units of 10 handgunners 1 of 10 crossbowmen, steam tank and 5 outriders
Kurt hellborg with 10 knightly orders
20 spearmen w a BSB
20 Halberdiers w a priest
20 swordmen w my general
19 greatswords w priest
that was it basically

Isn't that going to be closer to 2,500 points?

it was at 3500 mate. Not sure how much will it be next time.

Theofilos wrote:Thank you all for the help. Appreciated!
I was using one cannon,mortar, hellblaster, hellstorm
2 units of 10 handgunners 1 of 10 crossbowmen, steam tank and 5 outriders
Kurt hellborg with 10 knightly orders
20 spearmen w a BSB
20 Halberdiers w a priest
20 swordmen w my general
19 greatswords w priest
that was it basically

Greetings to another defender of the Empire!

That is a good bit of shooting. Just out of curiosity, looking at your list here I can see that you could get up to 3500 with gear on your ICs. But (unless you left something out) aren't you about 85 points short of having enough Core (875) for this size army? Hope it doesn't seem like I'm picking nits ( ), just still working on a list of my own so am interested in what other people run.

I dont actually remember exaclty the list ive used but i can find it and write it down for you once im back home Im pretty sure it was a legal list regarding the minimum core unit's point and the rest. Just imagine some banners etc, but as i said i can analyse the list on exaclty what i got in. I just quickly wrote that down so as people can advice me on this matter. If you are having any good lists for empire or sharing your list with me would be nice and i would be grateful Also playing Vampire counts, Dwarves and Dark elves if you got nice interested lists as well!

I know what you mean Theo, couldn't tell you exactly what was in my last 1500 list without having the paper in front of me, let alone keep 3500 points worth in my head. Didn't mean to question your math skills

Like I said, I do like to check out the lists people post on dakka, but not sure if I can be much help to you. I'm still working on a 1500 pt army (and the one I did post got shot down pretty quick ). I've got enough models that I could probably get north of 2K, but not going to get near 3500 for a while.

Seems like the trend for most Empire lists is towards large infantry blocks (my next list is probably going to be built around a horde of 50 Halberdiers). Looks like you're running several blocks of 20ish state troops. Curious how you employ them in the game and if you've ever tried the larger blocks (40+)?

Over all my thought is more war machines cannons and mortars for sure and big blocks of infantry because you can and its effective.

I've tried a big blog of spearmen 40 actually with BSB and a warrior priest inside tho not that awesome as I was expecting to be honest. Tho as far as I can understand now I would probably pick Halberdiers instead of Spearmen. I probably drop some handgunners they dont seem that effective for the cost. Outriders is a good shooting unit but too expensive and too fragile, oh and of course they cannot move n shoot Anyway thnx for your time mates! Anything could provide me advice and fun list as well I would be grateful to know!

Halberds are the way to go for sure maybe 50 of them 10 wide.

Keep your outrider units small so they are not worth shooting at and not worth charging also put them in a position where if they get charged the enemy will fave a really bad position haha.
They have vanguard move so I wouldnt worry just get them into position and fire away.

cowpow16 wrote:Halberds are the way to go for sure maybe 50 of them 10 wide.

Which can bring us back to your original post Theo. To paraphrase, did your friend have a chance even though you gunned down 1/2 of his troops on the way to your lines? Imho, definitely. First, because, as someone mentioned above, the momentum can swing wildly in WFB. Second, because he's playing WoC! Even battered by gunfire, if they make it in to close combat they're going to wreak some havoc, especially if he can get 1 on 1 into one of your 20 blocks with his warriors.

This may not be a completely objective assessment . My most frequent opponent also runs WoC against my Empire army and I'm developing a serious dislike and, a healthy respect (not fear ), of Chaos Warriors and Knights. I might have better luck if I went full gun line, but I know I also need to get much better at fighting close combat on MY terms instead of throwing the men of the Empire head on into the meat grinder that is a MoK Chaos Warrior block . This is what prompted my question about how your 20 blocks worked for you. In my (albeit limited) experience, a 40 block of Halberdiers against half as many Warriors doesn't fare too well without some serious help (magic, supporting units, etc.). After some "white room" tests, it seems like horde formation could tip that balance a bit more toward the Empire, but not reliably.

Have you tried running Pistoliers instead of Outriders? Fewer shots and shorter range, but pistols are Quick to Fire (so no -1 for moving and shooting) and you still get your Vanguard move and, as cowpow16 noted, you can use the light cav feint to try and redirect his units (that 'get 'em!' drawback of Frenzy can actually be a drawback occasionally). Eh, enough rambling

Karl Franz!

You are right my thought was you run a big block you will mot win combat since he will most likely butcher you since that's what khorne does but if you have more ranks at he end then well who knows might hold em up a turn and let you counter charge. Great swords pack a punch.

I'm not sure about pistoliers tey are kind of pricey and wih only 1 shot I would take the 3 shots and take he -1 for multiple shots.

cowpow16 wrote:I'm not sure about pistoliers tey are kind of pricey and wih only 1 shot I would take the 3 shots and take he -1 for multiple shots.

Pistoliers are armed with a brace of pistols, they get Multiple Shots (2), and still Str 4 and AP. Brace of pistols also counts as additional hand weapon in close combat, not that that is necessarily where you want them to be

Verd_Warr wrote:

cowpow16 wrote:I'm not sure about pistoliers tey are kind of pricey and wih only 1 shot I would take the 3 shots and take he -1 for multiple shots.

Pistoliers are armed with a brace of pistols, they get Multiple Shots (2), and still Str 4 and AP. Brace of pistols also counts as additional hand weapon in close combat, not that that is necessarily where you want them to be

And you don't get that extra attack while mounted.
If the pistoliers charged a unit in a building, they would get the extra attack (2 attacks each) but that mounts wouldn't fight. Either way, they only get 2 S3 attacks.

As for did Chaos have a chance?
Hell yes they did.
Once in melee, chaos is where chaos should be.
Loading up on mid-sized units of marauders with light armor and shields though is not great. You'd just be a swordsmen on a bigger base.

Chaos warriors have the hitting power and the staying power to grind it out, even after taking half the losses on the way in.


-Matt

HawaiiMatt wrote:And you don't get that extra attack while mounted.
If the pistoliers charged a unit in a building, they would get the extra attack (2 attacks each) but that mounts wouldn't fight. Either way, they only get 2 S3 attacks.

Ah, missed that (pg. 89 If an infantry model is armed with an additional hand weapon or a brace of pistols...) .

Good thing none of our battles have been decided on how well my pistoliers did in close combat

Ye i see what you mean Verd. I mostly using a support hero on the unit of 20 swordmen one 10 man detachment of handgunners and some flanking power of some halberdiers to countercharge. Last time i used a horde of spearmen harldy helped to be honest. Yes the Warriors of chaos and the Knights are hitting like a wall of tons of bricks tbh. They are letting nothing alive. Also using for some flanking power my knightly orders and/or refusing his charge/charging his infantry first

Theofilos wrote:Tho as far as I can understand now I would probably pick Halberdiers instead of Spearmen.

Being priced the same and exactly as resilient as each other, spearmen and halberdiers differ only in their ability to kill the enemy. In this regard, spearmen do slightly better against T3 opponents with no armour, but against every other opponent the halberdier is superior (except for T3 troops with a 1+ save, funnily enough).

The difference isn't great, and neither unit is really there for it's damage output, so if you've got other reasons to take spearmen you're hardly disadvantaging yourself... but halberdiers are straight up the better option.

I probably drop some handgunners they dont seem that effective for the cost. Outriders is a good shooting unit but too expensive and too fragile,

Point for point, you're getting at many shots out of hundgunners as you are out of outriders, at the same roll to hit. The handgunners come with three times as many wounds, though, and can be made a detachment of another unit, and can add some needed numbers to a combat and score a flanking bonus when combat is reached and things become desperate. The outriders get that vanguard move instead, but I've never really found it worth making the unit so much more fragile.

But hey, I prefer crossbowmen to either, the additional point of AP isn't always that useful, but that extra 6" of range is wonderful.