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There are some seemingly great cav and chariot units sprinkled throughout the game, but they are hardly used it seems. Is there a reason why? If I wanted to use them, what's the best approach to use?

No use for light chariots but heavy chariots can make a effective monster like hammer.

Thing with cavalry is, unless your bret's your units tend not to exceed 5 models or 10 in your average army / game. Makes them in the new rules very easy to tarpit and win combat through outnumbering, ranks and command or if nothing else, tarpit for the better part of an entire game.

The only cavalry I see fielded regularly are chaos chosen and the ogre cavalry, purely because there hard to tarpit on account of causing excessive amounts of damage. A lot of the others are merely 1 atttack each, str 5 on the charge usually and about 30pts a model.

I see cold ones too but they are iffy about stupidity afaik?

Think cavalry in this 8th, especially for fighting horde armies / steadfast groups is about catching people in the flank if your going to take them.

For you Sasa, I use Cold One Cavlary and stupidity generally isn't too bad on Ld9 (usually within BSB re-roll range or my Ld 10 bubble), though it still can sting you. It's best to never hinge an entire battle around the Cold One's charge, and always have a fallback plan or something.

As far as cavalry's use in a general setting, I believe that cavalry has its place, but at the same time, you have to be skilled with movement and comfortable with tactics in order to get anything from them.

If you plonk your cavalry dead-center and charge them out into the first potential target, you are using them poorly and wasting them. You need to use your advantages, namely speed and a nasty long charge range, to get your cavalry into an ideal position. This could be rolling up a flank against something locked in melee with your infantry, or picking off weak/isolated elements of their army (archers, lone characters, even monsters or monster mounted characters).

Another consideration of cavalry is the psychological impact they can have. I don't mean in terms of in-game mechanics, but the mind game going on between you and your opponent. If they see a block of hard hitting knights tromping up their flank at 14-18" per turn, more often than not, they are going to panic and react, which allows the other parts of your plan to go off with less trouble. It is foolish to think of "oh cavalry sucks" simply because they can't take all situations alone; it is all about the synergy and sync of your army with your plan.

So, is cavalry dead then?

Xan somebody explain actually how to use cavalrey? Is is just trying to set up a flank or coordinated flank/rear charge, or is there more depth t it?

Force redirection with infantry, hit flank or rear with cavalry, negate rank bonus cause flee?

Hit weapons teams / cannon crew etc.

Remain within close proximity to fleeing units to prevent rallying.


Most cavalry can do alot of damage, coming in with 2 attacks each and then adding the horse after (which is stronger then quite a few troops in the game)

Lance cavalry gaining additional 2 attacks as well. Then theres the fact there almost bullet proof most of the time. Heavy armor, shield, barding 3+ / 6+parry ward. And if your a dark elf you get +2 for your barding because of cold ones giving 2+

The only problem is when you don't break a unit and you get stuck in combat for extended periods of time. I.e brets lose lance str bonuses.

Actually sasa lances give +2 str not attacks, and being mounted by itself gives +1 to your armor save meaning that a barded horse, or a cold one or boar, gives a total of +2.

As far as usefulness goes it depends on your army. Savage orc boar boys can put the hurt on with small units. 3 str4 each and then a str5 atk for the boar on the charge. Chaos knights , cold one cave, and cold one riders all do decent dmg and can easily break units that are already being tarpitted with a ranked unit. All cav are good at warmachine hunting, while fast cav are the best at it. The stronger cav can bring down monsters or small flanking units of elites. So they can be very useful, but you need to know what you are doing with them, and there has to be synergy with your list in order for them to do anything.

Oops did I say attacks, I meant str xD
I shouldn't make that mistake given I have a bret force >_>;


Automatically Appended Next Post:

shickarl wrote:Actually sasa lances give +2 str not attacks, and being mounted by itself gives +1 to your armor save meaning that a barded horse, or a cold one or boar, gives a total of +2.

As far as usefulness goes it depends on your army. Savage orc boar boys can put the hurt on with small units. 3 str4 each and then a str5 atk for the boar on the charge. Chaos knights , cold one cave, and cold one riders all do decent dmg and can easily break units that are already being tarpitted with a ranked unit. All cav are good at warmachine hunting, while fast cav are the best at it. The stronger cav can bring down monsters or small flanking units of elites. So they can be very useful, but you need to know what you are doing with them, and there has to be synergy with your list in order for them to do anything.

Cavalry are a must-know deal 90% of the time anyway, more so heavy cavalry. Incorrectly used your giving up A LOT of points which will make them seem utterly pointless in taking, only when there used correctly will you really see them making back there points cost.

mmm...So do chariots do the same job as Cavalry then? Or do they play a different role?

Cav do not get parry. Unless its Ogre cav.

Tomb Kings chariots are awesome, 4D6 str 5 impact hits plus 12 or 24 attacks depending on if you got incantation of smiting off, which you should have...they are quite good!

Cavalry are just as deadly on the charge as they've ever been. What's changed is that large units don't often run away after one turn of slaughter any more, allowing them the chance to try and grind down cavalry with their greater numbers.

The other, slighter issue is that the metagame has shifted slightly to units carrying great weapons (because step up means initiative isn't so important, so going last isn't that much of a penalty). More units out there with Str 5 and Str 6 weapons means more units hacking through ranks of cavalry.

All this means cavalry aren't very useful any more in just running straight at the enemy and piling right through. That doesn't make them useless though, it just limits them to more specialised roles.

In my Empire army I generally take a unit of knights, stick them on a flank in support of one of my blocks of numerous, cheap, but largely crap infantry, and look to hit the flank of an enemy unit engaged with my infantry, my infantry supplying the ranks to deny the enemy steadfast, and my knights inflicting the kills to win the combat and break the enemy.

Sometimes that doesn't line up. Sometimes the enemy has protection on its flanks, and in that case I've still got to do something else with the unit. Sometimes I've just sent them piling straight up the middle, crashing into a main enemy block. I won't route the enemy, but holding up his central unit can cause all sorts of havoc, and maybe buy my war machines another round of firing. Or you charge the unit containing the enemy wizard, scoring a kind of snipe kill (and if you don't kill him, it does stop him casting magic missile attacks on your troops).

Monsterous Cav is very solid like the Tomb Kings.

TCWarRoom wrote:Cav do not get parry. Unless its Ogre cav.

Wait... Is this a special rule, or... What does this come from?
I know that in the first turn of combat, cavalry would not get parry, because they're using their lances. But the turns after that? Then they're using HWS, and with HWS comes a parry, does it not? Or is it special for Cavalry?

Cavelry/Chariots are support units now. They don't win combats on their own(except for Mournfangs and Chaos Knights)

Charge them as flankers/supporting charge to your infantry and they can help you win combats

The Cornerfag~ wrote:

TCWarRoom wrote:Cav do not get parry. Unless its Ogre cav.

Wait... Is this a special rule, or... What does this come from?
I know that in the first turn of combat, cavalry would not get parry, because they're using their lances. But the turns after that? Then they're using HWS, and with HWS comes a parry, does it not? Or is it special for Cavalry?

Its the ironfist rules. Its a shield that allows parry while mounted.

My silverhelms and chariots do a stout job of guarding my mini cabinet.

Light cav still has a place but until GW update all of the army books and bring the cost down I dont see cav making a comeback in 8th