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Hi there; I am looking for comments and suggestions to make this army more Competative.

The only condition I have put on this army is NO MAGIC USER / WIZARD / OTHER MAGIC CASTING UNIT.

That being said:
Chaos Lord
Mark of Tzeentch
Demonic Mount
Ogre Blade
Enchanted Shield (+2 AS) (from Warriors book as they have to pay the higher price)
Talisman of Preservation
395 Points

Exhalted Hero
BSB
Mark of Tzeentch
Armour of Destiny
Extra Hand Weapon
199 Points

5 Warhounds 30 Points
5 Warhounds 30 Points

20 Warriors
Standard Bearer with Banner of rage
Musician
Mark of Tzeentch
Extra Hand Weapon
355 Points

20 Warriors
Standard Bearer with Banner of Discipline (+1 leadership but no access to Generals leadership)
Musician
Mark of Tzeentch
Shield
330 Points

18 Chosen
Champion with favour of the gods
Standard bearer with Wailing Banner (Terror)
Musician
Mark of Tzeentch
Halberds
467 Points

Hell Cannon 205 Points

War Shrine 130 Points.

total comes to around 2197 Points (my point values may be sligthly off above)

Trying to build a 2200 Point army for tournaments.

So what are your thoughts or comments based on this.

It's going to be very hard to win with a lack of magic, even if you only use a lvl 2 it will go a long way. Especially cause a lot of armies require a lvl 4 to get anywhere such as wood elves, bretonnia. If you aren't going to use one I'd maybe look into having 2 hell cannons so you can atleast get some substantial damage in before you get into melee. WoC is always going to be extremely strong in CC phase but as you have the list now, you wont get enough done to turn the tables when you are already almost guarenteed to be out numbered 2:1.

No is the short answer, any army with decent magic phase will severly screw with your army. And ADHW never pays, gets haleberds instead, they are much, much better, And beside I would drop the banners and possibly the Choosen for Marauders, since well you have very few men to work with. And any form of major casualty will wreck you.

I would say no. About the only army I would consider to be "somewhat competitive" without a magic phase would be Khorne Daemons.

I wouldn't even go that far. The only army that's okay with Zero magic is Dwarfs. And only because they can't have any.

The +1Ld banner is best when your General is in the unit that has it, to negate the downside. On a mount, he won't get a Look Out, Sir! roll, and even with a 3+ Ward, I'd be hesitant to do that. My solution: either take knights with the banner, or drop the mount.

Also: why Tzeentch, but no magic?

Well I will see the results over the weekend at a tournament.

I have played with Wizards in the army as well.

I find that if I get fast enough into combat then they really cant cast many spells to damage me. So being very CC heavy I am trying to charge on turn 3 at the latest. turn 2 is possible espectially if my opponent moves up.

Tzeentch provides +1 Ward save.

Extra hand weapon to go against units with not so strong hordes (Skaven goblins etc) to clear them out and support the other units.

+1 ld banner to have a unit that can hold its own when the genreal is off charging into the enemy.

Thanks for the comments so far. I will post the results of my experiment.

My previous version of the army had 50 Marauders with Great Weapons. and a few othe minor tweaks. It Stands at 2 - 2 -1 (2 Wins, 2 Draws and 1 loss).

You misunderstand me; I ask why your army is marked by Tzeentch--the Chaos God of Magic, Change, and Fire--but you don't want any wizards. Just feels weird is all.

You can play effectively without magic.
But you need to plan on taking loses and having units nuked without you being able to do much about it.
I'd suggest minimum characters and lots of hard hitting units.
Get into hand to hand as fast as you can, as a lot of magic can't target you once in hand to hand.
With limited characters, leadership is a problem so marks of Khorne or slaanesh pay off.
Chaos warriors are a hard enough hitting army that you don't need characters to add extra punch.

Something like this:
Exaulted of Slaanesh, on Steed of Slaanesh, shield, dragon helm, sword of anti-heroes, Necrotic Phyactery.

Core:
2x18 Warriors of Slaansh with halberds, standard and musician.
2x18 Warriors of Sleensh with great weapons, standard and musician
6 Mounted Marauders of Slaanesh with flails
6 Mounted Marauders of Khorne with flails

Rare:
2 Hell Cannons
1 Spawn of Slaanesh


The Steed of Slaanesh is fast cav so he can Vanguard with the marauders. The plan for the army would be run right at the enemy, and start hacking. Nobody is going to panic, and everything hits pretty hard.

You've got 195 points spent on characters, and he's got a 1+ armor, 2+ ward vs fire, and he's immune to characteristic tests, death, and nurgle magic. Which means, you need to either shoot him, or kill him in melee, because he will shrug off pretty much everything else.

With 4 beat stick blocks and 2 hell cannons, you'd just hope to close range before magic can do too much damage.
You'd want to hit as much as the opponents army at once, because he can't augment/hex everything, and anything that isn't boosted is likely to lose to chaos warriors.

-Matt

Really in any tournament for WoC to do exceptionally well you need lore of shadow to wither toughness then a nurgle sorcerer to curse of the lepper. 0 toughness ? good bye =) that's an insanely good magical strength WoC has that no one else has. Hard to not take advantage of it. Though the slaanesh list without magic can work. You just won't kill anyone who's in the tournament scene alot unless its dwarves, however, their warmachines eat armour and since the army is small they will likely hang back and eat you alive before CC comes into play. Just hope for 2 direct hits the first 3 turns with hell cannons every game?

I doubt most people would agree with that. The Shadow/Nurgle combo is good, but by no means a Must-Have in every list ever.

I like Matt's list, though I'd consider some Knights in there, if you could fit 'em.

There isnt really a better combo of magic for WoC. You dont need that to win, but it sure is cheesey, works well, and has the potential to eliminate any unit regardless of armour, size and ward saves nearly instantly. Also those 2 spells together are the most powerful combination in warhammer atm.

Tookyflakes wrote:
There isnt really a better combo of magic for WoC. You dont need that to win, but it sure is cheesey, works well, and has the potential to eliminate any unit regardless of armour, size and ward saves nearly instantly. Also those 2 spells together are the most powerful combination in warhammer atm.

And any tourney player worth his salt is never going to let you get off both those spells in the same magic phase..... it's really not that powerful

Sometimes winds on magic don't cooperate with dispelling, and sometimes you roll double 6. Regardless, you will need some magic we can all agree on that.

He needs a level two scroll caddy , I will give you that

I'm not saying there's a better anything combo for any army. Just that you don't need those two characters with those two spells to win (how likely is that, even?).
I'd even go as far as saying that the points I sink into those two characters, if that's the only purpose they serve in your list, would give you better general results if you invested them elsewhere.

Ill give you that, it is pretty chancey, still nurgle and shadow regardless are pretty devastating together. Though you do make a very valid point. Sinking those kind of points into characters is rough, since WoC heros are expensive, not to mention lords. im just saying it does help a lot. Though now that i read over the book a little more after your comments warp, theres better places to spend points.

To warpsolution: The reason I marked them with Tzeentch is for the additional ward save level.

The reason I do not have a wizard is because I am playing Chaos.

Does it not make absolutely no sense therefore being totally chaotic.

In other words: For absolutely no reason other then I dont want to use one.

Thank you once again. You have given me (via yourself or other peoples comments) some new and interesting ideas to play with.

Da Viking

 Da_Viking wrote:

The reason I do not have a wizard is because I am playing Chaos.

Does it not make absolutely no sense therefore being totally chaotic.

In other words: For absolutely no reason other then I dont want to use one.

Thank you once again. You have given me (via yourself or other peoples comments) some new and interesting ideas to play with.

Da Viking

You that's understandable, just with that said WoC may have the best magic in the game atm, though its debatable theres a lot of power there. On the plus side overall heros for chaos are just as good as a lot of the lord selections so their characters can really rip things appart that mostly anything in the game that others really have no chance against. Since you are stuck on no magic. Tzeentch will probably help you the most since the extra save will always be there when you inevitably get hit with magic, though slaanesh may be a better choice so you don't have to panic. Yes you can still dispell without a wizard but it will be at a severe disadvantage and spells are going to kill units here and there depending on the lore. Worse case scenario is someone who's using all their magic to buff their units, since you will have nothing to really combat this. One must have without a wizard in your army, is you are going to need heros/lords with magic resistance in your units so casualties are minimized. Depending how you do it, you can make it viable though it won't be the strongest army list, you will get loads further with no wizard if you invest in as much magic resistance as you can as oppose to investing in none.

Tookyflakes wrote:

Depending how you do it, you can make it viable though it won't be the strongest army list, you will get loads further with no wizard if you invest in as much magic resistance as you can as oppose to investing in none.

I actually think the exact opposite is true for warriors of chaos. If you're buying magic resistance, it shows up with very expensive heroes. So you're adding ~150 to 200 points to a unit to bring in MR3. Given how little MR actually works against, I'd rather have that 4th block of chaos warriors rather than have two of the blocks with decent MR.
Sure the heroes bring more hitting power to the table, but that's not something that warriors are lacking.
With S4 T4 and Init 5, they are going to prove pretty durable against the bigger nuke spells.

If you're worried about the magic phase, try this:
Exaulted champ, shield, steed of slaanesh, black tongue.
Exaulted champ, shield, steed of slaanesh, book of secrets, dispel scroll.

That gives you almost no wizards, a dispel scroll, and once a game you can take a wound to make an enemy miscast. Both of the heroes try and slip out of arc of gun lines and support from behind, hit warmachines, or take on smaller units.


-Matt

Everything in chaos is expensive, so theres no real winning, but you can make a viable attempt with magic resistance. Without it, you really have nothing since we are saying no wizard what so ever in this army period. Sadly though you are right, that magic resist only works against about 37% of the spells in the game. You can make an arguement that if you go with big units instead of MSU and get the magic resist in on your 1 or 2 major regiments only, it will cuts the costs a bit provide extra durability that you didn't have before.

Tookyflakes wrote:
Everything in chaos is expensive, so theres no real winning, but you can make a viable attempt with magic resistance. Without it, you really have nothing since we are saying no wizard what so ever in this army period. Sadly though you are right, that magic resist only works against about 37% of the spells in the game. You can make an arguement that if you go with big units instead of MSU and get the magic resist in on your 1 or 2 major regiments only, it will cuts the costs a bit provide extra durability that you didn't have before.

I think the problem with that plan though, is that the spells the hurt big units the most (hexes and #6 nuke spells) magic resistance does nothing.
I'd be much more worried about my big block losing D3 or 2D3 points of movement from 1 or 2 shadow magic Miasmas.

-Matt

Ill be honest, I didnt even take WoC movement being is among the slowest in the game into consideration. Everyone that can select shadow lore plays it in 8th too. Can be tarpitted without fighting, ouch.

Yeah, I'd say target saturation is key to no-magic lists nowadays. A 4+ Ward versus direct damage spells means very little against the spells that would actually hurt you.

Da_Viking wrote:The only condition I have put on this army is NO MAGIC USER / WIZARD / OTHER MAGIC CASTING UNIT.

This alone answers the question; no. WoC need to win combats to win games, and magic is their only means of tipping the balance in their favour when they meet a unit that is better than they are.

Here is the result of my experiment.

I placed 12th out of 26 people. My results were 1 win 1 draw and 2 loses.

Round 1 versus another Warriors of Chaos player my dice abandoned me and made 8 rolls of a ten or better for leadership. Valkia kill my BSB early so I was not able ot make many rerolls. Festus made things interesting when I was trying to grind down his unit. Chosen had +1 Attack (Loss)

Round 2 Versus Teclis and the High Elves. My opponenet had 11 to 12 dice on almost every magic phase using Light to put up Protections and Speed of Light. I have yet to roll a dispell dice in this game ( doubles on four dice every time,, really?) But the close combat capabilities on my army pulled through and I lost 5 hounds to the melee where the entire High Elf army were run down and killed to an elf. (Win)

Round 3 Versus Lizardmen with lvl4 Slann (extra dice Loremaster light bsb) I was able to destroy one block of 30 sarus warriors and all of the Temple Guard (3+ ward on chosen helped) Slann had 2 wounds left versus BSB and 8 chosen. If the Slann had failed a leadership 4 test on the last turn of the game I would have won instead of a draw in my favour. but that ios why we roll dice. (Draw)

Round 4 versus Vampire Counts. Two Terrorgheists 2 units of Hexwraiths Black knights with General 2 blocks of 45 skeletons and 40+ zombies with a lvl 3 Necromancer using the meeting engagement scenario and i get to set up first. Warriors need an 11 to charge into the rear of 1 terrorgjeist. Rolled a 12. That was about all that worked well fo rme. Got the black knights down to 1 plus 1 wound on general. By end of game general was feeling fine and black knights were well over half their starting size again (11 starting IIRC). Hexwraiths took out all my supporting units and I had 4 turns where i had 5 or more dispell dice. (Loss no really I lost this one) If I had gotten the general then I might have had a chance. had the opportunity but the dice did not favour me. Terrorgheist shooting (Screaming) into combat is nasty. Through their own unit (very Nasty)

Here ends the experiment. Would I run a non magic user list again Yes but the supporting units need to be much more effective. And drop chosen for other units Also look at festus and warriors of nurgle with halberds.

Possibility of winning game with non magic user Yes.
Possibility of winning tournament or being in the top 10. very difficult.

Well done!

One comment, one question:

- the mark of Nurgle is inferior to that of Tzeentch in nearly every way, but Festus is a tempting reason to suffer that handicap.

- ...why would High Elves run with the Lore of Light?

Re the high elves question:
Speed of light ot get init 10 and ws 10 with ASF gives hitting on 3s with rerolls.
Phas protection means ypou have a -1 to shooting against them.
And I think banishment is in there as well.
He just did not fare well against my warriors chosen and lord in Combat.

I get Protection and Banishment. But WS10/I10 isn't all that useful with High Elves. I mean, they hit on 3's with a re-roll against everything except other elves and some chaos-stuff.
Life or Shadow seem to be the popular ones, mainly for things that influence S and T; things that they actually need.

I wouldn't give up on no magic just yet.
You got the win against teclis, and very nearly got it vs the slaan.
Beating and nearly beating the 2 best magic builds in the game with no wizards at all should tell you something about magic.

Against Vampires, I'm pretty sure the Terrorgheist can only scream into combat if it is in the combat. That might have cost you the game. Ethereals are always my biggest worry with magic/hero lite armies.

Chaos vs Chaos is a tough pair up, but you might have had a chance. If you take the charge from Val, decline the challenge. You have to issue, but you don't have to accept. The player who's turn it is must issue 1st, which would allow you to decline. That gives you a round where you rank and file can beat on her. In the next round, your character steps back up, and she's down from S7 killing blow to "just" S5. Much more manageable.

-Matt

-Matt

I am not giving up on no magic. At lower points level it can be more of a threat.

For the teclis army the player should have chosen a different lore (Metal Death Shadow)

Terrorgheist can scream into combat as long as it has line of sight. Being a big beast it can hide behind a unit and scream through their own unit. FAQ does say YES to this.

As for Val - I charged. Should have challenged with Chapion insteadof BSB. In between these two units I killed of Vals Unit and Val killed off my Unit and BSB. But then Val was in line of sight for my General and I killed Val. It was close.