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Hammer/anvil requires an anvil. Not much of mine lasts past the first round of combat unless I take Sigvald, for whom my friends have created the "Tragic Ending" rule, which states that no matter the source, Sigvald will die in one round of combat to a vastly inferior enemy.

I thought the single Grave Guard that needed a 5 to hit and got killing blow was bad enough, but the S4 assassin with the venom sword while he had the 4+ ward shrine buff was the real nail in the coffin.

Sigvald - Special Rules:
Stupidity, Regeneration, Eye of the Gods, Mark of Slaanesh, Tragic Ending.

Then dont use sigvald? Easy fix if you feel he blows...

sigvald, doesnt blow, and as special characters go in the chaos army he's actually quite cheap. His benefit is in what he does for a unit anyway which is why he's so hard to kill.

@spellbound
honestly, im tired of reading your posts where all you do is complain about WoC. I play WoC on a regular basis at my LGS and I'm actually one of the top players around. If you have bad games with WoC find solutions, if you are too bitter and angry with the army to continue, sell it and stop complaining.
I agree that WoC are expensive, going into your example about Sigvald and the Exalted Hero, they are pricey for something that dies to a basic trooper's attack. You have to take that into account when you play. I wouldnt touch sigvald because the people who cant find a way to kill him would hate me for it and the people who can will just laugh. The exalted hero on the other hand is a classic case of 'buying all you can'; just because you can give your guy a gift of chaos and 50 points of magic items doesnt mean you have to.
As for warriors themselves, a lot of people have a problem with slow heavy infantry that cant be backed up by shooting, and the solution is what all the other posters have been saying. You need ranks; 6 point marauders at your service. You need to avoid shooting; knights, dragon ogres, ogres, magic, warhounds, horsemen, trolls, forsaken; all these things are fast and effective ways of killing shooting. Another good one is flying or very fast characters, Discs or SoS.
In formations for warriors, I almost never give a unit of warriors a banner unless it is at least 15 strong, its called point denial. You wouldnt give a fast cav unit a banner would you?

If you havent had success with any of these tactics and are too bitter to keep trying then please just sell the army or box it up in mothballs and go back to VC, which given the undead rules is infinitely easier to play with. Thank you.

With VC it's got the advantage of fear, but honestly any army with cheap expendable troops [skaven, empire] can take more advantage of the game's rules system than an army with heavy infantry can. Ogres have the worst time of it, followed I feel by WoC. Easiest are skaven, VC, Empire, and to some extent HE and DE - the problems with them is that if they want something killy, they can't buy too many of those cheap units - again, something WoC feels even more painfully.

I'm not really sorry you're sick of hearing it. Cognitive Dissonance can sting. I've still got to try HEAVILY mixing marks and the chosen deathstar [the only thing I've seen really work so far that consistently works and won't lose to bad rolling], but within that I've tried many different things. I haven't talked about it much but yes, I've tried marauders in ranks with shields and such with a cheap exalted hero [hw/shield or just greatweapon and Helm of Many Eyes - that one's done the best], but they rarely HOLD long enough for my heavy hitters to flank and do the damage. Same vice-versa with warriors trying to hold while ranked marauders join the fray. That's what got me taking Sigvald in the first place.

So I haven't just tried one thing in one game and am here to complain - I've tried a lot of things across many games and noticed that chaos pays way too much for what it gets. DoC has a recurrent theme of paying the same cost as WoC but getting way more out of it, and I don't feel DoC is overpowered, rather I feel that's how several things should be.

If you don't like hearing that chaos is overcosted and not competitive, then don't listen to me. Just go over to the 'Ard Boyz results thread and have it tell you instead.

I keep looking in on this thread for a laugh. Heck, ogres suck, boc suck, to are at a disadvantage. Welcome to mediocrity along with all the other forgotten armies. You're the only person who has decided to make a thread about to just for the attention all the while saying you could be playing VC and not complain.

You want to ask for ideas as for what to do? More power to you.

That also means you need to have the ability to accept constructive criticisms. Which you obviously do not. Instead it's a long list of complaints that you've experienced a statistical anomaly and that other armies are better than yours. Sorry the army you want to be good isn't in your eyes, my recommendation is that you don't attempt to take single tournament thread as a statistical basis (do yu have any clue how many unreported top three winners there were for 'ard boyz? Not every single one of those winners live on this forum.) There are so many varibles that are gone unaccounted for in your analysis of WoC that it's mindboggiling, the game is more than statistics. You want to win, quit whinning and play god damn VC. 'Ard boyz is not a universal judge of what armies are good, it can only give insight.

The game actually isn't more than statistics.

I mean sure you can choose to move certain places, but...that just modifies the statistics.

As far as attention goes, I got what I wanted to see - a general agreement that WoC pay too much for too little, and cheap swarm armies win out in the end unless the super brutes are incredibly careful and depend on their own "equivalent" of swarms to save the day.

In other words, the concept of the army insofar as "Warriors of Chaos" is concerned is broken, and it only works as more of a "Chumps of Chaos" backed up by a couple hardy warriors that hope they can tip the balance.

I can accept constructive criticisms, but in the case here what I've chosen to do is hang my head in shame at them, as they've all either been "depend on THIS unit to roll better!" which is something I can't really rely on or "support your elite infantry with a swarm of weak guys" which just does NOT fit the image I feel the army is supposed to portray. Something was lost between last edition and this one, in fact several things. The focus before was on the warriors - specifically the chosen, as everyone would take a foot and mounted unit of each and that was it - and nowadays it's not much different, still depending on a unit of chosen with warshrine buffs to be able to handle the riff-raff of other armies toe to toe.

It's not like I don't understand WHY DoC and VC are easier armies - they take out the LD element. Never again will you lose a combat by 1 thanks to bad rolling, roll that 12 followed by a 3 for distance and lose your lord and elite unit.

For someone that fails every leadership test they're required to make, yes it's the army for me. Maybe I suck at tactics? Perhaps, though I don't think it's a fair assumption to say someone cursed to fail every test they ever make whether charging or being charged "just can't hack it". I fail Ld tests with wild abandon in 40k as well so it's a rather recurrent theme that just happens to be utterly crippling in fantasy.

Have you tried the rapturous standard, I think you have a 70% chance of holding against anything if you have a bsb nearby, although, to be honest, I've never rolled a 1 or a double with it yet...

Right, you suck at dice, but you're using blocks of 12 warriors? You're absolutely right, warriors are a bit rubbish. They don't work, they can't take a charge and they're too dice dependent, I wouldn't bother. To be honest, I think the main problem with chaos isn't that they're too expensive, its that there doesn't seem to be any point taking warriors or chosen or in fact anything over chaos knights. Coincidently, without block units to put your characters in, they have to go in the knight units... what a shame, now you get some incredible hittiness there as well, you should have no problem breaking units from the front now. Marauder horsemen? Never take them without the mark of slannesh, and they're far from useless if reduced to 2 models. How is something going to flank charge you with a pair of them sitting in front of it and redirecting that charge?

Chaos definitely suck compared to Vampires, DE, Lizardmen and skaven (i'm assuming about that last one), nevermind Daemons. But all the other armies are in exactly the same boat. HE, Empire, Bretts etc. You're complaining that chaos aren't a top teir list, surely you knew that when you bought them? You made some bad army selections, some bad charges (your exalted should trash a chariot if he has a flail, if not you've got S6 lion attacks coming back at you) and took a ridiculously expensive character that doesn't even have a decent strength so can't make up for the weakness of hitting power in a warrior unit and you complain about your list. Fine, go back to vampires, or better yet, Daemons.

Have you tried giving your units the MoN?

The game is about chance, the only place statistics comes in is for the analysis of theoretical effectiveness.

For example, I play Brets, I get into a discussion with a buddy of mine. I want to take 60 peasant archers. He argues with me. 60 shots, 30 hits, 10 wounds on Chaos knights. That is an analysis of stat in regards to effectiveness against chaos knights. But, even though when you look at the odds of how things should work, you can even see in your case it doesn't always work that way. Randomness detrmines those results if things always happened because they statistically should happen it would remove and chance for pretty much any army that isn't daemons or vc. Just play magic heavy and quagmire, infernal gateway, pit of shades/lore og metal, and puppet your way to victory.

Or vc or go back to 40k. Long story short woc isn't working out for you learn from that then move the heck on.

Herohammernostalgia wrote:True, the universal ASF high elves have is very, very, very annoying (it's GW sanctioned cheating IMO), one only can try to find a way to get around that when facing them... And Chaos has little options but to close in for combat and suck up the damage as far as I can see.

ASF is a hassle... take chariots. If I am not mistaken the impact hits occur before the ASF attacks.

You are correct

For crying out loud, you're whining about your awful rolling. Warriors of Chaos are not a bad army, you've been unlucky. I play pure Khorne WoC and I've won tournaments with them. 'Expendable' VC infantry get ripped apart faster than they can be raised and my Chaos Lord butchers anyone he gets close to.

If you're so butthurt about gak rolling and you don't want to play WoC, then go play your precious VCs. Everyone's sick of your whining.

Spellbound wrote:The game actually isn't more than statistics.

I mean sure you can choose to move certain places, but...that just modifies the statistics.

As far as attention goes, I got what I wanted to see - a general agreement that WoC pay too much for too little, and cheap swarm armies win out in the end unless the super brutes are incredibly careful and depend on their own "equivalent" of swarms to save the day.

In other words, the concept of the army insofar as "Warriors of Chaos" is concerned is broken, and it only works as more of a "Chumps of Chaos" backed up by a couple hardy warriors that hope they can tip the balance.

I can accept constructive criticisms, but in the case here what I've chosen to do is hang my head in shame at them, as they've all either been "depend on THIS unit to roll better!" which is something I can't really rely on or "support your elite infantry with a swarm of weak guys" which just does NOT fit the image I feel the army is supposed to portray. Something was lost between last edition and this one, in fact several things. The focus before was on the warriors - specifically the chosen, as everyone would take a foot and mounted unit of each and that was it - and nowadays it's not much different, still depending on a unit of chosen with warshrine buffs to be able to handle the riff-raff of other armies toe to toe.

It's not like I don't understand WHY DoC and VC are easier armies - they take out the LD element. Never again will you lose a combat by 1 thanks to bad rolling, roll that 12 followed by a 3 for distance and lose your lord and elite unit.

For someone that fails every leadership test they're required to make, yes it's the army for me. Maybe I suck at tactics? Perhaps, though I don't think it's a fair assumption to say someone cursed to fail every test they ever make whether charging or being charged "just can't hack it". I fail Ld tests with wild abandon in 40k as well so it's a rather recurrent theme that just happens to be utterly crippling in fantasy.

I repeat: You need new dice, dude. Buy some and make them watch you melt the old ones down in the oven. That'll teach them.

One more thing. It seems you really need to learn how to deal with the pitfalls of the Leadership rules. This is a critical thing in WFB. If you can't hack it, then you should stick to your Vampire Counts crutch.

Cheese Elemental wrote:For crying out loud, you're whining about your awful rolling. Warriors of Chaos are not a bad army, you've been unlucky. I play pure Khorne WoC and I've won tournaments with them. 'Expendable' VC infantry get ripped apart faster than they can be raised and my Chaos Lord butchers anyone he gets close to.

If you're so butthurt about gak rolling and you don't want to play WoC, then go play your precious VCs. Everyone's sick of your whining.

QFT

Dice-complaining FTW

I played Kairos, cast a spell in the 1st turn, miscast, double 1. -> DoC is a crappy army

I played Manfred, cast a spell in the 1st turn, miscast, double 1. -> VC is a crappy army

I charged a large unit of zombies to the rear with my dark elf dragonlord and missed all my attacks, broke and ran from the table.
-> DE is a crappy army

etc...

The point I'm trying to make is that when discussing whfb, 40k and the like in the internez, it's more apt to use knowledge of statistics (averages,variances,mean values and the like) to help certain what the units may do in different situations where dice are rolled instead of highlighting certain cases where certain rolls were made which lead to certain unlikely resolution.

It is true, though, that "unbreakable" armies such as VC and DoC will remove certain random elements from their setup making them more reliable than many other armies and thus making them powerplayer favorites in uncomped tournaments.

I think you are too used to VC, and will offer this suggestion.


If you truly wish to play WoC, simply grab tome faster units to tie up those archers. I highly suggest 2 units of Chaos Knights, but in the end, it's up to you.

I've always used 1 unit of knights, and been generally unimpressed. Old models before, new models now, and since they're so cool I've always used them "instead of" the old ones.

Perhaps a bit of 40k mentality is in order here - I take 2 defilers because 1 just tends to die when the enemy uses "the anti-defiler unit" on them. So perhaps I should dig out the old mini-knight metal models and bring 2 units, and it might serve better than one. It seems like an awfully large amount of points in small numbers though.

And for the record, DE lord on dragon stands a WAY better chance than a chaos lord on dragon in the rear of a zombie unit. No matter what his weapon and equipment loadout, the chaos lord and dragon could miss all their attacks - the DE one on the other hand could miss all their attacks.....and then re-roll them all


Does anyone seem to think that this is actually a problem with WHFB's core rules? In 40k if my HQ fries itself....well first of all it has to do it like 3 times in order to die, but SHOULD that happen, the rest of the army goes on as normal. Take the Mannfred example for instance. Isn't it a bit....wrong that a newb with x army versus an expert with VC could win because Mannfred miscast and rolled snake eyes, and the army fell apart? That an incredibly deadly unit with a general and hero that's stubborn can go against a giant and roll a 12 when he yells and bawls? There's certain situations you can never really PLAN for, because the odds are low but when they happen, really pretty much end the game.

Must just come with the territory. Warmachine can have the same situations happen, and 40k, while it's less common, can still see 700 point power units running off the board or dying to weaker things - it's just usually less likely than yell and bawl - 12.

And Comrade Nikolai - yeah, actually I've tried that rapturous standard. I've given it consistently to my knights, actually, on the grounds that since they have little static combat res and are more likely to be luckhammered, they'd need it more often. For some reason, have yet to have it work.

I find it odd the backlash to dice complaining against an army like WoC - I've rarely seen skaven players complain about bad dice rolls because when they lose a unit, they don't particularly care - it's one of dozens, and cheap and expendible. When their ratling gun shoots the buddies next to them, it's one of five and the casualties are frivilous. It seems natural to me that the same player rolling boxcars for leadership or somehow killing several of their own men would have more grounds for complaints, as that unit was 300 points, not 60, and each of those friendly models he killed was 18 points, not 2. Two players with equally bad rolls, one playing WoC and one playing O&G are really in different classes when it comes to how badly they really are screwed by rolls.

Apparently it's not seen that way. I'm definitely seeing a lot of "if you roll badly, WoC isn't for you". Is that really how it is? WoC are for the lucky players that can have the good fortune to have their expensive troops and heroes escape damage and dish it back? I really hope that's not the case.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Cryonicleech wrote:I think you are too used to VC, and will offer this suggestion.


If you truly wish to play WoC, simply grab tome faster units to tie up those archers. I highly suggest 2 units of Chaos Knights, but in the end, it's up to you.

I repeat though, I will take this to heart. Since I shelved the old models, this idea really just....hasn't come to me. Where one unit of knights rolls badly and fails/dies, maybe a second could pick up the slack and really tear some stuff apart. I'll give that a shot. Thank you.

No problem. I've had the same trouble with my Cold One Knights.

I would try using shields, but if you want more protection, perhaps MOT or MOS would be helpful.

Marauder Horsemen are also great.

Have you taken any magic, BTW? Does your opponent?

I've been taking Slaanesh magic. It usually amounts to "Everything panics from hellshriek, or I get ecstatic seizures off reliably and win" or "Those don't happen, and magic does little"

Tell you what though I LOVE that infernal puppet.

Up until recently I've been all Slaanesh, all the time. Competitive play has me considering branching out......very reluctant though. My 40k army is also Slaanesh, and I've had it all through Hordes of Chaos. I finally collected a unit of daemonettes and a keeper of secrets to go with my army when they changed the book and took them all out. Bah!

When they made Chaos 3 separate armies, a little part of me died on the inside.

Might I suggest taking a Tzeentchian mage? Sure, it breaks the fluff, but D6+1 hits and D6+1 Strength has the potential to break that Chariot before it even hits. Plus, the Third Eye is just fantastic, especially if your opponent is using High Magic.

Flames of the Pheonix on Spearelves means lotsa dead spearelves.

OK, we get your point, you think WoC suck. We don't agree. move on and play VC, or Daemons.

It is a hobby so you are supposed to have fun. And last time i checked i don't think anyone is getting a multi-million contract to play. However, if you are let me in on it so i can tryout.

Spellbound wrote:I've been taking Slaanesh magic. It usually amounts to "Everything panics from hellshriek, or I get ecstatic seizures off reliably and win" or "Those don't happen, and magic does little"

Tell you what though I LOVE that infernal puppet.

Up until recently I've been all Slaanesh, all the time. Competitive play has me considering branching out......very reluctant though. My 40k army is also Slaanesh, and I've had it all through Hordes of Chaos. I finally collected a unit of daemonettes and a keeper of secrets to go with my army when they changed the book and took them all out. Bah!

In this case, I feel for ya. Unfortunately current Warriors may require some mark mixing if you want to get most out from the army (competively speaking). I lost some daemons & beasts too as they became non-existent in WoC, but being a half glass full kinda guy, I think of them as starters of future beast/doc projects.

Spellbound wrote:This was just really icing on the cake. I consistently roll badly with them - that's what I've been complaining about.

And why did you bother US with that? What are WE expected to do about it? How did you expect we would console you? Send you new dice or what? What does all of this whining even have to do with what army you play?

I'm afraid you simply have no salient point. Perhaps you should write to GW. Complain about how they sold you an army that makes you roll bad all the time, then threaten to ragequit. Oh, and don't forget to heap some guilt on customer support, too. Yes, that should make them think twice.

Lord Solar Plexus wrote:
And why did you bother US with that? What are WE expected to do about it? How did you expect we would console you? Send you new dice or what? What does all of this whining even have to do with what army you play?

I'm afraid you simply have no salient point. Perhaps you should write to GW. Complain about how they sold you an army that makes you roll bad all the time, then threaten to ragequit. Oh, and don't forget to heap some guilt on customer support, too. Yes, that should make them think twice.

What I was looking for, and found, was confirmation amongst my peers that chaos, being high-points but low model count, suffers more from bad luck than nearly any other army, Ogres being another big loser. Dice are still rolled and 1's always fail, meaning a skaven player can roll around 4 1's for armour saves before they equal one from a chaos player. Being only one point of toughness apart, they only take 1/6 less wounds.

Several have acknowledged it and while they are less butt-hurt than I am [which stems a lot from Sigvald's aspiration to consistently die to inferior opponents in one round of combat - he never HASN'T, and it's starting to become a regular theme with all my characters], they too see that when you've got an incredibly tough model that still dies after rolling 3 1's, when they come he's still dead.

Then of course there's people that play T3 armies and are jealous of chaos's T4. I've been told time and again "anyone with S4 T4 basic troops doesn't have any right to complain." Well if I didn't have to pay their high cost, I'd agree. Unfortunately, I don't.

Anyway, back to the part of the conversation I was enjoying. I'm glad GW has managed to BS their way into allowing any item to go with any mark [Mr. Slaanesh Champion, you have slain my mighty champion of Khorne! I shall grant you this magic-resisting collar as a reward!], and they've eliminated the rivalry between the gods, or at least reduced it to petty squabbling rather than direct antithesis. That being said, it's hard for us, the players who have dedicated themselves to one god or another for so long, to accept that and branch out. I feel DIRTY giving the Collar of Khorne to a Tzeentch BSB in a unit of Nurgle chosen so that he can have MR2 and a 3+ ward save when I roll that result up on a Slaanesh warshrine.

Mixing marks seems to be what GW wants now, and may have been what they had in mind when designing the army. I've already come to realize that they probably really wanted people to use the warshrines - it's pretty fluffy, and gives you more bang for your buck FROM the expensive chaos warriors. With +1S or +1A, those units of 12 warriors actually start to have good odds of consistently winning combat. +1 LD, causing fear or terror, stubborn prevents them running away as much.

MoN I avoid on my regular units generally because I'm worried about fear and terror. I've always hated that an Immune to x character in a non-immune unit loses the ability, but a stubborn character leads them along just fine. ONE unit could take the banner of rage, but I've just recently learned the ins and outs of how skirmishers flee and how you pursue them - I don't think I'm going to frenzy anything ever again.

There is nothing 'unlucky' about Chaos. An army is not unlucky, YOU are. You're failing on Ld becaue you're used to armies that don't have to worry about it.

Stop whining. Chaos is NOT weak, you're just unlucky.

Sigh... you are like partially right on saves and stuff but not quite... Say orcs have their save of what, 5+ in cc against warriors? While it might take 4 (less then that I believe) orc boyz dead to = 1 chaos warrior... whats the chances of him rolling 1-4? While you need like a 1-2 to die? It even out man... your just unlucky and your getting hurt about it... If you really think armies with a ton of models is better then go for... but I can tell you, I play an orc army with ALOT of orcs and what your saying is gak in terms of armies having more modles = better...

Spellbound, mind posting your list?

Cheese Elemental wrote:There is nothing 'unlucky' about Chaos. An army is not unlucky, YOU are. You're failing on Ld becaue you're used to armies that don't have to worry about it.

So an army cannot be unlucky, yet not being....USED to leadership tests means I fail them more often? Is there a certain way I should be rolling them?

Cryonic: What point level, and before or after I started experimenting with other stuff?

For the record I used 2 units of knights and dragon ogres at 2250 today and managed a tie against a thorek gunline that deployed badly but rolled like a god with his thunderers. I also rarely got a spell off, even without him touching his dispel dice. I feel pretty accomplished about that. My saves were decent! I just couldn't hit or wound anything much.

Whichever you are using currently.

Throek Gunlines are nasty pieces of work, and magic doesn't always work (I've played an opponent who could not cast Pit of Shades for the life of him)