Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

With the release of the Chaos Legions army list, I am actually toying with the idea of starting a new 2500 pts army, which would play quite differently from my Wood Elves. I have some daemons from WH40k, which I mostly abandoned as a game system, so I can easily port those minis into fantasy.

I'd like to field a Keeper of Secrets (because I like the Forgeworld model a lot) together with an unmarked Sorcerer Lord that uses Death magic. Bonus points if I can stick the sorcerer on a daemonic mount and put him into a chaos knights unit to let him fight too. The first problem is: those two lords together are 1000 pts. Include a beastman BSB, and that goes up to roughly 1200. Do you think the hero tax is too high for the army to be functional?

Ideally I'd like to use a heterogeneous mix of units from the 3 army books (and maybe Tamurkhan - is that even legal, by the rules? They are not in the unit list, but normally they are available to WoC and DoC armies, right?). That's important to me: I like the army because it's a visual mish mash of all things Chaotic.
I thought that I could use beastmen to provide bodies, and WoC and Daemons to add elite and cavalry; monsters from mostly all 3 books. Some units I was considering for army composition:

Gors, Ungor Raiders, Gorebeast Chariots, Chaos Cannon / Skullcannon (can someone offer a comparison? I only played against the second), Dragon Ogres, Daemonettes (I own 20 from WH40k), Bloodletters (I own 30), Chaos Furies, Chaos Knights, Chosen with great weapons (are they any good?), Chimeras, Chaos Ogres (I own 6 bulls that I could easily convert), Skullcrushers, Mutalith Vortex Beasts, Bile Trolls of Chaos, Chaos War Mammoth (yeah well, irrealistic, that's another 500 pts).

What I'd like to hear are the opinions of those who are familiar with Chaos armies, since I have literally 0 experience at playing them.

Lotsa questions, but that's cool, as i'm in the same boat as you (have a couple armies, really love the Legions of Chaos idea)

My take is that 1k out of 2500 is a LOT on lords unless they provide a force multiplier. Luckily , both your lords do. They can both cast the summoning spell from Glotkin book, so therefore can both act as a force multiplier. If every turn they can summon up a hundred or couple hundred points, over the course of the game they might be able to completely reduce their base investment down to net zero (albeit with some luck), or at least reduce it significantly. You'll need to plan for this accordingly, of course, that you're reducing the initial investment damage from taking two big honkin' lords by summoning, and tailor your plan to that.

In terms of mix of units: if you want to use Tamurkhan stuff that is NOT listed on the legions of chaos, you'll need opponent's permission. The listing of allowed units is pretty specific. They might errata it, but i wouldn't hold my breath. If it were me, i'd come up with a LoC legal list and a "side bar" of the tamurkan models i want to use if my opponent is cool with it. Around here people are typically cool with stuff like that in a fun game as long as they are familiar with, and can have immediate access to if requrired, the rules. Didn't bring your tamurkan book, and want to use plague toads ? Sorry, no dice. That's just me though.

Your thoughts on composition mirror my own : beastment for fodder, WoC and DoC for elites / cav. Only difference is i LOVE doombulls and minotaurs, so i've been playing around with methods of getting some of those into my lists.

As for exact composition, i haven't gotten as far as you, but i'm with you that i want to use a mish mash of things - i'm going to focus on nurgle so i know i want Plague Bearers, Plague Drones, Blight Kings, probably some Gors, ungor raiders, and then some things from WoC (cannon for sure, and warriors). Fill to taste with cool stuff i like.


That's the best thing about End Times, you can do some really awesome and cool things with it. I really hope they do something with Ogres.

Unfortunately you can't normally summon daemons cause the spell is part of the Chaos Ascendant rules, which are scenario specific. That sucks, I like what they did with undeath magic lore.
I looked into possible builds to make the sorcerer lord killy, and the best I could think of was Daemonblade, WS 4++, daemonic mount, potion of strength and helm of many eyes. That would give him T 5, W 3, 1+, 4++, D6+3 ASF attacks at S 4 (7 for 1 turn) which ignore AS, and Stupidity. Seems scary, together with some Knights, and it would take away some shooting attacks from the Keeper. The problem, as usual, is points.