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I am not really sure I get this. A chaos warrior hasn’t ascended to daemonhood. They are normal people who worship Chaos, have thrown a bit of crude plate on and aren’t totally inhuman. This is why Chaos Warriors can be beaten by a conventional army.

Whereas a Stormcast Eternal is supposed to be Sigmars secret weapon. He took the gifts of all these gods, the souls of the best and brightest people, suffused them with a portion of his power making them giants among men and then gave them weapons and plate made from the cooling core of a planet. There is no comparison here.

Now, Chaos does not go anywhere near that sort of effort. Khorne didn’t even go to that sort of effort for Valkia and for most of his Blood Warriors they are still basically regular people. They aren’t all suffused with his might. They don’t all have magical armour. Yes, you do have Blood Reavers as the supposed cannon fodder unit. But it doesn’t hold that simply accumulating a sizeable collection of skulls has the same effect as a God putting part of his soul in you and all the other effort made.

Yet both the rules, art and lore strongly implies that these two are equivalent. Which IMO doesn’t make much sense. Chaos Warriors aren’t superhuman but Stormcast are. Personally I think that’s a misstep since it’s a little jarring and doesn’t make too much sense. How is Sigmar winning if any dude can become a Blood Warrior but only a handful can be made a Stormcast. At that point, the cost of making them outweighs the reward since they don’t have a qualitive advantage over normal men.

Well, Stormcast definitely have the corner on good gear, considering all their ranged weapons, magical weapons, and Prosecutors being able to fly.

Your standard Chaos Warrior has always been a hugely powerful mortal follower of Chaos, and many times even the least of the full Chaos Warriors are described as having a small amount of power from their patron.

Personally I think that’s a misstep since it’s a little jarring and doesn’t make too much sense. How is Sigmar winning if any dude can become a Blood Warrior but only a handful can be made a Stormcast. At that point, the cost of making them outweighs the reward since they don’t have a qualitive advantage over normal men.

Your basic Blood Warrior is an enhanced berserker who can hurt itself or others in battle.
There is also the difference between both factions have. The Stormcast have ranged units on the ground and in the air, which the Bloodbound do not have.

A Chaos Warrior is absolutely enhanced by his patron, they have been killing in the name of Chaos for decades at the least. Their armor and weapons are forged in daemonic flames if not by daemons themselves. They are sustained by the very power of their god, and could beat the snot out of a mortal man. For every Chaos Warrior there are dozens if not hundreds of regular chaos-worshippers who died before ever making it that far. Ditto for on all of the above their god-specific equivalents. However, this has not been well explained in the fluff up until recently and to an extent still requires extrapolation from the older WHFB fluff that went into more detail. At any rate, a regular human that worships chaos is represented by marauders of chaos, bloodreavers, or kairic acolytes. Note that even liberators, the weakest of Stormcast, have a huge advantage one-on-one.

Also, when a Chaos Warrior dies, that is it. His soul is claimed by his patron and he is gone. A Stormcast gets reforged then sent back. Stormcast can also be deployed via lightning strike, and their equipment travels along with them in either case. That sort of god-imbued power is massively advantageous on a way that is not reflected within the context of their warscroll stats. In this manner every single Stormcast is on par with powers a Daemon Prince has.

Yep, traditionally a Chaos Warrior was the baddest badass that a mortal could be while technically being mortal, in any GW system.

Also don't forget that many Chaos warriors are as close to if not fully berserk when in battle. Berserk mentality means that they are using their muscles at their fullest limit with no holdback and no concept of pain or of life after that moment. This lets them achieve continued feats well beyond normal human capacity.

It's basically pushing their body to its fullest limit as if on a prolonged adrenalin rush

Sigmar warriors are blessed and will be reforged, but its clear that they don't actually want to die and be reforged. So their means of battle is going to be considering the next moment; they will reserve strength or won't push their body to its total limit.




Also don't forget that the game is abstract to reality; often as not one model might represent different numbers on the table. Sigmar's warriors could be superior but might only have weight of strength not numbers; whilst Chaos might be putting down dozens more warriors for one sigmar warrior on the tabletop. An entire Sigmar army might be 30 models and an entire Chaos might be 30 models; but in the lore that might be 3000 vs 30000.

Same as why Tyranids might put down 30 termagaunts for 5 space marines; but in the lore that would be 5 marines against possibly 300000gaunts

To give you some more background as to why Chaos warriors are on par, if not better the SCE, back in the day of yor, in the old world, to be a chaos warrior was a BIG deal, most of them would have been champions or even leaders of their tribe in norsca. They would give up their lives to be servents/slaves, to their god, and their god would given them strength beyond moral abilities.

if i remember, a single chaos warrior is like a space marine power level, just with out power armor and bolter.

Chaos warriors were indeed on par with space marines in terms of size and power. They were more than just men. They were demi humans elevated by the chaos gods. They were war manifested.

A normal man in WHFB was S3 T3. A chaos warrior was S4 T4. Additionally back in the really long ago, the chaos warriors had access to things like plasma pistols lol.

Its very easy to lose focus on that in a game system (AOS) where everyone is now a mighty super hero and the normal guys have for the most part disappeared. So now even the mighty chaos warrior looks like your average chump.

Keep in mind that when the Stormcast first appeared on the plains of Aqshy, the reaction of the Blood Warriors in that battle wasn't "Oh, ", it was "Finally, a worthy opponent". A Liberator is the equivalent of a Blood Warrior, and Blood Warriors are nowhere near the best warriors in Khorne's arsenal.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
He took the gifts of all these gods,

He took the what from the who now?

auticus wrote:
Chaos warriors were indeed on par with space marines in terms of size and power. They were more than just men. They were demi humans elevated by the chaos gods. They were war manifested.

A normal man in WHFB was S3 T3. A chaos warrior was S4 T4. Additionally back in the really long ago, the chaos warriors had access to things like plasma pistols lol.

Its very easy to lose focus on that in a game system (AOS) where everyone is now a mighty super hero and the normal guys have for the most part disappeared. So now even the mighty chaos warrior looks like your average chump.

It would be nice to see some more model and rule support for 'regular guy' armies. But to GWs credit aelves have support in 'regular aelf' terms from their new battletomes, darkoath are a thing in the fluff, skaven are still as individually weeny as ever, bonesplittaz are a faction of normal scale (albeit insane) orruks, etc. The super-soldier armies catch the spotlight to be sure but the other side of things has not been totally forgotten. Compare to early AoS where they quite often were.

Chaos Warriors = Fremen and Stormcast = Sardaukar?

 StygianBeach wrote:
Chaos Warriors = Fremen and Stormcast = Sardaukar?

Switch it around.

the chaos equivalant to standard humans would be marauders,ungors, and maybe stormvermin (might be slightly better then baseline human troops)

chaos warriors were very similar in stats to black orks in fantasy, and those were the biggest, toughest, most elite orks until the Ironjaws were introduced.

 Nova_Impero wrote:

 StygianBeach wrote:
Chaos Warriors = Fremen and Stormcast = Sardaukar?

Switch it around.

In terms of moral alignment I would agree, but I was thinking more in terms of lifestyle and society.

Stormcast prove themselves worthy, then get upgraded. They have better equipment, but are a bit soft and squishy due to easy living.

operkoi wrote:
the chaos equivalant to standard humans would be marauders,ungors, and maybe stormvermin (might be slightly better then baseline human troops)

chaos warriors were very similar in stats to black orks in fantasy, and those were the biggest, toughest, most elite orks until the Ironjaws were introduced.

In fourth ed, a chaos warrior basically had the stat line of an Empire general, as that was what they were, the pinnacle of human martial prowess. Their increased stats through being champions/lords etc came from patronage of the chaos gods. They made black orcs look like goblins.

Yeah I think a lot of new players to AoS don't realize how stupid powerful a chaos warrior was, or even worse/better, a single daemon prince was.

I think it’s a question of degrees. Yes, a chaos warrior is big guy with some chaos influence to make him stronger. That’s not the same as being reformed by a God, molded in his image and given all this amazing armour and weapons. By comparison that does make a Chaos warrior look kind of tepid by comparison.. For example, in Fantasy, they were on par with Black Orcs. Now Black Orcs aren’t even the biggest Orcs around. So if they are worse than, essentially a really huge Orc then why should they be on par with a Stormcast?

It’s not like the Varanguard where it’s stressed that these are an elite caste superior to all other warriors and blessed. Blood Warriors and Chaos Warriors are depicted as line infantry. But are also not shown as an elite force like Stormcast. For example, a Stormhost is only 10,000 soldiers. Whereas some battles in AoS have the horizon filled with Chaos Warriors. So they’re a horde but their soldiers are the equal of the army with the elite soldiers?

Personally I’ve not got the impression that Chaos has upped its game in AoS. Pretty much all of the Chaos armies could conceivably have appeared in Fantasy.

But...chaos warriors ARE shaped and crafted by their God's.

Everything about them is on par with sce. They were basic dudes where were elevated to the peak of physical power because their patron God blessed them and gave them strength. Their aromor is (or was not sure where it comes from now) forged by the chaos dwarfs who would infuse it with chaotic powers and magic.

If anything the ScE were created to be on par with them. The chaos warriors are numberless because of lore they can basically be pulled from everywhere.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
But...chaos warriors ARE shaped and crafted by their God's.

Everything about them is on par with sce. They were basic dudes where were elevated to the peak of physical power because their patron God blessed them and gave them strength. Their aromor is (or was not sure where it comes from now) forged by the chaos dwarfs who would infuse it with chaotic powers and magic.

If anything the ScE were created to be on par with them. The chaos warriors are numberless because of lore they can basically be pulled from everywhere.

This

Chaos warriors don't need sleep, they don't eat, they don't drink, all they do is fight. They are Giants among men. Sce were created to deal with chaos warriors and blood warriors which blood warriors are really just khorne chaos warriors. The reason you don't seem them depicted the way they once we're is because

1) they are an old model so GW does not give them the lime light.

2) they always make them seem easy to kill because GW is propping up SCE.

Don't forget GW Mary Sue's the hell outta SCE, to the point of, one was able to kill a great unclean one with a single arrow to the eye, despite them being ungodly hard to kill, and one managed to actually hurt nurgal, just his finger but still

That's one thing AoS does that grinds my gears they don't depict the bad guys as a threat anymore.

You seem to be forgetting that Chaos Warrios are the rank and file soldiers, Totalwar1402. Chosen and their god-specific equivalents (Skulltakers, Wrathmongers, Tzaangor Enlightened, Blight Kings, etc.) are head and shoulders above Liberators in the fluff.

Also, Varanguard are literally a group of Chaos Lords that Archaon chose to be his elite guards. They could each be fighting at the head of their own horde, but instead, they serve the Grand High Marshall of the Apocalypse. To my knowledge, Stormcast don't have any units on par with them.

GW has absolutely portrayed Chaos as an existential threat to Order.

Lets not forget in the Age of Sigmar Chaos not only destroyed the Old World but also invaded and tore apart most of the Realms whilst Sigmar went into hiding in his Celestial realm. Stormcast returning were the beacon of light and power that pushed Chaos back; but only at great cost and the Realms are still nothing like as prosperous nor grand as they once were.


Chaos is a powerful force to go against and so far in the Age of Sigmar the forces of Order have lost - TWICE

It literally took Order, Death, and Destruction combined to halt Chaos.

I thought the Felix/Gotrek novels from the good old world illustrated their power well. A single Chaos Warrior led an army of beastmen through several villages utterly destroying them sacked a castle and pretty easily beat down Felix who was at the point an experienced duelist who'd done his share of fighting. She was a fairly standard Warrior.

This one weird trick, Sigmar HATES it! Find out how having lots of skulls is the secret to true power!

Chaos/blood warriors are not as good as a stormcast. Stormcast are better equipped and better trained(and they have more magical powers). Even in the "Gates of azyr" book a single
Liberator can kill several blood warriors by themselves.

Remember, the stormcast are always heavily outnumbered. In many battles it's 300-500 eternals for a single Warrior Chamber vs. thousands of chaos.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here is some stormcast lore. https://ageofsigmar.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Stormcast_Eternals
https://ageofsigmar.wikia.com/wiki/IN_SIGMAR%E2%80%99S_NAME

We don't talk about Gates of Azyr...

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
We don't talk about Gates of Azyr...

I do, If you don't want to talk about "Gates of Azyr" there is always "Ghal Maraz" "Warbeast" "City of Secrets" books etc. They all show that a single stormcast can take on multiple Chaos enemies.

In the Warbeast book a single Knight-Azyros cleaves a Chaos Gargant in half. All i'm saying is, in the lore Stormcast are above Chaos/blood warriors/ blight kings. In their training, skill, weapons and armor.

I think you are confusing characters with rank and file troopers; Stormcast characters are absolutely head-and-shoulders above regular guys be they normal mortals or empowered ones. It has definitely been shown that blightkings in particular are no pushovers and Stormcast have always needed superior numbers/tactics in order to succeed. Also, I find those three mentions interesting since in all of them the Stormcast die.

Regardless, I do not recall the instance with the chaos gargant, could you give me the page number so I can re-read that?