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Hi all,

I'm looking for some insight as I'm choosing my army.

Previously I had Seraphon and I didn't care for them.

I've been told Chaos might be better for me.


Here's what I'm looking for in an army:

Monsters (don't care if the creature type is monster, I just like big monster creature style units)
Monster-like elite squads (Stormfiends, Rat Ogres, Blight Knights)
At least something as a ranged option.
Some way to deal mortal wounds.
Non reliance on complete horde army.
Some flexibility in playstyle / list building (1000, 1500, 2000)


I was originally leaning towards Death based on monster aesthetics, but they don't seem to have much for ranged weaponry or mortal wound output.


If I was to join Chaos I was thinking of something along the lines of


Stormfiends with Warpfire Projectors/Ratling Cannons
Plaguebearers/tanky nurgle units to hold objectives
Bloodletter blob to kill something
Skaven-Skyre ranged weaponry, like Jezzails/Warp Lightning Cannon (Or even Plagueclaw)
1-2 Big Chaos Monsters (There's a bunch, no idea where to start)


So Chaos players, whats your opinion?

Both have monsters. Chaos has a little more.

Both are poor in shooting. Chaos is a little less poor.

Chaos do more mortal wound damage.

Overall, Chaos is more updated than Death and thusly, more competitive.

However, I am having a blast playing Death. They've got some hidden tricks like army-wide 5+ FNP, the ability to ignore rending and some beefy, hard-hitting units as well (dragons, morghasts, mourngul).

Do you find the lack of shooting do put you in a lot of bad situations where you can't reliably snipe enemy heroes the way Sylvaneth/Stormcast/Skaven snipe our synery heroes off the board?

I was all about Tyranids in 40K, and I don't want a full monster mash list in AoS, but leaning towards at least 2 big beasts.

Has Death been a flexible army for you?

Are you a Tomb Kings/FEC/ or general vampires/skeleton/souls player? I'm leaning towards the vampire/soul side as it seems difficult to find Tomb Kings...and I'm not sure if they will be around in the future.

Not having shooting will cripple an army and I would like to correct, chaos has a good amount of range and infect has the best artillery in the game currently with access to chaos dwarfs and the hell cannon.

Death you can work with but you need range, the problem with death is their whole army was designed around summoning which becuase of its nerf crippled them badly, they have weak saves and die quickly. If you run them you need tomb kings

DoggieDoo wrote:
Do you find the lack of shooting do put you in a lot of bad situations where you can't reliably snipe enemy heroes the way Sylvaneth/Stormcast/Skaven snipe our synery heroes off the board?

I was all about Tyranids in 40K, and I don't want a full monster mash list in AoS, but leaning towards at least 2 big beasts.

Has Death been a flexible army for you?

Are you a Tomb Kings/FEC/ or general vampires/skeleton/souls player? I'm leaning towards the vampire/soul side as it seems difficult to find Tomb Kings...and I'm not sure if they will be around in the future.

Honestly, I haven't played enough games with Death to find the lack of shooting bad, but I do have some tricks with how to deal with enemy characters through mobility.

In my last game, I ran a Vampire Lord on Abyssal Terror. He has a spell that lets a unit move twice. Well, take a fast unit like Mourngul (12"), a Mortarch (16") or some Hexwraiths (12") and you can potentially move 24"-32" with flyer units. Just when my opponent thinks their characters are safe behind screens, I am assaulting them, but not until the majority of their fighty units are engaged with my fighty units.

The funny thing is, whatever hero my Mortarch (Neferata) kills, he turns into a Vampire Lord under my control! Imagine the shock of my opponent as I start turning his characters into heroes for my army and he is powerless to stop them. But you should wait until his heavy-hitters engage with your heavy-hitters (zombie dragon, morghasts, mourngul, etc.) or tarpit units (zombies) before you implement this tactic.

Death's got some decent tarpit units also. The Mourngul has a 3+ save with 4+ vs mortal wounds and he ignores all rending. Cast a shield on him and he will have a true 2+ and potentially a 5+ FNP from your Warlord. Neferata has a spell that allows a unit to ignore rending. Cast it on your Zombie Dragon or Morghasts (plus a shield spell) and now you have a hard-hitting hammer unit which is also durable as heck.

While raising the dead was one of the primary strengths of a Death army, I'm finding that they actually aren't so bad even without summoning. Overall, I am finding it to be a challenging but rewarding army to play. It's not as point-&-click as some of the other armies and so will force you to use your tactical thinking, but IMO it does have the tools to compete with many of the armies out there.

I don't play Tomb Kings.