Taken with permission of Skavenblight
With the advent of the new Realm of Chaos army book some of the old chaos tactics are now obsolete. Mainly because the new book has divided Chaos into 3 separate and distinct armies:
Chaos Warrior Warbands, Beastman Warbands, and Daemon Warbands.
With the creation of the
Warlord/Retinue rules for Chaos armies now, many of the old
atrategies for designing chaos armies of dragon ogres, harpies
and beastmen blocks are long gone. I'm going to assume you know
how the Warlord/Retinue rules work and get to discussing the
tactics, strengths and weaknesses of the various warbands.
Chaos Warrior Warband:
The Chaos Warrior Warband is the one that is made up of the Champions of Chaos and their human followers. Along with the old Chaos Warriors and Chaos Knights, some new troops have been added to this warbandÉ ie the Marauders. Also included in this warband are Ogres and Chaos Hounds, as well as Chaos Warrior and Marauder Chariots. First I'll discuss the overall armies strengths and weaknesses and then talk about each unit.
Warrior Warband Strengths and
Weaknesses:
These are basically the same as before, excellant HtH troops and
characters. Warriors and Knights are the same statistically as
before, yet now can take standards and musicians at no extra
cost. This makes them somewhat more viable units. Their weakness
is again the same as in the old rulesÉ mostly expensive troops,
that have no missle fire capability. They must get into HtH or
they'll get shot up and killed by magic.
Chaos Warriors and Chaos
Knights:
PROS: These guys are still awesome offensive units. Knights are
one of the most powerful units on the charge. 2 S6 attacks and 1
S4 attack (from the steed) per model on the charge is very very
nice. Not to mention that with a WS of 6, they will be hitting
most troops (and many characters) on a 3+. The 1 + armor save if
given chaos armor makes them immune to many forms of missle fire
such as short bows, bows, long bows (except woodelf longbows),
and dark elf repeater crossbows. Warriors don't get the bonuses a
knight charging with a lance does, but still they have a decent
variety of options including, additional hand weapons, halberds,
double handed weapons, shields and can swap their heavy armor for
chaos armor. This means they can be geared for max attacks (extra
hand weapons) or max power (double handed weapons) or max save
(chaos armor and shield).
CONS: Both Chaos Warriors and Chaos Knights have the same basic
drawbacks. They are very bloody expensive. At 80pts per knight
with chaos armor, the minimum unit of 5 costs 400pts. Thanksfully
standards and musicians are now free, but Knight units will
always be expensive. Warrior units are cheaper because they are
infantry, but they are the most expensive single wound infantry
in the game. Chaos armor, while good protection makes their
points jump above 30pts per model.
USES: Knight units are best used in units of about 5-8 (including
any characters in the unit). Chaos armor while expensive is still
generally a good idea unless you are really strapped for points.
Of course you can always give them the poor man's chaos armor by
giving knights without chaos armor the Standard of Shielding to
give them a 1+ armor save. Warriors i find work best in units of
8,10, or even 12 in large games (including any characters in the
unit). More than 2 ranks of them are generally not worth the cost
as you pay 100+ points for a rank to only get +1 combat res when
the likely won't ever see combat. 2 ranks is good so that a
couple of warriors can die without reducing the front rank. One
of my common units is 8 or 10 knights with chaos armor additional
hand weapons and the Banner of Might. Gives you a unit with a
front rank of either 12 or 15 models S4 attacks hitting most
other troops on a 2+.
Marauders and Marauder Horsemen:
PROS: Compared to Warriors and Knights, these guys are pretty
cheap (12 points for marauders, 31pts for marauder horsemen) and
have decent options. For a base cost of 12 points for marauders
you get WS4, S4, 2 attacks. That's pretty good. They also have
the ability to take a Warrior or Knight leader to act as unit
champion. It doesn't get a magic item, but can make/accept
challenges and gives the unit a cheap leaderhsip 9.
CONS: They are only T3 and have a leadership of 7. This means
that while they are very good offensively, they are pretty easy
to kill... especially against mass missle fire. Marauders can
have at best a 5+ armor save, Marauder Horsemen at best a 4+
armor save.
USES: Marauder foot troops are best formed into large units armed
only with flails. This gives them 2 S6 attacks in the first round
of every combat. Even if charged. Units of 16-20 (or 24 models in
larger games) are good sizes. Because they have T3 they are very
weak against missle fire and at best can have a 5+ armor save.
That's why i don't feel the points (3 pts per model) is really
worth the 5+ armor save. I'd rather use the points on more models
or use the points for a magic banner. The Ruby Chalice on a
character in the unit is a good way of protecting against missle
fire as well. The Helm of Many eyes is also a good way of keeping
them alive if charged. You can also add the Crown of Command to
the unit and the Dread banner (causes fear). It's nice to
autobreak enemies because you won combat and cause fear. I had a
unit of beastman autobreak a SMP because they had the Dread
Banner... the beastman ran the SMP off the baord :)Marauder
Horsemen are also a good buy, at 32 points per model (if you give
them flails) they have almost as good combat potential as chaos
knights (2 S6 attacks the first round of combat only a lower WS).
I believe they are best used only with flails, even though this
gives them only a 5+ armor save, this makes them fast cavalry and
an excellent flanking unit.
Chaos Chariots, Ogres, and Chaos
Hounds:
PROS: Chariots are excellant unit killers/breakers. Fast and hard
hitting. Chaos Warrior Chariots are tougher, with tougher steeds
and crew. Marauder Chariots aren't as tough but 40pts cheaper and
a little faster (8 movement, instead of 7 for warrior chariots).
Ogres are big and tough and can hold up very well and are
reasonably fast with a movement of 6. And they are very hard to
take down with missle fire. Chaos Hounds are also fairly fast
(agian movement 6) and have decent stats of WS5, S4, T4 ad 2
attacks. And for only 12points.
CONS: Chariots as always, are somewhat fragile to being shot up.
A single dead steed can make it hard for the chariot to get a
charge in (and chariots must charge to be effective). Ogres are
big tough, cause fear but have only average leadership.
Personally i don't like counting on average leadership. Plus with
only a WS of 3, the sometimes have trouble hitting tough things
and elites so that their good strength can be most useful. Hounds
are also lacking in the leaderhsip department. With only a 6,
it's not a good idea for these things to take any leadership
tests.
USES: Both Marauder and Warrior chariots have their uses. The
extra durability of the chaos steeds that pull Warrior chariots
can make them more effective against missle heavy armies,
although since the chaos steeds have barding the chariot moves
only 7 inches instead of 8 like the marauder one. But unless you
worry about them getting shot up, a marauder chariot will still
be effective for you. And always give a chariot scythes. Ogres to
me are an "if you like them" unit. Their effectivness
is debatable, but can still be fun to use and are nice models.
Used in units of 3 are best... because of their base size, only 3
are likely to get into bsb contact when in HtH. Chaos Hounds seem
to be most useful to hunt down missle units and war machines.
Their leadership is a liability and the warrior
"handler" isn't worth the points for the extra
leadership because he slows the unit down. A unit of 16 (4 ranks
of 4) is only 192 points though and i big enough to take some
casualties without (hopefully) taking a panic test. Otherwise
keep your general nearby.
Chaos Warrior Characters:
PROS: Now that Warrior Warbands can be led by any character (be
it champion, hero, lord or sorcerer), Chaos armies are now more
viable in smaller games. Chaos Lords are also 50pts cheaper than
in the old rules. It's also nice that you buy your marks when you
choose your god (or you can have unaligned characters). And Chaos
Armor is now an equipment option so having it doesn't take up a
magic item slot. It's also nice that if you choose to not have a
sorcerer folow one of the chaos gods, they get Chaos Armor for
free. All warrior characters are excellant in HtH, sorcerers are
as good or better in HtH than many army's generals are.
CONS: They are still pretty expensive, some more than others... a
Khorne Champion is 106pts, while a Tzeentch one is 71pts because
their Marks cost different. Another annoyance is that they can
only have either an extra hand weapon or double handed
weapon or halberd or flail or spear or
lance. They can't have, for example an additional hand weapon and
a flail.
USES: Get them into HtH. You pay a lot of points for their
awesome HtH capabilities so make their they get there. Personally
i also feel Sorcerers should see some HtH or at least be slightly
equipped for it. They also pay a lot of points for good HtH
stats. Since my armies are all followers of tzeetch, my army is
ususally led by a Tzeentch Master Sorcerer. Sorcerer Lords are
powerful but for less points you can get a Master Sorcerer and a
Sorcerer (level 1). And it's always a good idea to have more than
one mage in your army.
Monsters and Monsterous Units
PROS: The advantage of paying for your monsters out of allies
points is that you can get a monster mount for a character
without having to match it's points in your characters retinue.
CONS: It's also a little annoying that you have only 25% of your
points to spend on monsters AND monsterous units like harpies,
chaos trolls, and dragon ogres (which all used to be normal
units) AND on beastman allies. It also kinda sucks that Warrior
Warbands can only have one unit of harpies, but it's probably
best for game balance as IMO harpies are too cheap for what you
get if they are allowed unlimited units in a warrior army.
USES: Harpies are always a good choice tie up enemy war machines.
Chaos Trolls and Dragon Ogres are those "fun troops" i
like to use sometimes. DO's are as tough as they were before and
Chaos Trolls have an extra attack and higher leaderhip over
standard trolls. Too bad chaos armies can no longer have stone or
river trolls though.
Allies:
Allies are generally banned in most gaming groups and for good
reason. They can severely unbalance the game. But most it seems
are allowing Chaos warbands to take allies from the other chaos
warbands as they are not allies in the normal sense. It also
allows those players who had 4th edition armies to use beastmen
with their warrior warband. Which is nice, especially if you
painted them like i did.
Overall Tactics:
Whenever you design your warband, have a specific task in mind
when you form your units. Have them set up for that task and try
to keep them in that task. Remember than all your units are
designed to be great in HtH... getting them into combat before
they are shot to pieces is one of the main challenges of playing
a Chaos Warrior Warband. That's why units like harpies, fast
marauder horsemen, etc are important to attack enemy war machines
quickly.