# WoC vs HE - any advice for a beginner?



## Hastour (Jul 15, 2012)

Hi. I've recently started a Warriors of Chaos army. I'm a veteran of 5th edition, but haven't played for so many years I consider myself a noob again.

An experienced high elves general is my main enemy, and I'd love to hear some advice, since beating him is tough.

My small force consists of 24 warriors and 30 marauders as core, 5 knights and 10 hounds. They are led to battle by a sorcerer, a champion and BSB. A scratch-built charriot I glued together last night is a latest addition. 

My friend fields big blocks of spearmen and swordmasters, which I find extremely hard to crack due to their ASF and a crazy number of attacks. The only luck I had was with magic, but it is a feeble ally, and bad rolls for casting ruin my day. 

It's time to do some shopping and expand my army to 2000-2500 points. Any advice on what to get next, suited for this particular enemy?

Thanks in advance.


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## Archaon18 (Feb 17, 2012)

Spearman aren't that hard to crack, just hit them with Warriors, then the amount of attacks will be lessened by numbers required then just smite them back with your own volume of attacks. With sword masters a bit of Treason will not hurt. In fact this will decimate the unit then allowing a flank attack or even more magic will be good.


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## Hastour (Jul 15, 2012)

Treason of Tzeentch works wonders against swordmasters, seems like a spell specially designed for this. Anything else didn't work, my marauders, warriors and knights all got annihilated. Seems that I really need a huge block of troops to soak all those attacks, which I can't afford on a 1000-1500p game.

Against spearmen it should be easier. I'll try trusting the warriors' armour. 

Another tactic that annoyed me - a charriot with some special character onboard. It charges my warriors block, issues a challange which I can't refuse, and gets an overkill on my champion with its huge number of attacks from the hero, crew and charriot. Result - one dead champion and a fresh block of expensive warriors broken and fleeing. BSB didn't help.


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## Atreyu (May 30, 2011)

With HE, and especially combined with reading some things off of COTEC (the WoC forum), I learned that one of the best ways to combat against HE is definitely target priority with our units. Swordmasters for example. Definite canidate for the Treason spell. Also, a large tarpit of marauders do wonders. Keep your general within range, and you will be a nice steadfast Ld8 against them, holding them up. The special character on the chariot is an interesting tactic, but we should be able to hold our own, as impact hits will probably do a small number against Warriors, and once the character decimates the champion, combat is over. Challenge should only take that to 3 wounds (1+2 overkill), a charge, and maybe 1-2 wounds from the impact hits. That should be 5-6 in the HE Combat Res. WoC have 2 ranks, a banner, and a BSB. If the impact hits wiff, we have a chance at having 5 for Combat Res. Even though that is a loss, you are a re-rollable steadfast Ld8. I say that was just a bad die day.


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

Marauders will get minced - until you realise that each Swordmaster has 2 attacks, one each Marauder costs 1/3rd of the price.

Marauders, Great Weapons, and Mark of Khorne. A unit of marauders 30 strong, run in 6x formation typically has 18 S5 Attacks, hitting on 4's, killing on 2's (statistically, 7-8 dead) while risking a typical 10 deaths. On kills, you lose by 2 - with the charge, and a banner (provided the Swordmasters don't have one), you equalize. If you managed to hit the SM's with something like Treason of Tzeentch, then you've typically removed a rank as well, so you're at +1.

Knights - should really keep away from Swordmasters - with hitting on 3's with a reroll, and S5 wounding on 3's and reducing their armour save to 3+, they are much worse off than if they jump headlong into a unit of Spearmen. If you can hit them with Soulblight (Lore of Death) or The Enfeebling Foe (Lore of Shadows), then they are hitting on 4's with a reroll, and wounding on 6's, with no save modifier - a unit of 20 ranked 5x4 has 20 attacks, so 15 hits, and 3 wounds, which are typically all saved.

In return, you hit with Mark of Khorne/Khorne Banner Knights and Ensorcelled Blades with 3 S5 Attacks each, and 2 S4 attacks each - that's 15 Attacks, hitting on 3's, killing on 2's - 8-9 Kills from the Knights, and 10 Attacks hitting on 4's, wounding on 3's, saving on 6's - 3 kills from the horses. 11-12 kills, versus none, Charge, Banner, versus 3 ranks, Banner = 14 versus 3. Unless it can pass a Ld2 test, then its dead meat.

As for Korhil on a chariot - he is 270 points. Very expensive. Now, Korhil doesn't have a Ward Save. He is still a 2 Wound, T3 model. However, he does have a 3+ Armour Save, so is still reasonably resilient.

If you want to keep your Warrior unit in the fight, take a Lore of Death Sorcerer with a Stubborn Hat. Attempt to cast Spirit Leech - 7+ Spell? Easy enough. Roll a dice, add your leadership - you only need to roll 1 higher to gimp him beyond belief, especially if you get off Doom and Darkness. That way, he needs to roll a 4+ to even level the score, and if you roll a 6, he's instantly dead. Alternatively, Fate of Bjuna for 2D6-Toughness (and to a lesser extent Caress of Laniph), and wounding on a 2+? Average 5 hits, wounding on 2's, with no armour save, and subject to stupidity if he survives.

Assuming best case scenario - 5+ Overkill, 1 kill, and charge = 7+, versus Banner, and 3 ranks, results in 7+ versus 4+, reducing you to Ld5 at best case.

However, if you are not running Heroes in your Chaos Warriors, then don't bother to place a champion in the unit. Otherwise, you can have your Champion just eaten by a combat character at the expense of 1 extra attack for the price of another warrior.

Consider GW Chaos Warriors against him. Your Initiative is wasted - in return, you have 3-4 models in contact, and extra rank of attacks - that's 9-12 attacks, hitting on 4's, wounding on 2's, saving on 6's - he shouldn't survive to do the same. Even if the Chaos Warriors are killed/fleeing, you have killed Korhil, stopping him from running the same.

The maximum damage output of a charging Lion Chariot with Korhil against a none-challenge is 14 wounds - and that's assuming that they get 6 impact hits, hit, wound, and have no passed armour saves. So with assuming also charging downhill, that's a total of +16. Sounds nasty, when you have likely +4 from ranks and banner, and 2 wounds, for +6, bringing it down to +10. However, with an average of 3 Impact Hit Deaths, 3 Kills by Korhil, 1 Kill by the Crew, and 1 wound by the Lions, that's 8 versus 6, which compared to the overkill is only 6. If you take the Slaanesh banner, you will not break. It is a naughty combo, but one which is dedicated to taking on Large Base infantry. Against many other armies, they just can't kill enough to make that much of a difference, can be shot off the board before they do anything, or magic'd into nothingness.

Can you provide a more exact army list?

Going off what you've given, I have the following;

Korhil on Chariot (270)

Spearmen

Swordmasters

There's not much more to go off, but it would be helpful for a more concise list.

For 2,400, there are two ways to go to beat HElves - I'm guessing he will bring Teclis at that level, and you cannot really counter his magic.

There are several tricks you can pull, and Warriors of Chaos are the best at manipulating magic.

The Feedback Scroll is the best way to counter Teclis. He often attempts to use as many dice as possible to cast a spell to maximise his Special Hat - so for each dice used, roll a dice. On a 5+, he takes a wound - without a Ward Save, Teclis is fairly dead. Back up with The Tricksters Shard as well, and you can guarantee that a previously wounded Teclis will not attempt to dispel.

This is my current list - 

Valkia the Bloody

Exalted Hero, Battle Standard Bearer, Shield, Mark of Tzeentch, Soporific Musk, Banner of Swiftness
Chaos Sorceror, Level 2 Wizard, Lore of Death, Feedback Scroll, Third Eye of Tzeentch

51 Marauders, Great Weapons, Mark of Khorne, Musician, Standard Bearer
50 Marauders, Great Weapons, Mark of Khorne, Musician, Standard Bearer
5 Marauder Horsemen, Mark of Slaanesh, Standard Bearer
5 Marauder Horsemen, Mark of Slaanesh, Standard Bearer

23 Chosen, Mark of Tzeentch, Shields, Musician, Champion, Eye of the Gods, Standard Bearer, Banner of Rage

Warshrine, Mark of Tzeentch
Warshrine, Mark of Tzeentch

Valkia, the BSB and the Sorceror all join the Chosen.

It abuses the Eye of the Gods table - this is how the Chosen unit works.

1. Deploy the Chosen.
2. Roll on the table. Reroll 2 and 7, can use Favour of the Gods to modify 3, 6, and 8 to 2 or 7. Can use Favour of the Gods to modify any result by +/- 1, depending on which is preferential.
3. Place Characters in unit.
4. Roll magic. Attempt to get Aspect of the Dreadknight.
5. If Aspect of the Dreadknight is available, cast empowered variant for Terror, to bypass 2 results on the table.
6. Warshrine 1 empowers Chosen.
7. Forced Reroll any duplicate results (continue rerolling until you generate a result you don't have). +/- 1 to more favourable result. Use Valkia to reroll any still unfavourable result.
8. Warshrine 2 empowers Chosen.
9. Forced Reroll any duplicate results (continue rerolling until you generate a result you don't have). +/- 1 to more favourable result. Use Valkia to reroll any still unfavourable result, +/1 to more favourable result. Forced reroll any duplicate results (continue rerolling until you generate a result you don't have). +/- 1 to more favourable result, etc etc.

In the end, as you theoretically carry on doing this until you get a result that you cannot +/- 1 to a previously achieved result, your opponent will either waste all of his time watching you continue to reroll, or tell you to just choose.

When you roll a unit that causes Terror, Magic Resistance 3, Stubborn, 3+ Ward Save, 3 Attacks apiece, and a 2+ Armour Save, it is very, very nasty.

Throw in a Soulblight on Enemy units to bring them down to S and T 2 or 3, and enemy units get blended.

GW Marauders are undercosted and with MoK doubling their damage output, astoundingly deadly.

Marauder Cavalry are there for Blood and Glory, (instead of having 6 points, you have 8, with a break point of 3 - at 2,400 not many armies equal or better that, and an Immune to Panic Fast Cavalry unit that does not want to get killed is very, very hardy indeed)

Valkia can just eat everything as well - 7 Attacks (6 normal, +1 from Frenzy), with AP, and S7 Killing Blow charge at Initiative 8 and WS9, attacks against her are at -1 Strength (so Korhil, for example, is wounding on 4's), and models in base contact lose 1 attack (so Lion Chariot has 2x Lions with a single attack, and Korhil with 1 attack, and charioteer with 1 attack).

If Korhil is beginning to threaten the unit as well, you can just lone charge Valkia from 20" away. It's a risk, as she'd lose her Ward Save, but with only 2 Attacks, and wounding on 4's, she has a good chance of surviving, provided no Killing Blow (Statistically a 1/12 chance of occuring even so - remember though that thanks to I8, no reroll to hit from ASF).


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## Hastour (Jul 15, 2012)

Wow, that's some helpful advice. Thanks a lot.

As to the army lists - we currently play rather small battles, the last one was 1500 points. But my collection is growing, so the next will probably be above 2k.

Last time he took a block of 50 spearmen, a considerably large unit of swordmasters, five dragon princes and that charriot guy. I fielded 30 marauders with GW and MoK, 24 warriors with MoT and shields, five knights, five mounted marauders, ten hounds, a lvl2 sorceror and two exalted champions, one to lead the marauders and another one as a BSB.

I can't remember the size of the swordmasters unit, but it was large enough to kill 26 marauders in their attack... so the remaining four were not exactly competitive anymore.

As with the spearmen, I hoped to engage them with my my warriors, but they were forced to retreat by the charriot guy. Granted, there were some bad rolls involved, as even the BSB didn't help, but I did have a considerable negative combat score. So the spearmen fought with both cavalry units and minced them - though again, I had some very bad luck with armour saves.

It was an unlucky battle after all, so I wouldn't draw too many conclusions. Just wondering, what I could have done better, apart from dice rolling.

What I do certainly need is to expand my collection. Now my friend knows exactly, what to expect, as I'm practically playing with all the models I have, while he surprises me with new builds. The last time I prepared for dealing with magic and bolt throwers, and he took neither... So, any advice on what to get next? I was considering a hellcannon, another block of warriors and maybe twenty more marauders for this month's reinforcements.

That trick with the chosen and warshrines... man, this is pure evil  I'm not sure if I want to try this in a friendly game. Maybe if he takes Teclis.


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## olderplayer (Dec 11, 2009)

Your marauder blocks must be a lot larger with MoK and possibly a horde formation or deep in ranks to preserve stead fast and be able to attack back. Since you are paying a lot less per model, you need 70+ marauders to deal with 50 spearmen or to have the hope of hitting back and depleting the swordmasters. 

One trick is a lvl 2 MoTz wizard with third eye to steal his spells and infernal puppet to punish his miscasts. Another thing is to use cheap units of chaos hounds as chaff and redirectors to get in the way of and break up his formations. 

Against HE you lack with a WoC army good shooting and ASF to deal with his army. Also, I find WoC armies really struggle due to high points costs of lords and heroes at battles below 2250 and only become truly competitive at 2400 or 2500 points or more.


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## Hastour (Jul 15, 2012)

70 is a hell lot of marauders. Isn't such a formation too clumsy to move around the table? They have the larger base size after all. Btw, I found some ancient metal marauders with great weapons, good old models that fit nicely with the new plastics, and they had smaller bases those days.

It seems that the right way to deal with the spearmen will be some armoured warriors though, as they are likely to endure the puny strengh of spears. And the swordmasters, on the other hand, would be more easily overcome with a cheaper marauder horde.


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

Best way to deal with Spearmen+Teclis?

Tzeentch Caster with Third Eye of Tzeentch. If he Takes Life, you can just Dwellers. If he takes Shadow, Miasma (Lower Initiative) followed by Pit of Shades. Not to mention if he takes Shadow, you can Pendulum his Chariot into the floor, while Lore of Tzeentch allows Treason of Tzeentch to rape the Swordmasters/White Lions.

Try multiple units of 24/35. With 24, you might find them a bit weak in general.

As for your battle - 

Not too sure how you managed to squeeze 3 Heroes into your 375 limit - 115 for a Champion with Shield, 140 for a BSB of Tzeentch with Shield, and 120 for a Level 2 runs you to 375. Quite an expense.

Personally, drop the Lone Exalted Champion. He adds very little additional killing power to already hitty Marauders, and anything strong enough to withstand a unit of Marauders is strong enough to withstand a 2 Wound 3+/6++ character, even if he does have 4 S5 attacks. At the end of the day, it simply allows your opponent to save his character by placing it at the back by refusing the challenge.

In its place, give your BSB the Crown of Command and the unit the Standard of Discipline. Reroll Stubborn Ld9? Bring on the chariot. Good choice on the unit though - Shields+MoT is a lovely decision.

Tactics wise - Hefty negative modifiers, assuming maximum overkill, versus Ranks and Banner, you would be reduced to Ld5 - even with a reroll, you have 10 results out of 36 - around a 48% chance of success.

Knights - people swear buy them, and when I look at the math, I can't help but agree that MoK Knights are about as nasty as they come - only Monstrous Cavalry, Blood Knights, and and buffed Black Knights are equivalent, and they outprice the Chaos Knights completely. However, I just personally feel that they don't have a part to play in Chaos armies aside from looking awesome. They have very little support - Marauder Cav, even with MoK and Flails don't hit hard enough, fast enough, or are resilient enough to be considered a true support, the army needs to be built around the Chaos Knights, and with access to no save spells like Pit of Shades, Dwellers below, Okkam's Mindrazor, and Transmutation, multiple large units of Knights just run too much of a risk. However, that is just my opinion.

As for Spears versus the Knights - yes, very very bad luck to see them run off the battlefield - statistically and mathematically, the Spears are outclassed by the Knights.

If you want to troll with your friend, pick up some Chaos Dwarfs and Tamurkhan book from Forge World. Take ranged units galore.

A Level 4 Sorceror Prophet with the Lore of Hashut, and the Daemonflask of Hashut (400 pts), and 2 Magma Cannons (145 each) brings you to 590pts. The Magma Cannons love elves. A 24" Flame Template of S5, D3 wounding? The Lore of Hashut - gives you Hatred augment, a Sniper Spell, a cannonball spell, an anti-combat/range/magic/movement spell, and a Magical Vortex, while the Daemonflask just deletes the chariot and causes enemy units to panic.


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## Hastour (Jul 15, 2012)

Chaos Dwarfs...why not, they are cool anyway. Though I would first update my warriors collection to a decent size, as the Chaos Dwarfs models are somehow rare and expensive those days. 

It does seem that I overlooked the limit on heroes with that build... shame on me. Even more shame that I lost anyway  And you're right, the third champion was somehow useless. I just painted a new model and really wanted to use him. It's that finecast champion with two weapons, I swapped one of them for a mug of beer, so now it's the most cheerful drinking&dancing warrior in my army 

My knights are generally unlucky... In previous battles they got shot to pieces by bolt throwers, or charged by some lord on a flying monster and killed on the spot.

Those games I won, I did with magic, Treason of Tzeentch and Infernal Gataway rock. But it's not exactly a reliable way to win, some bad rolls for spells, casting or miscasts ruin my day.


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## Orochi (Jan 28, 2009)

My guess is Teclis will be camping under Banner of the World Dragon? Safest place for him to be.

Have you considered a big Block of Khorne Chosen? I really don't think HE have anything that can really fight off such a unit.


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

Many blocks of warriors works well against HE- they can't magic them all and you are basically better then anything they can throw at you. If they do run Teclis it'll hurt but as soon as you get a decent unit in combat with him you should kill him fairly easily.

I'm rarely a fan of chosen- they are incredibly powerful, but such an expensive unit, moving so slowly always seems like a waste to me: everytime I''ve played them I just avoid them and kill the weak stuff...


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## Orochi (Jan 28, 2009)

Would Sigvald make Chosen more viable? As he allows his unit to ignore terrain, correct?

Plus his 7 Str5 ASF attacks is quite deadly to elves.


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## olderplayer (Dec 11, 2009)

I read Vaz's point. A friend just won a tourney in June with a command unit of chaos knights (mounted BSB and mounted lvl2 with third eye) and a lord with Motz and 4+ ward save and crown of command on a disc that starts in the unit (disc is a war beast, so a lord mounted on a disc gets a look out sir because he is a cav model). He then runs a decent-sized unit of warriors (I think halberds and MoK) and two very large units of MoK marauders with great weapons. The key is the use of cheap 5 model war hound units to control the flow of combat and screen his models. He goes 4-1, occasionally, 3-2, and then placed overall on paint scores and sports. 

The other approach to a MoK knight unit (or MoTz or MoN with Banner of Rage) is to run chaos ogres with MoK and trolls as support units. They are only 1" less in movment and can take on things deadly to knights (units with killing blow) and with their large number of supporting attacks do very well. If you run Throgg, he gives a LD boost to the war hounds, ogres and trolls and trolls count as core. With ironguts being cheaper, you can convert ironguts into a 6 or 8 model unit of chaos ogres with great weapons and chaos armour and MoK and really go to town on an opponent.


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## olderplayer (Dec 11, 2009)

Sigvald is surprisingly good if you have a BSB in range to deal with his stupidity but he is very expensive. A lord on disc with Motz and Talisman of Protection and crown of command with the chaos knights is a good choice. 

If he goes with HE cheese, a unit of chaos chosen flanked by two MoTz war shrines with favour of the gods on the champ or a character and a banner giving them terror is incredibly annoying. You keep rolling and re-rolling on the gifts of gods table and changing the result with favour until you either hit one of the few numbers you cannot re-roll on or roll an 11 or 12 and get a unit with a 4+ ward save and stubborn. At that point, his only defense is to hide in a building and throw dwellers (if life) or one of the other unit spells to try to take down the size of the unit. 

I'd shoot the idiot who designed Teclis-loremaster, all doubles are irresistable force (Book of Hoeth), ignores first miscast each turn, gets a pumped dispel scroll (chance the opponent loses the spell), and gets +D3 extra PD and DD in each magic phase. I'm sure they thought his lack of an innate ward save and low S and T makes him vulnerable but get him in a building (especially in a folding fortress with like 10+ floors) with 50+ archers and a BSB with banner of world dragon and it is a horrible game to play against.


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## Hastour (Jul 15, 2012)

It's been some time since I posted here, and thanks to good advice and some battle experience I'm more confident in dealing with High Elves now.

During the last night's battle the huge block of spearmen was dealt with in the way you guys suggested here. First decimated with Treason of Tzeentch, then weakened with some throwing axes, and finished off by my warriors, which took only one casaulty in the process.

I had some nice results with the chariot as well, and I'm planning to build two more, as I still have some spare horses in my bits box. 

The "men of the match" award, however, goes to the brand new marauder horsemen, who took on a charge from an enemy general on a dragon and surprisingly killed it on the spot, then went on to do some shooting and harrassing behind enemy lines. Those guys have surely earned a promotion to chaos knights.

Still haven't encountered Teclis, but Tyrion gave me some serious headaches. I probably need a hero built for character killing, as I previously concentrated on dealing with large number of lightly armoured rank-and-file troops. (for this last task, the Stream of Corruption on my BSB seems to pay off nicely).


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

If you want a nice chariot model - 

Hero, BSB, Mark of Khorne, Great Weapon, Helm of Many Eyes, Breath Weapon Power, Soporific Musk, Mark of Khorne Chariot. 

Expensive, but charge him into an enemy unit, challenge and proceed to just steam roll it. It's effectively the same trick as what his Korhil pulls.


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