8th Ed. Warriors ofChaos

So a friend of mine who usually plays dwarves recently started a khorne WoC army. How do Saurus Warriors compare to WoC? I only have Lizardman and I am not sure what WoC have for base stats so if someone could give me some mathammer advice I would be greatly appreciative. Or, if someone could confirm wether the WoC in the WoC book ar the same as the ones in that CHOSEN OF CHAOS pdf which GW made would be great too because then I could do my own sort of mathahammer myself.

 

I cant mathammer it for you since it has been along time ive fougth them( my friends played them but he moved 3 years ago ) but i have a simple advice: DO NOT ENGAGE! they have awesome armour, awesome attacks (4 each if im correct) and high weapon skill and touhgness ( 5 and 4 respectively). they will simply chew your saurus for breakfast.

To engage them you will have to support your saurus with either some augent spells or a rather hard hitting flanking unit suc as Cold one cavalry.

You could also use the lore of metals to simply make them evaporate( they die that fast due to their high armor save).

 

stats for chosen of chaos:

M - same as saurus
WS - EDIT: as an oldblood. sorry
BS - who cares?
S - same as a saurus
T - same as a saurus
W - same as a saurus
I - Same as an elf
A - same as a saurus
Ld - same as a saurus
Armour - same as an oldblood (+possibly shields)

i addition to this, they get a random blessing that (usually) increases one of the key stats such as attacks or S. And dont forget that they can have a mark of chaos too. they are indeed very nasty. do not engage unless you have augments active (or hex them badly). TG with regen, and/or extra toughness will make short work of them, but not much else will. If they do not have halbersd/GWs an ancient stegadon can give them a match too. they do NOT like being stomped, since they are so expensive.

Common combos for chosen are mark of tzeench + shields, giving them a 5+ ward in CC (and a banner giving them a 4+ ward vs ranged/magic) or mark of khorne + halberd giving them 3+ attacks with high S and WS. Use brains rather than brawn to defeat either. do not fight them unless you know you have the upper hand.

 

Hello,
Chosen have WS same as an OldBlood...
And with a proper Blessing from a Shrine they can have a 3+ Ward save...
Well When it comes to fighting WoCh my exp is near 0, but You have to watch out for Pandemonium, Infernal Puppet, and of a Hell Cannon(some commando skinks should get rid of it
I find an EotG quite Effective vs Khorne Warriors (Not chosen)
Cheers,

 

My reccomendation is to take a light slann and cast speed of light on them or even better birona's timewarp and then saurus can easily take chaos warriors on in combat.

 

My primary army is WoC while my second army is Lizardmen, so I know the ins and outs for each. Things to look out for.

Third Eye of tzetch. This ability allows the opposing Sorcerer to either choose you spells or is at the phase. Either he will be on a main L4 or a backup caster, giving your opponent a great deal of flexibility. It also may make it tough to decide which aster to cogitate. You will also have to be careful on what lore to choose. I have used a Slann’s own Dwellers spell several times to kill him. I would stick with Light. His magic tends to be more offensive oriented, so you will take your licks early in the game. Do not be surprised when his miscasts have little effect on him due to the puppet.

Chosen- Do not engage, no matter how small a unit. I would distract with skinks.

Marauders- MoK, GW, Horde can hit like a ton of bricks. They are also naked T3 and will die in droves to Salamanders.

Warriors- Better (WS,I,AS, and weapon choice) than your Suarus, so you will need to buff/hex to even it up.

Kill his chaff units quickly (usually hounds), then use your skinks to dictate the movement phase until you can charge one of his units with multiple of yours. Do this and you will not even need the Slann.

Good luck

 

Thanks for the tips. We played 4 games, one at 500, one at 1000, one at 2000, and one at 3000.

I won all four battles, but let me tell you it wasn't easy.
For the 500 point game I think my list went something like this
Scar-Vet
random equipment
19 Saurus warriors HW/S
10 Skink skirmishers
10 skink skirmishers
10 skink skirmishers
1 Salamander
6 chameleons

His list was like
Exalted champion
chariot

10x warriors
10x Marauders
15x marauders
5x warhounds
5x warhounds
5 Marauder horsemen

The Salamander and the skinks killed both his marauder units and his warhounds. The Chamos wittled away at the warriors and when they reached my saurus there were only 4 left. His chariot chased most of my skinks off the table, but they were not worth enough points to swing the battle his way. Chamo skinks are defenity MVPs of this game.


Can't remember his list for 1000 points but he didn't have any warriors, and he had so many marauders I thought I was playing Skaven. It was scary at first. Luckily I brought 3 salamanders. one of them ate all of the it;s handler's but the other two were golden. Marauders are pretty muushy compared to Saurus.



2000

This is where I nearly lost.
I took a pretty standard list Saurus, skinks, skrox, TG+slann (lore of life), etc... I also took Tetto'eko (or w/e his name is).

I severely misjudged his Chosen. Those guys are seriously broken. They killed 2 of my 3 saurus unitsI dominated the magic phase, and where I won the battle was with tetto'eko. The comet completely destroyed his Chosen unit, and my t* regenerating Saurus procedded to wipe up the rest of his unit. With his characters in their, that nit was worth over 1000 points.



3k had virtually the same result as the 2k game, except I managed to squeeze a Light slann and a Carnie Lord in. Carnosaur need a ward save or something cause it just has no survivablility at all.

It was fun and I learned alot. I was tempted to try lore of metal, it seems interesting.

 

Why? Comet is nowhere near as good as any of the other magic nukes (once you pick a spot, you opponent just has to move to make it worthless).

No, they're his Deathstar. Don't ever engage them with just Saurus, especially not unbuffed. Good work nuking them with Comet, but 'Dwellers' would work just as well and affect his entire unit.

Nah, it just needs a price reduction. The balancing factor for monsters is they have no ward, so massed attacks or single powerful attacks can kill them off.

 

Ah, did I not warn you about engaging the Chosen. You were lucky to nuke it with a comet.

I disagree when it comes to Dwellers. I take a single warshrine, so have two buffs on the unit. I shoot for St and Divine Greatness when faced with a life wizard. At St 5, Dwellers can only kill a small number. I give my own Sorc the Necrotic Phylactery, which makes him immune to that spell (auto pass the st test).

On the other hand, I park my sorc 24 inches away from whatever unit the slann is in but over 24 inches away from the Slann (No cogititaion). I six dice Dwellers and watch my opponent sweat as his slann has to make a st test or die. The puppet will mitigate whatever miscast I take and the charmed shield bounces that first wound. Rinse and repeat as neccassary.

The best way to deal with Chosen is to park a succesion of cheap chaff units in front of it. blowpipe however many hound units he has so they can not clear the path.

Hinge

 

You're not guaranteed to get those upgrades though. If you do, yes 'Dwellers' is less effective. But if we're playing that game, I'm rolling Double Slann w/Shadow as backup, casting 'Enfeeble' to wear you down anyway.
The advantage 'Dwellers' has is it will never scatter, it can't be dodged (Comet can be avoided), and its a relatively easy cast for a Slann (in terms of nukes).

You don't mitigate anything. All Miscast results are terrible, the best you can hope for is you only lose D6 power dice (which, after burning 6, means your Magic phase is effectively over). Charmed Shield only helps you survive, you might still blow up the Chosen you're with. And it doesn't prevent you losing spells or Wizard levels (one of the results).

Anyway, even on six dice, you still might not make casting value or roll IF (I've seen it before, its not often but it happens). It's a big gamble, well worth it if you nuke the Slann, but it's not like you'll emerge unscathed.

And watch them eat it all? Cool, just give my opponent VP's for nothing.
You kill Chosen with magic, the same way everyone does. 'Pit' needs a 'Miasma' on them first to work (I6 is annoying like that), but 'Dwellers' will still work just fine unless he rolls really well on the blessing table.

 

Which is why I beat every Lizard man opponent I face at a tourney.

Let’s start with the Chosen rolls on the Eye of the gods. With a Wailing Banner and the Favor on the champ, I am only required to accept a roll of 11 or 12 (Divine Greatness-3++ and stubborn) or a 4 or 5, each of which can be pushed to a +1 st (useful for both Dwellers and slugging it out with Suarus). This is not luck but a certainty. So two thirds of the games I start with St 5 and a the other third with a 3++ ward. That is before I get the opportunity to buff with the Warshrine.

So now either Pit or Dwellers will likely be killing a chosen model 1/6th of the time. Certainly you could use Enfeeble/Dwellers or Miasma/Pit combos to increase the odds. I would aim to dispel the hex spells and accept the “nuke” spell. This is doubly so since my Sorcerer automatically passes all characteristics tests! Feel free to expend a lot of effort killing 1-3 Chosen a turn.

Yes, the puppet does mitigate the results of a miscast. Some results are worse than others. The ability to adjust the miscast result by d3 is huge and will make it highly unlikely that I have to accept a result that can kill the sorcerer out right or lose levels. Yes, killing a couple of chosen (and that is all it would be) for a 50% chance to gank a slann is a trade I would make every time. BTW, who goes for IF without expending all their other dice first? Finally, since I have borrowed your dwellers, I can just as easily borrow your throne of vines, which will be the first thing I cast if given enough dice.

As you rightly point out, I could fail to get IF. In all honesty, you would need to use your scroll to avoid risking your Slann on a poor dispel roll (not to mention you likely used them to stop throne). That is fine, I will wash, rinse, and repeat the next turn. In fact, once the scroll is pulled, I am less worried about needing to power an IF through.

Look, the bottom line is that whatever magic trick you think you can pull on WoC can boomerang right back at you. Take shadow and eat a Pit of Shades (much more effective against Lizards then WoC). Take Life and face dwellers on your Slann. Light is the best choice since the buffs give your troops a leg up and the best he can do is even the playing field. Actually If I knew I was facing Warriors, I would take Metal. Just give your suarus heroes the 2+ ward against flaming attacks.

Finally, the point of a Warhammer game is to win. Well actually to have fun, but you know what I mean. The best way to do that is to dominate the movement phase. You do this by bringing a slew of expendable units to dictate your opponent’s ability to move. This will allow you to pick and choose which combats to engage in and under what conditions. While my opponents’ Chosen Star of death is whacking 70 point units, I am destroying 200-350 point units of his. I may be giving my opponents VP, but they are not free. The expenditure of every unit buys me something. That may be simply a turn but it is an advantage. It is what you do with that advantage that will determine the outcome.

So play your way, depend on lucky winds of magic rolls, and slay a couple of Chosen while I march them across the table unhindered where they will score more victory points then if you had simply fed them cheap units.

PS-

Actually, the best way to deal with the Chosen is to jam an ethereal/stubborn/BSB Slann into its face and laugh as your opponents Chosen Star does nothing all game.

 

the comet did fine for me, but he did fail a surprising number of 3+ Ward Saves...

 

What is the alternative? I just feed them Skinks and forfeit if they break through? Magic is the only way they'll die. 3++ is just too strong, gun magic doesn't work, Salamanders don't work, close-combat is a joke even if I roll 'Light' buffs to boost my Saurus/TG battleline.

Killing the Sorceror is impossible anyway, I'm not shooting for that. But wearing down those Chosen with repeated nukes is pretty much the only option for killing them.

You are Tier 1, Lizzies are Tier 2 on a good day, Tier 3 if they don't mono-build. It's hardly surprising.

Well, magic tricks is all we have, so too bad. I know you'll be throwing out nukes back my way anyway, what with 'Infernal Gateway' being available on at least one of your Sorcerors. Light sucks, I buff my infantry only to discover 'hey Chosen outgrind me anyway'. Metal is even worse. Gun magic is useless against 3+ ward, 'Final Transformation' is a 5+ so its just as bad as unhexed nukes going at you (ie I6 against 'Pit' or S4 against 'Dwellers'). 2+ ward is great on characters, it doesn't mean jack when your regular attacks from Chosen eat my Scar-Vets and Old-Bloods anyway.

Eh, my point is I'd rather hope to nuke the Chosen before they get close, rather than hoping re-directs will do it. No guarantee Skinks are even going to alive to do such shenanigans, your casual gun magic from Tzeentch or normal Lores will take care of them easily. I'd still try and run blowpipes up and get in the way (just like against everyone), but you'll probably gun them down before they reach the Chosen.

What a great plan! Throw away a 300pt+ Level 4 mage, and watch your Sorceror General or BSB eat him with a magic weapon/spells!
Nope.

 

Lizardmen are a tier 2, borderline tier 3 army? Uh no. Access to the most point efficient caster in the game (not to mention its wonderful special abilities), 2 fantastic arcane items (Cupped Hands, cube of Darkness), cheap back up casters, fast skirmishers, flyers, scouts, solid HtH troops, strong shooting, monsters and Cold Blooded! Top tier for sure. But if you need empirical proof, a quick look at Rankings HQ shows Lizardmen as the number one army, narrowly edging out WoC.

http://rankingshq.com/rankings/default.aspx?GameSystemId=2&RegionId=13

Click on the Army rankings tab.

Magic tricks is not all we have. I have brought my Carno led Lizardmen to 4 Indy GTs and walked away with 2 Best Overalls, a Best General, and the last one I made it to Table 1 on the final round before losing to skaven. At no point did I need magic tricks to win.

Let’s examine the Chosen Star. A “typical” set up is 18 models (6x3), Wailing Banner, Favor, MoT, Shields and either Halberds or GW. This comes in at 485 points. As you point out, characters are often thrown in. BSB and Sorc will bring another 600 points. So the unit is now worth 1000 points and represents a significant portion of the opponent’s force (not to mention his investment in warshrines). You should easily “out deploy” him. 3 units of skinks, 2 individual sallies, and a terradon unit is 6 deployables with out tipping your hand. Of course, he will have +1 so will likely go first.

The first two turns he spends getting his Chosen into charge range. On your turn two, you place two lines of skinks in front (preferably off set and away from your slann/Suarus) of his Chosen. He must either spend a turn reforming to get around you, in which case you use the superior speed of the skinks to do it again. Likely he charges the first line of skinks and you flee through the second line. Since he now cannot reach his initial charge target, he redirects at the second line, which now flees through the first fleeing unit. The Chosen cannot reach their second target and fail charge (not being able to redirect a third time). If you offset properly, his failed charge will wheel him away from you. On your turn three, move a single Sallie in front of him and angled such that an overrun takes him to a bad spot. The two fleeing skink units then rally. His turn four, he charges the sallie, kills it, and reforms back towards the main event. You then move the two skink units back and repeat.

Lots of things can go wrong. Failure to make panic/terror checks, failure to rally, poor flee distances, etc. Having the BSB/general close by helps mitigate some of this. You should also have other chaff units ready to step in. Redundancy can make up for poor dice rolls. It is also important to spend the first 2 turns gunning down any of his chaff units he could use to clear the path for his Chosen. Hounds, Fast Cav, and Chariots are target number one. In this example, I have used 215 points to lock down 1000 points of the enemy. Even if he destroys all 215, the WoC player will be in a bad spot since I should be using 2250 points of my army to crush the remaining 1500 points of his.

BTW, Terradons are even better in this role since they can feign flight and pull this maneuver off in successive turns.

In the end, not engaging the Chosen, even at the expense of 200-300 points is still the best method. The Chosen is a center piece to his strategy and force structure, is expensive, and really needs to get in to mix it up with your combat blocks for him to win. Neutralizing it not only kicks the legs out of his strategic concept, but allows you to bring overwhelming force against the rest of his army.

With 4 chaff units, the Chosen should never be able “to break through” your lines.

Hinge

 

very nice post hinge. thanks. glad the "movement phase is king"-culture is alive and well even outside my tiny gaming group

 

Could you draw a picture? It seems to me that woc wil just charge skinks with units on the flanks of woc, either they flee out of the way, or both units die.

 

@Lord Tsunami-

Thanks. I find the movement phase the most rewarding phase of the game. It is less dependent on dice rolling and more dependent on generalship. If I can force a game to be determined in that phase, then I believe I have an edge. Too many players ignore that phase IMO. Even if I am out played in the movement phase and lose the match, it feels more satisfying then if the match was determined by dice rolling.

@wbarobinson-

That is why it is important to wipe out any “light” units your opponent may have quickly. If he is only left with big combat blocks, I would be happy if they flank charge the chaff units I have assigned to tangle with the Chosen.

If he declares a charge with a large combat block against one of the skink units, then I choose to hold and really lock up his Chosen. My opponent has committed a huge excess of force to kill a single 70 point unit and likely put two combat blocks in bad position. The rest of his army is even more unsupported and gives me an even greater advantage.

I will put a couple of scenarios together with Battle Chronicler this week.

Hinge

 

Hello,
I must say Hinge It is a pleasure to read posts such as those(even if I am at work
As up now I am playtesting an old ETC army. I mean Old ETC rules, there are no ETC rules for this year.
And i Tried a Metal Slann because he has answears vs Cavalery and Cowboys(lone heroes with 1+sv 2+ flame ward etc)
I usually field 3x10 Skink Skirmishers 3x10 chamelaons(To take care of Hell Cannons and Shrines) and some kohorts, Razordons, Terrradons. I just Dakka Dakka everything
When i manage to cast Plague of Rust on a unit and Enchanted Blades on My razordons(And sometimes Harmonic) They start to kill everything, reducing As from 3+ to 6+ and then a 3+ Ward isin't so bad...
But i don't know If it will do the trick for a longer run. Sadlly WoCh make shoes from Lizardmen at the moment
P.S Hinge I heard that WoCh will come up after Empire so enjoy your Ifernal Puppet and 3++ while you Can

 

Point efficient? 275 base, no combat ability at all, all his upgrades are expensive. Also forces you to take TG bunker (good and bad), unless you pay even more for Ethereal (questionable given everyone puts magic weapons on their combat heroes anyway, and magic still kills him). Slann are awesome, but we shell out so much to field them. Invalidates any other Lord selections as well, due to eating up the percentages so quickly.
Cube is kinda situational, and can backfire (it's annoying with Life, Shadow or Death, as it cancels the RIP you were casting as well), the remove RIP is on a 4+ as well. It's also quite expensive, you give up any other items on a Priest essentially or again, raising the cost of the Hypnotoad (and eating his arcane slot, meaning if he takes it no Hands).
Cupped Hands is essential however, there is invariably something we want to IF through (and statistically you'll miscast at least once per game).
Priests are the same price as Level 1's and 2's from most other books. On the downside, they are saddled with the questionable Heavens Lore (except in SoM, where 'Fantastic Foresight' will win you the game). The real value of a Priest is operating the EOTG (singular, as it's close to impossible to field two, due to percentages), and in carrying stuff like Blood Statuette, the dispel scroll or Ring of Rhuin (which obviously don't belong on Scar-Vets and will just further jack up the cost of Slann).
Our skirmishers, flying units, and Scouts are all suicide units (and some are too cost prohibitive in smaller games to fit in with the mandatory Core, TG bunker, Slann and Salamanders).
Saurus and TG do fine against chaff, but throw in a combat rock or Knights and they are in serious trouble (they're only marginally less expensive and they go last without Light magic up). They get Steadfast, Cold Blooded etc, but in practise that can mean they don't run from fights they're already losing.
Our shooting outside Salamanders is non-existant. Blowpipes kill a narrow range of things effectively (unarmoured monsters and monstrous infantry), and they will most likely get one volley in before dying. Magic artillery is how we balance against actual shooty armies (y'know, with real warmachines, not the gimped bolt throwers or silly giant blowpipes we are saddled with).
Monsters...Stegs are good, Salamanders are good, thats it really. Monsters are kind of unimportant in 8th. Carnosaur is fun, and not being a Large Target helps him hide better than most, but he's actually impossible to field with a Slann.

I don't know how they rank Lizardmen above WoC, vagaries of tournaments I guess.
I'm speaking more about 'if you build a proper list, how does it rank', not 'players taking terrible builds of tier 1 armies against the mono-builds of the tier 2/3', which may or may not have been the case in those games (or simply the vagaries of Warhammer etc). WoC faceroll Lizardmen in most situations, you have to avoid taking Warriors and Chosen and Tzeentch Sorcerors (and any useful magic items) to gimp them hard enough for Lizardmen to outfight on fair terms (in straight Core trade and Special trades). And if you're doing that, you aren't playing competitive WoC by definition. Not saying you can't beat WoC (dice rolls can always screw them and/or favour you), but it's an uphill battle for sure, and I definitely wouldn't rank Lizardmen ahead of WoC.

Not going to detract from your wins, but that is really surprising. I'd be really interested to see what builds you fought, and how individual games went. I guess without the deadweight of Slann and TG eating up so many points (and EOTG), you have a lot more units and options with deployment. Do you Steg spam to make your Carnosaur less of a cannonball/magic nuke magnet?

I won't deny thats an effective strategy (and I wouldn't NOT do it), but it's a reasonable expectation he'll just set those chaff units on fire with gun magic or the Hellcannon and power through anyway. In his shoes, it's what I would do (because it's obvious that if said delaying units die/run, there is no roadblock). Some WoC players also have their own flanker/disruption units (Marauder Cav, Knights, even cheap Marauder blocks), who can potentially clear the way (either by killing the roadblock themselves or forcing you to re-direct them instead of the Chosen, to prevent stuff like Knights slamming into the flank of a Saurus block).

Awesome. I know I'm disagreeing with you, but it's from a position of 'I think there are obvious counters so it might not always work'. I'm keen to see it work in practise, and how to shut down the obvious counters I mentioned (ie gunning down/redirecting the redirectors).

I won't deny they need a nerf, but I don't know how much nerfing they'll need or even get. They might just do the usual style of balancing the army magic lores (from insane to decent), remove 90% of the magic items, do a bit of cost re-writing and make more than four units playable. It'll take a lot to make the current template unusable (Tzeentch Sorcerors+Chosen+Warshrine+Warriors+Marauders+Hellcannon).

 

@Taipan-

Yep. Point efficient for a Lvl 4, built in 4+ ward (so does not count against magic item cap), 5 wounds, Ld9, and a built in special ability (Cog, Rum, Loremaster, whatever).

Empire L4, 4+ ward. 255 Inferior in every way.
DE L4, 4 + ward. 305 Has extra spell and no cap on dice.
WoC L4, 4+ Ward. 315 Comes with 4+ armor and fights as well as a WoC Champion. Only Ld8.
Grey Seer L4, 4+ Ward, 285 Comes with Warpstone tokens. Ld7.

I think you will find most level fours coming in somewhere between 215 (gobo) to 315 when you factor in buying a 4 ward (something the Slann already has), none have 5 wounds, an excellent enhancement for free, cold blooded ability, and can double as BSB if need be. It gets tough to shoe horn another lord in because we start loading the slann up with goodies. Plus Oldbloods are not cheap.

I disagree that a temple guard is mandatory for a slann. Every other army finds solutions for keeping their L4 casters relatively safe. Have the slann run around with some skinks in the back field.

Sure vagaries of tournies could factor in. They take the top 30 scores posted by each army across the US, so I would think that would even it out. However, the scores are very close with Skaven coming in a near third.

In the end, I am not saying there are counters to using chaff units, but it soon becomes a resource allocation issue for him. While he is expending all this energy and firepower destroying or chasing away these chaff units, what is the rest of your army doing to him? If he wants to shoot his Hellcannon at skirmishers rather than a ranked unit of Suarus, be my guest. The most important point is he has to kill the unit to a man, otherwise they remain effective in their sacrificial role.

Indeed, opposing chaff units are the best counter. That is why going after his chaff is important early. It has the added benefit that it can score you the points back that you are about to sacrifice. Blowpipes are not great against ranked units but they do wonders against fast cav and hounds.

I will post a little blurb in the Bat rep section on my Carno list, tournies, and armies I faced. There were one or two battles that were really interesting. If I can figure out how to get images onto this forum, I will do one up.

@Epjok-

Yep. I heard that WoC was coming up. I really only like the puppet to counter the Dreaded 13th, cupped hands, and dark elves and their gazillon power dice. Otherwise it is not hugely neccassary. In fact, I have been experimenting with a fighty lord and only a l2.

Hinge