Warhammer Fantasy Battle Reporter Forum

Ironically, this is inspired by the recent high-profile list of Chaos Dwarfs that was put out.

One member of our group refuses to play against them because he thinks they are over powered and under costed...and that the list eliminated all the Dwarf Weaknesses without compensating.

ironically, he plays the Dark Elfs who do just exactly that to our beloved WoC.

Example; the two things the WoC do best are have heavily armored, hard hitting units and magic.

The Dark Elf army is replete with two of the cheapest tools in the game to eliminate those two advantages; the 50 point Ring of Hotek which makes any magic very, very dangerous and their nasty Repeater bolt Throwers which are readily available, very inexpensive, and allow no armor saves.

What do you call a WoC army with no magic and no armor save? Casualties.

So how exactly do you build your army to face the Dark Elf army? they have the ability to hang back behind 100 shots per turn between the Repeaters and those thrice-cursed Repeater Crossbows, forcing you to come into the teeth of their Cold One Knights and monster-heavy lists. What ways have you dealt with them?

You can try a couple things. Fall back and take a dragon, OK it's expensive but nothing puts the fear into an enemy faster than that thing. You're now faster than anything he has (unless he takes a dragon) and the only thing really going to touch it are the Bolt Throwers. To counter the Bolt Throwers another way a Lord or Sorc Lord on a Disc is a very fast way of getting to the Reapers and taking them out, you cause fear meaning he may not even attack you back and all Chaos characters are good in combat. You can load him out with the armour of "I only ever take one wound from any source and am immune to killing blow" and/or the "3+ ward save vs shooting" to make those Bolt thrower shots next to useless as he cruises in to take them out.

There are a number of nasty units so you really want to try and force him to prioritise targets so that something is going to hit his lines. You can Marauders and fitting in at least 2 units of Knights shouldn't be an issue, warhounds can also flank to go after those bolters. I know it sounds odd with Chaos but you almost want to try a target saturation approach, make him have a really hard time in deciding what to take out. You ideally want them to be reacting to what you are doing rather than dictating the flow of battle. Things like Giants and Shaggoths are also useful to soak up some firepower and pull it away from you units. OK, you might lose a 200pts model but it is normally going to take two turns to do it by which time you're combat troops should be hitting their lines. If they split between everything then you're going to bring a lot more power to bear when EVERYTHING hits their lines.

I would recommend large numbers of warhounds, marauders and marauder horsemen to get to grips with his shooters as quickly as possible. I would avoid high cost units against a dark Elves army unless they have some kind of shooty defence or ward saves.

I have always found Marauders are pointless as they cannot skirmish, move only 4" base and are easily march-blocked...and since there is a hill the great majority of the time, they cannot screen, either. The mounted Marauders are more valuable, but I have yet to have a Warhound do a casualty in 5 tries.

My other thought was marking a unit with tzeentch and giving them the banner that gives 5+ ward verse shooting which would then br a 4+...but only for one unit.

Which to me goes back to the idea that the DE army is pretty much pure cheese against WoC. Sad face goes here

dragon ogres and luck. chaos warriors take the shooting head on. for enermy march blockers take marauder horsemen with throwing axes. fire a hell cannon. get loads of wizards of any division. knights of tzeentch with blasted standard

Maybe just marauder horsemen then to close the gap ? Chaos Warriors are a costly death of points against DE.

Try deploying your better units on the table edge out of range to force your opponent closer. It won't give you much time to move your hard boys up but it might tempt the enemy closer for your cavalry.

I haven't got the book handy right now so I can't recall what flyers you have, if any ?

Take a flying character. Valkia yeah? Take a dragon/giant aswell. Soak up fire while your units come forward. Bring chaos knights. DE units wont hold against them, and hopefully theyl slide down the priority list with these other threats on the table. Use Valkia to immediately take dwon repeater bolt throwers, then flank for the rest or whatever.

We have a n "our group only" 2250 point, non-sanctioned tournament coming up. I will be facing Bretonnians, Dwarfs, Dark Elfs, Ogres, and Lizardmen. Should be a good chance to try a "take on all comers" style list. I am thinking of doing some goofy stuff like 2 Spawn, 3 Dragon Ogres, 2 5 man units of Knights, small blocks of Chaos Warriors, 1 unit of Marauder Horsemen, and a scroll caddy. Throw in a BSB with Banner of the Gods to make them all stubborn within 6" and just play straight out sledge-hammer, here I come non-sense. We will see.

a giant would almost be bad for soaking up fire because it could fall on your own troops and chaos warriors would take it in their stride

nothing that big can be ignored, and its toughness 5. Bolt throwers may be good, but still means all that if they fire on it thats the only shot theyl get in the game. Thats worth 200 points, as the throwers will be dead next turn possibly and your whole army is within charge range of DE, save warriors. Thats shooting effectively wasted. Why would you put your giant within falling distance of your troops if you knew it would be shot at?

Darth, have you tried giving all your units the mark of Nurgle ?

Infernal Gateway will get rid of it in short order. You just need to build that Sorc Lord in a very specific way to ensure his survival.