8th Ed. Chaos Warriors Tactics - Fulfilling the plans of the Old Ones...

[Scalenex]

Okay, so cudo's to @ASSASIN_NR_1 and @Scalenex for their advice.

I've reworked and this is plan currently:

OB on CO - Steg Helm, Talisman of Preservation, Other Tricksters Shard, GW with 5 COR with Chamion

35 Saurus with spears, with SV BSB with Razor Banner and SV with GW and Armour of Destiny

21 TG with skavenpelt banner bunkering a Metal Slann with Becalming Cogitation, Harmonic Convergence and Channeling staff

2 Ancient Stegadons with EotG for 6+ save (one for each infantry block as above for their own 6+ ward, impact hits and thunderstomp)

5 units of 10 skink skirmishers for monster hunting, fluff hunting or redirecting

2 Skink Priests, one with cloak of feathers to get where I need to be for missles/direct damage spells and the other with egg of quango to (hopefully) give the inevitable DP or Chaos Knights a nasty surprise when they charge thinking to get a quick kill.

What do you reckon?

Reaching out to @NIGHTBRINGER and @LORD-AGRAGAX-OF-LUNAXOATL as well if they would do me the honor of sharing their experience!

Cheers!

This is solid in balance. This is a personal preference, not a universal law, but in larger points games I like having LOTS of Temple Guard. Given the points level you are working with, in your shoes I would take more Temple Guard. Like 31 instead of 21. Or even more.

Basically if I have points left over, I will use the extra points to buy more Temple Guard even if it's an oddball number of Temple Guard like 27 or something.

 

[Lizards of Renown]

This is solid in balance. This is a personal preference, not a universal law, but in larger points games I like having LOTS of Temple Guard. Given the points level you are working with, in your shoes I would take more Temple Guard. Like 31 instead of 21. Or even more.

Basically if I have points left over, I will use the extra points to buy more Temple Guard even if it's an oddball number of Temple Guard like 27 or something.

Okay, sounds good. I'll look over where to chip off points from as I'm up to the limit on the 3K battle that we'll do.

Do you think I should invest more in the TG and reduce the Saurus unit? Make the Saurus Unit literally just a tarpit and keep the BSB in there?

Then my battle tactics will center around:

Use the two infantry/steg blocks as two pincers to go for the chaos warrior units. Use the skinks to either pepper these before hand, redirect or hunt additional Trolls or some other monster. Use the COR bus with OB to go after the Knights once they've been Egg'ed and then swing round to go after the Chaos warriors. I'm definitely planning a VERY offensive strike, as opposed to hanging back like I did last time, and to get straight in there with the Skinks first (shooting, stand and shoot rather than fleeing to hold up his movement), while the CO bus hits the knights and then follow up with the Saurus/TG units.

I'll have to adapt to what he comes up with as he is a VERY sneaky player, but he did admit last time that I almost got him (if I hadn't mistakenly left my TG/Slann flank unprotected, I probably could still have one despite his very lucky chaos cannon shots). So guaranteed he'll trying to be out-thinking me on what he saw did very well (magic, stegs mostly).

I don't know what to say, magic is still my biggest advantage as the upgrades for Slann make them VERY competitive so even though I know he'll be stocking up on dispel scrolls, etc. I still need to lean into that. Hopefully adding the EotG for reduced Metal costs and for cheap short range magic attacks for both STegs if I end up with spare dice will give me the advantage I need.

 

[Scalenex]

Okay, sounds good. I'll look over where to chip off points from as I'm up to the limit on the 3K battle that we'll do.

Oh, I thought you were running a 5k not a 3K game. I still think you need more Temple Guard. When I play 3000 points, I set 26 Temple Guard as my baseline. If I have extra points, I'll add a few bodies, but 26 is probably plenty. At 5000+ points (which I only did once). I would probably go for 36

give or take. In my 6000 points game I had two Slann and I think I two units of 31.

Make the Saurus Unit literally just a tarpit and keep the BSB in there?

With the right support, a Saurus unit can be an anvil. A Saurus unit should never be a tarpit. Use cohort Skinks to be a tarpit. A tarpit's job is to die slowly and hold up a unit basically indefinitely. You want to sacrifice 5 point Skinks instead of 11 point Saurus Warriors. That's just good math.

An anvil doesn't have to stall a unit indefinitely. They just need to last long enough to let a your hammer unit hit the target.

Do most of the Warriors of Chaos you fight wield great weapons? Against great weapon Chaos Warriors, Saurus Warriors and Cohort Skinks will die at the same rate. Against halberd Chaos Warriors, Saurus Warriors will survive slightly longer. Against HWS Chaos Warriors, Saurus Warriors will survive quite a bit longer, but they will still eventually lose a fair fight with Chaos Warriors.


Your basic strategy seems solid. You should consider posting your army list. I know our army list forum doesn't get a lot of traffic these days, but if you flag me, I'll give it a look. I wouldn't change anything big on your army list concept. I would just advice a few more Temple Guard and less/fewer ______. Without seeing your full list I cannot tell you what _____ is.

 

[Lizards of Renown]

Oh, I thought you were running a 5k not a 3K game. I still think you need more Temple Guard. When I play 3000 points, I set 26 Temple Guard as my baseline. If I have extra points, I'll add a few bodies, but 26 is probably plenty. At 5000+ points (which I only did once). I would probably go for 36

give or take. In my 6000 points game I had two Slann and I think I two units of 31.



With the right support, a Saurus unit can be an anvil. A Saurus unit should never be a tarpit. Use cohort Skinks to be a tarpit. A tarpit's job is to die slowly and hold up a unit basically indefinitely. You want to sacrifice 5 point Skinks instead of 11 point Saurus Warriors. That's just good math.

An anvil doesn't have to stall a unit indefinitely. They just need to last long enough to let a your hammer unit hit the target.

Do most of the Warriors of Chaos you fight wield great weapons? Against great weapon Chaos Warriors, Saurus Warriors and Cohort Skinks will die at the same rate. Against halberd Chaos Warriors, Saurus Warriors will survive slightly longer. Against HWS Chaos Warriors, Saurus Warriors will survive quite a bit longer, but they will still eventually lose a fair fight with Chaos Warriors.


Your basic strategy seems solid. You should consider posting your army list. I know our army list forum doesn't get a lot of traffic these days, but if you flag me, I'll give it a look. I wouldn't change anything big on your army list concept. I would just advice a few more Temple Guard and less/fewer ______. Without seeing your full list I cannot tell you what _____ is.

I'll stick it here for now (not sure how to post it ):

---

OB on CO - Steg Helm, Talisman of Preservation, Other Tricksters Shard, GW with 5 COR with Champion

35 Saurus with spears, with SV BSB with Razor Banner and SV with GW and Armour of Destiny

21 TG with skavenpelt banner bunkering a Metal Slann with Becalming Cogitation, Harmonic Convergence and Channeling staff

2 Ancient Stegadons with EotG for 6+ save (one for each infantry block as above for their own 6+ ward, impact hits and thunderstomp)

5 units of 10 skink skirmishers for monster hunting, fluff hunting or redirecting

2 Skink Priests, one with cloak of feathers to get where I need to be for missles/direct damage spells and the other with egg of quango to (hopefully) give the inevitable DP or Chaos Knights a nasty surprise when they charge thinking to get a quick kill.

---

I could cut out one unit of Skink Skirmishers and add some TG...

Anyways, let me know what you think. I'm just the Padawan here!

 

[Lizards of Renown]

Oh, I thought you were running a 5k not a 3K game. I still think you need more Temple Guard. When I play 3000 points, I set 26 Temple Guard as my baseline. If I have extra points, I'll add a few bodies, but 26 is probably plenty. At 5000+ points (which I only did once). I would probably go for 36

give or take. In my 6000 points game I had two Slann and I think I two units of 31.



With the right support, a Saurus unit can be an anvil. A Saurus unit should never be a tarpit. Use cohort Skinks to be a tarpit. A tarpit's job is to die slowly and hold up a unit basically indefinitely. You want to sacrifice 5 point Skinks instead of 11 point Saurus Warriors. That's just good math.

An anvil doesn't have to stall a unit indefinitely. They just need to last long enough to let a your hammer unit hit the target.

Do most of the Warriors of Chaos you fight wield great weapons? Against great weapon Chaos Warriors, Saurus Warriors and Cohort Skinks will die at the same rate. Against halberd Chaos Warriors, Saurus Warriors will survive slightly longer. Against HWS Chaos Warriors, Saurus Warriors will survive quite a bit longer, but they will still eventually lose a fair fight with Chaos Warriors.


Your basic strategy seems solid. You should consider posting your army list. I know our army list forum doesn't get a lot of traffic these days, but if you flag me, I'll give it a look. I wouldn't change anything big on your army list concept. I would just advice a few more Temple Guard and less/fewer ______. Without seeing your full list I cannot tell you what _____ is.

Actually I could make the two SV's into one BSB with Armour of Destiny and Stick that in the Saurus unit, then use the spare points to bulk out the TG instead of using up my flak. Maybe also some more Saurus so they can really suck up the causalties and still maintain steadfast with rank bonus.

 

[Scalenex]

Lizardmen are unique in that we are the only army that is allowed to make the Slann the general and the BSB. It's usually advantageous to do this. I would advise putting all your eggs in one basket. Your Slann is your primary caster, your general, and your biggest single points unit. It's very little consolation if you lose a Slann but you have a Saurus BSB still alive.

More likely your Saurus BSB will get picked off individually and then your Temple Guard will fail a break test. Temple Guard with a Slann general and BSB are going to pass 100% of their break tests, especially if you involve the Standard of Discipline (which is nice and cheap and raises your Slann/general's Ld to 10). That's something I personally take for granted.

I believe for Lizardmen armies with Slann you want to put all your eggs in one basket and fortify your basket with everything you have.

2 Skink Priests, one with cloak of feathers to get where I need to be for missles/direct damage spells

Cloak of feather is nice, but it's a luxury. I would rather use those points for more Temple Guard. A Skink priest in a unit of Skirmishers has a 12 inch march move and can move in any direction. That's almost as good as a cloak of feathers.

and the other with egg of quango to (hopefully) give the inevitable DP or Chaos Knights a nasty surprise when they charge thinking to get a quick kill.

Hypothetically lets say your Skink priest and his Skirmisher units gets charged by a group of Chaos knights and then you roll a 4+ with the Egg of Quango and when you score 2d6 Strength 5 hits you roll 12 hits, huzzah.

12 hits, 2/3 of them wound. That's 8. Chaos knights have a 1+ save which becomes a 3+ save. That means you are only going to kill 2 or 3 knights under ideal circumstances. The Skinks will be butchered liked sheep and the Knights have +1 CR for charging and +1 for a standard. Despite losing a couple men, the knights are almost certainly going to break and run down the Skinks, Egg or no Egg, even if you rolling 6s like it's going out of style.

Generally speaking, the Egg of Quango is for offense, not defense. The Egg of Quango might be a nice surprise for a Slann to carry or even a Saurus OB. But the traditional use for the Egg of Quango is to give it to a Skink chief on a Terradon or Ripper.

You'd be better off using the points for Temple Guard.

SV BSB with Razor Banner and SV with GW and Armour of Destiny

That is against rules. Except for Slann, it is illegal for any BSB with a magic banner to have any magical items, so IF you run with a Saurus BSB then either Razor Banner has to go or the Armor of Destiny has to go. Personally, I think it's a bad rule and I wouldn't mind house ruling that BSBs of all stripes can bear magical banners and magical items, but if you want to play the RAW, you should drop the Razor Banner because a BSB with a magic banner and no magical defenses is basically a pile of free victory points for your opponent.

My advice is to definitely give the BSB to the Slann. You might want to consider dropping the Scar Veteran altogether. You probably want to give him a great weapon and tool him up for offense. If a character is not a BSB, general, or spell-caster, an opponent is unlikely to bother allocating attacks against said character, at least in my experience. In most cases, I can get away with Scar Veterans packing great weapons and possessing no defensive magical items at all because the enemy always tries to kill rank and file Saurus Warriors instead.

Or perhaps, give the Egg of Quango to your Scar Veteran. Then your Saurus Warriors will have comparable killing power to the Temple Guard for one round at least.

2 Ancient Stegadons with EotG for 6+ save (one for each infantry block as above for their own 6+ ward, impact hits and thunderstomp)

I was going to say that you don't need to do this because your Saurus have a parry save but then I noticed you gave them spears. That's how rarely I use spears on my Saurus, I forget it's an option. This double EOTG Steggies is a good choice here.

If you are really desperate for more TG bodies, you could drop the EOTG. If you do, you probably want to give the Saurus Warriors swords and board and you probably want to give the Slann the Iron Curse Icon to defend your TG against the Hellcannon. In fact you might want to do that anyway just in case the TG get hit by a Hellcannon after the Steggies are dead. Iron Curse Icons are only 5 points.

I could cut out one unit of Skink Skirmishers and add some TG...

It's hard to have too many Skink Skirmishers, but 40 is probably plenty. You don't need 50. Especially since Chaos Warriors are hard to shoot at with Skinks.

 

[Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl]

Ah yes, Warriors of Chaos, the single most broken army in the game. Good luck with this one mate.

Having a look at your army list, I have the following observations:

• Liking the Temple Guard bunker a lot. Reliable 4+ save in combat, will be wounding Chaos Warriors on 3s and inflicting a -2 penalty to armour save, plus the bonuses from the Slann and BSB making them pretty much Unbreakable.
• While the Saurus horde is especially survivable, I would have thought two units of a slightly smaller size would be more useful as you can do more with them - you could use both to hold up separate Warrior units to stop them causing trouble or use them together to double-team one unit with a timely flank or rear charge. What’s more, given you have 2 Ancient Stegadons, you can pair each of these up with a Saurus unit so you’ve got that double-team combo, while also keeping back your Temple Guard bunker as a reserve in case something goes especially wrong and you need to plug up a hole.
• I think 5 units of Skirmishers is certainly excessive. The more competitive Warriors of Chaos players rarely bring monsters as their lack of armour makes them a liability - they are much more likely to bring Skullcrushers and massive deathstar units of Warriors, both of which Skinks are pretty useless against, even as redirection units as Skullcrushers specifically are faster. I’d say take only 2 or 3 units of them to use to hunt down the odd Chaos Giant, Daemon Prince or Hellcannon, and use the rest of the points on more Temple Guard to bulk out your bunker like @Scalenex says, to contribute towards the more flexible two Saurus units or adding more Saurus Cavalry to your Oldblood Cowboy bus, as 5 plus the Oldblood is only of real use as a flanking unit. A unit of 8-10 plus the Cowboy on the other hand would be a real nuisance to Warriors with extra hand weapons and other less well-armoured units.
• Egg of Quango is unreliable, I think, as it will only be a real threat to Warriors on a 4+, and Skavenpelt Banner is only really much use against Skaven.
• The Cowboy’s magic item layout is impressive, but I think it’s a bit too defensive, given that he should have a good-sized Saurus Cavalry unit and already has a 1+ armour save to do that for him. While the Blade of Realities is overpriced against many armies, I personally think it’s a pretty good choice against Warriors of Chaos specifically, as they are so reliant on armour saves and Ward saves, yet the Blade of Realities will allow your Cowboy to ignore both. If you give him this potent piece of kit, your Saurus Cav unit will be able to power through even Chaos Knights without losing too many casualties.
• Don’t be afraid to sacrifice your champions to challenges. Warriors of Chaos heroes have to challenge every turn if there is at least one character in the unit, but by sacrificing a mere unit champion to his tooled-up Chaos Lord, this wastes all his Lord’s attacks that could have been used to devastate your unit, and gives you the chance to use characters like your Blade of Realities Cowboy to scythe through his own models in return. Just one particularly good round of attacks from your Cowboy could be enough to win the combat, and the fact that his Chaos Lord massacred your champion in a challenge will count for very little in combat resolution.

Hope that helps somewhat, and sorry for not replying sooner

 

[Lizards of Renown]

Lizardmen are unique in that we are the only army that is allowed to make the Slann the general and the BSB. It's usually advantageous to do this. I would advise putting all your eggs in one basket. Your Slann is your primary caster, your general, and your biggest single points unit. It's very little consolation if you lose a Slann but you have a Saurus BSB still alive.

More likely your Saurus BSB will get picked off individually and then your Temple Guard will fail a break test. Temple Guard with a Slann general and BSB are going to pass 100% of their break tests, especially if you involve the Standard of Discipline (which is nice and cheap and raises your Slann/general's Ld to 10). That's something I personally take for granted.

I believe for Lizardmen armies with Slann you want to put all your eggs in one basket and fortify your basket with everything you have.



Cloak of feather is nice, but it's a luxury. I would rather use those points for more Temple Guard. A Skink priest in a unit of Skirmishers has a 12 inch march move and can move in any direction. That's almost as good as a cloak of feathers.



Hypothetically lets say your Skink priest and his Skirmisher units gets charged by a group of Chaos knights and then you roll a 4+ with the Egg of Quango and when you score 2d6 Strength 5 hits you roll 12 hits, huzzah.

12 hits, 2/3 of them wound. That's 8. Chaos knights have a 1+ save which becomes a 3+ save. That means you are only going to kill 2 or 3 knights under ideal circumstances. The Skinks will be butchered liked sheep and the Knights have +1 CR for charging and +1 for a standard. Despite losing a couple men, the knights are almost certainly going to break and run down the Skinks, Egg or no Egg, even if you rolling 6s like it's going out of style.

Generally speaking, the Egg of Quango is for offense, not defense. The Egg of Quango might be a nice surprise for a Slann to carry or even a Saurus OB. But the traditional use for the Egg of Quango is to give it to a Skink chief on a Terradon or Ripper.

You'd be better off using the points for Temple Guard.



That is against rules. Except for Slann, it is illegal for any BSB with a magic banner to have any magical items, so IF you run with a Saurus BSB then either Razor Banner has to go or the Armor of Destiny has to go. Personally, I think it's a bad rule and I wouldn't mind house ruling that BSBs of all stripes can bear magical banners and magical items, but if you want to play the RAW, you should drop the Razor Banner because a BSB with a magic banner and no magical defenses is basically a pile of free victory points for your opponent.

My advice is to definitely give the BSB to the Slann. You might want to consider dropping the Scar Veteran altogether. You probably want to give him a great weapon and tool him up for offense. If a character is not a BSB, general, or spell-caster, an opponent is unlikely to bother allocating attacks against said character, at least in my experience. In most cases, I can get away with Scar Veterans packing great weapons and possessing no defensive magical items at all because the enemy always tries to kill rank and file Saurus Warriors instead.

Or perhaps, give the Egg of Quango to your Scar Veteran. Then your Saurus Warriors will have comparable killing power to the Temple Guard for one round at least.



I was going to say that you don't need to do this because your Saurus have a parry save but then I noticed you gave them spears. That's how rarely I use spears on my Saurus, I forget it's an option. This double EOTG Steggies is a good choice here.

If you are really desperate for more TG bodies, you could drop the EOTG. If you do, you probably want to give the Saurus Warriors swords and board and you probably want to give the Slann the Iron Curse Icon to defend your TG against the Hellcannon. In fact you might want to do that anyway just in case the TG get hit by a Hellcannon after the Steggies are dead. Iron Curse Icons are only 5 points.



It's hard to have too many Skink Skirmishers, but 40 is probably plenty. You don't need 50. Especially since Chaos Warriors are hard to shoot at with Skinks.

Solid advice on the BSB, will change that over. I love the idea of using SV with only a great weapon for offensive boost, especially if I throw in a 10 point champion to take the inevitable challenge (I HATE the rule where if I don't have anyone answer the challenge, the opponent can choose who goes to the back).

Makes sense on the advice on the TG and cloak of feathers. I had two different SV's, with one being BSB and the other with the magic armour so wasn't violating the rule about the magic standard but as above, I like a cheap but decent hero option that you suggest.

Hmmmmm...... Never really played that out with the Egg. GP. Bugger. That's in the bin then.

The spears thing is a double combo thing. Last battle one of my Saurus units got mullered by a cannon shot that hit on target and of course they don't get any parry save against that. I thought I could get 5 more attacks and have an all-rounder ward save from the EotG. What do you reckon?

Defo will use the Ironcurse icon.

I'll cut back on the Skinks, both you and Agragax are making this point and it makes sense.

Thanks a lot. Now back to my laboratory to revise my army list! (One of the singular pleasures of WFB in my opinion).

 

[Lizards of Renown]

Ah yes, Warriors of Chaos, the single most broken army in the game. Good luck with this one mate.

Having a look at your army list, I have the following observations:

• Liking the Temple Guard bunker a lot. Reliable 4+ save in combat, will be wounding Chaos Warriors on 3s and inflicting a -2 penalty to armour save, plus the bonuses from the Slann and BSB making them pretty much Unbreakable.
• While the Saurus horde is especially survivable, I would have thought two units of a slightly smaller size would be more useful as you can do more with them - you could use both to hold up separate Warrior units to stop them causing trouble or use them together to double-team one unit with a timely flank or rear charge. What’s more, given you have 2 Ancient Stegadons, you can pair each of these up with a Saurus unit so you’ve got that double-team combo, while also keeping back your Temple Guard bunker as a reserve in case something goes especially wrong and you need to plug up a hole.
• I think 5 units of Skirmishers is certainly excessive. The more competitive Warriors of Chaos players rarely bring monsters as their lack of armour makes them a liability - they are much more likely to bring Skullcrushers and massive deathstar units of Warriors, both of which Skinks are pretty useless against, even as redirection units as Skullcrushers specifically are faster. I’d say take only 2 or 3 units of them to use to hunt down the odd Chaos Giant, Daemon Prince or Hellcannon, and use the rest of the points on more Temple Guard to bulk out your bunker like @Scalenex says, to contribute towards the more flexible two Saurus units or adding more Saurus Cavalry to your Oldblood Cowboy bus, as 5 plus the Oldblood is only of real use as a flanking unit. A unit of 8-10 plus the Cowboy on the other hand would be a real nuisance to Warriors with extra hand weapons and other less well-armoured units.
• Egg of Quango is unreliable, I think, as it will only be a real threat to Warriors on a 4+, and Skavenpelt Banner is only really much use against Skaven.
• The Cowboy’s magic item layout is impressive, but I think it’s a bit too defensive, given that he should have a good-sized Saurus Cavalry unit and already has a 1+ armour save to do that for him. While the Blade of Realities is overpriced against many armies, I personally think it’s a pretty good choice against Warriors of Chaos specifically, as they are so reliant on armour saves and Ward saves, yet the Blade of Realities will allow your Cowboy to ignore both. If you give him this potent piece of kit, your Saurus Cav unit will be able to power through even Chaos Knights without losing too many casualties.
• Don’t be afraid to sacrifice your champions to challenges. Warriors of Chaos heroes have to challenge every turn if there is at least one character in the unit, but by sacrificing a mere unit champion to his tooled-up Chaos Lord, this wastes all his Lord’s attacks that could have been used to devastate your unit, and gives you the chance to use characters like your Blade of Realities Cowboy to scythe through his own models in return. Just one particularly good round of attacks from your Cowboy could be enough to win the combat, and the fact that his Chaos Lord massacred your champion in a challenge will count for very little in combat resolution.

Hope that helps somewhat, and sorry for not replying sooner

No worries on the timing! Appreciate you taking the time!

I like the two smaller Saurus units idea, especially combining it with Scalenex's cheap SV idea.

Fair enough on the Skirmishers and the Egg.

On the Skavenpelt banner, really?! It seems like having frenzied TG is a really good idea... Am I missing something? It makes the unit frenzied AND hate Skaven...

I'll look over the blade of realities idea. Just hate having no ward save for him as he inevitably is going to get mullered by a Chaos champion who will definitely be hitting him at least a couple of times... I hate losing my best guy, but your argument makes sense. I'll take another look over it.

Thanks matey!

 

[Scalenex]

On the Skavenpelt banner, really?! It seems like having frenzied TG is a really good idea... Am I missing something? It makes the unit frenzied AND hate Skaven...

It's a good idea, but it's an expensive idea, points wise. Also, Frenzy can be beaten out of a unit if they l lose a round of combat. Against Warriors of Chaos, even if you play a perfect game, you will probably lose at least one round of close combat with your Temple Guard (who are 99% likely to not break with a Slann BSB), but it still counts as a loss for the purpose of losing Frenzy.

 

[Lizards of Renown]

It's a good idea, but it's an expensive idea, points wise. Also, Frenzy can be beaten out of a unit if they l lose a round of combat. Against Warriors of Chaos, even if you play a perfect game, you will probably lose at least one round of close combat with your Temple Guard (who are 99% likely to not break with a Slann BSB), but it still counts as a loss for the purpose of losing Frenzy.

Agh.... Right... Somehow I assumed it meant that because it's magical they never lose frenzy. fair enough

 

[Scalenex]

Agh.... Right... Somehow I assumed it meant that because it's magical they never lose frenzy. fair enough

That is a gray area. You could argue that magical frenzy would never be loss, but you could also argue otherwise. I honestly have no firm opinion on this. When I am in doubt, I tend to interpret things in the least favorable way to me.

We could have a good-natured debate on L-O in the rules section, but I guess you only really need to ask your gaming partner ahead of time if he is okay with the interpretation that magical frenzy lasts all game, or at the very least refreshes itself between battles.

I don't have a legalistic argument for this but the middle ground via compromise would be that if the Temple Guard are beaten they lose Frenzy for the duration of that battle, but once they engage in a different combat Frenzy is restored.

Not that that is a big boon because it's very common for even Temple Guard that are winning to be stuck in one battle for a several turns.

 

[Lizards of Renown]

That is a gray area. You could argue that magical frenzy would never be loss, but you could also argue otherwise. I honestly have no firm opinion on this. When I am in doubt, I tend to interpret things in the least favorable way to me.

We could have a good-natured debate on L-O in the rules section, but I guess you only really need to ask your gaming partner ahead of time if he is okay with the interpretation that magical frenzy lasts all game, or at the very least refreshes itself between battles.

I don't have a legalistic argument for this but the middle ground via compromise would be that if the Temple Guard are beaten they lose Frenzy for the duration of that battle, but once they engage in a different combat Frenzy is restored.

Not that that is a big boon because it's very common for even Temple Guard that are winning to be stuck in one battle for a several turns.

Yeah, the only thing is that in the Carnosaur rules it specifically designates that once they gain frenzy they never lose it and the banner doesn't say this... Humph....

 

[ASSASSIN_NR_1]

Yeah, the only thing is that in the Carnosaur rules it specifically designates that once they gain frenzy they never lose it and the banner doesn't say this... Humph....

Thing is that the Carnosaur's frenzy is granted by a special rule and is essentially just a delayed frenzy, whereas the banner just grants it to whomever has it, it's not the exact same.

 

[Lizards of Renown]

Ah yes, Warriors of Chaos, the single most broken army in the game. Good luck with this one mate.

Having a look at your army list, I have the following observations:

• Liking the Temple Guard bunker a lot. Reliable 4+ save in combat, will be wounding Chaos Warriors on 3s and inflicting a -2 penalty to armour save, plus the bonuses from the Slann and BSB making them pretty much Unbreakable.
• While the Saurus horde is especially survivable, I would have thought two units of a slightly smaller size would be more useful as you can do more with them - you could use both to hold up separate Warrior units to stop them causing trouble or use them together to double-team one unit with a timely flank or rear charge. What’s more, given you have 2 Ancient Stegadons, you can pair each of these up with a Saurus unit so you’ve got that double-team combo, while also keeping back your Temple Guard bunker as a reserve in case something goes especially wrong and you need to plug up a hole.
• I think 5 units of Skirmishers is certainly excessive. The more competitive Warriors of Chaos players rarely bring monsters as their lack of armour makes them a liability - they are much more likely to bring Skullcrushers and massive deathstar units of Warriors, both of which Skinks are pretty useless against, even as redirection units as Skullcrushers specifically are faster. I’d say take only 2 or 3 units of them to use to hunt down the odd Chaos Giant, Daemon Prince or Hellcannon, and use the rest of the points on more Temple Guard to bulk out your bunker like @Scalenex says, to contribute towards the more flexible two Saurus units or adding more Saurus Cavalry to your Oldblood Cowboy bus, as 5 plus the Oldblood is only of real use as a flanking unit. A unit of 8-10 plus the Cowboy on the other hand would be a real nuisance to Warriors with extra hand weapons and other less well-armoured units.
• Egg of Quango is unreliable, I think, as it will only be a real threat to Warriors on a 4+, and Skavenpelt Banner is only really much use against Skaven.
• The Cowboy’s magic item layout is impressive, but I think it’s a bit too defensive, given that he should have a good-sized Saurus Cavalry unit and already has a 1+ armour save to do that for him. While the Blade of Realities is overpriced against many armies, I personally think it’s a pretty good choice against Warriors of Chaos specifically, as they are so reliant on armour saves and Ward saves, yet the Blade of Realities will allow your Cowboy to ignore both. If you give him this potent piece of kit, your Saurus Cav unit will be able to power through even Chaos Knights without losing too many casualties.
• Don’t be afraid to sacrifice your champions to challenges. Warriors of Chaos heroes have to challenge every turn if there is at least one character in the unit, but by sacrificing a mere unit champion to his tooled-up Chaos Lord, this wastes all his Lord’s attacks that could have been used to devastate your unit, and gives you the chance to use characters like your Blade of Realities Cowboy to scythe through his own models in return. Just one particularly good round of attacks from your Cowboy could be enough to win the combat, and the fact that his Chaos Lord massacred your champion in a challenge will count for very little in combat resolution.

Hope that helps somewhat, and sorry for not replying sooner

So, I can't get past the conundrum of the Blade of Realities / Initiative problem:

I get into combat with a Demon Prince. The OB steps up to the plate to answer the auto-challenge. Demon Prince attacks. Because OB has no ward and only a 1+ save (Scaly Skin, Light armour and CO bonus) and because the demon prince has probably been given SOMETHING, ANYTHING as a weapon he murders him before he strikes... Even if he survives one round of combat, he'll probably be a Nurgle Prince (Prince of Pestilence...) then it will be 5's to hit so maybe best case scenario with PF he gets 4 hits. It's now 4+ to wound, so average 2 wounds. But definitely the OB gets mullered in the next round of combat....

Or Chaos Lord with Knights: Even if I do a round of combat where the unit champion takes the fall, let's say that the OB gets 4 hits as the upwards ratio amount considering probably Nurgle -1 to hit but adding predatory fighter. He then needs a 3+ to kill and so probably gets 2 or 3. Not very impressive and now there are no fall-guys to respond to the next turns challenge and the Chaos Lord has now rolled on the Eye of the Gods table and gotten even better somehow.

Would you recommend I try to tarpit the Demon Prince of Chaos Knights unit and just go after his other infantry blocks with the OB in a CO unit?

@Scalenex any comment?

I realize that I'm doing this in hard mode, but I'd really like to work out a good strategy for dealing with these two types of units.

Thanks guys

(and a belated Merry Christmas to everyone who's been in touch with me! @ASSASSIN_NR_1 @Killer Angel @NIGHTBRINGER @bOdziO Wolf @Aginor @ravagekitteh @Imrahil @Warden

 

[Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl]

So, I can't get past the conundrum of the Blade of Realities / Initiative problem:

I get into combat with a Demon Prince. The OB steps up to the plate to answer the auto-challenge. Demon Prince attacks. Because OB has no ward and only a 1+ save (Scaly Skin, Light armour and CO bonus) and because the demon prince has probably been given SOMETHING, ANYTHING as a weapon he murders him before he strikes... Even if he survives one round of combat, he'll probably be a Nurgle Prince (Prince of Pestilence...) then it will be 5's to hit so maybe best case scenario with PF he gets 4 hits. It's now 4+ to wound, so average 2 wounds. But definitely the OB gets mullered in the next round of combat....

I wasn’t considering Daemon Princes when I mentioned Blade of Realities, and to be honest, that’s the not sort of target your Oldblood should be fighting - monsters like a Daemon Prince is what a Carnosaur is designed to take down, as the Carnosaur will wound the Prince on 2+, will probably ignore any armour save due to being Strength 7 base, and inflicts D3 wounds for every successful wound roll (plus he’ll have an Oldblood or Scar Vet on top to finish the Prince off).

Or Chaos Lord with Knights: Even if I do a round of combat where the unit champion takes the fall, let's say that the OB gets 4 hits as the upwards ratio amount considering probably Nurgle -1 to hit but adding predatory fighter. He then needs a 3+ to kill and so probably gets 2 or 3. Not very impressive and now there are no fall-guys to respond to the next turns challenge and the Chaos Lord has now rolled on the Eye of the Gods table and gotten even better somehow.

3 Wounds will be enough to kill a Chaos Lord if he’s just mounted on an ordinary Chaos horse as the mount’s wounds don’t count with cavalry. If he’s on a Juggernaut or other monstrous steed the odds will be stacked against you, granted, but if you can still kill the Chaos Lord (and if you can last the first couple of rounds of combat you still should be able to do so), the steed will be a lot less effective against your 1+ save Oldblood as it will most likely be just Strength 4 or 5 without any magic weapon. The moral of this, then, is just to focus your attacks on the Chaos Lord. After that, it will get a lot easier.

Would you recommend I try to tarpit the Demon Prince of Chaos Knights unit and just go after his other infantry blocks with the OB in a CO unit?

Depends on what you use to do the tarpitting. If you use Skinks that won’t be enough, as certainly a Daemon Prince will probably kill about 4 or 5 a turn for no Wounds in return, and unless they’re near the general they will probably run after just one or two rounds. If you use one of your anvil Saurus units that could certainly work, as while they may not do that much damage to them, their numbers and bravery will still hold them up for a good bit longer until you can flank charge with a Stegadon or get the Unbreakable Temple Guard in.

 

[ASSASSIN_NR_1]

I wasn’t considering Daemon Princes when I mentioned Blade of Realities, and to be honest, that’s the not sort of target your Oldblood should be fighting - monsters like a Daemon Prince is what a Carnosaur is designed to take down, as the Carnosaur will wound the Prince on 2+, will probably ignore any armour save due to being Strength 7 base, and inflicts D3 wounds for every successful wound roll (plus he’ll have an Oldblood or Scar Vet on top to finish the Prince off).

If the DP has the mark of nurgle then the Carnosaur will almost be a complete waste, the DP will on average, without any magic items, do twice as much damage to the carno. You could get lucky of course which is the advantage that the carno has, but the odds are not in its favor and needs a lot of help from the rider.
I will grant that with a GW the OB along with the carno will do slightly more damage than the DP, but the DP will probably have flying, so catching him in the first place will be tricky.
I love the carno but it seems very hit or miss and unfortunately 'miss' seems to be the norm due to its low WS and Initiative.

The overall issue I think is that we do not have a great counter against DPs, only some sub-par options.

I'll once again give a shout-out to the Ancient steg, since it might be a better monster killer than the carno if it has sharpened horns and can get the charge. All you need before hand is to give the DP 1 wound, and than a single charge from a steg has a 50/50 chance of killing him with it's impact hits..

 

[Lizards of Renown]

@ASSASSIN_NR_1 and @Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl

Great points, thanks. I think I'll stick with the lord with steg helm for impact hits, try to pin down the DP with a unit and then Ancient Steg him.

Guess it will depend on what he's fielding, but I think I'll take a unit of Saurus just for that purpose to keep him still so I can do a double charge (if possible)

Thanks guys

 

[NIGHTBRINGER]

Ah yes, Warriors of Chaos, the single most broken army in the game.

They are among the top three armies. Typically High Elves, Warriors of Chaos and Dark Elves are named as the very best armies in the game.

I ran a poll on the Eighth Edition for Life forum on the subject of the strongest armies: https://eefl.freeforums.net/thread/763/armies-represent-upper-power-level

I get into combat with a Demon Prince. The OB steps up to the plate to answer the auto-challenge. Demon Prince attacks. Because OB has no ward and only a 1+ save (Scaly Skin, Light armour and CO bonus) and because the demon prince has probably been given SOMETHING, ANYTHING as a weapon he murders him before he strikes... Even if he survives one round of combat, he'll probably be a Nurgle Prince (Prince of Pestilence...) then it will be 5's to hit so maybe best case scenario with PF he gets 4 hits. It's now 4+ to wound, so average 2 wounds. But definitely the OB gets mullered in the next round of combat....

On the topic of fighting the DP, I made a detailed analysis a year ago that may be of interest to you: http://www.lustria-online.com/threads/discussion-how-to-beat-the-daemon-prince.22137/#post-256168

 

[Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl]

I’ve also had another thought for fighting the Daemon Prince - perhaps shooting him with a Bastiladon with Solar Engine could work?

This would be an especially useful tactic against flying Daemon Princes as you would just need to get within 24” range rather than having to charge him, and given that Bound Spells like Beam of Chotec don’t require that many power dice to successfully cast, you could cheekily slip it in near the end of the Magic Phase (as by then your opponent will have probably used up most of, if not all, his dispel dice against any Lore of Metal spells from your Slann and Heavens spells from your Priests to protect his Warrior units).

Like the Steg’s Impact Hits the Beam inflicts automatic hits, and as long as you roll a 4+ you’re likely going to do more damage with them than with an Ancient Steg’s Impact Hits (you’re a lot more likely to roll a 1 on a single D6 for the Impact Hits than a 2 on 2D6 for the Beam of Chotec - the Sharpened Horns upgrade would give you Multiple Wounds D3, but you could roll a 1 or 2 on your D3s).

Furthermore, a Bastiladon is a good bit cheaper than an Ancient Steg (150 compared to over 200), so given you’ve already bought 2 Stegs to use to double team Warrior units, a Bastiladon with Solar Engine would be a relatively cheap addition to specifically use against Daemon Princes, freeing up your Stegs to use for the role you originally intended.