Tactica: Warriors of Chaos 8th Ed

[Havock]

So I have this teamtourney tomorrow, we basically houserule thealliance chart so that everyone can team up with everyone. One general for the team, one BSB for the team (if you want it). 1k points for each player.

My list:
Tzeentch BSB
Halberd, talisman of preservation, favor of the gods
-stream of corruption
220 pts

Warriors (20)
Tzeentch, shields, full command
370

Warriors (20)
Tzeentch, shields, full command
370

makes 960 pts

What to do with those last 40? I could drop the favor of the gods from the halberd and opt for a razor standard on one unit (lawnmower unit) or take two cheaper banners: +1 movement on one unit -for getting to those pesky objectives fast- and the rapturous standard on the other?

Alternatively, I could take both the razor standard and the rapturous std if I drop both favour of the gods and stream of corruption from the BSB.

His list consists of 18 warriors with great weapons, a lord with shieldbearers, a bunch of quarrellers, a cannon (flaming) and organ gun.

[Phoenix Puzzle]

So I have this teamtourney tomorrow, we basically houserule thealliance chart so that everyone can team up with everyone. One general for the team, one BSB for the team (if you want it). 1k points for each player.



What to do with those last 40? I could drop the favor of the gods from the halberd and opt for a razor standard on one unit (lawnmower unit) or take two cheaper banners: +1 movement on one unit -for getting to those pesky objectives fast- and the rapturous standard on the other?

Alternatively, I could take both the razor standard and the rapturous std if I drop both favour of the gods and stream of corruption from the BSB.

His list consists of 18 warriors with great weapons, a lord with shieldbearers, a bunch of quarrellers, a cannon (flaming) and organ gun.

i say take 5 off of each unit, and throw in a unit of 25 khorne/flail marauders.

[theorox]

I'd say drop Favour of the Gods and add a troll for the points. Useful redirector.

Theo

[danny-d-b]

I'd say drop Favour of the Gods and add a troll for the points. Useful redirector.

Theo

apart from the fact you can't take a singular troll their 3+

I'd get some marrauders housemen for anti WM or maybe some dogs

[Havock]

i say take 5 off of each unit, and throw in a unit of 25 khorne/flail marauders.

Don't have em
Or trolls, for that matter.

[Phoenix Puzzle]

Don't have em
Or trolls, for that matter.

lol. what DO you have? give us some options to negotiate on XD

[theorox]

apart from the fact you can't take a singular troll their 3+

I'd get some marrauders housemen for anti WM or maybe some dogs

Yes, i remembered that when trying to get to sleep last night...

And i agree you should post what you have, so we can help you better.

Theo

[Sandals]

hey guys.

just read through this entire thread (it's taken me a week!) as I'm looking at doing up a really old WoC army for this new edition.

I've always played a Tzeentch theme, and having looked through the book I like the idea of a Tzeentch Sorcerer on a Disc with a 4+ Ward (improved with the mark to 3+). However, I also like the Phylactory, having been sniped and Dwellered to death many times in my games so far. Question is, is taking the Armour of 4++ a decent alternative? Is a 4+/3++ enough?
Opinions?

[Phoenix Puzzle]

hey guys.

just read through this entire thread (it's taken me a week!) as I'm looking at doing up a really old WoC army for this new edition.

I've always played a Tzeentch theme, and having looked through the book I like the idea of a Tzeentch Sorcerer on a Disc with a 4+ Ward (improved with the mark to 3+). However, I also like the Phylactory, having been sniped and Dwellered to death many times in my games so far. Question is, is taking the Armour of 4++ a decent alternative? Is a 4+/3++ enough?
Opinions?

in most cases it is. but it also helps to keep him out of shooting's way.
in my experience. a very determined enemy will probably kill him if he decides to direct every single shot at the wizard. and in other cases, i find the opponent thinking the wizard is just to dam hard to kill and just leaves it alone for the most part.
You can be reckless with the 3+ just not TOO reckless.

[babyberg31]

Been trying to choose a great magic domain, but I really can't make a choice. Getting a lvl 4 mage is about 400 points. Can it kill 400 pts (No tzeentch) in a game... nah... I'm playing a mono-Slaanesh army. So I'm trying to take a lvl 2 of death (not that far from Slaanesh) for 210 pts (close to)...

But seriously, the level 4 sorceror... I can't seem to get something good out of him... Shadow is good, but all hex are remain in play, so I de-buff something and if I don't break it, I'm in good poo... Fire is completely out of the way and good lord... heaven doesn't seem to spectacular to me...

Forcing through death domain, I'm telling to myself, killing 1 enemy hero\lord might just give me back my points. Because, with about 10 games, a level 4 is really to costly for the lack of effectiveness...

[Avian]

I don't often see people arguing for Heavens (either for armies in general or the Warriors of Chaos in particular), but I've tried it out as an alternative to my standard Tzeentch magic and liked it quite a bit. Here are my thoughts on the Lore of Heavens.


Properties

Who can take the Lore of Heavens?
In a Warriors of Chaos army, only unmarked Sorcerer Lords and Daemon Princes can take the Lore of Heavens. Hero-level Sorcerers cannot and you can't get it with the Book of Secrets (for some reason). My experience is with using it on a level 4 Sorcerer Lord on foot, who has the benefits of being easy to protect. A Daemon Prince is much more vulnerable to all kinds of ranged attacks and to being charged as he can't join units, but he can get some mileage out of casting Convergence on himself to get a much-needed re-roll of 1s to hit and to wound (though he gets nothing about of the re-roll of 1s for armour saves as he has none) and he can more easily get into position to use Thunderbolt (and even Wind Blast). On the whole, though, with the new line of sight rules and benefits to large units, you will presumably be fielding the level 4 Sorcerer Lord and not the Daemon Prince, even if he's worth considering.

Spell types
The main thing I like about Heavens is the good mixture of spell types, as well as the spells being nicely all-round ones. And then there is Wind Blast... But forgetting that, you get two hexes (which synergise nicely), one very nice and cheap augment which works great with the Warriors of Chaos army, one magic missile, one direct damage and the Comet, which is in a category of its own.
Happily none of the hex / augment spells are Remains in Play, which means they are guaranteed to last two player turns and can't simply be dispelled in your opponent's turn. Handy!
As an alternative rulebook Lore, I've tried Shadow, but the damage spells were pretty useless against my opponent's elves as they relied on them failing Initiative tests and two out of three hexes could be dispelled in my opponent's turn, which only really made them useful in my turn. The only spell that augmented units was 18+ to cast, and doesn't really do all that much in a WoC army, where most things are wounding on 2+ or 3+ anyway. Heavens did much more for me, but against something like Ogres it might be different.

Range
The Heavens spells all start off with a 24" range (apart from the Comet, which is unlimited range), which I find is just right. You can double the range on a couple of the spells in exchange for the usual +3 difficulty increase, but I've never found this to be necessary. For the two re-roll spells you can swap affecting one unit within 24" for affecting all units within 12", which seems like a reasonable swap, but then the difficulty doubles, which I can't see is worth it. Very often the unit I most want to target is between 12 and 24 inches away. For the boosted version to then have any meaning, you need to get right in there in the Movement phase with your Lord, which can end up being risky if you fail to cast the spell because it is too difficult. I can see a 12" radius Curse being handy if your unit is surrounded and you are in for a smacking, but at a 20+ difficulty that just seems too hard to pull off. On the bright side, it's an option and you don't lose anything by not taking it.

Casting value
The Heavens spells are all reasonably easy to cast at the un-boosted level, apart from Chain Lightning, which I feel is a little steep. As you are going to be taking Heavens on a Lord, who is probably going to be level 4, you can cast most spells on two or three dice. You can even cast Blizzard and Convergence on a 3+ with one dice, just in case you have one dice to spare at the end.

Lore attribute
You can get the impression that the rulebook authors felt that flyers were particularly nasty and armies needed more anti-flyer gear, hence the two very cheap anti-flyer magic items and this Lore Attribute. As far as usefulness goes, I don't rate this very highly as I've been seeing a lot less flyers on the table in this edition and I'd rather have something nifty like the Lores of Life or Death get.


The Spells

Iceshard Blizzard
Just what you want from a signature spell – utility. Since it lowers the opponent's chance to hit with both close combat attacks and ranged attacks and also lowers his Leadership, it is useful on more or less anything, especially if you have a Hellcannon in your army. I really like this spell and I always take it. Spells I swap for it are (in order of decreasing preference): Wind Blast, Chain Lightning, Thunderbolt.

Harmonic Convergence
Not the most fitting name for a spell to be cast on a Chaos unit, but never mind that. With models that frequently hit, wound and save on a 3+ (or thereabouts), getting to re-roll one out of two failures is a great boost to the unit. Unlike Curse, this spell isn't ridiculously difficult if you go for the 12" radius, but I prefer to just augment the one unit that looks like it's going to need it the most and sticking with the 6+ version.

Wind Blast
I don't get what this spell is supposed to do. I guess if my caster was highly mobile I could push units behind other things and make enemy units get in each other's way, but as it is, it seems like you'll be using it to push enemy units an average of 3" backwards, which doesn't seem like a very meaningful thing to do all the while that doesn't stop them from moving or shooting. You can do a tiny bit of damage by pushing units into stuff, but that seems unlikely to achieve anything much.

Curse of the Midnight Wind
The opposite of Convergence and also an excellent spell. I really like how it effectively cancels the Poison and Killing Blow special rules, both of which can be horrible against our army. This spell is great if you get it off combined with Blizzard, since enemy units will usually only be hitting on 5+ and then need to re-roll the 6s.

Uranon's Thunderbolt
This has a slightly higher casting value than you might expect (Doombolt is a 6+ to cast, with only 1 less Strength and 6" less range), but it is useful in a WoC army for being able to nail fast moving units that might run away from the Comet. The downside (as with Wind Blast) is that it's a magic missile, so you can only target things you can see and which lie in your front arc.

Comet of Cassandora
The only thing that stops this spell being silly good is that if it doesn't come down right away, a lot of armies can walk away from the point of impact and be safe. This is because unlike older versions of the Comet, it no longer gets a larger blast radius the longer it takes to come down. Instead it goes up in Strength (and it starts at a lovely Strength 5!) and the number of hits caused. Not getting an increase in range is also quite handy as it means you don't risk hitting your own units as you advance across the table (one of my friends managed to essentially commit suicide by Comet). With regards to where you want to place the marker, there is a 5 in 6 chance that the blast radius will be between 4 and 10 inches, so plan for that – I reckon it is better to place it close enough to certainly nail one target with a chance to hit others than to place it in between multiple units and risk hitting nothing.

Chain Lighting
At +5 to the difficulty compared to Thunderbolt, this spell does the exact same thing, apart from hitting an average of 3 units instead of just 1 (assuming you have enough targets). This might seem very good – triple the effect for a 50% increase in casting difficulty, but the way I reckon it, there will often not be three good targets lined up for zapping and with magic dice being limited, I'd rather pick spells that are easier to cast (unless that leaves me stuck with Wind Blast). And as an alternative, you can cast Comet instead, and potentially do a lot more damge. Note the rulebook FAQ even tells us that later units struck can be in combat, which would not normally be legal targets.

[dsem]

Can you use Wind Blast to push a unit 3" off the board, and score easy VPs that way?

[eyescrossed]

Nope.

Best use I find with it is pushing single models around, like Monsters.

[mr_purple_9]

Hey all!

Firstly after reading through all of the pages from the start as well I'd like to thank everyone who contributed!

I played my first game of 8th last weekend against Skaven which was a draw. But I got seriously smashed by magic. (damn 13th spell!) However I'm not panicking yet as my rolling was awful last weekend. I could write for many pages about how bad it was but I think I might get carried away

Anyway I'm playing yet more Skaven later today against another player so I'll let you know how it goes and maybe some general comments about my army selection too.

[theorox]

We just got an Avian-article! Now that's a treat. I think you do a great job in analyzing many factors and viewpoints, and your articles are always interesting and informative.

Thanks. I already liked how Heavens looked, and i can see myself using it as my default lore in 8th.

Theo

[Hashulaman]

If you use wind blast and a war machine(Namely a cannon stone thrower or bolt thrower) crew is hit, are they knocked away from the war machine or is the warmachine also knocked back?

[eyescrossed]

Read the rules for Wind Blast.

[Demrog]

Whats the best way to equip a level 2 tzeentch sorc against Orcs and Goblins in a 1000pt game? Its for a tale of list so it cant be mounted, and it has to be tzeentch (fluff) but other than that all items can be considered.

[Avian]

Collar of Khorne, Spell Familiar and Ironcurse Icon?

[Demrog]

ooh good call, I'd gone for Talis of Endurance, Spell familiar and charmed shield but i like the idea of the ironcurse icon and the collar