Warriors of Chaos list

[mattjgilbert]

Good spot - fixed it

[Amorphous]

I like the fact that you have made a Warriors Of Chaos list. I've been trying to get my Warhammer Fantasy Battle friends to catch on to Kings Of War, and WoC is one of my 2 Fantasy armies. The only flaw we have found in the list is the Hellspitter. First it is the only War Engine in the game that can always snipe characters. All other war engines that have indirect fire (no range penalty) have a 6+ to hit. By making it have indirect fire and 5+ it becomes a war machine that you can't avoid with your characters. Also the War engine design in KoW is one where they rarely hit but when they do it is devastating. The Hellspitter with it's 5+ range and 15 piercing attacks makes it way more accurate than all other war machines and still fairly devastating. Me and my friends came up with alternate rules for it, let me know what you think.

SPD4 ME4+ RA6+ DE5+ AT1/7 NE11/13 Blast(2D6), Indirect Fire, Piercing 2, Crushing Strength 1, Vicious. Opponents follow normal rules for front/flank/rear charges. It uses the Follow-on Combat rules for regular (non war engine) units. It only gets 1 attack at range but has 7 in close combat. It counts as a War Engine choice and Hero/Monster choice, meaning you still only need 1 regiment sized unit to field it, but if you want a 2nd war engine, or another hero/monster you need to have a 2nd regiment sized unit. Point cost will stay at 150 since it has close combat potential as well as ranged.

I'm not sure about the point cost but I think this captures it's essence from WFB and maintains a balance in KoW. Everything else in the list is excellently done and please don't take my constructive criticism to heart. You have done a wonderful job Like I said before it was the only fault I found with the list. I guess the only other problem I found was some of the units you didn't make rules for that I have models of, like the Giant, Dragon Ogres, and the Shaggoth, but I can make those myself. Besides if I had KoW equivalents of everything in my WFB armies I'd probably never play Warhammer . Again thank you for the great work and keep it up.

[mattjgilbert]

Thanks - I'll take a look at it. Actually the v3 rules will be addressing warmachines and there will be some things which are indirect and hit on a 5+ (balefires for example). However, they only have 1 attack. I need to bring this list back inline with an eye to what's coming in v3 and will have a think about it and consider your suggestion as part of that.

I can add a giant - that's easy enough, I'll take the Big Bogie from the Orc list.

[Baragash]

Monster with Reload and a stone thrower shooting attack is my preference.

[Wakerofgods]

Hello,
Thanks for writing up and then sharing this list for KOW! I think it’s really cool that you did that. I do have a few problems with what you’ve made (in the sense that I think it could be done ‘better’), but before I listed my problems I wanted to say that they are coming from a good place and I hope they are taken as well intentioned and constructive criticism.

Over the list I think the stats are too low. Specifically:
The warriors have worse offense than normal orc Ax men and have the same offensive abilities (before sacrificing their shields) as human spearmen, pike men and shield wall. I think it is an extreme misrepresentation to give Chaos Warriors the same offensive abilities as baseline human and elven troops! Worse in fact, if you consider in Phalanx! In warhammer chaos warriors have higher strength, higher weapon skill and higher attacks than just about every other core troop in the game.
Now, in KOW I’m not claiming that Chaos Warriors have (or even should) continue to have higher melee, crushing and attacks to represent the higher WS/STR/A from warhammer. But I am saying that if you don’t give them a single one of these as higher you have really missed what chaos warriors are! I just can’t stress enough how much it pains me to see Chaos Warriors with baseline troop offensive capabilities!
I should acknowledge here that you have given the Chaos Warriors the option to increase their offensive capability to the same as Orc Ax warriors at the expensive of one of their defense. This actually puts them at the same stat-line as the Orc Ax warriors, which I guess makes sense since they are the same points cost.
I think you need to rethink costing Chaos Warriors at the same cost as basic human/orc/elven troops. When you factor in the Phalanx rules of the human/elven basic troops you have done a good job of pricing the stat-line that you wrote up for the Chaos Warriors. However, you this comes at the cost of them only being as good as their 60points represents!
You’ve taken Chaos Warriors and made them the equal of a basic elf/human/orc trooper! This does not capture the warhammer Chaos Warrior in the slightest! In warhammer chaos warriors have better offensive, better defense and (unless they have exchanged it out for a mark other than undivided) better moral than the troops your stat-line makes them equivalent to.
If what you’re trying to capture what Chaos Warriors were in warhammer, you’ve really missed it and turned them into an average infantry man. Furthermore, the sizes of the troop/regiment/horde that you’ve listed will mean that a Chaos player will be using far more chaos warrior models for a much weaker unit on the battlefield than when he was playing warhammer. He will come over from warhammer where his units of 15-20ish Chaos Warriors were highly respectable elite infantry and then find that in KOW his unit of 20 Chaos Warriors is the equal of a standard frontline human unit. I expect any Chaos player who used this list and had this experience would leave with a bitter taste in his mouth.


When it comes to Chosen I think you’ve done a better job, especially with the model sizes for the units. However, I can’t understand the difference between Chosen and Warriors. It seems that you’ve understood the type of stat-line Chosen Warriors deserve, so on what basis do you make the Warrior stat-line so much worse?
Overall I like the Chosen stat-line when examined in isolation, but when looked at in the context of the whole list it makes me wonder why you think the difference between a ‘normal’ Chaos Warrior and a Chosen Chaos Warrior should be so big – it certainly isn’t this big in warhammer.

Unfortunately, I think you’ve messed up on the Tribesmen stat-line as well. They are worse than the baseline human unit whereas in warhammer they are equal or slightly better (WS and I 4 over 3, but otherwise equal).
It’s also how the stat-line has been missed, in warhammer the strength of the marauders is their offensive abilities and their downfall is usually their resilience (with low/average ld/T). You have stated them up as having lower offense than defense. Compare them to the human ‘Shield Wall’ (just human swordsmen, which if we are using warhammer as an indicator should be very comparable to your marauders with shields), you have put marauders as having worse offensive abilities and equal defensive abilities and I cannot fathom why you would do this. The warhammer statlines and the models just scream out for the tribesmen offensive abilities being at least equal to the average troop!

The Knights I think you’ve gotten closer. It is a real shame to see them worse than human knights and I would have given them Crushing Strength (2). After all, Chaos Knights are some of the best Cavalry in the warhammer world! At least you haven’t made them worse than average (like the tribesmen), and you have given them the elite rule which helps.
I’d do the Chaos Knights different, but I think you’ve done them well enough.

The Chariots are the Orc Chariots except with one less Melee skill and one higher Nerve. I think that a Melee skill is worth more than a Nerve point, but that is a fairly minor point. Having the Chaos Chariots with worse offensive abilities than its Orc counterpart is, in my opinion, a real misunderstanding of what Chaos Warriors are, but it is consistent with how you’ve stated up the Chaos Warriors so I imagine this is where that’s come from.

The last thing I’ll speak on is the Exalted Champion. You’ve really put this guy a lot above the human General, which I think is good! However, like the way you stated up Chosen Warriors really makes me wonder what’s going on with the Warriors/Tribesmen.

Overall, I think your list has really missed the mark. The Chaos Warriors have been written up as average troopers which is nothing like they are in warhammer. The Chosen have been done well enough, but this just clashes especially hard with the standard Chaos Warriors and makes the gap between these two far bigger than it ever war in warhammer.
This makes me wonder if there is a coherency issue with your design goals. Is the goal of this list to convert over the statlines from warhammer? I think that probably isn’t your goal, after all you’ve not stated up the Chaos Warriors with an above average stat-like whereas in warhammer their stat-line is clearly above average.
What then is your design goal? If you don’t wish to capture Chaos Warriors as elite, what are they instead supposed to represent? Is it intentional that they end up as fairly average baseline troopers compared to the standard humans, elves and Orcs?

I’ll finish up with a reminder of what I started out with – this is all well intentioned criticism. It took me some time to write and I’m aware that through the forum medium it could come across as rude. So, I want to say again that I’m aware you must have put a lot of effort into this list (certainly more than I have into listing what I view as problems with it) and I appreciate you putting it up for us to look at!

[mattjgilbert]

I'm looking at the list now. However, the list was originally put together before any official human or orc lists even existed to be able to compare it against. Also, with things like the knights, cavalry all used to have CS1 in v1 of the rules and this has simply not been updated in this list. To say the list is "messed up" is a bit strong.

When designing an army list I don't intend to aim for a full 1-1 replacement for the warhammer equivalent. If you want that you might as well play warhammer! I want people to use their collections but maybe have to use the army in a different way. There's no point in it playing exactly the same as warhammer.

I'll try and bring the stats more inline with the latest v2 lists but please remember this is not GW's fluff or armies so none of them are going to match 100% (and nor should they). Also remember that the warhammer statline goes up to 10. in KoW the stats are based on a D6 roll and the mechanics are very different. "Simply" increasing the Me score by one point for example can have a big effect and should also come at a cost (points cost) or you end up with an unbalanced list.

[mattjgilbert]

v2.1
Please review before I update the first post.

[Wakerofgods]

I'll try and bring the stats more inline with the latest v2 lists but please remember this is not GW's fluff or armies so none of them are going to match 100% (and nor should they). Also remember that the warhammer statline goes up to 10. in KoW the stats are based on a D6 roll and the mechanics are very different. "Simply" increasing the Me score by one point for example can have a big effect and should also come at a cost (points cost) or you end up with an unbalanced list.

I think you’ve made a very important point here about the fluff being used.

Let me use chaos warriors as an example here:

When I see chaos warriors I read their fluff, look at their stat-line and see how they are typically used in game* and I see the following:
Over double the offensive ability of most baseline infantry troops (2A, WS5, S4 – all before any weapon upgrade!).
Used in relatively small number (I usually see units of 15 chaos warriors). Also, there usually aren’t many units of them.
They are supposed to be very elite troops (this is my take on their fluff).

Overall I look at chaos warriors and I see a highly elite infantry unit that is supposed to be one of the best in the game and as such has a very high stat-line and is used in smaller numbers than other troops (both in the size of and amount of units).

When I look at your original list I saw chaos warriors that were essentially average (or close to) infantry in terms of overall stat-line, priced and put in unit sizes such that they would be used in the same number as human baseline troops and because of this I saw them as a unit that couldn’t possibly be the ‘highly elite infantry’ I view chaos warriors as. They didn’t have the profile for it, they didn’t have the model/unit size for it and they didn’t have the cost for it.
It is this that I meant when I said I saw your list as ‘messed up’, I meant that the statlines, unit sizes and points costs were completely off what I expected compared to what I viewed chaos warriors as.

As I wrote in the beginning and end of my post I really didn’t want to cause offense with my critique and I didn’t want to imply anything about my intentions except that they were (and are) a genuine desire to give helpful critical feedback without any malice. I hope with that in mind that we can continue without any offense being taken.
If you would prefer not to receive any more of my criticisms (and I say this without sarcasm or any implication that not wanting my criticism would be bad in any way) you are welcome to tell me as such and I’ll stop.


Anyway, with that out of the way, I’ll continue discussing the important point I think you made. The fluff behind the chaos warriors (and army around them) that you’re trying to stat up is very important and as you’ve just said you may not be aiming at the fluff GW had. Now, I think it’s important to state this – because when you say you’ve made a Chaos Warriors list for KOW I think (but may be wrong) that the natural assumption from most players would be that you’ve translated the rules into KOW but kept the fluff from warhammer.

This is why I did the example above, my entire criticism stems from the assumption that you were trying to capture both the fluff and relative position of this chaos list from warhammer. What I mean by this is that when I thought ‘chaos warriors for KOW’ I thought ‘chaos warriors with very similar fluff to that in warhammer and with statlines that reflect the models having a roughly similar level of power relative to other models that have been translated over’.
This is why I expected to see stat-lines that had a unit of 12 chaos warrior models as substantially better than 20 human models. Furthermore, I expected my expectations to be roughly what most chaos warrior players would want from their models if using them in a KOW list.

If this is not the goal of your list (perhaps because it’s not what you want, perhaps because you disagree with my claim that it’s what most chaos warrior players will not just want but expect), then my criticisms will not prove accurate or helpful. This desire that my criticisms prove helpful that led me to end my first reply with the brief discussion on your design goals, where I asked the following:

What then is your design goal? If you don’t wish to capture Chaos Warriors as elite, what are they instead supposed to represent? Is it intentional that they end up as fairly average baseline troopers compared to the standard humans, elves and Orcs?

I don’t know how this was taken, but it was intended as a genuine question and not anything else. Your design goal is key to whether or not my method of interpreting your list is helpful. I came to your chaos warriors list with a strong set of preconceptions that are in my opinion based solidly on warhammer fluff, rules and player tastes/habits. However, I certainly could be wrong about the validity of my conceptions and even if they are right you are under no obligation to follow them!

Essentially, if when we say ‘chaos warrior’ we mean different things then it’s important we know this before we can have a properly constructive discussion about this topic.

What are your design goals with this list?




*It has been a while now since I have played, so my experiences on how chaos warriors are used in game could be too old to be helpful.

[mattjgilbert]

Well I'm not sure what the original design goal was for the list as I didn't create it I'm guessing it was to put a list together to enable the author to put his collection of Chaos models on the table for use in KoW. I picked up the list and made some tweaks and reformatted it for the v1 look of the lists. Since then I've continued to tweak things where people on this thread have made suggestions and also reformatted it again for the v2 list presentation style.

I've incorporated the recent feedback (including yours) in the latest version in the post above. How does the list now look? Is it closer to what you think it should be?

[mattjgilbert]

Also... anyone else got feedback? Does the Hellspitter now look better? How do the buffs that Wakerofgods suggested work for everyone else?

[Autumn Leaves]

Cheers for posting these lists up Matt, I think that we should cut the authors of such lists a bit of slack. These are made in their own time and to help out other gamers, they are not intended to be faultless and perfectly balanced lists. They allow those of us with other armies to play Kings Of War, and ultimately if that means more people supporting Mantic and their games such lists should be welcomed rather than picked apart by pedantry. I am sure the authors of such lists will welcome suggestions/ want typos and errors to be pointed out but maybe with a touch more humility.

I think thats a very fair call.

[WrkshpStinks]

I'm the original creator of the WoC list which was initially posted on the Manticfanatics site a while ago. As Matt has said they were designed for the sole purpose of fielding my Chaos lads using the KoW rules with the hope that they would get input from fellow members and to develop them as I didn't have the time to spare due to heavy work schedules. I would say this has been achieved as Matt, with the help of the rest of the community, has done a first rate job. I played only my second game (just starting to find time to play now!!)with the current update of the list a couple of weeks ago and they were a vast improvement on my sad effort!! Looking at some of the stats on my list all I can say is what was I thinking of?!! LOL
Thanks again for the hard work Matt.

[mattjgilbert]

Cheers guys.

v2.1 is now published on the first post as the current version.

[Aman]

Cheers guys.

v2.1 is now published on the first post as the current version.

Matt, first, thanks for doing this. Friend and I just about to try out Mantic as a way to use our GW figs - we've pretty much given up on GW for all games at this point. Keen to use our lovely minis, however!

My first thought looking at the Chaos List, is that if the special rule is truly "Whim of the Gods" then it should be an equal chance to gain/lose a damage point - so if you roll a 1, 2 you have displeased the gods. This makes you think twice about using it, and you'll wait until you really need it for a critical moment. This also makes it of lower points value since it might still be a positive when you use it to try and save at critical break points.

If however it is intended to be used every single time you take damage as an additional "saving throw" you might say, then of course it is fine as is, but should be fairly pricy since it is both twice as likely to help as harm, and it gives you an important option at critical break points.

We're looking forward to trying out this chaos list, will let you know how it plays for us!

[Delicious Ron]

My friends and I tried out this list with the new 3th edition rules and it went very good, even though our chaos player lost

Only thing we noticed was a bit off was the Sorcerers high Zap value, which I think has no equal in the current ruleset.

[mattjgilbert]

OK, I'll take a look and adjust either the value or the points.

I'm glad you liked it. Thanks for the feedback.

Now... I really must post that updated Ratman list...

[mattjgilbert]

Updated to v2.2 - updated in-line with v3 points.

Adjusted the sorcerer a little but felt he already paid a lot for the Zap he has compared with other spell casters. Dropped Heal by one though.

[Cultistapazzo]

Updated to v2.2 - updated in-line with v3 points.

Adjusted the sorcerer a little but felt he already paid a lot for the Zap he has compared with other spell casters. Dropped Heal by one though.

good list but there are 3 things I don't like:

1) are you sure about warriors point cost?
a regiment is similar to a dwarf ironguard regiment, but with +1 speed and cost only 115, dwarf are 130

2) Whim of the Gods
why allow the opponent to roll the dice during an enemy turn?
why don't make this ability like regeneration and roll for it when the unit receive an order?

3) no Whim of the Gods to the bogies, or increase their points cost

thanks