What Are The Best Ways For OnG (Especially SO) Armies To Beat WoC?

[Marked_by_chaos]

My mate plays Orcs and as a Warriors of Chaos player (with a typically balanced list) I find the following difficult to handle:

Big blocks of orcs if they can get into combat. Even though knights and warriors are better, they will be outranked and ground down in a battle of attrition. Even if the Chaos player eventually wins the combat the unit will have fought for a number of turns due to steadfast and may have been severely depleted to the point of being combat ineffective. This is particularly true with knights. The orcs will be steadfast for at least 2-3 turns even if they get hammered and the knights will struggle to make their points back.

Black orcs. IMHO better than warriors, due to them being more expendable and with access to cheaper but still handy heroes. Also they have a -3 save modifier with great weapons on first turn of combat or 2 attacks with -2, either of which will cut through a fair number of warriors.

Doom divers are lethal against characters such as sorcerors who might want to wander off from units, or against units like knight and dragon ogres. Goblin bolt throwers can be a pain as well as they are very cheap and if they hit they can cause some pain to knight type units (any single knight or dragon ogre killed costs more than the bolt thrower)

I wouldn't bother too much with boar boyz though. They don't hit hard enough and won't have the ability to stick in a combat for more than 1-2 turns max before they are chewed up.

fanatics for obvious reasons, mangler squigs even more so. Similarly other cheap throwaway units like wolf chariots can be handy.

Potentially a unit like a giant as there is limited access to ranged attacks other than magic to cut them down before they get stuck in.

Wyvern mounted warbosses. With the talisman of protection so long as you avoid any chaos lords these are a real pain to bring down, except potentially with magic.

Points to remember are that the WoC units will cost a lot more than yours, particularly characters. If you play with any tactical finese, the WoC will really struggle to kill enough with any particular unit to make their points back.

Also remember the waaagh rule. You can use it to get in big charge moves and potentially to gang up on units. Unless they take a lord, chaos leadership is not great (although they will get panic re-rolls). If you can win a combat through ranks and flank/rear charges you have a fair chance of forcing them to flee. I woud be tempted to take some wolf riders for flank/rear charge purposes.

If your opponent takes sorcerors don't forget they have to challenge in combats unless there is another character with the eye of the gods rule in the unit. If not they should be fairly easy to take down with big bosses and ifthey do it is a seriously expensive unit ie. >600 points to be heavily targeted with doomdivers, magic, fanatics, rock lobbers etc.

[Graxy]

Basically, when it comes to WoC, they pretty much have to rely on their blocks to do any work. Because of this, they are very imoblie and pretty much have to walk from their end of the table to yours in order to win the game. As an O&G player, you have the huge advantage here, sheerly because of the mobility of your army. You have access to SO much cheap, expendable units that at the same time, make huge dents into heavily armoured units or just being general annooyances. My reccomendation is Mangler Squigs, wolf chariots, pump wagons and doom divers (I know they're not a unit I just described, but they're so damn good). Really, you don't want to combat them head on. That's basically like bringing a rusty teaspoon to a gunfight. If they get in combat (unless they have MoS), they WILL beat you (If it's MoT, it will be a war of attrition but they will probably still win). However, a unit of 18 chaos warriors (presumably shields being charged by a unit of chariots takes 10/11 S5 hits (on average), 7/8 of which wound, 4/5 of which end up killing (depending on the mark). Now 13/14 warriors vs. 20 SO big 'uns, now thats a fight that you will win.

[Rosstifer]

Im not so sure here. Remember, once the savage orcs lose frenzy and the choppa bonus (after being beaten first turn), they'll be quiet alot weaker. Agianst my tzeentch warriors they'll (assuming horde vs horde) inflict 6 casualities in the first round, and 2,58 every round thereafter (untill they get bled down). The Warriors will kill 9 every round (assuming you have the shrunken head)

I think Goblins (maybe squig boms) with fanatics, pump wagons, chariots, and the huge squig is the way to go. WOC sucks at killing stuff like that

Who ever fields a horde of Chaos Warriors?! That's crazy! If he does, just redirect it with chaff, send Manglers at it, Foot of Gork it and shoot the crap out of it.

[Malorian]

Also remember the waaagh rule. You can use it to get in big charge moves and potentially to gang up on units. Unless they take a lord, chaos leadership is not great (although they will get panic re-rolls). If you can win a combat through ranks and flank/rear charges you have a fair chance of forcing them to flee. I woud be tempted to take some wolf riders for flank/rear charge purposes.

What edition are you playing?


Anyway, doom divers for knights, foot of gork the big blocks, and then beat them at their own game.

[Oogie boogie boss]

Ah, Foot of Gork. The answer to pretty much anything. The problem with relying on magic is that, if he wants to, he can get more wizards on the field than I can, so I could be looking at magical inferiority. Hopefully, if animosity is kind, i'll be able to concentrate my blocks into one of his and use the BB as support. That way I can use the Trolls to tie up one of his other blocks and destroy his army piecemeal. That's the plan i've got in my head, anyway,

[Panzer MkIV]

My advice is to ignore the advice given here for the time being and just play against WoC a couple of times with your list.

Once you get the feel how that army plays you can change your list as needed. And if you have trouble you can come back here.
Theory and practice are 2 different things and lists depend more on your local meta (campaigns, casual, semi-competitive, competitive, WAAC).

Don't get me wrong: they all gave good advice but it's just too soon to rely on that now especially when you're only playing 1000pts.

Just my 2 cents

[Yowzo]

Ah, Foot of Gork. The answer to pretty much anything. The problem with relying on magic is that, if he wants to, he can get more wizards on the field than I can, so I could be looking at magical inferiority. Hopefully, if animosity is kind, i'll be able to concentrate my blocks into one of his and use the BB as support. That way I can use the Trolls to tie up one of his other blocks and destroy his army piecemeal. That's the plan i've got in my head, anyway,

How's that? Your shamans are substantially cheaper than theirs.

Against WoC go shooty (as many warmachines as you can fit) and sit back while the rocks and spells work out. Hopefully you'll stand a chance once the real fighting starts.

Mangler squigs and chariots also work wonders as WoC have very little shooting.

In short, once combat starts, you'll very likely lose combat turn after turn even with multiple charges. Even SOBUs and trolls struggle against marked core warriors, you only have the numbers on your side, so make sure you're steadfast and have your bsb nearby.

[Oogie boogie boss]

I only have one shaman model, so that's all I can take. As for shooting, my army's a SO army, so no shooting either. Good advice for normal OnG armies though. Alas, though fluffy, i do seem to have handicapped myself somewhat against WoC.

[Sexiest_hero]

Convert you up soeore shamen! Also the best way for orcs to be any army is with their fists (wakka wakka)!

[Malorian]

I only have one shaman model, so that's all I can take.

So what? All you need is one lvl 4. This isn't 7th any more and having a ton of wizards is just a waste of points. Hell, in the vast majority of my games I only run one wizard.

Use that one lvl 4 to 6 dice foot of gork and you'll do just fine.

[Oogie boogie boss]

Yeah, I could do that, but i'd rather take a hitty-lord in a small game than a magic lord. It's more in character for the army I play and more in tune with my play style. Again, against WoC this is inhibitive, but FOGing my opponent's army to death from afar doesn't sound much fun. Besides, Chaos have got enough tricks to make a reliance on magic risky (some spell that makes all doubles a miscast...).
I'm really looking for advice on how to use synergy of tactics to best effect with the units i have available, advice on magic items combos, things to watch out for from him, etc. I'm also interested to see what other OnG players do against WoC.

[bigbear bailey]

if you want hitty do chariots. A unit of orks to hit the lines and then flank with chariots (impact killing them before int makes a diffrence). If you think a hitty lord is a must do, then make sure you give him a great weapon so you can smash through knights and warriors with ease.

[russellmoo]

The problem with the big un upgrade is that it is the same cost upgrade SO's as it is to upgrade regular orcs- this does lead to a very clear choice as to which unit is the best for its points- i.e. Savage orc big unz- it should have been +3 pts to upgrade SO's rather than the +2. Or arguably the problem lies with the cost of a regular orc- which should have stayed at 5 rather than go up to 6- the end result would have been roughly the same and true balance in the book achieved, but then GW wouldn't have sold so many boxes of savage orcs-

I would also add that no system is perfectly balanced so- don't lose sleep if you are not taking the absolutely best optimized choice-

WoC hate fanatics, and mangler squigs due to Armor piercing- however, Basha's axe is a pretty sound choice- I think your list will do fine- just remember you don't want to go head to head with Chaos warriors, few units can defeat them in CC- so magic them down, or avoid them-

[Yowzo]

I only have one shaman model, so that's all I can take. As for shooting, my army's a SO army, so no shooting either. Good advice for normal OnG armies though. Alas, though fluffy, i do seem to have handicapped myself somewhat against WoC.

You have summed it up perfectly.

SO are good at bashing things, problem is WoC are better at it than you.

WoC are only slightly more expensive than SOBUs, and can hit harder (khorne halberds) or sustain better damage (tzeentch HW&shield) than you. They also hit before you, hit you on 3+ and have 2 attacks apiece so it's quite of an uphill battle.

Then there's GW-wielding khorne marauders, who bring lots of S5 attacks for peanuts. Oh, and will hit your regular boyz on 3+ as well.

Let's not get in a chaos knights vs. boar boyz, either.

[Oogie boogie boss]

Luckily, very luckily, i like a challenge.

[Baluc]

WofC are going to struggle if you overwhelm them with units. They don't even have to be good units. Things like units of Wolf riders, wolf chariots, boar chariots, mangler squigs, etc. If you just build some blocks and have at them Warriors are going to outfight you, and to be honest they should its kind of their thing.