Dealing with WoC

[Etancross]

I haven't seen many battleReps or discussions on this topic but im wondering how you guys have been dealing with WoC's?

With warriors that can have 2 up saves, knights that can crush anything they hit, and awesome magic, and casters with decent armor saves, what are some good tactics for these guys?

[Bies]

I actually play against warriors more then anything else.

They're tin cans for sure but you can minimize the damage they dish out.

Knights succumb to bolt-throwers, especially flank shots - however I seem to be in a minority of deploying warmachines on the flanks of my line. Most people (poor warmachine deployers in my opinion) always try and deploy a hill in the centre and make it a machine bunker - empire players do it as well - which is where I learnt how to use my machines.

A flank shot you wounds on 2+, 3+,4+ so good chance of killing 2-3 knights each hit. And at 45pts each that will hurt!

Also flank charges with Hydra/COK will also take out knights.

Thankfully Warriors are usually small units, again flank hits or double teams (COK, Hydra) will usually get enough kills to win combat.

Instead of taking Dark Magic go for Metal and pinpoint their characters, Their mages are t4 with a 4+ so on a 5+ to cast, 4+ to wound you can take a wound off the sorcerer with Rule of Burning Iron.

Marauders usually have little armour so mass crossbowfire works well.

Against their chariots - rending star/manbane assassin does wonders.

A dragon lord with caledor's bane also does well!

[Camaris]

WOC is very nasty in a frontal assault. As a result, I would advise against fighting them from the front. Use your superior speed to set up flank charges on heavily armoured troops with can-openers such as Executioners, COK, frenzied corsairs or WE that have been cauldron blessed with KB blessing. He will probably bring lots of hounds and marauder horsemen to try to prevent you from controlling the movement phase, so your RXB/RBTs should be working to eliminate those threats.

One of the nastiest warrior set ups that I have seen is a semi-fast Tzeentch magic heavy army with 8-10 levels of magic. As a result of this, if you do not go magic heavy yourself, I would advise placing the ring of hotek in the army. If you do go magic heavy, you will probably be outmagicked, so I would advise placing some mage hunters to give you superiority of the magic phase.

Is there any particular set up you're looking to beat?

[Bies]

tbh warrior magic sucks. The amount of points you need to sink into your characters and daemon prince for a "strong" magic phase almost doesn't make it worth it.

Besides taking Ring of Hotek can nullify nearly 1000pts spent on characters in this fashion.

What is very nasty and semi-affordable is the current build I fight against quite regularly.

Lord - all weapon/shield options, Regen and modify eye of gods, collar of Khorne
BSB - immune killingblow/poison, all weapon/armour options
15 warriors (or chosen if you REALLY want to spend the points) all options (so extra handweapon, greatweapon or halberd, shield) Full command, Frenzy banner

All with Mark of Tzeentch. Add 1 or 2 war shrines and buff the unit (looking for stubborn and 4+ ward so then the unit gets a 3+ wardsave).

That unit can take a hit by almost anything and the lord and BSB dish out 11 str7 attacks alone...

[Camaris]

@Bies: I've seen variants of the army you have mentioned, and will agree that it is one of the nastiest ones they can field. However, I don't think that WOC magic is something that should be dismissed, lightly. Ring of Hotek gives us a HUGE edge against them, but they still have infernal puppet to counter it, not to mention that screaming fire of Tzeentch is a very effective magic missile that can be cast into ring of hotek range. Furthermore, since all their mages have the stats of most combat characters, they can afford to spend high points on them. Combine this with their ability to get +1 to cast, and awesome arcane items such as warrior familiar, spell familiar, and skull of katam, and you've got a very potent magic phase.

[Bies]

@Bies: I've seen variants of the army you have mentioned, and will agree that it is one of the nastiest ones they can field. However, I don't think that WOC magic is something that should be dismissed, lightly. Ring of Hotek gives us a HUGE edge against them, but they still have infernal puppet to counter it, not to mention that screaming fire of Tzeentch is a very effective magic missile that can be cast into ring of hotek range. Furthermore, since all their mages have the stats of most combat characters, they can afford to spend high points on them. Combine this with their ability to get +1 to cast, and awesome arcane items such as warrior familiar, spell familiar, and skull of katam, and you've got a very potent magic phase.

Yes they can get a phase going, I wasn't debating that, I was saying that you end up sinking far more points into it then many other lists to the point that it's not cost effective.

[Kaptain von]

I come down on Bies' side here. I've played a Sorcerer-heavy Chaos build and trust me, those buggers get expensive, especially when you've started spending points on the Discs and whatnot that they need to keep them alive. Building a Warriors of Chaos army involves a lot of point shaving and a a tight eye kept on the proverbial ball: it's all too easy to take what's good and end up with an army that runs counter to its own purposes (cavalry want to get into combat, Sorcerers want stuff out of combat so they can spellfire it to death, and you've not got anything else because you needed to provide redundancies).

[The virgin forest]

I haven't experienced anything like that with my warriors Kaptain Von. I usually ran a two units of Khorne knights some throwaway horsemen and dogs, 3 casters and a Khorne BSB. So I had 3 combat units (knights and BSB) that would demolish everything they came into contact with. And three casters that usually had ample targets available.

And I second Bies on using artillery on the flanks, it makes it harder to access them, and you get better flank shots

[Anchanrogar]

The 'eye of the gods bunker' ward saved up chosen/warriors fighty lord and 2 war shrines is pretty weak in practice. Once all those points are spent theres not room for much else in the WoC list, the 'eye of the gods bunker' has very little chance of earning its points back, with only M4, manoeuvrable armies can just pick off the supporting/screening marauders, waste the war shrines and flee from the bunker. The scroll caddy general WoC cavalry horde seemed much harder to counter, cant say Ive faced the whirlwind of chaos sorcerers... (hope for gateway?)

[Bies]

It's not weak in practice for the reason you make out. All the points are in that unit so if you want to get a decent victory you need to take it out - which can be VERY hard.

This is the list I usually come up against - 2500pts.

Lord - collar of khorne, regen (which are both talismans so I need to check my opponents list) all weapon and armour options, Words of Agony, Mark of Tzeentch
BSB - immune KB/Poison, all weapon and armour options. Mark of Tzeentch
Herald - Mark of Khorne, Juggernought, some stuff not entire sure (helpful I know).
Mage - lv1, 2xDS

2x6 marauder cav - javelins, flails, mark of slaanesh
2x5 hounds
15 warriors - full command, frenzy banner (BSB/Lord in here)
2x7 Knights - 1 with Mark of Khorne, 1 with Mark of Tzeentch
War Shrine

Knights and Jugger hit hard and real points are all in the warrior/lord/bsb unit which is constantly getting buffs. It's a good and fun list.

[[llct]kain]

Quite an interesting read - and quite surprising :-)

The 'eye of the gods bunker' ward saved up chosen/warriors fighty lord and 2 war shrines is pretty weak in practice.

Here I would assist it seems to be a two limited approach. You have only two units to realy worry about, the knights. The merauder and hounds are easy prey for RxBs and DR.

If you can bait (especially the Khorne Knights) and destroy the knights you can either ignore the big unit and win with 3 quarters + VP for the killed support units. Or try to attack the unit with templates from Hydra and spells.

cant say Ive faced the whirlwind of chaos sorcerers... (hope for gateway?)

Gateway works only realy with a deamon prince, incl. tendrils. But even Daemon prince + 1 Mage could give some strong magic phase - leaving points for a combat hero and some heavy hitters.

what are some good tactics for these guys?

As in general with all enemies, delay their advance, shoot them and choose the combats you want to fight and you know you will win :-)

[Red...]

I just finished the following post, hopefully it may provide a few ideas?

http://www.druchii.net/viewtopic.php?t=65120