8th Ed. Warriors of Chaos Core Deep Dive - Tzeentch CW vs. Nurgle CW vs. Khorne CW vs. Chaos Trolls

In the Skeleton Chariot combat, the scenario assumed that the chariots had just charged into combat. This means they get impact hits. So in the first round of combat, the order of attacks are as follows:

1. Impact hits from the Skeleton Chariots (which are resolved at the very beginning of the close combat)
2. Chaos Warriors (striking at Initiative 5)
3. Skeleton Charioteers AND Skeletal Steeds (striking at Initiative 2)

So the small number you see in the wounds column of the Chaos Warriors represents the wounds they have remaining after the Skeleton Chariot impact hits are resolved. The small number is used in order to determine how many WC models are left alive to attack back. You'll notice that after the first round of combat, this small number is exactly the same as the wounds they enter the round of combat with because there are no Impact Hits in subsequent rounds of combat.

The small number you see next to the wounds column of the Skeleton Chariots represents the wounds they have remaining after the Chaos Warriors have attacked. The remaining models then have an opportunity to attack back at their initiative of 2.

 

Spoiler: Alternate formation to see if the Swordmasters can fare any better

The contest lasts one round longer, but the Swordmasters end up doing even less damage to the Trolls overall

 

@Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl : your High Elves cut through all three variants of the Chaos Warriors with ease. Do you still feel that they are an OP infantry choice? And if so, what does that make the High Elves?

 

Crystal clear Thanks

One thing left, there are some small discrepancies with the number of wounds left in de first round and the wounds in the second round (one or two wounds) is there a different aspect to that?

Just for the record if the Warriors are in some way able to charge the Chariots impact hits will be negated, right?

Grrr, !mrahil

 

Are you referring to this?....



The Warriors of Chaos start with 29 wounds. The Chariot impact hits cause 6.66 unsaved wounds. So when it is the CW's turn to attack they have 22.34 wounds/models remaining, which is rounded down to 22 for the purposes of determining how many CW get to attack, as indicated by the small number (although keep in mind that Excel is keeping track of all the decimal places and using the full numbers to do calculations in the background).

After the Warriors of Chaos have attacked, it is time for the Skeleton Charioteers and Steeds to attack, in this case they do 1.00 and 0.15 unsaved wounds respectively. So the Chaos Warriors lose another 1.15 wounds from the 22.34 they had remaining after the impact hits, and are left with 21.19 wounds, which is rounded down to the 21 wounds you see them starting the subsequent combat round with.

In summary

The small number (22) = 29 wounds - impact hit wounds

Large number seen in the subsequent round (21) = 29 wounds - impact hit wounds - skeleton charioteer wounds - skeletal steed wounds

That is correct. Impact hits are only applied on the turn in which the unit with the impact hits special rule charges into combat. If the enemy charges them, they don't get impact hits. Likewise, after the first round of combat, there are no impact hits either. Consequently, it is absolutely vital for the chariot unit to get the charge. As you can see from our four matches, nearly all the damage that the Skeleton Chariots inflicted on our WoC contestants came directly from their impact hits.

 

Ah I forgot about that (off course they deal more damage than just the impact hits)

Thanks for explaining, back to the regular scheduling

Grrr, !mrahil

 

Hardly 'with ease'. The only variant they beat in any form of comfort is the Khorne Warriors. I'll certainly admit that the Khorne build is not as strong as I first thought, though, it is easily the worst of the Warrior variants there.

By contrast the other two whittle the Swordmasters down to around a quarter of their size, again rendering them easy to dispatch in the later game. That's definitely nothing to be sniffed at.

My main argument was that they're an OP Core choice, and they (certainly the Tzeentch and Nurgle builds at least) still show themselves to be when they can take so much out of other armies' Special and Rare choices and render one of their own army's Special choices (Chosen) invalid.

Though of course their power is nothing compared to that of Chaos Trolls. Normally of course they'd be countered by Stupidity but Throgg lead deals with that in the best possible way.

You forget that Swordmasters are very easy to kill off with shooting attacks, significantly easier than any Chaos Warrior build (even Khorne Warriors have T4 to set them just above Swordmasters in durability, especially against the small-arms bowfire that most armies primarily use). T3 and a 5+ armour save are big inbuilt counters.

And for the record, I only have 10 Swordmasters in my army, and am happy to keep it that way.

 

There is a lot going on in the calculations chart so it can be hard to keep track of what's going on when you're not the one inputting the numbers. Doubly so when there are a bunch of different types of attacks hitting at different initiatives.

No worries.

I will begin the next round soon. I have a bunch of potential opponents to go through. Just got to pick one out that I feel like working on.

 

Definitely not a K'daai Destroyer level of ease, but they still took out all three Chaos Warrior unit variants. The Chaos Warriors couldn't even win one of the three matches. For comparison, the Saurus Warriors were able to steal a win off of the Chaos Warriors. If we argue that the Swordmasters are not that much better than the CW, then we have to concede that the CW are not that much better than the Saurus Warriors.

Despite the damage the Swordmasters sustained (25%, 31.3% and 59% of the unit remaining), the Chaos Warrior matchup is definitely a good one for them. In our Best Close Combat units in all of Warhammer tournament, we saw heaps of matchups that were much closer than this was.

We'll see how many of the opponents' Special and Rare choices they can take out. Don't forget that the Nurgle Chaos Warriors finished in 15th place (out of 16) in our Best Close Combat units in all of Warhammer tournament. Admittedly those were some of the best of the best, but of their 15 matchups, they only managed to win 4 of them. For comparisons sake, they were outperformed by the other two core infantry choices in the Savage Orc Big'uns (who finished in 9th) and the mighty Witch Elves (who finished tied for 5th).

So which Special and Rare choices are they dominating?

From what we've seen, they aren't even the best core infantry choice out there. And that's before we even consider other unit types.

Chosen are pretty crappy in 8th edition (after being god-tier with their ChosenStar setup in 7th). That doesn't necessarily mean much in relation to the Chaos Warriors though. For example, Chaos Dwarf Ironsworn are a special choice that are rarely selected over their core equivalent Infernal Guard, but that doesn't mean that Infernal Guard are some kind of world breakers.

Throgg definitely helps them out with his leadership bubble should they find themselves outside of the general's Inspiring Presence range. Throgg pushes them up to leadership 8, which is still lagging behind something like the Lizardmen Cold One Rider's cold-blooded leadership 8, but magnitudes better than their base leadership. Trolls are essentially unusable units without a leadership boost. Leadership 4 and stupidity make for a really bad combo.

The Tzeentch CW are definitely more survivable, I will readily concede that.

But it isn't as clear with the Nurgle and Khorne variants. Sure they have one better toughness and armour, but in exchange, the Swordmasters have a 6+ ward against shooting AND have more wounds for any given points cost.

As an example consider a 247 point unit of Swordmasters versus 247 point unit of Nurgle CW. Which is harder to remove off the table with shooting?...

19 Swordmasters with T3, 5+ armour and 6+ ward

or...

13 Nurgle Chaos Warriors with T4, 4+ armour


One last point, consider that the Swordmasters are essentially an off-meta pick for the High Elves. White Lions and Phoenix Guard seem far more popular, especially the latter with how well they synergize with the army.

 

Spoiler: Alternate formation

 

You've peaked my interest. Why speculate when we can simply run the numbers for a definitive answer?



Swordmasters do better across the majority of the strength values, but Nurgle CW hold the advantage in terms of the very common S3 shooting attack. All things considered, they are fairly similar in terms of surviving shooting attacks.