When you have a girlfriend that plays WoC, you find yourself facing a surprisinly large amount of chaos warriors. So yes, by comparison, I'd probably rank them 2nd overall (for core troops anyways).
It is true that there is almost nothing that will beat a decent sized unit of HE swordmasters, even if you charge them. However, they do have a couple of large weaknesses that are easy to see and exploit. Firstly, they are only t3 and have basically no armour, with only a 5+ save. They are extremely vulnerable to shooting and magic. Secondly, they cost a hell of a lot of points, certainly more than a saurus warriors warriors as they should I guess since they are elite infantry rather than core. In fact, now that I check they cost the same as a chaos warrior. Because of their high cost, they are often seen only in smaller units which are still powerful but beatable. If someone fields a unit of 20 of them against you, really they are the ones that have wasted their points. All those models in the back ranks costing lots of points but doing nothing except providing numbers? It is criminal. They are the biggest and easiest target for anything long range you have. If you lack range like WoC do, then bring in a chariot with a unit when you hit them. Impact hits go before their ASF so you can kill the front rank before they get to hit you, then your unit can go to work cutting them down and adding to your mounting combat res. Hmmm.... 1000 posts? I think I have been here too long.
Also, cheese can be defined by the situation. For example, my friend usually (he is finally seeing the light about a "friendly game" and using an archmage) takes a Star Dragon in his battles at the local GW. I played him with my WoC and was tabled by the 4th turn. Afterward I cried cheese and he justified it by saying that it's the only competative HE list. Now the main reason it was so cheesy was that my list had NOTHING in it to deal with a Star Dragon. The whole WoC book has few reliable answers to said dragon. An empire army with some ranged units and 2-3 cannon would probably do well. Also whle playing against Skaven and having my Stegadon killed by a Fell Blade and their rules with Warp Lghting Cannons, Ratling Guns, and Warp Lighting seemed cheesey, however they all can blow themselves up. Some things, like the aforementioned Skaven tecnology, are the victims of crapy rules writing; I think (why can the stupid cannon shoot through most terrain....). The moral of the story is that everythng has the capacity to be cheese in different situations.
There is a difference between a Cheesy list and a list which you didn't prepare for.. I think it is rather wise to know what your opponent is able to bring and take 'anti' with you... It doesn't seem friendly.. but a little competitive player would do so even in friendly games. Knowing is half the battle. Btw whats up with those silly emoticons?
Taking a blanaced list seems to be the best bet in most cases, unless you and your friend are tailoring lists against each other and that is understood prior to the battle. I agree with WheelR that there are lists which you can forget to prepare for, and others that are just plain cheesy. The problem with GW is that they have 15+ unique lists all with different options and rules to balance. Just like the law, there will always be loopholes. The emoticons are overused if I do say so myself.
Star dragon is certainly not the only competative HE list, in fact as you said against some armies it will be easily dealt with. Archmage magic isn't even the only alternative, HE magic costs a hell of a lot of points. But yeah I guess a lot of it does come down to who is playing the army. When you talk about 'cheesy' lists I guess you have to consider both players know what they are doing and are playing at least somewhat competatively, in friendly game situations people should be bringing fair lists because really where is the fun in massacring every opponent without having to do anything except roll dice?
Sorry about the emoticons, just illistrating the efect of an gunline V a dragon. This is true, and I would take advantage of it if there was a reliable way of dealing with said dragon with WoC. Thats the problem, there isnt. Infernal Gateway is the only thing that could kill it efficently and thats so dependent on dice rolls that I don't even bother to try it, as he'll scroll it/throw all dice if not Iresistable Force, or one doesnt roll the 11-12 for str. Other than that there isn't hardly anything to kill the T6 W7 flying beast; mostly cause u can't catch the darn thing. Besides I was trying to take a balanced list, and the fact that I don't own a large variety of stuff to try out. I agree with Strewart about the competative lists for HE; on a funny side note he actually said that Star Dragon was the best, then Teclis, and then the archmage.
..You got skinks for High Toughness.. Go all out with it. If you really want it dead.. it will go down.
Heh, Teclis is insanely powerful at magic. Definitely far better than an archmage, but not much fun in friendly games. His major weakness is, of course, combat. At T2 and with no save he drops like a fly.
I can remember a discussion with a friend of mine who plays HE's. He never has actually fielded Teclis against me but our discussion pitted Teclis against Lord Kroak (6th edition rules). Fairly interesting, depsite the fact that I think Kroak ended up edging Teclis out.
Didn't Kroak used to be over 1000 points though? I should hope that version would win. It would be interesting to see the current versions pitted against each other. Teclis would die really easily to anything that hit him, it would probably be a matter of who could defend the first onslaught the best.
6th edition Kroak was 1225 points. On top of all those points, if your opponent managed to kill Kroak, your best result in the game was a draw. Not that getting Kroak killed makes you deserve to win a game or anything. It's hardly relevant to todays discussion, but it would be interesting to see who would best who, 7th Teclis vs 7th Kroak.
If you look at the fluff for a second you can assume that Kroak should always best any other spellcaster. Being able to slay many a daemon and have the will power to keep his soul intact while his physical form is destroyed makes him the uber-spellcaster of spellcasters. But alas, fluff, it seems, is rarely the basis for GW's decision and dice being dice means that pretty much anything can happen.
I don't know, I think Teclis fluff-wise is still in contention. during the Storm of Chaos campaign, Teclis simply waved his hands and the entire daemonic legion dissapeared including Bel'Akor, prince of daemons. But as you say, fluff is a poor judge of model ability. Everything excels in its own fluff areas, and every army is on the brink of taking over the whole world.
The only thing that I can think of that would come into play in a magical duel between the two of them, by WH rules would be the fact that Kroak has far more wounds than Teclis (at least from what I can remember). Teclis is going to need a few successfull casts or an extra round to kill Kroak as compared to Kroak who will only need to get 1-2 spells off to squish Teclis. *edit* Speller/Grammer (fail again!)
If you know you are facing Teclis, take the Blood Statuette of Spite. If you're dueling with him magic-wise, this will at least help limit the amount of your own magic he will be able to block, because he will probably save 2-3 dice or a scroll in order to counter the item once you actually use it. You can then ensure that his magic defense is hampered the entire game by never actually using the statuette, unless of course you put forth such an otherwise devastating magic phase that he has to use up his scrolls and his dice blocking everything. Then you get to say... "Take a toughness test"! I imagine that even if you hold onto the item for the whole game it will do a lot of good.