Slann
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Part One: Warriors of Chaos versus Lizardmen
Marks of Chaos: Many units can take marks of Chaos. They are costed per model now instead of per unit meaning giant hordes of Marked units now cost more on average. Marks of Chaos also affect what characters can and can’t do in terms of units they can join and magical items they can take, but that’s more detail specific than LM players need to know. Costs of Marks are scaled, so nastier units tend to have to pay more for their Marks than weaker ones.
Khorne provides Frenzy. I expect to see this one often.
Tzeentch provides 6+ Ward saves (or plus one to an existing Ward save) and allows wizards with the Mark to reroll 1s when channeling.
Mark of Nurgle gives a -1 to hit for enemies in base contact. This is probably the most powerful Mark and it certainly is the most powerful mark against Lizardmen because our units are already outclassed in terms of WS versus the Warriors of Chaos. In some cases this will require us to roll 6s to score any hits!
Mark of Slaanesh lets the unit automatically pass Fear, Terror, and Panic tests (this requires the majority of the models to have the rule so a single character can’t join a unit and bestow this). This seems like the weakest mark, but it’s also cost half of what the others do. Note that we LM players tend to field a lot of units that cause Fear or Terror and we like to trigger Panic tests with Salamanders so don’t write this Mark off as useless.
Eye of the Gods: Most characters and unit champions have the ability to roll on the Eye of the Gods table. The most common way to trigger a roll on the table is for the character to win a challenge OR inflict the last wound on a monster.
Most of the benefits on the table provide a relatively minor stat boost. There is a small chance for the model being removed and replaced with a Chaos Spawn or the model gaining a Mark of Chaos or morphing into a Demon Prince. Whether the player gets a Chaos Spawn or Demon Prince, the character counts as slain. The new model will not give you any victory points for being slain, but you get the victory points for killing the original character. A Demon Prince can continue serving as general or BSB if the character it replaced was one before.
Models with this special rule have to declare or accept a challenge at every opportunity. Beware the unintended consequences of feeding your enemies sacrificial unit champions, you might make them stronger! We also have a lot of Monsters in our new book so we should be careful letting our Monsters near enemy characters. Probably safe around unit champions though.
Chaos Armor: Chaos armor gives its wearer a 4+ Armor save. This is basically so Games Workshop can let the WoC have 4+ armor save while still using two handed weapons.
Core Units
Chaos Warriors: Take a Saurus and give him WS5 and I5 and you have your basic Chaos Warrior costing about half again as much per model. A few more points will get them great weapons, halberds or additional hand weapons. All are deadly choices capable of ripping up all of our Core. In relative terms the great weapons will be inefficient for chopping up Skroxigor and highly efficient for chopping up Saurus. Two hand weapons will be less efficient at killing Saurus and highly efficient at chopping up Skinks. Any of the Marks will make the Chaos Warriors nastier still. Their unit Champions qualify for Eye of the Gods. They can take magic banners up to 25 points.
Chaos Marauders: Rejoice, all ye Forces of Order. Marauders have gone up in price (primarily through equipment and Mark upgrade costs). They have gone from being ludicrously under-costed to being reasonably costed (or unfairly nerfed according to a small minority). They still have WS 4, and I4 so the WEAKEST Chaos troops are not that weak. Champions roll on the Eye of the Gods table when they kill a worthy opponent.
They can take flails or great weapons (either one will let them wound Sauri on 3+). They can buy shields and/or light armor. They can take Marks of the Gods and their champions qualify for Eye of the Gods. I’m guessing old habits die hard and many WoC will continue to field hordes of these guys and that the Mark of Khorne will remain the old standby. As Lizardmen, Mark of Slaanesh is troublesome because large groups of Marauders are just begging to be burned by Salamanders and I’d personally prefer they panic (I guess Frenzied Marauders won’t panic either until beaten in close combat at which point it’s usually too late to panic them).
Forsaken: I do not expect these Chaos Spawn-in-training guys to become a popular Core choice because they are 19-21 points each, but they are likely to be the go-to Core soldier for players who like lots of special rules.
These mutants have the basic statline of Chaos Warriors but they have M6 and D3 for their attack profile. They have Frenzy. They can be upgraded with a blessing of one of the Dark Gods to get Hatred, MR 2, Fear, or Swifstride (in lieu of the usual Marks). They roll to get a different random special ability every turn. It could either be ASL, Armor Piercing, ASF, Poison, Regeneration 5+, or Killing Blow.
Chaos Chariots: Chariots as a Core unit seems improper for anyone but Tomb Kings. They are tough, but they aren’t overpowered. They enjoy the above average stat lines that most WoC models get (for instance the Chaos horsies have S4 instead of the usual S3), but the chariot is pretty vanilla. AS 3+, 4 wounds, scythed wheels. Like most chariots you want to get the charge on them and deny them the impact hits if Lizardly possible. Since most Warriors of Chaos players have little issue filling up their minimum 25% with nasty Core troops, I’m guessing most generals will not fill their Core with chariots and will instead field the more powerful Gorebeast chariots.
Marauder Horsemen: Basic Marauder statline on a M8 horse: the hardest hitting Fast Cavalry unit yet seen in all of Warhammer. If you see them in the enemy army, you have to be extra careful with your skirmishing units.
They can shields and/or light armor (armor negates Fast Cavalry rule however). They can take spears or flails. They can take Marks of the Gods and their champions are subject to Eye of the Gods just like their footslogging cohorts. They are one of two units in the whole army book with a ranged attack! They can take javelins or thrown axes (I doubt this will be common). As LM, we would probably much prefer getting things thrown at us then being run through with spears, but don’t tell the WoC this. They don’t have a lot of practice with ranged attacks. If you can trick your opponent into throwing javelins at your skirmishers instead of running them down, do so.
Chaos Warhounds: Every army has (or should have) a good chaff unit. The doggies fill the roll nicely. They are pretty much like faster quadruped Marauders without the weapon options. They can be upgraded to have Vanguard making them a threat to our advance troops (especially Salamanders). They can also be upgraded to have poisoned attacks increasing the potency of their unimpressive S3 bites. They can take another upgrade for Scaly Skin 6+ giving them a slight reprieve from the poisoned shooting that Skinks will be sending their way (in a perfect world, all evil hounds have poisoned sticks and darts sent their way).
Special Units
Hellstriders of Slaanesh: Did I say Marauder horsemen were the most powerful Fast Cavalry in Warhammer? Hellstriders are basically Marauder Horsemen on far more powerful Steeds. The Steeds cause Fear and have Poisoned magical attacks that are also Armor Piercing. At M10 they are the fastest units that don’t fly. They can take spears or hellscourges. I suspect most players will gravitate towards the latter. These unique weapons give the riders ASF on the first turn of combat and will generally be more effective for carving up the lighter units than spears would be (though if they plan to flank Saurus, the spears will probably serve them better).
Each time a unit of Hellstriders wipes out a unit in close combat or runs down a fleeing unit, they get stronger (max three units). The first dead units gives them Devastating Charge. The second dead unit adds Stubborn in addition. The third unit gives the unit a 4+ Ward Save. As long as they don’t have the Ward Save, the Hellstriders are glass cannons with only a 5+ armor save protecting them making them from our BS shooting as long as you can keep the Skirmishers and Razordons out of their charge arc. Do NOT let them kill three of your units. Be very careful deploying sacrificial chaff units against the WoC if you see Hellstriders.
Chosen: Basically they are more expensive Chaos Warriors with WS6. Jokes on you Horn hats! Lizardmen WS is so crappy you only need WS5 to school us! What really sets the Chosen apart is the entire unit makes an Eye of the Gods roll when they arrive on the table and then gets to fudge the roll in their favor by rolling three dice and choosing their favorite two dice. The bonus effect applies to the whole unit unless it would be the top or bottom result in which case it only affects the unit champion (so they can’t turn an entire unit into demon princes or Chaos spawn). They can take magic banners up to 50 points.
Chaos Knights: Chaos Warriors are nice but they are missing something….I know they should cause Fear, have M7, and AS 1+. Like most knights (except LM of course), they can take lance upgrades. If that’s too vanilla for you. They can take ensorcelled hand weapons. They add +1 to S for damage and inflict magical hits. Sounds badass sure, but after reading this far in the Warriors of Chaos book I’m like “meh I guess it’s okaaaay”.
Chaos Ogres: Suspiciously similar to Ironguts out of the Ogre book only you can build Chaos Ogres with the same stat lines and equipment for one point less (gnash your teeth Ogre players, Chaos gets all the good stuff!). They can take great weapons or two hand weapons (or in theory a single hand weapon but why be that cheap?). Too vanilla for you? Why not upgrade them with Marks of Chaos. Now that is scary.
Dragon Ogres: These ogres are stronger, faster, and have better armor saves their footslogging counterparts and are fielded on chariot bases. They are monstrous beasts but I see them playing like Monstrous Cavalry. Dragon Ogres are also fed by lightning. They have a 2+ Ward save against Uranon’s Thunderbolt and Chain Lightning and gain frenzy if they are struck by such an attack, so rein in your Skink Priests if you see these guys. Tempest doesn’t actually mention having lightning in the description so this probably won’t trigger the special ability but you don’t want to try Tempest on them anyway because it won’t hit hard enough.
Chaos Trolls: Identical statlines and cost to the vanilla trolls the O&G use. The only difference is that Chaos Trolls can buy additional hand weapons (and why wouldn’t they?). For a recap, similar stats to Kroxigor, they have Regeneration 4+. Troll Vomit hits automatically and ignores armor saves but they have to forgo their regular attacks to do it. In most cases, troll vomit is not a mathematically good idea versus LM unless they are fighting Saurus Cavalry, Ancient Stegadons, or Bastilodons. Certainly I would suggest keeping your cowboy Scar Vets away from trolls.
Chimera: Big monster, gets a bonus when making rear attacks, has Scaly Skin 4+ and causes terror like most monsters in its weight class. They can be upgraded to have a breath weapon, Regeneration, and/or Poisonous attacks. I’m going to assume most players will take all three upgrades most of the time. This seems like a good candidate to throw Skroxigor or Kroxigor at.
Gorebeast Chariot: Very similar to the vanilla chariot that the WoC can field as a Core option, but I suspect these will be seen more often. For a modest increase in points (and not being Core), a chariot can get a much nastier steed pulling it. Gorebeasts hit harder and more often than horsies. It’s slightly slower but in general hitting power wins out over speed.
Chaos Warshrine: This thing is weird. It’s a chariot but it has no impact hits and takes dangerous terrain test like as if it were infantry (why did they bother calling it a chariot? I know not). In relative terms, the Warshines are weak in combat compared to the rest of the army (though they have 4+ Ward saves so they are pretty defensively strong). Their primary purpose is to make Eye of the Gods rolls more favorable. All units within 12” can add a third dice to their rolls on the chart and remove a die of their choice. They also have a bound spell which triggers an Eye of the Gods roll for d3 friendly units within 12 inches. It’s too early to tell just how concerned we should be with the Eye of the Gods rule so I’m not sure how to prioritize killing them.
Rare Units
Hellcannon: Despite the name, the Hellcannon shoots like a stone thrower now (not sure if it always did or not). That’s good news for Stegadons. The hits are at S10 but it’s harder to get the center hole over a Stegadon than it is to line up a cannon shot. The bad news is for everyone else. The non-center hole hits are S5 which means the Hellcannon can do more than just kill large dinosaurs. It can devastate Saurus blocks too. The hits are magical so being ethereal will not protect your lone Slann. To make matters worse, a single casualty causes an automatic panic test at -1 Ld to the target (so they are better than Salamanders)
Killing the Hellcannon is very difficult for the First children of the Old Ones. 4+ AS, 5+ T6 and it’s got the monsters and handlers quasi save. That’s too thick skinned for Terradons and Chameleon Skinks to handle. We are hard pressed to deal with it even with spells. It has three weaknesses, and two of them are outside of our control. 1) the Hellcannon cannot move and fire in the same turn and it’s base move is a lowly 3 inches so it might as well be a static artillery piece. 2) the misfire chart is quite severe. Weakness 3 is that it is Initiative 1 so it is somewhat vulnerable to magic attacks that use Initiative tests.
If you are not packing Shadow or Death, my advice is to ignore the Hellcannon and just try to get in close combat ASAP so it can’t shoot you (sadly close combat is where the rest of the army wants us to be). Perhaps Walk Between Worlds will let us get our heavy hitters into charge range of these things?
Dragon Ogre Shaggoth: Fights similarly a Carnosaur with better WS, Initiative, and Leadership (but with no d3 wounds). Like the lesser dragon ogres you should not shoot lightning at them.
Chaos Giant: Exactly the same as O&G and Ogre Kingdom giants with the option to take Marks of the Gods. They work slightly differently than Marks for everyone else (Khorne = +1 Strength, Tzzentch Ward Save 6+, Nurgle +1 T, Slaanesh +1 I). Of all the 200+ point monsters in the WoC army book, this is the only one with little to no saves of any kind. If you see one of these guys, direct your Skink shooting at it, this is clearly the juiciest shooting target the WoC have to offer them.
Chaos Spawn: Chaos Spawn are cheap monsters. Their main weakness is their random movement. On a high roll they lurch ahead of the main army and are picked off while isolated. On a low roll they arrive too late to help. They can be upgraded to include one of the following: Devastating Charge, S3 Breath weapon, flaming attacks, Poisoned Attacks, or ASF. Their second weakness is that they have no armor save. If there are no giants around, tell your Skinks to shoot the crap out of them. They die pretty easily, but at 50 points apiece it’s not an overwhelming victory for us. If my games with WoC under the last book are any indication, it will be the only points I score before being tabled.
Skullcrushers of Khorne: In order to sell their expensive monstrous cavalry models, GW makes them very powerful. Take the power of a Chaos Knight and give it a mount that’s S5 (6 on the charge), WS5 with three attacks. Tough, hard hitting, good saves. Nasty. Our best bet to take these down is our new and improved Strength 5 Kroxigor.
Slaughterbrute: At this point reading the book, I’m getting 200 point monster ennui. I mean don’t Chimera and Shaggoth pretty much fit the same niche here? The one thing that sets these guys apart is their puppet master. At the beginning of the game the Chaos player designates a character per Slaughterbrute to be the puppet master. The Brute uses that characters WS. If the puppet master character dies the Brute goes down to WS 3 (not a huge difference for us) and it becomes subject to random movement with a scatter die. If it hits one of our units it’s a charge like any other time. If it hits an allied unit they stop an inch away and inflict d6+2 hits on the friendly unit. A master-less Brute will stop at the table edge too so unfortunately you can’t kill it’s master in the hope of it wandering off the board and giving you free victory points, but killing the master is still a good idea (not that WoC characters are particularly vulnerable).
Mutalith Vortex Beast: I like this monster. The Cthulu-esque creature is a nice change of pace. Compared to the Mutalith, the other monsters are a little too Khorn-y looking for my tastes (pun intended). It’s a little less fighty than the other big monsters but it has a bound spell (direct damage 18” range) called Aura of Mutation cast on 5+. Roll a d6 to determine effect and it makes a target take d6 toughness test or suffer that many wounds in addition to an additional effect (which is sometimes beneficial to the target).
1-Gain Fear for the rest of the game
2-Gain Stupidity for the rest of the game
3-Gain +1 to WS, BS, S, T, I, or A determined randomly. Lose -1 to another randomly chosen trait for the rest of the game.
4-No additional effect, but the spell jumps as Chain Lightning does potentially damaging more units.
5-No additional effect, but use a scattering small template to determine who is hit
6-If a casualty is inflicted, the Warriors of Chaos get a free Chaos Spawn nearby (max one per spell).
Characters
Character Mounts: WoC have a huge variety of mounts to choose from. Listed from least to greatest. The first two are regular cavalry, the last two are monsters. The rest are monstrous cavalry.
Barded Chaos Steeds: The only difference between Chaos steeds and most other horses is these hit at S4 and they can’t be taken without barding.
Steeds of Slaanesh: These are the same very fast nasty magical poisonous steeds of the Fast Cavalry when paired with a character as they are when fielded as their own Special unit.
Discs of Tzeentch: Basically a flying Cold One with magical attacks. The downside for the WoC is this one can’t join an allied unit so is going to be exposed (like the Flying Skink of Doom only capable of taking a few hits). If Balthasar Gelt’s effectiveness for the Empire is any indication, I’m guessing we’ll see some flying Metal wizards on these disc shaped monsters.
Palanquin of Nurgle: Technically qualifies as Monstrous Cavalary so it’s a M4 model with Swiftstride (weird huh)? The character is carried on a throne by several Nurglings. It’s slow but it gets 6 WS3 S3 attacks and has four wounds.
Daemonic Mount: Almost as strong as a Juggernaut. Start with a Cold One, give it an extra attack, make its attacks magical and boost the WS, S, and T by one point.
Juggaranuts of Khorne: Scary. I thought Empire characters couldn’t ride Demigryphs because it’d be too imbalanced. I was wrong. A Chaos character on a Juggurnaut is far scarier than an Empire character on a giant chicken. Old Ones help us all.
Manticores: Big nasty monsters. Basically dragons with weaker stats, no breath weapon, and with the addition of Killing Blow. They don’t come with Scaly Skin but they can buy that upgrade for pretty cheap (they can also buy a bonus venomous tail attack that causes multiple wounds and gets bonuses when making Rear attacks). I expect most to buy the armor when facing us because they could be shot up by Skinks easily if they don’t take it.
Chaos Dragons: They aren’t that different from other dragons except that they have two heads and thus two breath weapons. One head has a basic S4 flaming attack and the other a S2 Breath Weapon that ignores armor saves.
Chaos Lords and Exalted Heroes: They are tough. They can Chaos Mutations and Powers in addition to their usual magical item allotment. Just assume that if one of these guys fights a Saurus character of similar points, the Saurus will probably lose. Exalted Heroes are the WoC only BSB option.
Deamon Princes: These guys are Chaos Lords taken up a notch. They only have a 25 point magic item allowance but they can 100 points of mutations/powers. Khorne Princes have +1 Strength on the charge. Tzeentch Princes reroll channeling attempts of and Ward Saves of 1. Nurgle Princes give enemies -1 to hit (at WS 9, this is devastating to every other army), and Slaanesh demons have armor piercing. All Demon Princes have 5+ Ward Saves. Unlike the demons out of the Demon book, they are not Unstable. Non-Khorne Princes can buy up to four Wizard levels at 35 points each.
Demon Princes are the model to beat. Nearly every Warhammer forum seems to have a lengthy thread that covers both tactical or else people saying they should be comped/banned for fair play. Here is the most recent post on Lustria.
Chaos Sorcerers: Vanilla wizards with the fighting stats of the Core Chaos Warriors (and the armor too of course). They can take Fire, Death, Metal, or Shadow or one of the three army book lores. As a LM player, Shadow and Death scare me more than the special lores, but I will summarize them because that’s what I like to do. I’ve seen Empire players do great with Metal, since WoC are basically much stronger versions of the Empire, I can imagine Metal would be deadly. Fire Wizards are not allowed to take Marks of Chaos so I doubt we’ll see many of those.
Lore of Tzeentch: The general theme here is random (will the spell be awesome or sucky? We don’t know). It’s even possible to be hit by an attack spell and come out stronger than before. The downside for LM fighting the Lore of Tzeentch is that the randomness means it’s harder for us to prioritize which spells we should be dispelling and which spells to let through.
Many of the spells have the Warpflame Special rule. That means in addition to the basic effects, the target unit takes a Toughness save. Failure means d3 wounds with no AS. Success means gain Regeneration 6+ (or improve existing Regeneration if they already have the rule).
Lore attribute is that the wizard (not the army) gets a bonus power die per 6 rolled while casting a spell.
Blue Fire of Tzeentch: Signature spell is a 24” magic missile that inflicts d6 Strength d6 hits with Warpflame.
Treason of Tzeentch: Hex spell that forces the target to use the lowest Ld in their unit instead of the highest and forbids them from using the general’s Inspiring Presence or the BSB’s Hold Your Ground for one turn.
Pink Fire of Tzeentch: Direct damage using the flame template shooting off randomly like a Salamander. Sadly the wizard will not eat anybody on a misfire, misfires are treated as a rolling zero distance. The hits are Strength d6 and have the Warpflame special rule.
Bolt of Change: Magic missile penetrates ranks like a bolt thrower inflicting Strength d6+4 on the first model hit decreasing by one each rank. The hits allow no armor saves and have Warpflame.
Glean Magic: Direct damage spell targets an enemy wizard within 18 inches. The two wizards roll a d6 and add their caster level. If the Tzeentch wizard wins the target takes a S3 hit with Warpflame and loses a wizard level and randomly determined spell. The Tzeentch wizard can now cast the spell for the rest of the game substituting the crappy Tzeentch lore attribute for the original one.
Tzeentch’s Firestorm: Small round template placed within 30 inches of the wizard then scatters. All units hit by the template take a Strength d6 hit with Warpflame. Like most Vortex spells, there is an augmented version that uses the large template with a double scatter.
Infernal Gateway: 2d6 Strength 2d6 hits with Warpflame. If the dice roll to determine Strength comes up as an 11 or 12 the spell is treated as inflicing 3d6 Strength 10 hits.
Lore of Nurgle: Theme is disease (pick your jaw up off the floor now). Most of the offensive spells can be mitigated by passing toughness tests meaning these spells far nastier against Skinks than the rest of our army.
Lore attribute is the caster gets +1W and +1T (for the whole rest of the game) per 6 rolled while casting.
Stream of Corruption: Direct damage spell uses the flame template off the base to force targets to take a Toughness test or lose a wound with no armor save.
Miasma of Pestilence: It’s an augment that hexes. Enemies in base contact with the augmented unit lose one (or d3 if the enhanced spell is used) from their WS and I (minimum 1). Rather pointless against LM since we are already outclassed by WoC in both those categories by a fair bit.
Blades of Putrefaction: Target unit gains Poisoned Attacks. Attacks that are already poisonous now qualify for poisonous hits on 5 or 6.
Cure of the Leper: This spell has two versions the caster can choose from. You can augment a friendly unit to improve their Toughness by d3 or Hex an enemy unit to reduce their Toughness by d3.
Rancid Visitations: Magic missile inflicts d6 S5 hits. Target must pass a Toughness test or suffer d6 more S5 hits. Repeat until the target passes a test or is wiped out. I can imagine this spell obliterating large Skink units.
Fleshy Abundance: Now there is a gross spell name! The augment spell gives a target unit Regeneration 5+ or improves existing Regeneration by 1 (to a maximum of 2+). For 22+, the spell can target all friendly units within 18 inches (because Warriors of Chaos were too easy to kill before this spell apparently).
Plague Wind: Since GW believes every army book lore needs a Vortex, for the 5 or 6 slot, Plague Wind is naturally a Vortex. Like most vortexes it travels away from the casters base and has a 25+ augmented version to use the big round template instead of the little one. Any model hit by the base must take a Toughness test or suffer a wound with no armor save.
Lore of Slaanesh: Fairly heavy on hexes. An anomaly among army book lores in that it lacks a template spell.
Lore Attribute: Whenever the caster rolls a 6 on their casting roll they get +1 to their WS, I, and A score for one turn.
Lash of Slaanesh: 24 inch line of S3 armor piercing hits.
Acquiescence: Hex gives unit Random movement d6 and ASL for one turn. The potential for nerfing a fast unit is spooky.
Pavane of Slaanesh: Snipes a single enemy model. The target must pass an Ld test with an extra die or take an automatic wound with no armor saves.
Hysterical Frenzy: Remains in Play. Another multipurpose spell. It’s a hex or augment with the same effect for each. Target gains Frenzy (or if they have Frenzy an additional +1 Attack) and target takes d6 S3 hits at the end of each Chaos magic phase.
Slicing Shards: Target takes d6 S4 armor piercing hits. They have to pass an Ld test or take d6 more hits, repeating until they pass the test or die.
Phantasmagoria: For LM, this hex means we roll 4d6 for our Ld tests and remove the highest and lowest dice (in mathematical terms this is called regression towards the mean). The augmented version hits all enemy units in a 24 inch radius.
Cacophonic Choir: A Stegadon killer. The 12 inch hex inflicts 2d6 hits wounding on 4+ regardless of the enemies toughness and ignoring armor saves. The target gains ASL and random movement d6. There is an augmented version that hits all units in 12 inches. If your enemy caster has this spell, try not to swarm a Slaanesh wizard with all your well armored units.
Chaos Mutations and Powers
Characters can take these. The points allowance comes from a different pool from the magical item allowance but some count as magical items for non-points purposes. For instance if a weapon mutation is chosen the character cannot also choose a magical weapon from his magic item allowance. If they have the name of one of the demon gods in the title, they naturally require the bearer to also have their Mark.
Daemonblade: Magic weapon replaces the wielder’s A score with d6+3 random attacks. If they roll a 1 when making attack rolls the wielders strike themselves. This cannot be avoided by rerolls but it can be CAUSED by rerolls. There’s a few things similar to this so if you have a scroll caddy that rolls Curse of the Midnight Winds you should probably not ditch it for Iceshard Blizzard.
Collar of Khorne: MR 3
Unholy Strike: Give up all normal attacks for a single attack at double their Strength with d3 wounds.
Flaming Breath: Exactly as it’s named. S4 flaming breath weapon.
Chaos Familiar: +1 to channeling rolls plus one extra spell known.
Scaled Skin: Again well named. Scaly Skin 5+.
Allure of Slannesh: Enemies must pass a leadership test to attack model or lose their attacks that phase.
Poisonous Slime: Gain Poisonous Attacks, and a ward save of 5+ versus enemy Poisoned Attacks (boo hiss!)
Acid Ichor: When the model is wounded the enemy who inflicted the wound must pass an I test or take a S4 hit. This power is cheap to buy and nasty against Sauri.
Burning Body: Gains Flaming Attacks and 5+ Ward save versus Flaming Attacks.
Soul Feeder: Every time the character inflicts a wound they have a one in six chance of regaining a lost wound.
Third Eye of Tzeentch: Reroll Ward save rolls of 1.
Nurgle’s Rot: Enemy models in base contact with the model take a S1 hit every magic phase with no armor save allowed.
Hideous Visage: Cause Fear. May not pass leadership on to allied units either as a general or unit leader.
Magic Items
Hellfire Sword: Every army book starts out with an over the top weapon costed for lords only. The Hellfire Sword has Flaming Attacks, causes d3 wounds, and ignores armor saves. At the end of the basic close combat phase, roll a d6 per model slain by the Hellfire Sword to see if the corpse explodes inflicting d6 S4 hits on the enemy unit that count towards CR then roll a d6 for the wielder. On a 1 they take an automatic wound with no armor save from their sword turning on them.
Sword of Change: Enemy monsters and characters slain by the sword have a 50% of having the corpse turn into a Chaos Spawn under the Chaos’ players control.
Filth Mace: The Nurgle only weapon bestows Poisonous attacks. After the wielder scores their first kill, the wielder gains Terror and attacks that get the Poison effect do d3 wounds.
Helm of Many Eyes: Like most helms it bestow a one point bonus to AS. This one also bestows ASF and Stupidity on the wearer.
Skull of Katam: The wizard may roll 6 dice for channeling instead of the usual 1 die but must take a permanent Ld penalty of 1 for the game for each time they do it (dying if they reach 0). Tzeentch wizards may not reroll 1s for Channeling if they are using the Skull’s power.
Chalice of Chaos: This one use item has a random effect. 1) takes an automatic wound with no save 2) gain ASF for one turn, 3) Gain Regeneration 4+ for one turn. 4) Gain 5+ Ward Save for one turn, 5) Gain Killing Blow for one turn 6) Take an Ld test. Passing it turns the character into a demon Prince, failure a Chaos Spawn (it counts as a casualty and thus victory points for the LM either way).
Pendant of Slaanesh: Units the character joins take break tests on a single die. This means they usually pass leadership tests but can no longer roll insane courage. The bearer also permanently gains +1 Attack each time he suffers an unsaved wound.
Blasted Standard: This Tzeentch only Standard halves the strength of enemy shooting hits on a 2+, doubles them on a roll of 1. It has no effect at all on Poisonous hits, so most LM shooting isn’t impaired by this except for Razordons and Salamanders.
Banner of Rage: Mark of Khorne units with this Banner can never lose their Frenzy. If they lost their frenzied join or are joined by a model with this Banner they get it back. This standard is also cheap enough to not be BSB only.
Special Characters
Archaon: The most bad ass human in the Warhammer world since Sigmar died. A Chaos Lord with WS9, Ld 10, an 18 inch command radius, and all four Marks of the Gods. He is a level 2 Wizard that can take Death, Fire, Metal, Shadow, or Tzeentch. If there is a unit of Chaos Knights with no Marks, he can bestow Hatred and Immune to Psychology on them. He is armed to the teeth with powerful magical items.
His magic sword ignores armor saves. He can choose to activate the swords power to double his attacks for the rest of the game (to 10 of course) but each roll of 1 to hit strikes him (Curse of the Midnight Winds go!). His magic armor and talisman combined bestow armor and ward save of 3+ each and makes it so no attack ever wounds him on better than a 3+ (that’s okay, we don’t have a lot S7 attacks in our army anyway). His helmet causes Terror and allows break tests to be rerolled by friendly units in a 12 inch radius.
Wulfrik the Wanderer: This hero is all about challenges. He designates an enemy character at the start of the battle and gets +2 Strength versus that character. His challenges can never be refused and he can choose which model accepts them. Wulfrik does not have magic attacks. If you suspect Wulfrik is coming, give your Slann higher state of Consciousness to immunize him from being challenged and thus utchered. Wulfrik also may be deployed with a unit of Marauders to give the whole unit Ambush.
Valkia the Bloody: I don’t like the fluff on this one. Lots of warriors have died trying to earn Khorne’s approval. As soon as an attractive woman dies trying to earn his approval, he resurrects her. Either Khorne is a lecher or has an affirmative action program. Either one is out of character in my humble opinion.
Every Eye of the Gods roll she gets is automatically +1 Strength. All nearby friendly units reroll break tests but take d6 S6 hits as punishment if they break. Her attacks are armor piercing and get +2 Strength and Killing Blow on the charge. Her shield reduces enemy attacks in base combat by 1 (minimum 1) and her armor reduces Strength of enemy attacks by 1 (minimum 1).
Vilitch the Curseling: The Siamese twins are a L4 Tzeentch Lore Master and have slightly better combat stats than most Chaos Sorcerers. Vilitch is bad news for players like me who like to squeeze every magic die. If an enemy fails to cast a spell, Vilitch gets the power dice in his dispel pool. Worse, if an enemy fails to dispel a spell, Vilitch gets the dispel dice in his power pool. Vilitch is the only one who can use the stolen dice but with seven spells, it’s a safe bet he can find something to do with them.
Festus the Leechlord: This is the only WoC with mediocre combat stats. This is a pharmacist gone mad not a fighter. He bestows Poisoned Attacks and Regeneration 5+ on any unit he joins and is a level 2 Nurgle Wizard. At the start of each close combat phase, he can either drink a potion to recover one lost wound or force feed a potion to an enemy by winning an contested Strength roll, thus inflicting d3 wounds on an enemy with no armor saves. Since he buffs the whole unit and has relatively weak stats, it’s probably a good idea to put max attacks on this chubby fellow.
Sigvald the Magnificant: The Narcissist has Stupidity and can never use the general’s Ld or BSB reroll to avoid it (he likes to look at his reflection). He has Ld 10 himself so this is rarely a problem. He is strong on offensive and defense. He has 7 ASF attacks at WS8 and a 2+ armor and Regeneration save. He is one of the few units in existence with generic Strider (he floats slightly above the ground so he needn’t get his shoes dirty, beware the Ken doll of Chaos!).
Throgg, aka Wintertooth King of Trolls: Warriors of Chaos are one of the last Warhammer armies I’d ever collect, but if I played them, I’d take Throgg at every opportunity and make a themed army. A super genius by troll standards, he has Ld 8 and better stats all around. He also has a S5 breath weapon that ignores armor saves (super vomit). Armies with Throgg can take Trolls as a Core choice. Monstrous Infantry, Warbeasts, and Monstrous Beasts may use his Ld as if he were the general with an 18 inch range.
Scyla Anfingrimm: A souped up Chaos Spawn. I addition to hitting harder and more often, he is exempt from the two weaknesses of vanilla Chaos Spawn: he has decent saves and no randomized movement.
Galrauch: Many army books have special characters that ride dragons. Galrauch is a dragon (or rather is a demon possessing a dragon). Galrauch’s breath weapon forces toughness tests to avoid automatic wounds with no saves. This mighty dragon is also a level 4 Tzeentch wizard. At the start of every Chaos turn, Galrauch must pass a leadership test or the original dragon head’s personality will assert itself and half of Galrauch’s attacks will be against himself as the two head fight each other. If Galrauch is not engaged in close combat, he also loses his movement phase when having a schizophrenic fit like this. Hexing his leadership is thus a good idea if you have power dice to spare for this task.
Kholek Suneater: A Shaggoth with slightly boosted stats. He can also call down thunderbolts in the shooting phase which inflict d6 S6 hits. They have a one in six chance of hitting Kholek instead but because he has the same Storm Rage ability of his lesser kin, this is usually to his benefit. He also inflicts d3 wounds per hit making him equal or superior to a Carnosaur in every way.
Marks of Chaos: Many units can take marks of Chaos. They are costed per model now instead of per unit meaning giant hordes of Marked units now cost more on average. Marks of Chaos also affect what characters can and can’t do in terms of units they can join and magical items they can take, but that’s more detail specific than LM players need to know. Costs of Marks are scaled, so nastier units tend to have to pay more for their Marks than weaker ones.
Khorne provides Frenzy. I expect to see this one often.
Tzeentch provides 6+ Ward saves (or plus one to an existing Ward save) and allows wizards with the Mark to reroll 1s when channeling.
Mark of Nurgle gives a -1 to hit for enemies in base contact. This is probably the most powerful Mark and it certainly is the most powerful mark against Lizardmen because our units are already outclassed in terms of WS versus the Warriors of Chaos. In some cases this will require us to roll 6s to score any hits!
Mark of Slaanesh lets the unit automatically pass Fear, Terror, and Panic tests (this requires the majority of the models to have the rule so a single character can’t join a unit and bestow this). This seems like the weakest mark, but it’s also cost half of what the others do. Note that we LM players tend to field a lot of units that cause Fear or Terror and we like to trigger Panic tests with Salamanders so don’t write this Mark off as useless.
Eye of the Gods: Most characters and unit champions have the ability to roll on the Eye of the Gods table. The most common way to trigger a roll on the table is for the character to win a challenge OR inflict the last wound on a monster.
Most of the benefits on the table provide a relatively minor stat boost. There is a small chance for the model being removed and replaced with a Chaos Spawn or the model gaining a Mark of Chaos or morphing into a Demon Prince. Whether the player gets a Chaos Spawn or Demon Prince, the character counts as slain. The new model will not give you any victory points for being slain, but you get the victory points for killing the original character. A Demon Prince can continue serving as general or BSB if the character it replaced was one before.
Models with this special rule have to declare or accept a challenge at every opportunity. Beware the unintended consequences of feeding your enemies sacrificial unit champions, you might make them stronger! We also have a lot of Monsters in our new book so we should be careful letting our Monsters near enemy characters. Probably safe around unit champions though.
Chaos Armor: Chaos armor gives its wearer a 4+ Armor save. This is basically so Games Workshop can let the WoC have 4+ armor save while still using two handed weapons.
Core Units
Chaos Warriors: Take a Saurus and give him WS5 and I5 and you have your basic Chaos Warrior costing about half again as much per model. A few more points will get them great weapons, halberds or additional hand weapons. All are deadly choices capable of ripping up all of our Core. In relative terms the great weapons will be inefficient for chopping up Skroxigor and highly efficient for chopping up Saurus. Two hand weapons will be less efficient at killing Saurus and highly efficient at chopping up Skinks. Any of the Marks will make the Chaos Warriors nastier still. Their unit Champions qualify for Eye of the Gods. They can take magic banners up to 25 points.
Chaos Marauders: Rejoice, all ye Forces of Order. Marauders have gone up in price (primarily through equipment and Mark upgrade costs). They have gone from being ludicrously under-costed to being reasonably costed (or unfairly nerfed according to a small minority). They still have WS 4, and I4 so the WEAKEST Chaos troops are not that weak. Champions roll on the Eye of the Gods table when they kill a worthy opponent.
They can take flails or great weapons (either one will let them wound Sauri on 3+). They can buy shields and/or light armor. They can take Marks of the Gods and their champions qualify for Eye of the Gods. I’m guessing old habits die hard and many WoC will continue to field hordes of these guys and that the Mark of Khorne will remain the old standby. As Lizardmen, Mark of Slaanesh is troublesome because large groups of Marauders are just begging to be burned by Salamanders and I’d personally prefer they panic (I guess Frenzied Marauders won’t panic either until beaten in close combat at which point it’s usually too late to panic them).
Forsaken: I do not expect these Chaos Spawn-in-training guys to become a popular Core choice because they are 19-21 points each, but they are likely to be the go-to Core soldier for players who like lots of special rules.
These mutants have the basic statline of Chaos Warriors but they have M6 and D3 for their attack profile. They have Frenzy. They can be upgraded with a blessing of one of the Dark Gods to get Hatred, MR 2, Fear, or Swifstride (in lieu of the usual Marks). They roll to get a different random special ability every turn. It could either be ASL, Armor Piercing, ASF, Poison, Regeneration 5+, or Killing Blow.
Chaos Chariots: Chariots as a Core unit seems improper for anyone but Tomb Kings. They are tough, but they aren’t overpowered. They enjoy the above average stat lines that most WoC models get (for instance the Chaos horsies have S4 instead of the usual S3), but the chariot is pretty vanilla. AS 3+, 4 wounds, scythed wheels. Like most chariots you want to get the charge on them and deny them the impact hits if Lizardly possible. Since most Warriors of Chaos players have little issue filling up their minimum 25% with nasty Core troops, I’m guessing most generals will not fill their Core with chariots and will instead field the more powerful Gorebeast chariots.
Marauder Horsemen: Basic Marauder statline on a M8 horse: the hardest hitting Fast Cavalry unit yet seen in all of Warhammer. If you see them in the enemy army, you have to be extra careful with your skirmishing units.
They can shields and/or light armor (armor negates Fast Cavalry rule however). They can take spears or flails. They can take Marks of the Gods and their champions are subject to Eye of the Gods just like their footslogging cohorts. They are one of two units in the whole army book with a ranged attack! They can take javelins or thrown axes (I doubt this will be common). As LM, we would probably much prefer getting things thrown at us then being run through with spears, but don’t tell the WoC this. They don’t have a lot of practice with ranged attacks. If you can trick your opponent into throwing javelins at your skirmishers instead of running them down, do so.
Chaos Warhounds: Every army has (or should have) a good chaff unit. The doggies fill the roll nicely. They are pretty much like faster quadruped Marauders without the weapon options. They can be upgraded to have Vanguard making them a threat to our advance troops (especially Salamanders). They can also be upgraded to have poisoned attacks increasing the potency of their unimpressive S3 bites. They can take another upgrade for Scaly Skin 6+ giving them a slight reprieve from the poisoned shooting that Skinks will be sending their way (in a perfect world, all evil hounds have poisoned sticks and darts sent their way).
Special Units
Hellstriders of Slaanesh: Did I say Marauder horsemen were the most powerful Fast Cavalry in Warhammer? Hellstriders are basically Marauder Horsemen on far more powerful Steeds. The Steeds cause Fear and have Poisoned magical attacks that are also Armor Piercing. At M10 they are the fastest units that don’t fly. They can take spears or hellscourges. I suspect most players will gravitate towards the latter. These unique weapons give the riders ASF on the first turn of combat and will generally be more effective for carving up the lighter units than spears would be (though if they plan to flank Saurus, the spears will probably serve them better).
Each time a unit of Hellstriders wipes out a unit in close combat or runs down a fleeing unit, they get stronger (max three units). The first dead units gives them Devastating Charge. The second dead unit adds Stubborn in addition. The third unit gives the unit a 4+ Ward Save. As long as they don’t have the Ward Save, the Hellstriders are glass cannons with only a 5+ armor save protecting them making them from our BS shooting as long as you can keep the Skirmishers and Razordons out of their charge arc. Do NOT let them kill three of your units. Be very careful deploying sacrificial chaff units against the WoC if you see Hellstriders.
Chosen: Basically they are more expensive Chaos Warriors with WS6. Jokes on you Horn hats! Lizardmen WS is so crappy you only need WS5 to school us! What really sets the Chosen apart is the entire unit makes an Eye of the Gods roll when they arrive on the table and then gets to fudge the roll in their favor by rolling three dice and choosing their favorite two dice. The bonus effect applies to the whole unit unless it would be the top or bottom result in which case it only affects the unit champion (so they can’t turn an entire unit into demon princes or Chaos spawn). They can take magic banners up to 50 points.
Chaos Knights: Chaos Warriors are nice but they are missing something….I know they should cause Fear, have M7, and AS 1+. Like most knights (except LM of course), they can take lance upgrades. If that’s too vanilla for you. They can take ensorcelled hand weapons. They add +1 to S for damage and inflict magical hits. Sounds badass sure, but after reading this far in the Warriors of Chaos book I’m like “meh I guess it’s okaaaay”.
Chaos Ogres: Suspiciously similar to Ironguts out of the Ogre book only you can build Chaos Ogres with the same stat lines and equipment for one point less (gnash your teeth Ogre players, Chaos gets all the good stuff!). They can take great weapons or two hand weapons (or in theory a single hand weapon but why be that cheap?). Too vanilla for you? Why not upgrade them with Marks of Chaos. Now that is scary.
Dragon Ogres: These ogres are stronger, faster, and have better armor saves their footslogging counterparts and are fielded on chariot bases. They are monstrous beasts but I see them playing like Monstrous Cavalry. Dragon Ogres are also fed by lightning. They have a 2+ Ward save against Uranon’s Thunderbolt and Chain Lightning and gain frenzy if they are struck by such an attack, so rein in your Skink Priests if you see these guys. Tempest doesn’t actually mention having lightning in the description so this probably won’t trigger the special ability but you don’t want to try Tempest on them anyway because it won’t hit hard enough.
Chaos Trolls: Identical statlines and cost to the vanilla trolls the O&G use. The only difference is that Chaos Trolls can buy additional hand weapons (and why wouldn’t they?). For a recap, similar stats to Kroxigor, they have Regeneration 4+. Troll Vomit hits automatically and ignores armor saves but they have to forgo their regular attacks to do it. In most cases, troll vomit is not a mathematically good idea versus LM unless they are fighting Saurus Cavalry, Ancient Stegadons, or Bastilodons. Certainly I would suggest keeping your cowboy Scar Vets away from trolls.
Chimera: Big monster, gets a bonus when making rear attacks, has Scaly Skin 4+ and causes terror like most monsters in its weight class. They can be upgraded to have a breath weapon, Regeneration, and/or Poisonous attacks. I’m going to assume most players will take all three upgrades most of the time. This seems like a good candidate to throw Skroxigor or Kroxigor at.
Gorebeast Chariot: Very similar to the vanilla chariot that the WoC can field as a Core option, but I suspect these will be seen more often. For a modest increase in points (and not being Core), a chariot can get a much nastier steed pulling it. Gorebeasts hit harder and more often than horsies. It’s slightly slower but in general hitting power wins out over speed.
Chaos Warshrine: This thing is weird. It’s a chariot but it has no impact hits and takes dangerous terrain test like as if it were infantry (why did they bother calling it a chariot? I know not). In relative terms, the Warshines are weak in combat compared to the rest of the army (though they have 4+ Ward saves so they are pretty defensively strong). Their primary purpose is to make Eye of the Gods rolls more favorable. All units within 12” can add a third dice to their rolls on the chart and remove a die of their choice. They also have a bound spell which triggers an Eye of the Gods roll for d3 friendly units within 12 inches. It’s too early to tell just how concerned we should be with the Eye of the Gods rule so I’m not sure how to prioritize killing them.
Rare Units
Hellcannon: Despite the name, the Hellcannon shoots like a stone thrower now (not sure if it always did or not). That’s good news for Stegadons. The hits are at S10 but it’s harder to get the center hole over a Stegadon than it is to line up a cannon shot. The bad news is for everyone else. The non-center hole hits are S5 which means the Hellcannon can do more than just kill large dinosaurs. It can devastate Saurus blocks too. The hits are magical so being ethereal will not protect your lone Slann. To make matters worse, a single casualty causes an automatic panic test at -1 Ld to the target (so they are better than Salamanders)
Killing the Hellcannon is very difficult for the First children of the Old Ones. 4+ AS, 5+ T6 and it’s got the monsters and handlers quasi save. That’s too thick skinned for Terradons and Chameleon Skinks to handle. We are hard pressed to deal with it even with spells. It has three weaknesses, and two of them are outside of our control. 1) the Hellcannon cannot move and fire in the same turn and it’s base move is a lowly 3 inches so it might as well be a static artillery piece. 2) the misfire chart is quite severe. Weakness 3 is that it is Initiative 1 so it is somewhat vulnerable to magic attacks that use Initiative tests.
If you are not packing Shadow or Death, my advice is to ignore the Hellcannon and just try to get in close combat ASAP so it can’t shoot you (sadly close combat is where the rest of the army wants us to be). Perhaps Walk Between Worlds will let us get our heavy hitters into charge range of these things?
Dragon Ogre Shaggoth: Fights similarly a Carnosaur with better WS, Initiative, and Leadership (but with no d3 wounds). Like the lesser dragon ogres you should not shoot lightning at them.
Chaos Giant: Exactly the same as O&G and Ogre Kingdom giants with the option to take Marks of the Gods. They work slightly differently than Marks for everyone else (Khorne = +1 Strength, Tzzentch Ward Save 6+, Nurgle +1 T, Slaanesh +1 I). Of all the 200+ point monsters in the WoC army book, this is the only one with little to no saves of any kind. If you see one of these guys, direct your Skink shooting at it, this is clearly the juiciest shooting target the WoC have to offer them.
Chaos Spawn: Chaos Spawn are cheap monsters. Their main weakness is their random movement. On a high roll they lurch ahead of the main army and are picked off while isolated. On a low roll they arrive too late to help. They can be upgraded to include one of the following: Devastating Charge, S3 Breath weapon, flaming attacks, Poisoned Attacks, or ASF. Their second weakness is that they have no armor save. If there are no giants around, tell your Skinks to shoot the crap out of them. They die pretty easily, but at 50 points apiece it’s not an overwhelming victory for us. If my games with WoC under the last book are any indication, it will be the only points I score before being tabled.
Skullcrushers of Khorne: In order to sell their expensive monstrous cavalry models, GW makes them very powerful. Take the power of a Chaos Knight and give it a mount that’s S5 (6 on the charge), WS5 with three attacks. Tough, hard hitting, good saves. Nasty. Our best bet to take these down is our new and improved Strength 5 Kroxigor.
Slaughterbrute: At this point reading the book, I’m getting 200 point monster ennui. I mean don’t Chimera and Shaggoth pretty much fit the same niche here? The one thing that sets these guys apart is their puppet master. At the beginning of the game the Chaos player designates a character per Slaughterbrute to be the puppet master. The Brute uses that characters WS. If the puppet master character dies the Brute goes down to WS 3 (not a huge difference for us) and it becomes subject to random movement with a scatter die. If it hits one of our units it’s a charge like any other time. If it hits an allied unit they stop an inch away and inflict d6+2 hits on the friendly unit. A master-less Brute will stop at the table edge too so unfortunately you can’t kill it’s master in the hope of it wandering off the board and giving you free victory points, but killing the master is still a good idea (not that WoC characters are particularly vulnerable).
Mutalith Vortex Beast: I like this monster. The Cthulu-esque creature is a nice change of pace. Compared to the Mutalith, the other monsters are a little too Khorn-y looking for my tastes (pun intended). It’s a little less fighty than the other big monsters but it has a bound spell (direct damage 18” range) called Aura of Mutation cast on 5+. Roll a d6 to determine effect and it makes a target take d6 toughness test or suffer that many wounds in addition to an additional effect (which is sometimes beneficial to the target).
1-Gain Fear for the rest of the game
2-Gain Stupidity for the rest of the game
3-Gain +1 to WS, BS, S, T, I, or A determined randomly. Lose -1 to another randomly chosen trait for the rest of the game.
4-No additional effect, but the spell jumps as Chain Lightning does potentially damaging more units.
5-No additional effect, but use a scattering small template to determine who is hit
6-If a casualty is inflicted, the Warriors of Chaos get a free Chaos Spawn nearby (max one per spell).
Characters
Character Mounts: WoC have a huge variety of mounts to choose from. Listed from least to greatest. The first two are regular cavalry, the last two are monsters. The rest are monstrous cavalry.
Barded Chaos Steeds: The only difference between Chaos steeds and most other horses is these hit at S4 and they can’t be taken without barding.
Steeds of Slaanesh: These are the same very fast nasty magical poisonous steeds of the Fast Cavalry when paired with a character as they are when fielded as their own Special unit.
Discs of Tzeentch: Basically a flying Cold One with magical attacks. The downside for the WoC is this one can’t join an allied unit so is going to be exposed (like the Flying Skink of Doom only capable of taking a few hits). If Balthasar Gelt’s effectiveness for the Empire is any indication, I’m guessing we’ll see some flying Metal wizards on these disc shaped monsters.
Palanquin of Nurgle: Technically qualifies as Monstrous Cavalary so it’s a M4 model with Swiftstride (weird huh)? The character is carried on a throne by several Nurglings. It’s slow but it gets 6 WS3 S3 attacks and has four wounds.
Daemonic Mount: Almost as strong as a Juggernaut. Start with a Cold One, give it an extra attack, make its attacks magical and boost the WS, S, and T by one point.
Juggaranuts of Khorne: Scary. I thought Empire characters couldn’t ride Demigryphs because it’d be too imbalanced. I was wrong. A Chaos character on a Juggurnaut is far scarier than an Empire character on a giant chicken. Old Ones help us all.
Manticores: Big nasty monsters. Basically dragons with weaker stats, no breath weapon, and with the addition of Killing Blow. They don’t come with Scaly Skin but they can buy that upgrade for pretty cheap (they can also buy a bonus venomous tail attack that causes multiple wounds and gets bonuses when making Rear attacks). I expect most to buy the armor when facing us because they could be shot up by Skinks easily if they don’t take it.
Chaos Dragons: They aren’t that different from other dragons except that they have two heads and thus two breath weapons. One head has a basic S4 flaming attack and the other a S2 Breath Weapon that ignores armor saves.
Chaos Lords and Exalted Heroes: They are tough. They can Chaos Mutations and Powers in addition to their usual magical item allotment. Just assume that if one of these guys fights a Saurus character of similar points, the Saurus will probably lose. Exalted Heroes are the WoC only BSB option.
Deamon Princes: These guys are Chaos Lords taken up a notch. They only have a 25 point magic item allowance but they can 100 points of mutations/powers. Khorne Princes have +1 Strength on the charge. Tzeentch Princes reroll channeling attempts of and Ward Saves of 1. Nurgle Princes give enemies -1 to hit (at WS 9, this is devastating to every other army), and Slaanesh demons have armor piercing. All Demon Princes have 5+ Ward Saves. Unlike the demons out of the Demon book, they are not Unstable. Non-Khorne Princes can buy up to four Wizard levels at 35 points each.
Demon Princes are the model to beat. Nearly every Warhammer forum seems to have a lengthy thread that covers both tactical or else people saying they should be comped/banned for fair play. Here is the most recent post on Lustria.
Chaos Sorcerers: Vanilla wizards with the fighting stats of the Core Chaos Warriors (and the armor too of course). They can take Fire, Death, Metal, or Shadow or one of the three army book lores. As a LM player, Shadow and Death scare me more than the special lores, but I will summarize them because that’s what I like to do. I’ve seen Empire players do great with Metal, since WoC are basically much stronger versions of the Empire, I can imagine Metal would be deadly. Fire Wizards are not allowed to take Marks of Chaos so I doubt we’ll see many of those.
Lore of Tzeentch: The general theme here is random (will the spell be awesome or sucky? We don’t know). It’s even possible to be hit by an attack spell and come out stronger than before. The downside for LM fighting the Lore of Tzeentch is that the randomness means it’s harder for us to prioritize which spells we should be dispelling and which spells to let through.
Many of the spells have the Warpflame Special rule. That means in addition to the basic effects, the target unit takes a Toughness save. Failure means d3 wounds with no AS. Success means gain Regeneration 6+ (or improve existing Regeneration if they already have the rule).
Lore attribute is that the wizard (not the army) gets a bonus power die per 6 rolled while casting a spell.
Blue Fire of Tzeentch: Signature spell is a 24” magic missile that inflicts d6 Strength d6 hits with Warpflame.
Treason of Tzeentch: Hex spell that forces the target to use the lowest Ld in their unit instead of the highest and forbids them from using the general’s Inspiring Presence or the BSB’s Hold Your Ground for one turn.
Pink Fire of Tzeentch: Direct damage using the flame template shooting off randomly like a Salamander. Sadly the wizard will not eat anybody on a misfire, misfires are treated as a rolling zero distance. The hits are Strength d6 and have the Warpflame special rule.
Bolt of Change: Magic missile penetrates ranks like a bolt thrower inflicting Strength d6+4 on the first model hit decreasing by one each rank. The hits allow no armor saves and have Warpflame.
Glean Magic: Direct damage spell targets an enemy wizard within 18 inches. The two wizards roll a d6 and add their caster level. If the Tzeentch wizard wins the target takes a S3 hit with Warpflame and loses a wizard level and randomly determined spell. The Tzeentch wizard can now cast the spell for the rest of the game substituting the crappy Tzeentch lore attribute for the original one.
Tzeentch’s Firestorm: Small round template placed within 30 inches of the wizard then scatters. All units hit by the template take a Strength d6 hit with Warpflame. Like most Vortex spells, there is an augmented version that uses the large template with a double scatter.
Infernal Gateway: 2d6 Strength 2d6 hits with Warpflame. If the dice roll to determine Strength comes up as an 11 or 12 the spell is treated as inflicing 3d6 Strength 10 hits.
Lore of Nurgle: Theme is disease (pick your jaw up off the floor now). Most of the offensive spells can be mitigated by passing toughness tests meaning these spells far nastier against Skinks than the rest of our army.
Lore attribute is the caster gets +1W and +1T (for the whole rest of the game) per 6 rolled while casting.
Stream of Corruption: Direct damage spell uses the flame template off the base to force targets to take a Toughness test or lose a wound with no armor save.
Miasma of Pestilence: It’s an augment that hexes. Enemies in base contact with the augmented unit lose one (or d3 if the enhanced spell is used) from their WS and I (minimum 1). Rather pointless against LM since we are already outclassed by WoC in both those categories by a fair bit.
Blades of Putrefaction: Target unit gains Poisoned Attacks. Attacks that are already poisonous now qualify for poisonous hits on 5 or 6.
Cure of the Leper: This spell has two versions the caster can choose from. You can augment a friendly unit to improve their Toughness by d3 or Hex an enemy unit to reduce their Toughness by d3.
Rancid Visitations: Magic missile inflicts d6 S5 hits. Target must pass a Toughness test or suffer d6 more S5 hits. Repeat until the target passes a test or is wiped out. I can imagine this spell obliterating large Skink units.
Fleshy Abundance: Now there is a gross spell name! The augment spell gives a target unit Regeneration 5+ or improves existing Regeneration by 1 (to a maximum of 2+). For 22+, the spell can target all friendly units within 18 inches (because Warriors of Chaos were too easy to kill before this spell apparently).
Plague Wind: Since GW believes every army book lore needs a Vortex, for the 5 or 6 slot, Plague Wind is naturally a Vortex. Like most vortexes it travels away from the casters base and has a 25+ augmented version to use the big round template instead of the little one. Any model hit by the base must take a Toughness test or suffer a wound with no armor save.
Lore of Slaanesh: Fairly heavy on hexes. An anomaly among army book lores in that it lacks a template spell.
Lore Attribute: Whenever the caster rolls a 6 on their casting roll they get +1 to their WS, I, and A score for one turn.
Lash of Slaanesh: 24 inch line of S3 armor piercing hits.
Acquiescence: Hex gives unit Random movement d6 and ASL for one turn. The potential for nerfing a fast unit is spooky.
Pavane of Slaanesh: Snipes a single enemy model. The target must pass an Ld test with an extra die or take an automatic wound with no armor saves.
Hysterical Frenzy: Remains in Play. Another multipurpose spell. It’s a hex or augment with the same effect for each. Target gains Frenzy (or if they have Frenzy an additional +1 Attack) and target takes d6 S3 hits at the end of each Chaos magic phase.
Slicing Shards: Target takes d6 S4 armor piercing hits. They have to pass an Ld test or take d6 more hits, repeating until they pass the test or die.
Phantasmagoria: For LM, this hex means we roll 4d6 for our Ld tests and remove the highest and lowest dice (in mathematical terms this is called regression towards the mean). The augmented version hits all enemy units in a 24 inch radius.
Cacophonic Choir: A Stegadon killer. The 12 inch hex inflicts 2d6 hits wounding on 4+ regardless of the enemies toughness and ignoring armor saves. The target gains ASL and random movement d6. There is an augmented version that hits all units in 12 inches. If your enemy caster has this spell, try not to swarm a Slaanesh wizard with all your well armored units.
Chaos Mutations and Powers
Characters can take these. The points allowance comes from a different pool from the magical item allowance but some count as magical items for non-points purposes. For instance if a weapon mutation is chosen the character cannot also choose a magical weapon from his magic item allowance. If they have the name of one of the demon gods in the title, they naturally require the bearer to also have their Mark.
Daemonblade: Magic weapon replaces the wielder’s A score with d6+3 random attacks. If they roll a 1 when making attack rolls the wielders strike themselves. This cannot be avoided by rerolls but it can be CAUSED by rerolls. There’s a few things similar to this so if you have a scroll caddy that rolls Curse of the Midnight Winds you should probably not ditch it for Iceshard Blizzard.
Collar of Khorne: MR 3
Unholy Strike: Give up all normal attacks for a single attack at double their Strength with d3 wounds.
Flaming Breath: Exactly as it’s named. S4 flaming breath weapon.
Chaos Familiar: +1 to channeling rolls plus one extra spell known.
Scaled Skin: Again well named. Scaly Skin 5+.
Allure of Slannesh: Enemies must pass a leadership test to attack model or lose their attacks that phase.
Poisonous Slime: Gain Poisonous Attacks, and a ward save of 5+ versus enemy Poisoned Attacks (boo hiss!)
Acid Ichor: When the model is wounded the enemy who inflicted the wound must pass an I test or take a S4 hit. This power is cheap to buy and nasty against Sauri.
Burning Body: Gains Flaming Attacks and 5+ Ward save versus Flaming Attacks.
Soul Feeder: Every time the character inflicts a wound they have a one in six chance of regaining a lost wound.
Third Eye of Tzeentch: Reroll Ward save rolls of 1.
Nurgle’s Rot: Enemy models in base contact with the model take a S1 hit every magic phase with no armor save allowed.
Hideous Visage: Cause Fear. May not pass leadership on to allied units either as a general or unit leader.
Magic Items
Hellfire Sword: Every army book starts out with an over the top weapon costed for lords only. The Hellfire Sword has Flaming Attacks, causes d3 wounds, and ignores armor saves. At the end of the basic close combat phase, roll a d6 per model slain by the Hellfire Sword to see if the corpse explodes inflicting d6 S4 hits on the enemy unit that count towards CR then roll a d6 for the wielder. On a 1 they take an automatic wound with no armor save from their sword turning on them.
Sword of Change: Enemy monsters and characters slain by the sword have a 50% of having the corpse turn into a Chaos Spawn under the Chaos’ players control.
Filth Mace: The Nurgle only weapon bestows Poisonous attacks. After the wielder scores their first kill, the wielder gains Terror and attacks that get the Poison effect do d3 wounds.
Helm of Many Eyes: Like most helms it bestow a one point bonus to AS. This one also bestows ASF and Stupidity on the wearer.
Skull of Katam: The wizard may roll 6 dice for channeling instead of the usual 1 die but must take a permanent Ld penalty of 1 for the game for each time they do it (dying if they reach 0). Tzeentch wizards may not reroll 1s for Channeling if they are using the Skull’s power.
Chalice of Chaos: This one use item has a random effect. 1) takes an automatic wound with no save 2) gain ASF for one turn, 3) Gain Regeneration 4+ for one turn. 4) Gain 5+ Ward Save for one turn, 5) Gain Killing Blow for one turn 6) Take an Ld test. Passing it turns the character into a demon Prince, failure a Chaos Spawn (it counts as a casualty and thus victory points for the LM either way).
Pendant of Slaanesh: Units the character joins take break tests on a single die. This means they usually pass leadership tests but can no longer roll insane courage. The bearer also permanently gains +1 Attack each time he suffers an unsaved wound.
Blasted Standard: This Tzeentch only Standard halves the strength of enemy shooting hits on a 2+, doubles them on a roll of 1. It has no effect at all on Poisonous hits, so most LM shooting isn’t impaired by this except for Razordons and Salamanders.
Banner of Rage: Mark of Khorne units with this Banner can never lose their Frenzy. If they lost their frenzied join or are joined by a model with this Banner they get it back. This standard is also cheap enough to not be BSB only.
Special Characters
Archaon: The most bad ass human in the Warhammer world since Sigmar died. A Chaos Lord with WS9, Ld 10, an 18 inch command radius, and all four Marks of the Gods. He is a level 2 Wizard that can take Death, Fire, Metal, Shadow, or Tzeentch. If there is a unit of Chaos Knights with no Marks, he can bestow Hatred and Immune to Psychology on them. He is armed to the teeth with powerful magical items.
His magic sword ignores armor saves. He can choose to activate the swords power to double his attacks for the rest of the game (to 10 of course) but each roll of 1 to hit strikes him (Curse of the Midnight Winds go!). His magic armor and talisman combined bestow armor and ward save of 3+ each and makes it so no attack ever wounds him on better than a 3+ (that’s okay, we don’t have a lot S7 attacks in our army anyway). His helmet causes Terror and allows break tests to be rerolled by friendly units in a 12 inch radius.
Wulfrik the Wanderer: This hero is all about challenges. He designates an enemy character at the start of the battle and gets +2 Strength versus that character. His challenges can never be refused and he can choose which model accepts them. Wulfrik does not have magic attacks. If you suspect Wulfrik is coming, give your Slann higher state of Consciousness to immunize him from being challenged and thus utchered. Wulfrik also may be deployed with a unit of Marauders to give the whole unit Ambush.
Valkia the Bloody: I don’t like the fluff on this one. Lots of warriors have died trying to earn Khorne’s approval. As soon as an attractive woman dies trying to earn his approval, he resurrects her. Either Khorne is a lecher or has an affirmative action program. Either one is out of character in my humble opinion.
Every Eye of the Gods roll she gets is automatically +1 Strength. All nearby friendly units reroll break tests but take d6 S6 hits as punishment if they break. Her attacks are armor piercing and get +2 Strength and Killing Blow on the charge. Her shield reduces enemy attacks in base combat by 1 (minimum 1) and her armor reduces Strength of enemy attacks by 1 (minimum 1).
Vilitch the Curseling: The Siamese twins are a L4 Tzeentch Lore Master and have slightly better combat stats than most Chaos Sorcerers. Vilitch is bad news for players like me who like to squeeze every magic die. If an enemy fails to cast a spell, Vilitch gets the power dice in his dispel pool. Worse, if an enemy fails to dispel a spell, Vilitch gets the dispel dice in his power pool. Vilitch is the only one who can use the stolen dice but with seven spells, it’s a safe bet he can find something to do with them.
Festus the Leechlord: This is the only WoC with mediocre combat stats. This is a pharmacist gone mad not a fighter. He bestows Poisoned Attacks and Regeneration 5+ on any unit he joins and is a level 2 Nurgle Wizard. At the start of each close combat phase, he can either drink a potion to recover one lost wound or force feed a potion to an enemy by winning an contested Strength roll, thus inflicting d3 wounds on an enemy with no armor saves. Since he buffs the whole unit and has relatively weak stats, it’s probably a good idea to put max attacks on this chubby fellow.
Sigvald the Magnificant: The Narcissist has Stupidity and can never use the general’s Ld or BSB reroll to avoid it (he likes to look at his reflection). He has Ld 10 himself so this is rarely a problem. He is strong on offensive and defense. He has 7 ASF attacks at WS8 and a 2+ armor and Regeneration save. He is one of the few units in existence with generic Strider (he floats slightly above the ground so he needn’t get his shoes dirty, beware the Ken doll of Chaos!).
Throgg, aka Wintertooth King of Trolls: Warriors of Chaos are one of the last Warhammer armies I’d ever collect, but if I played them, I’d take Throgg at every opportunity and make a themed army. A super genius by troll standards, he has Ld 8 and better stats all around. He also has a S5 breath weapon that ignores armor saves (super vomit). Armies with Throgg can take Trolls as a Core choice. Monstrous Infantry, Warbeasts, and Monstrous Beasts may use his Ld as if he were the general with an 18 inch range.
Scyla Anfingrimm: A souped up Chaos Spawn. I addition to hitting harder and more often, he is exempt from the two weaknesses of vanilla Chaos Spawn: he has decent saves and no randomized movement.
Galrauch: Many army books have special characters that ride dragons. Galrauch is a dragon (or rather is a demon possessing a dragon). Galrauch’s breath weapon forces toughness tests to avoid automatic wounds with no saves. This mighty dragon is also a level 4 Tzeentch wizard. At the start of every Chaos turn, Galrauch must pass a leadership test or the original dragon head’s personality will assert itself and half of Galrauch’s attacks will be against himself as the two head fight each other. If Galrauch is not engaged in close combat, he also loses his movement phase when having a schizophrenic fit like this. Hexing his leadership is thus a good idea if you have power dice to spare for this task.
Kholek Suneater: A Shaggoth with slightly boosted stats. He can also call down thunderbolts in the shooting phase which inflict d6 S6 hits. They have a one in six chance of hitting Kholek instead but because he has the same Storm Rage ability of his lesser kin, this is usually to his benefit. He also inflicts d3 wounds per hit making him equal or superior to a Carnosaur in every way.
