1500 WoC - Playing Dwarves

I think the points spent on protecting that Exalted Hero are wasted - I tried out the 3+ Ward re-rolling 1s combo a couple of times, and you just disappear when your unit runs away and die horribly. Since you only have two ranks in combat, you're probably going to lose Steadfast and with a Ld8 general, I don't see them sticking around even with a re-roll.

Chaos Warriors work best in ranks of 6, so I'd try and find a way to increase the unit to 16 (with the attached characters leaving you with 18 dudes). Mark of Tzeentch is wasted without Parry, in my opinion (even if you do get the 5+ Ward against War Machines); Nurgle is totally where it's at for Chaos Warriors with Halberds. The characters would have to bring different loadouts (hopefully cheaper ones - 211pts on a guy who explodes when his Ld8 unit runs away is a little high!), but with the Mark of Nurgle and WS7 I think you can be pretty safe with simply your standard Chaos Armour, Enchanted Shield and Dawnstone. That loadout gives you points for Flaming Breath; if you were ambivalent about that, you could try Chaos Armour, Shield, Helm of Many Eyes, Scaled Skin, Dawnstone. 10pts more expensive, but a 1+ rerollable instead of a 2+, and gives you ASF instead of the Breath Weapon. The Sorceror, well, it's tricky; as you know you're fighting Dwarves, I wouldn't bother bringing him. Dwarves are going to get a lot of dispels off at such a low points value, and if they bring the Rune of Valaya you're basically screwed completely. Swap out the Sorceror for another Exalted Hero. I'd stick the Banner of Discipline onto the Chaos Warriors for a Ld9 General, too.

If you're dead set on keeping Tzeentch, I'd change the banner to the Blasted Standard - not usually a good idea since it's mathematically shitty against Str3, but since Dwarves only have black powder weapons and a lot of war machines that it'll help you against (Str3 Organ Gun hits, yes please!) then it's a much better plan.

Chaos Knights are way nastier with Nurgle than with Khorne - I found it's just way too easy for them to lose Frenzy due to cavalry's lack of combat res and then you're stuck with 10pts wasted (I don't like the MoK in general for this reason). Getting Dwarves to hit you on 5s is important when they're generally hitting pretty hard (especially if there is this big block of Ironbreakers - they will eat your Knights alive).

Not enough experience with Chariots, but apparently Nurgle Chariots are a really solid pick.

Skullcrushers are amazing.

NoxGK said:

Totally makes sense, considering my lack of experience I end up blocking a lot of my own charges and movement, clipping my units of dogs and standing there like an idiot while the dorfs shoot me in the helmet.

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Yeah, I did that the one time I ran Gnoblars in my Ogre army. Slowed down the fatties, blocked my charges, then caused a Panic check and everyone ran away.

NoxGK said:

BSB placement makes sense, but knights and skullcrushers on the same side? then drop chariot on other flank?

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With my WoC I tended to pack one flank with the hard hitters and the other with my anvil units of WoC, which generally seemed to work quite well; WoC can outfight basically every other army (nasty Special units like Executioners or Hammerers excepted). To capitalise on this, WoC need to focus their strength on one part of the enemy battle line - if you put your army's strength on one point, you will break that point. Engaging the entire enemy army is a sure way to get overwhelmed fighting a tonne of guys; since you don't have the numbers for reliable Steadfast, and low Leadership across the army, fighting a lot of combats with a lot of different units means you'll eventually get a bad roll or they'll luck out and kill a couple of dudes, you'll fail Leadership and you can't afford to have expensive Chaos running away; even worse, if you run, the enemy you were fighting is free to start flanking. Gang up on people and your kill-power will break them; fight fair, and static combat res will screw you up or you'll be tarpitted forever.

NoxGK said:

I actually quite like dwarves, but there's no way I'd ever say that to my brother of course.

Those fat midgets die.

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An uninteractive, boring, mono-phase army with ridiculously strong army special rules, ability to basically ignore misfires, impunity to shut down your magic phase and almost ignoring leadership and psychology outright. I hate them.

As Warriors of Chaos, my 2000pt list usually ran something like this:

Daemon Prince of Slaanesh with Wings, Chaos Armour, Scaly Skin, Dawnstone, Flaming Breath, Soul Feeder and Wizard Level 4 - 525pts

Wulfrik the Wanderer - 180pts
Sorceror with Wizard Level 2, Enchanted Shield and Dispel Scroll or Chaos Familiar - 175pts
Exalted Hero BSB with Talisman of Endurance, Mark of Tzeentch and Halberd - 181pts

24 Chaos Warriors with Shields, Full Command and Mark of Tzeentch - 438pts
24 Chaos Warriors with Shields, Full Command and Mark of Tzeentch - 438pts
20 Marauders with Flails, Standard Bearer and Mark of Khorne - 210pts
5 Warhounds - 30pts

Hellcannon - 210pts

The Daemon Prince is easily the greatest thing I've ever used in Fantasy; unfortunately, he makes the army a little weak on Leadership as he goes off to fight the enemy army alone and is only Ld9 if he does end up being in Inspiring Presence range, but he's just incredible as a disruption tool. Basically invincible to anything that isn't a Cannon, and those he can deal with through Acquiescence, capable of disrupting the enemy army in it's entirety (random movement is amazing as a debuff, bubble up Cacophonic Choir and laugh), destroys monsters with Cacophonic Choir and his own attacks, rips up infantry by being a small-based Monster with a Str4 Breath Weapon and being amazing in combat, a mega tarpit capable of holding up basically any infantry unit you care to mention with WS9 (5s to hit him), T5 (5s or 6s to wound him), 2+ re-rollable armour save and a 5+ Ward and he gets wounds back in combat; and most importantly, Unbreakable. Not Unstable, not Daemonic, but flat out, simple Unbreakable. That's insane. He's stood there, challenged out the Dwarf Lord and watched a Horde of 40 Dwarf Ironbreakers sit there while he killed their Lord and then stood there healing the little damage he took. I've lost him three times; once to Bolt Throwers when I wasn't paying much attention and using him properly, once to a Miscast, and once when we were playing End Times: Khaine magic and my opponent cast six Searing Dooms at him.

Wulfrik's a beast for turning up behind the enemy; his unit puts out a lot of Str5 attacks that ignore Parries if you can get them into the rear (which you almost always can, using Seafang); a huge benefit considering Dwarves get their +1 Parry in the first round of combat. He'll be able to challenge out and murder a BSB - I usually use him to pick out the enemy's Level 4 Wizard then go for the BSB, but against Dwarves you can obviously gun straight for the beardy with the flag.

The Sorceror would bring the Familiar against Dwarves, naturally, since a Dispel Scroll is of decidedly limited use; three rolls on Shadow or Death tend to be my favorite choices but I've used Fire to good effect and Metal has some gems on it (Glittering Robe is fantastic, Chaos Warriors with 1+ armour saves; Final Transmutation is also one of the better super-spells in my view since it doesn't rely on a characteristic test, and in my local area it's become infamous for it's uncanny ability to sniper out characters - you want gold, Dwarf? Here, have your king!). Save his spells for last once the Daemon Prince has drawn out the enemy's dispel dice with his higher casting bonus.

BSB is pretty standard - a 4+/4++ is good for saves, he's cheap enough that you're not breaking the bank on a 2-wound T4 model who auto-dies if he breaks from combat (this is why I don't like the solo 3++ Lord or the 3++ BSB - the former runs away from static combat resolution, and the latter is invincible until you disappear because you spent the points you needed for killing the enemy on not being killed and so you ran from combat). BSBs are super-important for Chaos, but this you know.

In hindsight, I'd take the Chaos Warrior squads down to 18 men each - 24 is excessive as the back rank is wasted. Run them 6-wide for the best trade off of damage to mobility; while armies like Vampires can have 50 Skeletons trapped because of their massive footprint, you really can't afford to have anyone not making it into combat. Other than that, Shields and Mark of Tzeentch is a loadout I'm quite happy with; bear in mind you'll basically never have Steadfast which is something you need to watch out for, but Tzeentch Warriors are tough as balls to kill. I would argue that a strictly better loadout is Mark of Nurgle and Halberds, but I've never liked Nurgle so I don't tend to run his units. Besides, my Tzeentch colour scheme I was too happy with k:

Warhounds are war machine hunters or redirectors; simple enough. Put them at angles in front of your units to force the enemy into bad positions and protect yourself from unwanted charges i.e. from Knights or Mournfangs or the like. You can also bait Frenzied units with them, draw out Night Goblin Fanatics, stop the enemy from Marching etc. if you really want.

Hellcannon is wonderful, perhaps less so against Dwarves but being able to remove chunks of infantry at long range is invaluable - the big deal is causing Panic checks at -1 with every shot, but simply being a Str5 Magical Flaming Stone Thrower is a huge deal on it's own. It probably skews my perception that 9/10 times mine Misfires it rolls a 6 and takes off a whole regiment of Knights or some other valuable unit, but it's never let me down even without that luck.

Generally, you want to pick off enemy characters as quickly as you can so you can turn it into a game of straight fighting; remove their BSB and their Inspiring Presence and their magical buffs, and suddenly it becomes a game of who's soldiers are bigger and nastier. Protip; that's yours - take away external influences and Warriors of Chaos will beat any other army you want. If you let the enemy cast Augments and Hex you and get bonuses from characters like Necrotects and Empire Captains and Runesmiths, you're going to struggle because all of a sudden his duders have an edge, and there's a tonne more of them than there are of you.

Gang up on units; my ideal situation was for a Chaos Warrior unit to charge the front or be charged, relying on their resilience to see them through for a wile, and then either on that turn or the turn after, get flanks and rear with the Prince and the Marauders respectively. I don't pretend that the Prince was basically the lynchpin of the list; if games lasted an infinite number of turns, most of my losses would have been wins. Lore of Slaanesh is just so hugely valuable as a Lore - against Dwarves, it can be truly brutal as you can hit their backfield by turn 2, flying right into the middle of his artillery and then 6-dicing Cacophonic Choir. Most of his cannons and organ guns will die right off the bat - the few that survive will not be able to shoot next turn as they stumble around with Random Movement.

Just a little insight into WoC from my experiences :victory: