Tactica Chaotix
General Verwirrung
Contents
Chaos is probably the most powerful army in the game of Warhammer. It is the real enemy of every army. It has no friends. In order to play chaos, a player must relize the strengths and weaknesses od his own army and how to exploit them.
Regiments
Most people would probably start out with describing the perfect general or which daemons to use. I don't play that way. Chaos has the best hand to hand combatants in the game. Every player has to learn how to utilize them. Every army should have beastmen. They don't look good because of their infighting, but, they are the best units to field in the game. Beastmen have 2 wounds, a decent WS and BS and they only cost 10 points a piece. Now, in my opinion, you shouldn't but armor for these guys. I use beastmen as an initial shield so that I can get my heavier troops into battle safely. Don't worry if your opponent begins to pick them off. You want him to. Give him an easy target, he won't be shooting at your more valuable pieces if they are guarantied a kill. Besides beastmen, the next units a player needs is Harpies. It's always fun to watch the opponent's mouth drop when you field 3 units of 10 of harpies. These are your multipurpose attackers. Get to the warmachines, attack the archers, hold up big units. Though they have a leadership of 6, its worth the gamble. Both beastmen and Harpies are fairly good for their point value. Chaos Warriors are the best fighters in the game, no doubt, but, they are also way to expensive to field a lot of them. When equipped with their chaos armor and given an extra weapon, they easily go beyond 30+ a piece. Remember when I said you use beastmen as a shield? This is where you would use it. Put the elite group of warriors behind the beastmen and march them out toward battle. When you get to the target, release the warriors and watch them take any unit down. Keep using the beastmen as shields and flank the warriors to avoid possible missile attacks. Now what do you get when you put a chaos warrior on a horse? The second best calvary in the game! Chaos Knights are by far the best and strongest calvary in the game. Yet, their point values are so high, it is often to hard to field more than one unit of these bad boys at once. Don't worry, often times one unit of these guys is enough to take out enough to make them effective. There are a couple of points to remember about the Knights. Don't throw them against opponents that are not worthy. There is nothing more worse than having your unit of knights get stuck fighting archers while the opponents general is nearby. Using your knight's speed, try to go around targets that can take more than a turn to defeat. Big units of really cheap pieces are your worst nightmare. Chariots are often very useful in this game. I do not advise buying a chariot if you do not know how the terrain is going to be setup. Chariots should be only used in a game where open spaces can be utilized. Buying scythes for the tires is also a good idea since it can greatly help out. Speed is another factor that makes the chariot fairly good. Another unit that is fairly adept at speed are the chaos hounds. Like beastmen, these make a good shield for missile attacks, but, they only have 1 wound. Though blows are not absorbed as well, these could possibly make a good shield with a unit of calvary behind them. I do not advise buying these dogs since I have found them not to be very useful in the game. Another fairly good shield for the knights are chaos centaurs. Chaos Centaurs are pretty good for their points and can be equipped with bows and lances to maximize the effect of attacks. Since the Centaurs are much cheaper than the knights, I often have two or three units of them. Each one acting as a shield, one on each flank and one in the front. Centaur Lances provide that much needed punch against some of the tougher foes. Trolls are also not advised as being used in the game since I see them as slow and stupid. Though strong, they are not very useful in the game. Finally, the best calvary in the game: Dragon Ogres. Once, I fielded 6 of these bad asses in a 2000 point game and my opponent nearly fainted. They have great strength, speed, toughness, and wounds. But, they have a poor leadership and low initiative to be by themselves in the battle. The only problems with a unit like this is that they have to attack first. Get that first attack in and you are guarantied some kind of gratification. Here is another spot to put them Centaurs. Regiments are by far the most important units in the game. A good diversification of protection and offence should make for a good and well balanced army. Always remember that protect your forces and never relent. Use the speed of certain units to gain an edge and then use the power of the others to finish it off.
Characters
Besides damn good infantry units, your army has to be led by a general and other characters. Characters, to some people, are the only part to the game. I do not agree with them on this point. Characters are meant to lead your infantry units, give them a better chance at surviving. Now, if you're given enough points, you should try to equip your general with some bad-assed weapons. This combination is my favorite: Sword of Change, Helm of Many Eyes and Battle Fury of Khorne. Of course this only works with the Chaos Lord of Khorne, but, you can exchange the last item for just about anything. Wizards are the next characters you need to get. Most armies are doomed without a least one wizard. Two wizards are usually good enough; 1st and 3rd level wizards are usually good enough for this. Now, depending on what your overall strategy is each type of spell usually does the trick. If you are playing against a fast army, such as elves, spells of Slannesh are the best. They have the ability to slow down the opponents and even stop them if you get the right spells. If you are fighting an army that is mainly a hordes army, like goblins, spells of nurgle are usually the most effective at doing damage to many creatures at once. If you are fighting an army that depends heavily on using powerful characters, spells of Tzeentch are the best at delivering strong hits to single characters. If the army you are fighting uses more than one of these strategies, give those two wizards different spells. Besides wizards and the general, many players decide to put heroes and champions in each unit. This is fairly often an extremely good idea. Characters can serve as leadership bonuses for those poor units such as beastmen and others like that. Characters can also be used to save the unit from certain forms of mass destruction. Having a character challenge some giant enemy character mounted on a giant dragon can save that unit from certain death. But I use the Characters as a leadership benefit only. This is commonly the best idea when leading beastmen into battle. Beastmen heroes and champions are usually not the best idea to lead a unit of beastmen since their leadership is also fairly low. Characters often make or break an army, they are sometimes the thing that makes it win and sometimes the thing that makes it lose.
Daemons
These strategies are designed for chaos. What would a chaos army be without daemons that are the soul of the game. Daemons are probably the most powerful creatures in the game. Daemons are divided into two parts: greater and lesser daemons. Greater daemons often have the most powerful stats and are also the most powerful things in the game. The Bloodhthirster is the most powerful creature in the game and also the most expensive. Many people debate whether or not these creatures are actually worth the points. They are often the target of every thing an army has and it will be killed after a couple of turns. The next three daemons are also powerful but a little cheaper and they all cast spells at level four. The Bloodthirster and the Lord of Change are flyers which is fairly useful in games where speed is needed. The other two greater daemons are often times to slow to get into battle. Lesser daemons are the main part of the daemon family. I will only discuss demons of Khorne and Tzeentch here since those are the two I play the most. Khornes daemon's are meant for hand to hand combat. The bloodletters are very good in HTH and they do a lot of damage when they get to attack. They are slow, though, and often won't get into battle quick enough to do enough damage. When put on the back of Juggernauts they make a lethal force. The juggers have speed, toughness and pretty good attacks; all good for combat. Though juggers and bloodletter get expensive, they often make a good force. The hounds of Khorne are also very good when put against armies that wield magic since the hounds are immune to magic. Daemons of tzeentch are often very good in speed and magic Discs of Tzeentch are often the best form of transportation since they are cheap and they fly. The flamers of Tzeentch are very good. Fast and good missile attacks. They often help me win many games where the terrain is slightly more difficult for normal people. Daemons are a powerful force to wield in the chaos army. Often times a player will put to much emphasis on daemons and quickly lose a battle, other times players don't use their powers enough and quickly lose.
Monsters
Monsters are useful in the game. Monsters can be ridden or used as individual fighters in the game. Ridden monsters are often very useful for general and such. A general on a chaos dragon is often a lethal force and a cockatrice is almost deadly against slow opponents. Monsters are no very useful in this game unless you want to throw something unexpected at the enemy.
Overall Strategies
All of the above mentioned ideas are very useful when it comes to trying to beat opponents in battle. One of the most powerful things in the chaos army is the chaos gifts. Chaos gifts are special bonusses you get for playing chaos. These can be good or bad depending on how well you planned to use them. You should always have more than one character in your army in order to take the blow of losing one because of a gift. These gifts are bring in the force of the chaos spawn. Though completly random they can be deadly when played in the right spots. Turning one of your own men into spawn in the middle of the opponents army is often devasting to them. Chaos gifts and spawn are very usefull in the game and can also be your defeat.
Chaos is a many faceted army. Chaos can be slow and blunt or fast and sharp. Many ideas can be used to manuvure the troops to the best possible position. Rule 1 to chaos is to make sure you always get the first attack. In order to get the first attack in, it is important to get fast troops into the game. Calvary, choas hounds, Dragon Ogres and Harpies are almost the best regiments you can have to ensure speed. A general mounted on a flying creature is the best thing for the speed game. Flamers and Juggernaughts are also very fast. In the speed game it is important that you go first in order to ensure you have control of the field. Flying unit high and then coming down behind the lines is often very important. Landing behind the lines is often needed to get rid of the enemies war machines and cause a distraction to get slower troops into postistion. The slow version of the chaos army is often more of a horde that comes across the field killing everything in sight. In this form of attack it is needed to have a sacrificial shield that takes all the blows that protects the lethal cargo. Beastmen, chaos hounds often make a good shield with Chaos Warriors and bloodletters behind. Many variation of the tough outer layer can be used. With more than one unit being used as a shield, a small compact force can be created that is very versaltile and also lethal. Speed, offense, defense, luck and creativity are the most important things to remember when making chaotic army; the most powerful force in the game.