Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos

This is the tactica for the Total War: Warhammer version of the Warriors of Chaos.

Why Play Warriors of Chaos

• BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD, SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE
• Because you want to see the unending tides of damnation overrun all that is good and civilized in this world.
• Because back in my day only the bad guys wore Stupidly OP Armor.

Pros

• Unmatched Melee: Pound for pound, your troops are the best in the entire game when it comes to melee combat. If anyone else even tries to match you, you will probably laugh as you step over their remains and entire their backline. This is no longer true as of TWW2, Dark Elf Har Ganeth Executioners go through your units like a big pointy greatsword through butter, the Greenskin Krimson Killerz ROR can 1v1 Chosen and reliably win, Lizardmen monsters will Jurassic Park all over your infantry etc. Hopefully TWW3 can put the Chaos Warriors back on top
• Armor: Regardless of which ever one of the Dark Gods you decided to suck off, they gifted you an ungodly amount of armor to protect your troops from the enemy. If for whatever reason the other guy decided not to bring AP against you, you've pretty much already won the fight right there.
• Monsters: You got some monsters that are unmatched in what they do. Shaggoths make dragons cry, manticores make great mounts and flying harass, trolls will help win you the frontline even faster and hounds will make sure that all those pesky skirmishers don't screw over your troops on the way in. You best have answers for anti large though.
• Versatility: You're not quite the most versatile of factions, but with all of the high quality troops you have, you can deploy a wide assortment of tactics against all kinds of opponents. You can use rushes, monster mashes, artillery boxes, magic bombs, and make your lords into one man armies. With how much good stuff is at your disposal, you can come up with all kinds of crazy tactics to through at your opponent.
• Strong Lords: Sigvald aside, your lord options are pretty damn good. Archeon is one of th ebetter duelist characters, Kholek kills whatever he is fighting and Sarthoreal is a raid boss with impressive magic abilities. Even generic sorcerers are pretty damn good for what they do.

Cons

• Limited Skirmishing: You do have some mounted skirmishers, but odds are they aren't going to be the reason why you win the fight. You are not going to be beating your opponent in the skirmishing phase of the fight.
• No Ranged Infantry: Your ranged options are just said skirmisher cavalry. In any shooting match, you're gonna loose.
• Slow: The downside of all that armor? It makes you slow as all hell. This, combined with the con listed above, means you are pretty vulnerable to enemy ranged attacks. Be sure that you devote a few of your troops to getting on those skirmishers and making sure they can't do to much damage to your troops on the way in.
• Expensive: Sadly, all this good quality comes at a price. With how expensive a lot of your troops are, odss are you will probably be outnumbered in whatever match up you are going against. Expect to rely on quality of quantity when you are choosing to rep team WOC.
• The campaign is terrible: Their campaign, along with that of the Beastmen, is in dire need of a rework (that hopefully comes with Warhammer 3). The horde mechanic the WoC revolve around has never been particularly fun to play as, and only continued to age poorly as Warhammer 2 went on. Maybe CA had a point when they originally planned to hold them back for Game 1, they feel incomplete and kind of pointless. Add to this that elementary stuff from the Lore such as specific pledges to the Dark Gods and Demons are missing (with Archaon being the Champion the Chaos Undivided and all that, except you also can play as Sigvald who is a Champion of Slaanesh with no access to Demons of his patron) and you got yourself a dumpster fire of epic proportions. There are mods like Ultimate Chaos that seek to alleviate the worst of it, but most of them are of dubious quality and other can break entire campaigns (like the Chaos Outposts Mod). If you want to play WoC in Singleplayer, better wait for Warhammer 3 and hope it gets better.

Legendary Lords and Subfactions

• Archaon the Everchosen: at the start of the Total War it was a joke that he was the Neverchosen, but recent progressive buffs have been slowly improving him. Still waiting to see if he will ever get his title back from Kholek but he is currently usable in multiplayer. He is currently a strong generalist fighter and Fire wizard hybrid. He is among of the strongest melee lords stat-wise in-game even before taking items. being a fire wizard also grants him the ability to clear out mobs, snipe lords, or buff damage of troops depending on your needs. He does still have some flaws. He doesn't get the AOS version of Dorghar, so no monstrous mass to help easily break out from tar traps. He is very expensive in multiplayer even when running nacked(don't do that) so you have to buy only what you need.

in the campaign, your definitely not friends with anyone (least not without doing a lot of favors). He makes it easier to buy Chaos Warrior and make units you kept around from early game monsters with them gaining Bonus weapon damage for each chevron (27% more damage by rank 9).

• Kholek Suneater: Given how prevalent he is seen, most players think of Kholek as the face of Warriors of Chaos despite the advertisement. But why wouldn't you as he is the best lord Legendary of WoC in MP. Big tough Dragon Ogre monster lord that runs around unhindered and deals massive damage to both infantry and monster. Extra better when gooining around with his Dragon Ogre boys.

his campian bonuse gears to late game Dragon Ogres while your also spreading Corruption more quickly.

• Prince Sigvald the Magnificent: use to be bad but got significantly better during The Twisted & The Twilight update. A powerful and quick foot dualist that will never suffer fatigue penalties. Like anyone, still prone to gooning, but his small size, regen, and Very high melee stats make him slippery while also helping you win with melee grind.

Despite his overwhelming ego, his campaign has him being most in touch with Norsca, having a stronger diplomatic relationship, and have practically the same unit version of the unit with them having the Norsca "Rage", with it upgrading to the superior "Berserk" at late vetrency to keep marauders viable. Getting a Ld bonus against men encourages you to go after the south or vassal Norsca.

• Sarthorael the Everwatcher: Looking back it's surprising we got a greater deamon so early on before game 3. Not available in the campaign (for WoC anyway, Norsca can unlock a different Lord of Change over the course of the Campaign) but playable in multiplayer. A giant lore of metal caster with a lot of missle resistance. Well used a battering ram to disrupt gun faction with his mass and terror as the rest of the army hounds on their position but prefers to run through the lines to new spots of safety to cast his spells.

Units

Generic Lords

• Chaos Lord: cheap melee lord. Can take a poison mace if you want this lord to be supportive. Also can be but on a flying mount for manticore gooning.

• Chaos Sorcerer Lord: Saves points by fusing Chaos Sorcerer as your lord option and still a good melee fighter. comes in Death, Fire, Metal, or Shadows.

Heroes

• Exalted Hero: Melee hero, often a part of the manticore goon squad.
• Chaos Sorcerer: Tankier than the traditional wizard as they have a large amount of armour and a low-end melee character. You shouldn't let them fight good melee units, but they are still a force multiplier on the charger when on a mount. Comes in Death, Fire, Metal, and Shadows.

Melee Units

• Chaos Marauders: Your budget line, but you often fill up your numbers with them given how expensive everything else is. They are how you go wide in WoC. Posses low armor but can still cause some more expensive units to struggle against them.
  • Chaos Marauders (Great Weapons): Cheap Ap Damage but not as good as Chaos Warriors (Great Weapons) since the Marauders are very fragile with trading away what little defense a Marauder gets.

• Chaos Warriors: The spiked anvil of chaos. High stats all-around stats in offense and defense except for speed. Often beat out other line infantry in the grind. They Lack AP so not effective against other high armour targets.
  • Mirror Guard(RoR): A strong point used in Marauders and Warriors. Moves faster, higher defense, and don't falter against Fear or Terror.
  • Chaos Warriors (Great Weapons): your AP troops, effective at upending other armored infantry like Dwarfs.
  • Chaos Warriors (Halberds): Your Anti-large infantry out classes Great Weapons if facing Calvery and Monsters.

• Aspiring Champions: A Small unit of Chosen with Magical attacks. They fill a role as support units, having the Encourage ability Giving extra Leadership to your lines, being a moral anchor if your lord is way from your font lines. The magic attacks also a cheap way to dps enemies that rely on Physical resistance for protection.

• Forsaken: A nitch fast Damage dealing unit. Being both fast and good armour. Good at mulching through low armor units and used as foot flankers. They don't do well against Armor-piercing or elite infantry.
  • The Daemonspew: Blessed by Nurgle, they have poison attacks and melee attack debuff aura. A supportive unit to mix with your line blob to make an elite unit easy to handle.

• Chosen: Oh my. Chosen, pound for pound, are probably the best heavy melee infantry in the game, also comes in Great Weapons and Halberds variants like Chaos Warriors baring some regiments of renown. They will never run away, their stats are extremely scary and they are absurdly tanky. They are every bit as scary as their reputation makes them out to be. like any heavy elite infantry they are slow with low model counts, so will suffer severely from being targeted by artillery, magic, or Ap Missles.

Beasts

• Chaos Warhounds: Cheap Fast harassment unit, Shutting down Skirmishers, Calvery, Missile units, and Artillery Crews that will target your slower-moving Warriors.
• Chaos Warhounds (Poison): Now give it a poison debuff to attacks now it also can catch those slippery units with a nibble and support in melee by making the difficult unit easier to kill while also reduces their damage.

Cavalry

• Chaos Knights: your melee cav, Strong and wins lots of protracted fights. Best used in a supporting role, since they're somewhat cost-inefficient compared to demigryphs/blood knights
  • Swords of Chaos:(RoR): Knights with Flaming weapons but with a smaller model count, but most useful in keeping your characters safe and letting your whole army get a temporary speed boost.
• Chaos Knights (Lances): Cycle charging cav.

Missle Cavalry

if you want shooting but don't want to spring for artillery you only have Skirmish calv. Like most Skirmish calv you need to use some Micromanagement to make sure a real opponent doesn't chase them out of the game and that they use their ammunition efficiently instead of AI autopilot on everything.

• Marauder Horsemen: You cheapest shooting unit. Useful in taking things out annoying units air and harass units with low Missile resistances. Fragile with the same protection as a Marauder.
• Marauder Horsemen (Throwing Axes): Trades Missile range for AP. Suited for harassing armored foes from a distance but don't take punishment well like the normal variant.
• Marauder Horsemasters: A slightly upgraded version of Horsemen with the most important thing is having signeifenlty better armor. Lets it take punishment and trade better when engaging in melee with other Skirmish units and other lesser melee units.

Monsters Infantry

• Chaos Trolls: a regenerating bag of hp and AP damage. do need some babysitting to help with their low ld. two-handed Warriors builds have their AP, but Maurouders lines like that extra Damage and Monsterous mass.
  • Chaos Trolls (Armoured): pay extra so Trolls are less likely to run when they take damage.
• Chaos Spawn: Line breakers, they do go down quickly from guns but are a cheap way to tie up multiple line units as they don't stop attacking until they are all dead.
  • Wyrd Spawn: (RoR)
• Dragon ogres: the anti-large "calvery". Can send infantry flying if needed.
  • Summoners of Rage: (RoR) Have magic attacks and an infantry clearing bound spell. Takes out Physical resit enemies or give you another edge in a fight.

Monster

• Chaos Giant: big infantry smasher but easily sniped and hammered with ranged and anti-large attacks. Remove them and they can frolic through even the heavest of armor.
• Chaos Feral Manticore: your cheap flyer goon
• Dragon Ogre Shaggoth: a anti-large monster. Often pared with Kholek to make a Dragon Ogre goon squad

Chariots

• Chaos Chariot: requires morcro mangment but will mess with enemy formation.
• Gorebeast Chariot: Slower but Gives the Chaos Chariot more AP damage for fighintg higher armor.

Artillery

• Hellcannon: Big gun with homing projectiles and damage that includes an Ld debuff. Also comes with an unbreakable chaos dwarf crew who will keep firing until they're killed to the last man. Somewhat of an odd man out in the chaos roster, since their playstyle is more geared towards bumrushing the enemy than noob boxing around the artillery, but there are no complaints about having one to round out your army. Depending on the matchup, you can force the enemy to come to you if they can't arttily dual with the cannon. If you got the attention to spare taking manual control of them allows you to fly the projectile.
  • The Soul of Damnation: (RoR)

Tactics

Multiplayer Strategies

• Beastmen:
• Bretonnia:
• Chaos Warriors:
• Dark Elves:
• Dwarfs:
• Empire:
• Greenskins:
• High Elves:
• Lizardmen:
• Norsca:
• Skaven:
• Tomb Kings:
• Vampire Coast:
• Vampire Counts:
• Wood Elves: