The biggest problem with Warriors is that there are so many viable builds and dangerous options for Chaos players. rather than talking too much about my own experiences I'd like to turn the floor over to anyone who has been playing with or against Warriors enough to comment on some of the more powerful builds. Not just the more common ones but ones that may be less obvious but very dangerous.

My WoC opponent has talked a lot about a Throgg Troll army, Dragon riders and Nurgle sorcerers, and massed Knights. In our last game I feel I out played him with my Dark Elves but the sheer strength of his armour saves and his numerous attacks back meant that none of the combats I joined really went in my favor, so I know I'll need to rethink a lot of things. What tips do you have for dealing with the many possibilities, especially when you go in blind as to what he has brought?

Of all the guys in my gaming group I'd expect him to change up his list the most.

I'm no expert, so I expect no quoting!

But it seems to me that the Wood Elves don't really have a unit dedicated to cracking open the metaphorical nuts that is the Chaos armies, as they tend (at least Warriors do) to have rather heavy saves. Generally, our units tend to strike at Str 4 (Glade Guard shooting up close, Wardancers charge, so on), which will weaken saves slightly, but hardly bust them. I would point towards our larger Treekin but Str 5 isn't bad nor great. The Treeman cannot be everywhere but his -3 armour save modifier will work well. However, I think that Wardancers with Killing Blow might be an effective counter charge, as you strike first and might lop off a few heads, and Chaos Warriors tend to not have much in the way of numbers. Also, Waywatchers have Lethal Shot, so try a unit or two of them. And maybe a few Spellsingers using a few Treesinging Spells to use the Str 5 hits of the Forest. You can kit out a Lord to try and lead the nut cracking. I bet there is a build of Lord which is designed for such a task.

Beyond that, stick to normal Wood Elf tactics. Make porcupines with plenty of arrows, and make sure you pick the fights that are clearly unfair (to you. To play to his strengths would be bad) and make sure he can't pin you down. But you probably know this.

Happy hunting the Great Enemy!

I used this tactic yesterday with great success. I setup a trap for my opponent's unit of Nurgle Knights, and they jumped in with both feet! I tossed out a unit of dryads in front of a treeman, with wardancers off on one flank looking like they were going to threaten a small unit of chosen warriors. I also had 2 alter nobles with great weapons behind the treeman. The nights charged the dryads, killing all of them, and they overran into the treeman. In my turn, I countercharge with the 2 alters and the wardancers in the flank. With my higher initiative (Alters are 9, wardancers 6), I strike first, and even with the -1WS for the nurgle mark, I managed to kill 3 (one killing blow from the wardancers, and 2 by the alters). The knights fail to wound the treeman, who in returns smashes the other two knights. Unit dead, and wardancers overrun out of harms way of the Chosen warrior unit.

As you've stated, tactics are how you beat big nasty units. We're wood elves. We don't play fair. If our opponents want a fair fight, they shouldn't come wandering into Athel Loren!

Well, Wardancers, Treeman, Dryads, two Alters. Yep, I have all of those things. Seems like a good start. I think that Wardancers are one of our biggest assets right now and should see more use against high AS opponents. Skirmishing is a huge advantage too against the strong infantry that the latest books have promoted.

Is that really how it works? When an enemy overruns into you and you counter charge in your turn, order is determined by Initiative? We always just played that the overrunning unit could attack the charged unit first and _then_ the counter charger could attack. If that's the case then its a really, really, big advantage for us.

My Wardancer Highborn has been a bigger star in the world of the Power Creep, but I think that for the AoN to be effective its important to consider suicide charges with supplemental alter to kill the Champion of any critical unit. Maybe once the HoDA is gone the Standard Alter can fulfill this role, the HotH makes it possible. Challenge the champ and kill him so there is no attacks back. Even if you break, with 3d6 you have a good chance of getting away and may even pull the unit further into the trap that you set. With the EyeotGods most Chaos players will use champs anyway to protect their heroes and wizards, so that will be a big obstacle for any AoN toting character.

I'm concerned about Wild Riders against Chaos Warriors. St5 just won't be enough to kill, even on the flank, and with so many attacks back they could easily give up free CR on those critical combi-charges.

Chaos Warriors:

With Warriors running at least 16 points/model, I don't think you're going to be seeing too many fully-ranked units on the battlefield. A unit of 20 would cost at least 350 points before magic banners, etc. . . . that's starting to crowd the WoC list for points right here. High Elves have similar issues . . . it just isn't worth it to field another five elite infantry when you spend 80 points for the privilege and only get +1 CR in return.

I think the standard unit of CW you are going to see will run 15 strong. Since CW are on 25x25 bases, this means you can get 5 Wild Riders on 3 Chaos Warriors. With full command, you're going to get six Wild Rider attacks, of which 3 will hit, 2 will wound and he'll have a 5+ save (no HW&S bonus to the flank). 1 1/3 wounds. You get five angry horses, so another 5/18 wounds there. So you do, on average, 1 11/18 wounds. So probably two, but definitely one.

Even if two guys survive, that's just four attacks. Two hit, 4/3 wound, 10/9 make it past the 6+ AS, and 20/27 make it past the ward. So they probably do a wound, but maybe not.

So even if the dice aren't kind to us, we still push on wounds. We have a flank and standard, they have outnumber and standard. Both probably have a musician, so a push. Things then get better as Fury of Kurnous kicks in in the second round.

Warriors of Chaos in general:

I don't think they really have anything now that they haven't had for a long time. They've always been able to do the Knight 'n' Chariot thing, and actually used to do it much better (since Knights are now no longer core, they can mix 'n' match up to four units). They've had Chaos Dragons. They've had Spawn. They've had Shaggoths. They've had Hellcannons. So I'm not sure that Warriors of Chaos really present any new tactical challenges. Sure, some of the their options got better (the Mark of Slaanesh in particular is ridiculously good) but the manner of dealing with them seems to still be the same.

Unless you guys are running into something new?

Some of their magic-heavy builds are a lot better than in the past, which can be troublesome for us since it costs so much for us to build up enough magic defense to counter it. Mage Hunting becomes priority number one against such builds. There is the Gateway List (max out on PD and spells for your Tz sorcerer Lord and surround him with other casters to draw out DD and scrolls, the Gateway for the win in later rounds). Also, the default spell for Nurgle is easily the best default spell in the game! Compare to the Big Waagh's 'Eadbutt:

Magnificent Buboes: 5+ 24" range, no LOS, model takes a wound no AS
'Eadbutt: 6+ 24" range, LOS required, model takes a S5 hit no AS [not the default spell, either!]

There are certain builds that are a lot better, especially if you add in a Warshrine or two. Plus, a Tz marked Warshrine is just about a broken a model as exists in the game. WS5, S4, T6, 5A, 4W, 4+ AS, 3+ Ward for only 150 points? AND it can give "gifts" to nearby units as well? Yes, you can easily break them with combat with static combat resolution (ranks, standard, numbers), but that's only if you can get to them. I often see them running behind the hammer units, beefing them up. Smart players keep them out of the action, and charge them in only when they need a little extra help in prolonged combats.

Warrior of Chaos are not nearly as hard as some of the other armies out there, but they do have a lot of good options, which is nice to see, since you won't face the same 2 or 3 cookie-cutter lists.

Maybe it's just because I haven't faced it on the battlefield, but the Warshrine just doesn't scare me that much. Yes, a Tzeentch-marked Warshrine will be hard to kill, but the important thing is that it's M4 with no ranged attack. That's a long slog across the field, especially if it's marchblocked by a Great Eagle or infiltrators.

Sure it can give a nearby unit a gift of variable usefulness but it can only have one gift active at a time and chances are that gift's going to be on a similarly slow infantry unit (since the faster units will quickly be more than 12" away from the Warshrine). If you get a Wild Rider unit into its flank it will probably trade wounds and the Wild Rider unit will win by 3-4 (flank, standard, outnumber, possibly a War Banner). Even if a Chaos Lord's in the area that's a break test on a five or six.

Have you had serious problems with them?

Not with my woodies, but I haven't faced them with my woodies yet. The times I've faced them, though there were 2 on the battlefield, casting their "blessings" on one big hammer/deathstar unit. Even if you kill the shrines, the blessings stay, and you still have to take out that uber-unit to have a chance to win. Granted, this is a particularly tough build to go up against, but the shrines just make it that much harder to counter. Maybe I just need more games against them to show they aren't as nasty as advertised.

Why do you have to take out the uberunit? Ignore it, take out the Warshrines and the ancillary units, grab table quarters, and win!

Unless I'm missing something?

A Nurgle Palanquin can turn a 16 man unit into full ranks and static 5, 6 with the Warbanner. With -1 WS from the MoN that can be a tough nut to crack, but not eat up points quite as much as other bunkers can. With a few MSU Marauders, dogs and Horsemen that's only a small amount of points in support units with plenty left over for Jugger Lords running with Knights, Sorcerers on discs, Dragon Ogres (at WS5, 3 attacks, st7 w/ 4 wounds and M7, which is vicious), more knights, a Hellcannon and/or Warshrine.

If you want points from Warriors, you have to engage the big stuff. Only the infantry is slow, relatively, and infantry will be the smallest part of the army.

I think that this thread would be more constructive if we didn't assume that everyone here has had experience with the old Hordes book. I haven't really, so saying that they got better or worse doesn't help with the OP. Not hatin', just sayin'.

And Buboes does, in fact, require LoS. Sorry Geo, but I had to look that one up.

Well, a Palanquin costs 50 points, so that's not a great deal of savings, plus they take the risk of Wardancers KBing the Lord/Hero riding it (assuming they don't take one of the magic armors that negates killing blow ).

Walking through the rest of the army:

Marauders, Warhounds, Marauder Horsemen - Shoot them, or charge with any combat unit.

Chosen are just better Chaos Warriors, so same tactics apply.

Forsaken - Shoot them. An ideal HoDA target.

Chariot - Flank with any combat unit (probably easiest with Wild Riders)

Ogres, Dragon Ogres, Trolls - Shoot them, or flank with any combat unit

Chaos Knights - Redirect and Flank.

Spawn, Giant, Shaggoth - Shoot them.

Hellcannons are tough. I haven't run into one in the new book, but it looks like a shooting target as well (no armor).

A good tactic for flanking multiwound models is to direct enough shooting their way to cause a couple of wounds. Then, when you charge their flank in a subsequent turn, the chance of your unit killing off the model it's attacking (and your opponent not getting any attacks back on your unit) is greatly increased.

The last 4 games I have played have been WoC. I have a 25% win ratio against them.
My best success was against an all cav army of knights and marauders. The woodelf speed and glade riders let me run rings round him, block with a great eagle and then pick the fights I wanted. He killed 2 wardancers in a charge and a unit of gladeriders to a spell. It was totally won on manouevering and concentration of shooting. Avoid the dangerous units, shoot the fast cav first. I have found it useful to try and take a flank and we ended up playing left to right instead of facing each other With the WE speed it left some of his units on their own on the other end of the table.
However the last game I fell badly to axe throwing marauders who marched in 16 and then threw 6" at st 4. They did a lot of damage to my riders. The nurgle spell number 6, 18" all units take a bunch of wounds at random strength also hurt ALOT. He got it off twice and killed my general. He also had a shooting attack as a gift so he had a stand and shoot reaction ( as we read it anyway ) for his sorcerer.
I think to counter this next time I will try and take more treespirits as I didnt take any dryads. It was the first time I havent taken them ever as I figured they werent much good against the knights, doing little damage and just providing an over-run for the knights. Could be treekin will shake up the marauders.
Also Wulfrik turned up behind my archers rather sooner than I anticipated and squished a bunch of glade guard on a hill. I did shoot him but immune to panic etc meant little.

Another game against the WoC this time a narrow win according to the rules of the campaign.
He took a spawn which he forgot to field, a nurgle mage, festus in a unit of 15? chosen/forsaken with nasty armour saves and a 5+ ward Gweapons and frenzy, and a few units of marauder cavalry. I took out his mage alone in the trees with an Alter who smashed him and was lucky not to die to that S1 no AS shooting chaos gift (anyone want to help me out with the name would be good ) as he chose to hold. Before you start...yes I did try to treesing him to death but was foiled.
I took out the marauder horse units but not as fast as I should have. I tried to leave his deathstar alone and was fairly successful till the last turn when I thought I could get the alter in on his mage and kill him and thought dryads in on the rear would help out....pft great idea that. Alter took a wound off the mage, took one back and died( only one left) the dryads killed one chosen/forsaken and got mullered by great weapons, ran off and got chased down for double victory points by festus special rule. Im getting sick of special characters
So I had table quarters at 200 points each and the rest of his army and a lot of my army was ok. I won by 67 points. Normally in a non campaign battle I would have lost simply on points denial.
His deathstar was like a tank, a mage shooting nasty magic and the bound shooting banner. I could maybe pick off one or two models a turn by shooting but if I didnt get him below half I dont get any points. So normally you avoid the death star and kill the rest and take quarters. I did that and I still lost. Any suggestions?