Which Army has the Best Core?

[Andy Davies]

I'm totally biased here but I love my night goblins. They're cheap, versatile(spear horde, bows, nets, etc.) and they have the option for fanatics. Fanatics have a decent chance to wreak anything they touch.

[aarant]

I like to look at it in a manner of points vs. stats, its great to have amazing stats like warriors of chaos but your limited in the numbers you can field and other units simply can't cut it as an overall balance core unit. Like wise with when you have to take a horde simply to be effective, give me something with decent stats armour and point cost that wont break the bank to field a good sized unit, for me it would be best left to a good core army of high elves (Sea Guard) Dark Elves (Repeater Crossbows) Lizardmen (Saurus Warriors) Empire (Swordsmen) Dwarves (Warriors)

[The Odor]

aarant: Chaos do have marauders. Costs as much as Swordsmen but with a wide choice of gear and Chaos Marks. Khorne GWs or Tzeentch shields are great.

[Lord Borak]

Odor:
Marauders don't automatically come with light armour and I'm sure there are plenty of Empire players who would love to have swordsmen for 1pt cheaper at the cost of loosing light armour.. With the ability to boost a Parry Ward to 5+ with the Mark of Tzeentch they're possibly the best Anvil Core unit going.

Aarant:
To be honest..... Warriors aren't that expensive. Compared to Dwarf Warriors who are about two thirds the cost, Chaos Warriors have better stats on all bar toughness and LD. They also have more weapon options, the ability to take Magic standards straight off the bat, the ability to take Marks and can re-roll Panic tests............. so those few extra points buys you a lot. Warriors, usually taken in units of 18, can be relied upon to take on hordes of enemy core and even Elite units.


For 300pts you can take a unit of 50 Chaos Marauders with Great weapons and Mark of Khorne (Frenzy). There is sod all that, for the same points, can really take that on in a straight fight.
The same points can buy you 18 Warriors which can be tooled up as an Anvil (3+/5++) or as a hammer (Frenzy and Halberds) and again for the points there isn't much that can take that on. Having such useful, tailor-able and effective Core choices means that Chaos players don't need to rely on their Special or Rare choices to do the heavy lifting. They can use their Special and Rares to do something unique rather than cover the shortcomings of the core choices. That makes a Great Core unit.

[experiment 626]

For 300pts you can take a unit of 50 Chaos Marauders with Great weapons and Mark of Khorne (Frenzy). There is sod all that, for the same points, can really take that on in a straight fight.

Of corse there's something that can take it on - another unit of GW khornate marauders!


All joking aside, stats & options make or break the unit. I've seen 18 chaos warriors w/MoT + shield chew through an entire unit of 40 ghouls for only moderate losses (they were down to 10 warriors which is still effective against almost every other core unit out there...) And those ghouls cost a helluva lot more pts to boot!

At the other end of the spectrum, if someone could please tell me why zombies are worth double the cost of a skaven slave, it would be a Christmas miracle to say the least!

[rothgar13]

No can do on that one, mate. Zombies need to be re-evaluated from the ground up, but that's what "Vampuary" is for, no?

As mentioned above, Warriors of Chaos have access to Marauders, which means that they can choose between a dirt-cheap Core unit (with a host of good weapon options) or a brutal elite Core unit (with even better weapon options), giving you the best of both worlds when it comes to Core. I don't think it should up for discussion that an army has the best Core in the game when running an army with just Core and characters is actually viable. That said, one must be cognizant of matchups - Warriors' low model count comes back to bite them against Great Weapon troops (so throw Marauders at those), and Marauders can be beaten by "mincers", which is to say models with a high attack count at moderate-to-low Strength (so throw Warriors at those).

[Lord Borak]

Aye, plus. Chaos only have 4 Core choices. Marauders, Warriors, Horsemen and Dogs. What do people use? all of them. You can do lists which favour one over the other but pretty much every unit is cost effective, useful and well used. Not many Army books can boast the same. How many people use Common Goblins? Ogre Bulls? Clanrats? Skellies? These core units are outshone by others in their book so much that no one takes them. You don't get that with Chaos.

At the other end of the spectrum, if someone could please tell me why zombies are worth double the cost of a skaven slave, it would be a Christmas miracle to say the least!

Because Zombies are Paying for fear. Which in 7th was good. They're also paying for the ability for the unit to be made larger by Magic, unbreakable and immune to Psychology.

[Digger]

*Ahum*

i use common goblins... i think the main reason theyre not used is because of the serious awfullness of the model, where night goblins are so cheap/easy to get and no worse to play with. I didnt vote greenskin though. Their vanilla orcs are both fugly and not worth it. not to mention the snotlings... which are not core, never mind

Skaven slaves are just rediculous! imagine having close to a 1.000 slave models in a tourney army and i would have voted that, if it wasnt for Chaos having such good core options

[Lord Borak]

*Ahum*

i use common goblins... Their vanilla orcs are both fugly and not worth it.

LOL, I use both (Common gobbos and normal Orcs). Orcs are too expensive and Common Goblins have none of the goodies a Night Goblin unit can have....... Well they can have some bum assassins. Yay. But Night Goblins have higher init and in 8th thats pretty important. NG can also have nets which makes them more effective as a Tar pit/Anvil and they can have Fanatics which can be deadly. Their only downside is 1pt less LD.

[lordhenry]

I think High Elf spearmen deserve a mention, you can get a horde of 50 where every model can fight and they strike first