When would you use Warriors instead of Marauders?

If I am correct - you cannot use both 2-handed weapon and shield in 8th, so no shields. Also, I cannot understand where you got those prices, according to my armybook 15 Warriors will MoK, full command and halberds will cost exact same price as 50 marauders with MoK, GW and full command.

Let us use a bit of MathHammer. We have width of 10 models, Warriors will go first, 36 attacks, 24 hits, 20 dead marauders. Marauders go, 41 attacks, 20.5 hits, 13.6 wounds, 11.3 dead warriors. Oops, 30 marauders are going to run now and 4.7 surviving Warriors will proudly live another turn.

As for me marauders are better at stopping well-equipped armies or killing weaker or equal foes. For example if your opponent's average S is 5 or more - you're saving a lot of points on armour considering price of marauder, plus they are really cheap and MoK makes them reliable, being cheaper than imperium or beastmen troops they are still more effective.

 

If I am correct - you cannot use both 2-handed weapon and shield in 8th, so no shields. Also, I cannot understand where you got those prices, according to my armybook 15 Warriors will MoK, full command and halberds will cost exact same price as 50 marauders with MoK, GW and full command.

You can take both two-handed weapons and shields and it's common to do so for Warriors. Although you can't use the shields in close combat, you can benefit from the +1AS against missile attacks.

Although the price of your unit is correct, it's not a likely set-up. It's very common for people to skip on command for Warriors and running Mark of Khorne plus halberds on a unit that isn't run with a frontage of 6 is rare. That's why I set up my units the way I did.

Let us use a bit of MathHammer. We have width of 10 models, Warriors will go first, 36 attacks, 24 hits, 20 dead marauders. Marauders go, 41 attacks, 20.5 hits, 13.6 wounds, 11.3 dead warriors. Oops, 30 marauders are going to run now and 4.7 surviving Warriors will proudly live another turn.

How do reforms work for combat? I assumed that the Warriors would maintain a frontage of 6 (or, in your example, a frontage of 5). Running 15 Warriors with a frontage of 10 seems rather unlikely to me... though to be honest, I don't actually know if it would make a difference.

As for me marauders are better at stopping well-equipped armies or killing weaker or equal foes. For example if your opponent's average S is 5 or more - you're saving a lot of points on armour considering price of marauder, plus they are really cheap and MoK makes them reliable, being cheaper than imperium or beastmen troops they are still more effective.

But you just showed that against a well-equipped, S5 enemy (Warriors with halberds), the Marauders will break and run after a single round of combat. Or are you suggesting that Warriors would fare even more badly against another Warrior unit than Marauders do?

This brings me on to another question: at what point does it make sense to stop focusing on doing damage and to start focusing on damage limitation? I mean, when would it ever make sense to take a Warrior unit with a frontage of 5 Mark of Tzeentch and shields over a unit with a frontage of 6, Mark of Khorne and halberds?

I just can't quite wrap my head around the situational use of the different weapons and it's really frustrating me!

 

They are cheaper to buy and take less time to paint / point.

They are both close combat beasts, but have a different take on it. This also means that they synergize differently with your magic phase, a Warrior heavy army will benefit more from Lore of Heavens while a Marauder heavy army will benefit more from Lore of Shadow - how the core of my warriors army is composed influences the most what magic lores I will use. In general, that is.

Taking a mix of them is usually a good approach, as it gives you more options to which kind of units is to tackle which problem. You can do probability calculations on the fly to figure out what to send against what. If you face something with a few really high strength attacks (Necrosphinx?), send the marauders against it. Better they kill 5 marauders than 5 warriors, while still getting a ton of attacks back. If you go up against a shredder unit like Dark Elf Corsairs, send the Warriors against them and watch their attacks bounce off before you put them down and kill them. It's pretty much situational.

Addendum: I always run my Warrior units 6 wide, no matter their weapons. Even with shields, Chaos Warriors are primarily damage dealers instead of relying on static combat res. The 3 extra attacks are more likely to make a difference to an additional guy in the back or two trying to fill up a rank. The breaking point there is instead a consideration of 1) Will my frontage match the enemy units or will models spill out on the side (the Horde problem) and 2) Will running the unit too wide make it too difficult to manouver. In my experience, 6 wide is pretty much optimal in both these respects.

 

Mathhammer

15 Warriors with shields/halberds [always take shields and six wide in a standard list anyway]
Musican/Standard
MoK

Total Cost: 303

50 Marauders with Great Weapons
FC
MoK

Total Cost: 300

Warriors hit first with 24 attacks, 16 hit, 13 wounds
Marauders hit next with 33 attacks, 16 hit, 10 wounds, 1 armor save, 9 wounds

warriors have no ranks but +4 wounds
marauders have 3 ranks

Thus the marauders lose by 1 point, but have steadfast [if they pass it the warriors are dead the following round].

Against high strength opponents with high I. Marauders would be the go-to unit, but warriors are unmatched by any infantry for their massive damage output.

 

Trying to maximize efficiency between Warriors and Marauders is something that is almost a total waste of time. When you're comparing the two point-for-point, they're almost identical. 50 Marauders vs. 15-18 Warriors will hold up equally well against most foes.

That's where Marauders get their bonuses from having lots of ranks, which helps them stay Steadfast, but more importantly, helps them break Steadfast. The problem of course, is that most enemies who are Steadfast against Warriors (read, 3+ ranks) are the types of enemies you don't want to send the Marauders in against. Like 50 Goblins with Spears. That many attacks will leave your Marauders severely depleted, in a hurry.

Warriors do better against those Goblins, simply because they have the armor, WS, and Initiative to make sure that the Gobs hit the floor with as few returned casualties as possible. The Warriors will win combat, but they're going to have a hard time breaking the Goblins. Let's Hammer it out:

50 Gobs, Horded, Spears, vs. 50 GW MoK Marauders
Gobs go first
40A = 20 hits
20 Hits = 10 wounds

Marauders attack
40A = 20 hits
20 hits = 16 wounds

The Marauders are lucky to have 1 extra rank (they killed the whole back rank and reduced the 4th rank to 4 models), and thus win the combat by 7 and break Steadfast, but they sustained 20% casualties. A few more rounds of combat like that, or some shooting/magic on the way in, and those Marauders are going to be hurting, and a handful of Marauders isn't nearly as terrifying as a Horde.

Same Gob unit vs. 18 Warriors, MoK, Halbs
Warriors go first
24 attacks = 16 hits
16 hits = 13 wounds

Goblins turn
37 attacks = 18.5 hits
18.5 hits = 6 wounds
6 wounds = 3 failed armor saves

The Warriors win combat by 8 points (the Goblins still have a 4th rank, whereas the Warriors have 2 ranks +3 stragglers) but they don't break Steadfast. They only suffered 18% casualties however. This entire scenario was run assuming that Goblins are WS3 opponents (or substitute Empire Spearmen), at WS2, the Warriors take no casualties at all.

Warriors also hold up much better against most magic. Dwellers and any other Stat-check for the unit favors Warriors by far, and anything that grants an armor save and/or has a Strength value will obviously be more kind to the Warriors. Marauders are good when it comes to stuff that ignores armor (be it shooting, magic, or combat), although this isn't because they're better, it's just because there's more of them to soak up the damage.

This is also where the idea of damage-output vs. resilience comes into play. The Warriors are more resilient than the Maruaders, given that Goblin fight. You can imagine that the Warriors would last 6 rounds in that fight or similar combats before the last 3 of them were killed (even longer, since the number of Goblins will be dropping significantly over that time). Marauders can only make it 5 rounds in those conditions before they're wiped out. Worse yet, the Marauders combat output is spread over the entire unit - assuming 3 ranks attacking at once, with 2A in the front. Warriors focus their combat abilities on the front 2 ranks, and 75% of that damage is from the front rank alone. That's why most people will write off 15 Marauders charging at them, but they'll still worry a LOT about 6 Warriors.

Think about the roles you want your army to play. Warriors are great in combat, but have issues with Steadfast. Marauders are equally awesome in combat, provided they're not taking much damage... say, where do we see situations like that on the battlefield? Flank attacks. Marauders are excellent for running in and smashing the flanks of whatever your Warriors/Chosen/Knights/Trolls/Spawn/Uber-Lord is currently beating to a pulp. They provide enough ranks to reliably cancel enemy ranks, and enough bodies to cancel Steadfast as well, plus being able to spam enough damage to make most things just "disappear", and the flank of an enemy unit is generally a pretty safe place to attack.
But if you have Warriors who are wreaking carnage on the front of the fight, do you really need Marauders chewing through the flank like a buzz-saw? And how easy is it to get 50, 25mm bases into the flank of a combat? The answers are "not much" and "not very". So what if instead of 50, slobbering, crazy naked Marauders, we ran 30 (5x6 or 6x5) HW&S MoT Marauders as flankers? This unit is a good bit cheaper, has a 5+ parry save (because you'll rarely get the 6+ for your shield) and is still great at it's job. Furthermore, in a bind, they can still fulfill the "tarpit" roll. A 5+ Ward is equal to another 33% of your unit, so 30 Marauders actually looks a bit more like 40 when they're packing a Wardsave - not much of a trade is it?

There is one, final consideration. The more dice you're rolling, the better chance you have of rolling average. You also can't change your opponent's luck. With Marauders, you're banking on doing a lot of attacks, having them all hit, wound, and kill something - so you're praying you don't fluff your rolls. Then you're hoping that your opponent doesn't roll incredibly and take out TONS of Marauders (a real possibility with Ws4, T3, and no armor). If you lose 1 round of combat, you are left with 1A Marauders and a pretty low Leadership to test on. Warriors don't want to whiff their attacks either (face it, WoC is built on lucky attack rolls) but they have a lot more built in resilience - typically, to even hit a Warrior, the opponent has to roll higher-than-average.

In my lists, I run a full-plate battle line: 3 units of Warriors, two units of 15 Tzeentchians, and one unit of 18 MoKkers. I have Marauders in the list, 30 of them coming in with Wulfrik. When I do have them in the battle line, I put them at 6x5 and drop Festus into the unit in place of Wulfrik, for the 5+ regen. This makes them a bit more similar to Tzeentchian Marauders, and they work very well for me as flankers and the likes.

 

If I was using Marauders as a flanking unit I could understand using minimum frontage and maximum ranks. Using a frontage of 5 with 6 ranks behind it will almost guarantee you negate steadfast - particularly in combination with a frontal charge from 18 Frenzied Warriors. But then, we're talking about over 500 points of infantry being committed to that combat.

Do you find that Marauders make a better flanking unit than, say, Knights?

 

@ El Don
Yes, I'd say that the Marauders make better flankers than my Knights. I have been skimming Knights out of my lists lately, or changing their role entirely. The days of small, 5-6 man units of Chaos Knights have long passed. Now it's either go big, or go home. I run 8 Knights and then escort them with 2 JuggExes, one with the Helm of Eyes and Sword of Battle, the other with the Sword of Swift Slaying, so that they add 11 S5 ASF attacks to the mix. If I were really maximizing this formation, I'd drop the Juggernauts and pick up 2 more Knights, and put my Exalteds on normal Chaos Steeds (but Juggers look so cool). That Knight unit isn't meant for flanking into combat- it's a shock regiment that I can smash into the flank of the entire enemy army and start crushing my way across the field.

Just like your point with committing Warriors and Marauders, sending in 250pts of Knights isn't going to help much. They don't have 2 ranks to negate enemy rank bonuses, they certainly don't have enough ranks to negate Steadfast, and you're wasting points on Movement that you're not using (because you're staying close to your Warriors). Yes, a unit of Knights held in the second line of battle, ready to charge out and take on minor threats or add some weight to combat might be good, but Marauders do that job just as effectively from the front lines, and bring more wounds and extra capabilities to boot.

@ Helbrass

Welcome to the forum! Glad to see a new face in the WoC section, and apparently, new ideas too I would hazard say that right now, you are the only one runs Warriors more than 6 wide without also Hording them (yes, there are those among us who run 30 Warrior regiments, which is alright, since it's only 6 more models than some of you run already). I assume that you run a Musician in those blocks and reform to that width just before combat? Where I play, we use the D6+4 pieces of terrain, so it's not uncommon for there to be too much terrain on the field to maneuver lines of Warriors that are that long. Furthermore, against most enemies who field units of 20-30 models, Warriors actually can break steadfast if deployed in 3 ranks.
You and I probably play very similiarly in combat - I assume that you reform to bring in more ranks if you are fighting a foe who is only 5-6 20mm models wide? I start with ranks, and will reform to maximize the number of models in combat if I know that I need fast kills. This usually happens against my pal's Lizardmen army, where the two of us will compete to maximize the number of models striking, and usually end up in single-file lines by the end of the fight.

 

you are the only one runs Warriors more than 6 wide without also Hording them (yes, there are those among us who run 30 Warrior regiments, which is alright, since it's only 6 more models than some of you run already)

That's not true! I've just finished my 60-models deathstar! Now I have about 6000 points army and looks like will have to play against 2-3 opponents at once... But then, I am putting Warriors in waves because I cannot stand that lose of 2 attacks per model because it's not in the first row, with MoK they are not panicking, so I am maximixing damage-per-point. I suppose I'll have to add few rows against larger groups of stronger HElvish units because of their ASF...

You and I probably play very similiarly in combat - I assume that you reform to bring in more ranks if you are fighting a foe who is only 5-6 20mm models wide? I start with ranks, and will reform to maximize the number of models in combat if I know that I need fast kills. This usually happens against my pal's Lizardmen army, where the two of us will compete to maximize the number of models striking, and usually end up in single-file lines by the end of the fight.

Hm... Mostly I am starting with hounds and small cavalry units, so I am deploying my Warriors in front of opponent's deathstarts. That didn't helped me against dwarfish gunline though. I am not playing on any tournaments ever, so I suppose that most of my lists are a bit unorthodox.

 

So... thoughts on running units of 20 Warriors with Mark of Khorne with halberds and shields in a 5*4 for manoeuvrability , then reforming into 10*2 just as you come into contact with a horde?

 

I'm not really a fan of running Warriors in anything larger than a 3-rank formation. I don't really like having more than 18 Warriors in a unit either, as every model in that 3rd rank is really just a spare body. Only the first two ranks get to fight, and even then, only the front rank gets the maximum attacks. Furthermore, planning on reforming could be a bit of a false hope. Even an enemy Horde only runs 200mm wide, while 10 Warriors is going to run you 250mm. If you can align yourself perfectly, you will get your entire line into combat, but against smaller foes, you're going to be stuck with men out of combat.

As I said in my response to Helbrass, you can always try to reform to maximize your frontage, or pull your men back in to gain some ranks. You can always automatically reform if you win combat (how often do Warriors lose combat? ) so you should take advantage of that. Often times, if my 6-wide regiments loses too many men to benefit from the 3rd rank, I'll either pull them down into ranks of 5 to try and build it back up, or reform them down to 2 ranks and go wider for the extra attack capability. Just remember - more guys attacking means more attacks coming back you as well.

 

Musicians provide the ability to "Quick Reform", allowing you to reform, then pass a leadership test to continue moving normally (you can't march or charge, however). They also let you "Reform amidst defeat", by taking a Leadership check after losing a round of combat.

If you're planning on reforming to max out, why would you go for 20 models? If you reform 20 models, you end up with 6x3 +2 stragglers, 7x2 +6 stragglers, 8x2 with 4 stragglers, 9x2 +2 stragglers, and 10x2. Either way, you're left with extra guys just chilling. If you went with 6x3 from the start, you could reform to 7x2 +4 stragglers, 8x2 with 2 stragglers, 9x2, or 10+8. Fewer stragglers means fewer points wasted on guys just sitting around. The only time it's less effective than the 20 models is when you reform to 2 lines of 10 and have an incomplete rank in the back.

 

I was anticipating reforming to fight against hordes, so I had planned on 5*4 and 10*2. Thinking about it, though, if I'm using Mark of Khorne and halberds and I don't have the third rank available to fight, I guess the optimum would maybe be 6*3 which can reform to 9*2 against hordes. I suspect that in most cases the additional four attacks (in the 6*3 as compared to a 5*4 formation) is probably worth the extra point of combat resolution from the additional rank. Ok, 6*3 it is, then.

So my other question for Warrior units is when you would use Tzeentch and shields over Khorne and halberds. Is it ever a better option to go defensive? Surely you survive a bit longer but you do less damage? I assumed that generally speaking the best form of defence for Warriors is a good offence. Perhaps that's not always the case. What are your thoughts on when you use Tzeentch as opposed to Khorne on your Warriors?

 

Well, I run two blocks of Tzeentchians, and a block of Khorne Warriors. I do this more out of feeling, rather than any particular mathematics. For damage output, Khorne Halberdiers are unmatched by just about anything in this game. However, I find that they lack a lot of survivability that my Tzeentchians have. For me, it also depends on what sort of magic I'm using. I'm definitely a Shadows guy, and I use my magic to boost my offense, rather than bolster my defense. I figure that if I'm going to leave anything to chance, I'd rather it be my combat effectiveness. I can survive a few poor rounds of offense, but bad defense can really cost a Warriors army.

My Khorne unit generally doesn't last long in a battle. Between their inability to stand up well against shooting (without investing in magic flags or items) and then dropping from a 3+ in combat to a 4+, I have to admit that I'm not sure I'd really ever run a pair of these units. If I did, I think that I would drop my entire army into this format, which would end up costing me roughly 200pts across my list, which I don't have right now. And remember, it's not actual damage caused that wins you combat - it's the difference between damage caused, and damage taken. For some armies this matters because they can effectively break steadfast and want to win by as much as possible. But Warriors will almost always be up against Steadfast enemies unless we flank them with something else. Against a Steadfast enemy, it doesn't matter if we win by 1pt, or 100pts, they still test on their unmodified leadership. This means 2 things - we shouldn't waste points trying to win by a landslide, and we should be prepared to be in for a long fight.

Granted, this is all theory, but here's how I look at it:
Warriors are great in combat - there's precious little in this game that has the capability to slam forward S4 2A WS5 each turn. Add in supporting units like Knights, Hellcannons, and our magic/characters, and we are really a pretty terrifying prospect on the field.
Halberds make us better. If I were going to run Undivided Warriors, I'd still give them Halberds, for the damage output. It's awesome, and the +1S is better than the 6+ parry you pick up with a shield. At the end of the day, Halberds take a pure killing-machine, and add a bayonet.
MoK takes that same killing machine, and pumps it full of 98-octane and unleashes it on the world. Yeah, it's a scary sight, but it's expensive, and you were already toeing the lines of good taste when you added that bayonet. Now it's getting to the point of overkill.

MoT and shields will save you 10pts on your unit, and 1pt on each model (because you don't need Halberds). That 5++ is akin to adding on 33% more models, so my units of 15 are now as survivable as a unit of 20 Undivided with Shields, at a fraction of the price. This doesn't help me defeat Steadfast or gain ranks, but it lets me grind my enemies in combat for a while longer, take a bit more shooting on the way across the board or between fights, stare down a few more magic missiles, and generally takes my outnumbered hell-for-metal Warriors army and add a bit of padding for any bad rolls or rough spots.

But what about losing out on S5? What about missing that extra attack? Well, I can't really give my Warriors +1A (unless I have a Shrine - I do) but I can still get them to wound on 2's by using Lore of Shadow. Nerfing the enemy toughness or hitting my men with Okkam's will turn them into a killing machine for the next two rounds of battle. Nay-sayers might argue that hitting the enemy with the same lore to knock out their WS or Str stats could help my MoKers survive in battle as well. But here's what I've learned from experience - if you are relying on magic to do anything, you are going to fail. If you're relying on it for survival... you're going to lose that unit. But in my case, if I fail to crank my offensive abilities, what's the most likely outcome? I get stuck in combat for another round. Hardly as punishing (depending on the situation of course).

I feel like I've been cramming you full of all sorts of advice. Remember what I said in the cavalry thread? There are very few bad choices to be made when building a WoC army. Go out there with a couple of armless, paintless Warrior models and get some games in. Figure out what kind of weapon and magic options work for you. I've been gaming with my army on a weekly basis since the WoC book was released, and I started off with an entirely different 8th ed. force than the one I have now. It's been a long road of tweaking and tuning the army to do what I want, and there are times I feel I'm still not done. It's a labor of love, but I feel like I've put so much of myself into my army that I'll never find someone else with an army just like it, or anyone else that could play my list as well as I can. And trust me, as someone who has speed-built Imperial Guard, Grey Knight, even a Dwarf army by using other people's armylists, that feeling of this being your army, is something that's hard to pass up.

 

Warriors are better simply because of the fact that they can specialize in their role to a much further extent than marauders can, thanks to their natural armour, wider range of equipment, and the ability to bring magic banners. The only thing marauders outperform warriors is how they take a punch. Warriors lose 10 models and they are usually in trouble. Marauders take 12 wounds and it's a dent.

 

they serve different primary roles for me, but share a common secondary role as well.

warriors are sent against the opponents trash where their uber stats really shine and they can wade through almost endless numbers. they try to avoid my opponents uber combat units that can cut through their armour or ws or out initiative them, units like sword masters who can kill enough before you to cause issues etc. they also monster hunt with flaming banner and halberds if needed.

the maruaders go for the scaier units, like aforementioned sword masters. sure they die, but as mentioned, 10 loses and your just making them angry and then they strike and the tables turn. i view them as a cruise missile with fire n forget type thinking. point them at something the opponent values and laugh manically as his uber unit kills handfull of 5 point model in return for excessive losses costing alot more.

course they can both preform either role and both fullfill a secondary purpose of killing stuff untill it dies from it.


on numbers, i base my thoughts generally on their purpose and equipment. i like to have 2 full ranks plus a half full thrid rank, so if 6 wide, 3 red shirts as ablative wounds. if 5 wide 2 extras etc etc. but this isnt set in stone, if youve only got the points to fit 12 mot warriors in its still an effective unit at any level, just has to pick its fights better but definitly will still find a use. i see alot of people saying 18 or 26 or go home, often thats just too many points in one unit, especially in under 2k games and as stated previously your paying a metric shit ton (tm) for ranks when its all about the bloodshed.

on the choice between offense and defense, why choose. 2 units of warriors is hardly a bad thing in any serious points level and they are both usefull so are guaranteed safe bets when investing in your army, both will probably see more games together than many many other choices. personally i built the khorne halberds first and then went for the tzeentch tanks immediately after, i was finding my marauders a good enough anvil so wanted another hammer, plus i played my first hydra (which was flicking fired down to manageable levels then finished with marauders) and a varghulf was regularly around so needed a hard hitter.

few thoughts anyway.

 

~shrug~ Kh GW marauders for taking ground, Tz HW/Sh warriors for holding it...and if you're going to force me to choose between khorne warriors with halberds and khorne great weapon marauders...well, the warriors can start the game inside the building in the watchtower scenario, and the marauders can't

 

Marauders are great for dealing with enemy elites - they have the muscle to threaten them, and the numbers to take the inevitable beating they'll take back. Warriors, on the other hand, are stellar at dealing with "mincers", which is to say enemies that pump out lots of (usually low-Strength) attacks. Some examples are Dark Elf Corsairs and Beastmen Gors. Marauders would take horrific losses against this sort of unit even if they win (and they probably won't), whereas Warriors would shrug them off and then butcher them.