Chaos Battleline Units - which ones to choose?

[Hannibal]

Hi all,

 

since the release of GH we are forced to field battleline units whenever we go for matched play. 

 

Well, to me most of our battleline units seem to be nothing to write home about. 

 

Therefore I like to hear your opinions on what battleline unit to take if you like to run GA: Chaos armies (because if you go for themes like bloodbound or mortals your choice already is rather limited). 

I'm currently contemplating the use of either Plaguebearers (due to ressilence) or Pink Horrors (due to options they give). 

[Arkiham]

If you're after standalone units, a large unit of plaugebearers is brilliant, they won't kill Alot but they'll hold the opponent up. For them to really do anything though you need to spend 300 points on them.

Blood letters are more offensive, but again you'll need a large unit 300 points for that damage to be reliable, and to boost this you'll have to spend points on blood-secretors etc.

Pink horrors are meh, meh shooting an meh combat. They can cast a spell which is handy and can draw out a dispelling if you want to cast a unique spell on someone else.

Chaos warriors. Reasonably tanky, decent in combat. Can alter them to fit your plan. More combat or more defence. 

Blood warriors. Good tbh. If you charge and loose models in close combat you get twice the attacks so those extra attack buffs really stack up on these guys. A unit of 10 under the affect of two bloodsecator banners gives them 4 attacks. 8 attacks if you attacked first then lost a few. The champion should always be the goreglavie wielder.

Blightkings, kinda meh on their own tbh. The lack of rend means they aren't good against elite units,  the d6 wound rolls for a to hit of a 6 is nice, great against low armour high model count units, the unit champion having an extra wound allows you to potentially keep an extra guy alive if you only suffered 3 wounds an give you a extra round of combat.

I don't really rate or ever think about marauders unless I really have to, an never used them so can't help there.

Can't think of any others, I'll try do the other battleline units which require something tonight,  example skullcrushers 

[Warchief Varard]

I use blood reavers and bloodletters they work well together and provide nice choppy horde to absorb damage and grind units down 

Never less than 30 imo for either but chaff blood reavers 10 near a bloodsecrator bubble are awsome battleline chaff

[Bronouns]

Demons get bonuses for having units of 30?  

I like bloodreavers and plaguebeaters.

Bloodreavers have several ways to give them lots of attacks AND make them immune to battleshock, and you can't beat that many bodies with rend for such a low cost.

Plaguebearers are great for sitting on points iwth build in feel no pain and -1 against shooting.

[someone2040]

For my mainly Slaves to Darkness aligned warband, I'm leaning heavily towards min sized Marauders recently. One unit of Chaos Warriors with 2 units of Marauders to be precise.

I've found with Matched Play, the Rule of 1's and introducing Be'Lakor into my list, my Warriors don't quite get to be as tanky as they used to be (Can only cast Mystic Shield once). And being forced to pay for 10 Warriors at 180 points, well it's quite hefty to fill the battleline with Warriors.

On the other hand, some cheap as chips Marauders lets me get 2 units of 10 for 120, and gives me 20 bodies to put to use.

 

I am being quite restrictive on myself though, as I don't want to go much outside actual Undivided Chaos. 

[backslide]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned daemonettes, for sheer speed they make for excellent board control, and can get very deadly in large numbers and with a few buffs.

 

Bloodletters do the job well too, 3 units of 20 is a bit handy 

[KhaosZand3r]

Bloodletters are the only option listed so far that give you mortal wounds output.

Daemonettes give you 1 attack per 6 points, plus they can charge after running, and have rend. That is before the fact that they can generate even more attacks. With Herald support (the cheapest Herald, btw) they're even better.

Also, if you don't mind sticking to Slaves to Darkness (unfortunately eliminates the god-specific options leaders) you can count your Chaos Knights as battleline. Perfect hammer for an anvil of Marauders or Warriors.

[Nico]

Quote

Pink horrors are meh, meh shooting an meh combat. They can cast a spell which is handy and can draw out a dispelling if you want to cast a unique spell on someone else.

Furthermore if you take more than one unit, you're going to run out of unique spells to cast.

Regular Warriors of Chaos are at least undercosted and you can potentially take a block of 30 now, so rerolling saves of 1 until you lose 11 models.  

[Arkiham]

9 hours ago, Bronouns said:

Demons get bonuses for having units of 30?  

I like bloodreavers and plaguebeaters.

Bloodreavers have several ways to give them lots of attacks AND make them immune to battleshock, and you can't beat that many bodies with rend for such a low cost.

Plaguebearers are great for sitting on points iwth build in feel no pain and -1 against shooting.

No, for blocks of 20 but you need a buffer past the 20 mark, so you take 30

[james.speller]

9 hours ago, KhaosZand3r said:

Bloodletters are the only option listed so far that give you mortal wounds output.

Daemonettes give you 1 attack per 6 points, plus they can charge after running, and have rend. That is before the fact that they can generate even more attacks. With Herald support (the cheapest Herald, btw) they're even better.

I'm still undecided on whether I prefer 30 bloodletters with a bloodsecrator and herald over 30 daemonettes. Both seem to be the solid battle line choices for chaos at the moment.

[Arkiham]

30 minutes ago, james.speller said:

I'm still undecided on whether I prefer 30 bloodletters with a bloodsecrator and herald over 30 daemonettes. Both seem to be the solid battle line choices for chaos at the moment.

30 blood letters is the same as 15 blood warriors, the same wound count, the blood warriors with the same expenditure get triple the attacks, as when they die they attack. And have +1 armour.

Surely they're better?

[Nico]

 

Quote

 

30 blood letters is the same as 15 blood warriors, the same wound count, the blood warriors with the same expenditure get triple the attacks, as when they die they attack. And have +1 armour.

Surely they're better?

 

Read the bit about them doing mortal wounds on a 5+ to hit (or on a 4+ if you roll a 6 for the Chaos Battle Trait Unpredictable Destruction or on a 3+ if you combo that with Lord of War or Dark Avenger). Also rerolling ones to hit. So looking at a cheeky 15 mortal wounds with Dark Avenger, so that's 8 dead Blood Warriors plus another 9 hits at 3+ to wound and -1 rend). 

Bloodletters are way way better than Daemonettes because they have hard nerfed the exploding hits of Daemonettes with the rule of one, but not the mortal wounds of Bloodletters.

 

[james.speller]

9 minutes ago, Nico said:

Read the bit about them doing mortal wounds on a 5+ to hit (or on a 4+ if you roll a 6 for the Chaos Battle Trait Unpredictable Destruction or on a 3+ if you combo that with Lord of War or Dark Avenger). Also rerolling ones to hit. So looking at a cheeky 15 mortal wounds with Dark Avenger, so that's 8 dead Blood Warriors. 

I was going to mention the mortal wounds, arguing that they might do better against high armor units. I haven't done the math, and I kinda don't want to buy another 10 blood warriors to play test them since the bloodbound book came out early and they're missing out on the sweet lores of magic that newer books like the Sylvaneth and Beastclaw Raiders got.

I like Daemonettes because I already have 30, so I don't need to buy more of them. The run and charge would be good if your opponent isn't expecting it, to cap an objective and get into their squishy parts.

[Urauloth]

Warriors seem like a really good option, imo. That 5+ against mortal wounds they get from taking shields lets them tank (or survive at least) stuff that would snuff out a lot of units in their price range. Having oracular visions as a size bonus is pretty neat too, although a big unit is obviously a big investment, and I'm not sure I want to run them in huge blobs to qualify.

What I really mean here is "Khorne-marked warriors seem like a really good option", obviously, because of Bloodsecrators and all the other things that make Bloodbound forces tick.

[Nico]

It's so irritating how blatantly underpowered all the other 3 gods are compared to Khorne.

[BloodBeast]

I think the other gods will get all the goodies with their own books.

[Arkiham]

16 hours ago, Nico said:

 

Read the bit about them doing mortal wounds on a 5+ to hit (or on a 4+ if you roll a 6 for the Chaos Battle Trait Unpredictable Destruction or on a 3+ if you combo that with Lord of War or Dark Avenger). Also rerolling ones to hit. So looking at a cheeky 15 mortal wounds with Dark Avenger, so that's 8 dead Blood Warriors plus another 9 hits at 3+ to wound and -1 rend). 

Bloodletters are way way better than Daemonettes because they have hard nerfed the exploding hits of Daemonettes with the rule of one, but not the mortal wounds of Bloodletters.

 

I have so much hope on a banner similar to the blood secretor for the other gods. 

No idea what they'd be though to be of similar quality yet fluffy.

 

[Dolomedes]

Ungor Spearmen are battleline and only 60 points. Sure they hit on a 5, but you get them for the 2 inch range. If you get enough, you can access rerolls of 1 and 2 to hit, and playing chaos you can usually get another +1 to hit from somewhere. Put them in a line behind a more solid unit, and make a phalanx.