Every season
of Game of Thrones brings
with it the same thought: “all-mounted Chaos army”. The mental
image of waves of Marauder Horsemen and Chaos Knights charging across
the board is an arresting one. In the meta sense it presents
challenges different to the usual tactics of Chaos Warriors, putting
more emphasis on speed and maneouvre than anchoring the battle line
around large units of elite infantry.
So
what would actually be in this army and how would it work, in
theory?
Character
Classes
Every
character class aside from Daemon Princes have mount options so
really the only question is what to mount them on. Your barded Chaos
Steed is cheap, allows you to put the character in a unit and can't
be shot out from under you. The generic Daemonic Mount has a lot
going for it for the price: WS4, Strength and Toughness 5 and 3
Wounds is nothing to sniff at for 35 points.
As to the
power-specific mounts, personally I'd say the Palanquin of Nurgle is
too slow at only Movement 4; the Disc of Tzeentch 's has Fly so, to
my mind, is best used to give a spellcaster maximum mobility;
Slaanesh doesn't get a specific mount anymore; and, Juggernauts we'll
deal with later.
Chariots (be
they drawn by Chaos Steeds or Gorebeasts) have great potential as
centrepieces and the extra hitting power will definitely come in
handy.
As to
monsters, well, that comes down to personal taste. I do want some
monsters in the army because monsters are an essential part of any
Chaos army. That said, I want the characters to maintain the cavalry
theme. Plus, I've never been much for monstrous character mounts,
just personal taste.
Cavalry
Units
The way I
see it, you have two basic types of unit here. First, you have your
fast cavalry units in Marauder Horsemen, Chaos Warhounds and
Hellstriders Of Slaanesh. What we're talking about here is an army
that is super eleite even by Chaos standards so one phase of the game
you want to be very dominant in is Movement. You want to be dictating
the agenda of the game and luring your opponent into positions where
you can really take advantage. Fast cavalry units are great for this.
All those free wheels and Vanguard moves mean you can offer a
credible threat to your opponent's backfield reallt early in the game
so they have to choose between dealing with those units or holding
their nerve in the hopes they can take down your heavy hitters before
the fast units are in a position to do real damage to them.
Speaking of
heavy hitters: Chaos Chariots, Chaos Knights, Gorebeast Chariots and
Skullcrushers Of Khorne. Powerful hammer units who can do a lot of
damage on the charge, especially true of the chariots with their
impact hits. You need to maximise the amount of damage every charge
does with an army like this: impact hits, flank charges, multiple
charges. Plus, all of these units look amazing. The downside of this,
of course, is that all these units are instantly recognisable high
priority targets which is why you need the cheaper, faster units to
distract your opponent and present them with difficult choices.
Other
units
In the main,
the other units that fit the theme and have the speed are monsters.
Either big fellas like the Slaughterbrute, Chaos Giant and the
Mutalith Vorext Beast or monstrous infantry like Chaos Ogres and
Dragon Ogres. I certainly want Dragon Ogres, who have the added
benefit of standing on four legs so they're basically cavalry, right?
Whether the other monstrous units fit your view of what a cavalry
army should be is, of course, entirely up to you.
The
Warshrine, though, I think definitely works with the theme. True, it
isn't pulled by horses unless you make a conversion but it is
definitely a mount. I personally wouldn't use it as a character mount
because I'm very aware of the importance of not putting too many eggs
in one basket with super elite armies
The
Challenges
The obvious,
foreseeable problem with this army is the problem with all elite
cavalry armies: you don't have many guys. Your units are vulnerable
when charged because they have zero standing combat resolution unless
you sink points into taking a second rank: expensive for the hammer
units, practically pointless for the fast cavalry. Add to that the
fact that most cavalry weapon buffs only come into play on the
charge. You would have to hit hard and early and be take the gamble
that you're break the units you were charging to prevent
counter-charges in the next turn.
On the
plus side...
Low model
count means you can dedicate more time to painting and to create
interesting conversions. God-specific chariots, for one thing,
interest me as a concept. The Gorebeast harness components, I know,
can easily be adapted to accommodate a Beast of Nurgle and
Juggernauts are about the same size. Then there's the every popular
head swap to create God-specific Knights: Skullcrusher helms to
create Khornate Knights, Hellstrider heads for Slaanesh and so forth.
There are also a number of fantastic Storm Of Chaos era mounted Chaos
Lords to choose from.
The only
real problem is that it would be a very hard army to learn. Not much
of a problem for mebut I can understand how it might put people off.
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