The SJWs are ruining the Realm Of Chaos!

No but seriously, folks, I can see the subject lines of the forum threads already. Why? Well, because of this fine and handsome individual...

… the Darkoath Warqueen, a sequel to the Darkoath Champion from Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower (himself a damn fine model) and advertised right off the bat as his boss. No, seriously, that's how she's described in the Warhammer Community article announcing her.

So, yeah, female character model for Chaos. Only their second, I believe, after Valkia the Bloody from many moon ago. She is also something I have been hoping to see for a long time (well, her and her minion): Chaos Marauder characters. I love the idea of a pure Marauder army, have done since the Lustria campaign introduced the Skeggi army list. Since my little group has been experimenting with homebrewed Fantasy armies and units recently (who's gonna tell us not to?) I've been thinking of doing some Marauder/Skeggi conversions.

So the Darkoath Warqueen definitely going to be my General, backed up by her entourage from the Shield Wolf Miniatures Shield Maidens box set.

Whether I use any of GW's official Marauder plastics is entirely down to whether or not I can convert some of the Shielf Maidens to sit on horses. If I can, all well and good, an entire Shield Maiden army! If not, well some dudes can tag along to handle fast cavalry duties and hold flails.

On the downside, there was some business recently about how GW didn't want to do Sisters of Battle until they'd solved the “boob armour” problem and here we are with this lass in bikini armour. Fantasy trope classic, of course, but its still bikini armour so maybe there's less hope for the Nuns With Guns than I'd hoped.

The Legion of Substitute Miniatures #1: Female Chaos Marauders

With Warhammer Fantasy no longer being a going proposition I'm always on the lookout for interesting alternative models. The other day I was trawling eBay on my regular trawl for out of production High Elves characters (there are so many great ones...) and after a little link-following stumbled across these:

Shieldwolf Miniatures' Shield Maiden Infantry. Twenty models with options for hand weapons, shields, spears and crossbows. For my purposes the crossbows aren't important but I mention them for completeness.

Now, it may seem unfair to look at these models and see them only as alternatives for another company's models but, to be frank, there's no chance that I'd ever get to play Shieldwolf's own game system so this is the only way they'd get my money.

(Well, that an eBay seller would get my money and they got his money but you know what I mean. Money was got and ultimately it was got because I play Warhammer.)

So, female Chaos Marauders. There's a Kickstarter coming soon for more heavily armoured female miniatures who could easily be their Chaos Warriors. So, if you ever wanted to do Valkia's Horde of Chaos Ladies or just wanted to represent the fact the Norscans are a warrior culture and that maybe their womenfolk might be involved here's a good option.

You could also use them as Kislevite Kossars which would be a good use for the crossbows. I know Kossars are armed with ordinary bows rather than crossbows but they have access to Empire technology so it wouldn't be entirely out of line or you could simply count the crossbows as ordinary bows. Kislevites are quick on their feet it makes sense that they'd have worked out how to walk and aim at the same time.

For my part, though, they'll be Marauders because, as usual, my conception of Chaos is very, very influenced by the less technologically advanced peoples of Game of Thrones so basically a cross between Dothraki, the Free Folk and the Hill Tribes.

Any character I create for them will be less annoying than Ygritte. 

So this is what happened... (an adventure in rationalisation)

I've been mulling over the Chaos Cavalry Horde concept I outlined a week or so back. The final kick came when I realised I already had a not indecent number of models for it already. I already own a couple of mounted Chaos characters (the mounted Lord with a warhammer and the old Tzeentch Sorcerer on Disc) as well as the Nurglesque Chariot I converted some time ago and a unit of Marauder Horsemen (again Nurglesque as I fancied the idea of Horsemen armed with scythes).

Then my friend Matt found someone on eBay selling units of Skullcrushers for £19 for three, postage free. Good deal so I got two sets. Those Skullcrushers are more than five hundred points just by themselves never mind the exorbitant cost of Chaos characters.

A little finger counting (“more of an art than a science”) says I have something like a thousand points of mounted Chaos already. Not all built, barely any of it painted but there.

And I might as well get some use out of it.

And I have enough spare heads from the Skullcrushers to outfit a five man unit of Chaos Knights with Khorne bunny helmets. Of course, they come in boxes of ten now but that just gives me an excuse to get some Hellstriders, build them with bare heads and use the helmets to make a Slaaneshi unit.

First job, though, decide whether I want two units of Skullcrushers or whether I want to use the second set to make a couple of Khornate Gorebeast Chariots and a Khorne Lord. The answer to this question is probably “yes”. The answer to whether I want to make weird shit instead of the things the kit is meant to make is usually “yes”. I'm just that sort of hobbyist. 

In Theory: Dothraki-inspired Warriors of Chaos army

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.