In this post we will have a look at the Chaos Sorcerer Lord and how to use them in Age of Sigmar tactics.

General Chaos Sorcerer Lord Tactics

The Sorcerer Lord does have some close combat skills, but hand to hand combat is not the best use for the Sorcerer Lord. The main reason you would field the Sorcerer Lord is for his magic ability.

The Sorcerer Lord usually is on foot, but you can find models, or create models where the Sorcerer is mounted. If you can find or create a mounted Sorcerers then you will find them much more useful. The extra speed means that you can dash around the board supporting your front line troops where the support is needed most.

It  doesn’t matter if your Sorcerer Lord is mounted or on foot he will need a bodyguard. If the Sorcerer Lord is mounted the bodyguard will need to keep up so a mounted bodyguard like a unit Chaos Knights. A unit of Chaos Warriors make for a good bodyguard for Sorcerers on foot.

A great use for the Sorcerer is to bolster the strength and toughness of you front line troops. There are 3 different ways that the Sorcerer can bolster your troops. I have detailed these bellow. The other use for any wizard it to be there to dispel any enemy magic.

Chaos Sorcerer Lord Abilities

The Chaos Sorcerer Lord has two special abilities, Oracular Vision and Mark of Chaos.

Oracular Visions

In the command phase you can pick a unit ( or the wizard ) and that unit can re-roll save rolls of 1. This can be for incoming shooting attacks or for close combat. It follows than that you pick a unit that is about to get thumped big style!

Note that this ability is not a command ability or a spell. This means that you can use this ability even if you cast a spell or if the Sorcerer is not your general.

General Exalted Hero of Chaos Tactics

The progression for a mortal in the Slaves to Darkness army is: Marauder -> Chaos Warrior -> Chaos Chosen -> Exalted Hero -> Chaos Lord -> Daemon Prince. This means that you can expect your Exalted Hero to be a good fighter, but be careful not to bite off more that you can chew!

The Exalted Hero is a good close combat leader. He has a good armour save ( 4+), a decent number of wounds (5). He has a variable number of attacks (D6) and an average chance of wounding ( 4 to hit, 3 to wound, with -1 rend), but there are ways to improve this. You will find details on how to do this later in the post.

The Exalted Hero’s main skill is that he can attack twice in one combat phase. This can be against two different units if they are in range (3″). More about this later too!

The best use of the Exalted Hero is to use him to ‘mop up’ any stray Heroes or wounded Monsters that have survived or escaped a previous combat with your Chaos Warriors.

 

In this post we will have a look at the tactics we can use for Chaos Warriors and Chaos Knights in Age of Sigmar games.

General Chaos Warriors Tactics

The Chaos Warriors are the standard choice for rank and file troops for the chaos army. They tough with 2 wounds, have 2 attacks each and a good Bravery score.

Use the Chaos Warriors as the backbone of your army. They can defend objectives, or form the core of any advance. As usual you will want to ‘soften up’ any enemy units with some ranged fire before the Warriors pile in,  and you may want some fast units to follow up any break troughs and etc.

• Also buy: Discount Chaos Warriors from Wayland Games

Chaos Warrior Command Models

The horn blowers, standard bearers, and aspiring champion are collectively known as a command group. You do not have to have all of the command models in your unit, or any of them, but they do add useful benefits if you do!

Aspiring Champion

All units of Chaos Warriors must have a leader. The leader is called and Aspiring Champion. The Aspiring Champion is better at wielding weapons so with a sword, he hits on 2+ normally, but still wounds on 4+. This may sound like a small difference, but if you roll some dice you will see that the  chance of wounding goes down from 1 in 4 ( 25% ) to 5 in 12 ( 41.66% ). In other words, very useful!

Standard Bearers

You can have any number of Standard Bearers in a Chaos Warrior unit, but there are no benefits from having 2 or more standard bearers other than having spares  in case one standard bearer dies!

Having a standard bearer in the units useful. It increases your bravery from 6 to 7. This means that you will need to loose three warriors per turn before you have to worry about loosing a Battleshock test  This is useful as Chaos Warriors usually come in units of 10 so they do not get the +1 for units of 10 or more ( because at least 1 model must have died to need a test ).

Horne Blower

Horn Blowers allow the unit of Warriors to move an extra inch when charging. This means that your minimum charge is now 3″. If you have ever failed a 3 inch charge by rolling double ones, you will know how useful this is!

Just like the standard  bearers, you can have 2 or more horn blowers, however this does not give you any additional benefits.

Chaos Warriors Special Rules

The Chaos Warriors have a few special rules that you will want to remember ( or have a memo note to remind you ). I will go through the special rules in order of importance as I see them. If you just remember one rule, remember the first of these!

Chaos Runeshields

This special rule is amazing! You get to save against Mortal Wounds!  That’s right, Warriors of Chaos get a chance to save against all those Arcane Bolts and other attacks that other units just have to sit there and take. The save is just 5+, but at least it’s something.

Legions of Chaos

This is a special rule that kicks in if you have 20 or more warriors in a unit. The usual number is 10 to a unit so you may only see this in very large games.  If you do have a unit of 20+ then this rule lets you re-roll for some saves. Note that you can not re-roll Mortal Wound saves.

Berserk Fury

If you are daft enough to give up your shields in favour of a 2nd weapon, then this rule gives your warriors a small extra chance of hitting your opponents. If you get to choose, go for the shields!

Mark of Chaos

Adding a mark of chaos from one of the four chaos gods will not affect the unit of Warriors directly. However there may be other special rules in plat that benefit units of one of the gods. For example when you are playing in the realms of earth Nurgle units can get regeneration benefits. Keep an eye on the other special rules at play in the game.

• Also buy: Discount Chaos Warriors from Wayland Games

AoS Chaos Knights Tactics

Chaos Knights are warriors of Chaos on War Steeds. As the rules are so similar I will write up their tactics here.

The basic stats for the Chaos Knights add one point of bravery, one extra wound, and an upgrade to 10″ move.

The knights have similar special rules to the Chaos Warriors. The Legions of Chaos special rule has been dropped and a new ‘terrifying Champions’ rule has been added. Chaos Knights with Chaos Glaves get a ‘Impaling Charge’ special rule too.

• Also buy: Discount Chaos Knights from Wayland Games