AoS Chaos Tactics

Warhammer Chaos Lord with Wings

Chaos forces are everywhere in Age of Sigmar. AoS Chaos units can be split in to two main groups. The first are mortals, usually human, that have turned to chaos. The second group consists of Daemons, stuff of pure chaos pulled in to physical realm.

All the Chaos units have warscrolls. These warscrolls are (usually) one page documents that have all the rules for that unit. You can download the warscrolls for older units on the Games Workshop site, or by installing the Age of Sigmar app on an Apple or Android device. However if you play Chaos armies regularly you will want easy access to the warscrolls. For easy reading Games Workshop have released a Grand Alliance Chaos book.with all the warscrolls for the Chaos Alliance.

The Four Gods Of Chaos

The first thing that you need to be aware of when playing AoS Chaos is that there is not one chaos army, but five. That is one for each of the four gods of chaos and one for those that are not aligned to any single chaos god. The four Chaos gods are Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch and Slaanesh.

Each of the four chaos gods have specific characteristics that get passed on to the units that follow them. The Khorne units are blood thirsty, but have no magic. Nurgle units tend to be tough but slow. Tzeentch units are soaked with magic but are weak in close combat. The Slaanesh units are sleek and fast but are vulnerable to counter attacks.

Chaos and Skaven

Age of Sigmar Chaos Skaven Skeyer Arch-Warlock EngineerThe Skaven Rat god has joined the Parthenon of Chaos gods and the Chaos Grand alliance now also includes the Skaven rat folk.

AoS Chaos and the General’s Handbook

If you have the Age of Sigmar General’s Handbook on page 160 there are new rules that you can add on if you are playing a Chaos only army ( i.e. an army where every unit has the Chaos keyword).

Chaos Battle Trait

AoS Chaos Skaven Warp Lightning Cannon Battery

Heroes supporting Artillery massively benefits from +1 to hit bonuses!

The first bonus you get if you have a Chaos army and using the General’s handbook rules is a battle trait. This is and extra rule that affects your whole army (for the better). With this trait , for each unit within 8″ of your General ( regardless to if he/she/it is a Hero), or any of your Hero models you roll a dice. If you roll a 6 then that unit gets +1 to hit in that phase. This means that it affects the shooting and combat phases. Also remember that Heroes are always within 8″ of themselves!

When using this Battle Trait during the game try to have multiple Heroes on the table and space them out to cover as many of your units as possible. This Trait also means that having multiple smaller units makes more sense that a few larger ones. This is because you roll for each unit. If you have more units, you will have more rolls, and there is a greater chance of rolling a 6!

Allegiance Chaos Command Traits

As well as the Battle Trait, in a Chaos only army you can give your General an additional Command Trait) from the 6 listed. This is different from any Command Abilities that he may have. Command Abilities are used in the Command Phase. Command Traits are ‘always on’.

As mentioned, there are 6 command traits to choose from. You need to pick one, and you need to do it before the game starts.  You can roll a dice to select an ability, but why add an extra element of risk? The best plan is to see what forces your opponent will field and choose the ability that will aid you the best!

Artifacts of Chaos

The last category of bonuses you can have with a Chaos Alliance are the artifacts of power.

Tags: