Advice for a starting Chaos player?

[MrPyro]

Not looking for general starting advice, but specifically for playing Chaos bands.

At the moment I'm just scraping wins on Normal difficulty maps, but often having a couple of guys (almost always Darksouls) taken out. Not sure if this is normal for Chaos; most of my experience is with SoS and Mercs, which I think are the more tanky of the bands.

Do I just have to equip for max DPS and hope I get my hits in first?

[pokerhabs]

Sure, I also play Chaos, got 2 lvl10 warbands of em and I never played other factions. My first warband is a disaster, really poor on gold and stones and everyone badly crippled and ransacked.

My second warband is awesome, I followed everything in Genius912`s guide except one thing : I got 2 melee marauder instead of one melee marauder and one ranged mutant. I just dont like ranged, personal choice.

Basically, this guide rely alot on desired mutations but most importantly rely on hiring rats later on, with smugglers den reputation. Rats henchmen changes everything since they have more mobility and agility. Speed over damage.


That guide is here on steam, in the guide section. Nice guide, it rates every mutation from 1 to 10 and also.

[Paranoia]

Starting: most of your Characters are immune to all alone, so make use of that with Heavy Armour Darksouls at lower levels. At higher Levels a properly built Spawn will tie two of anything down.
Mutations are a must to acknowledge. Make use of Hired Swords to find Mutations fitting to your playstyle.
As far as Heroes go, assuming no Globadier, Mutant is the easiest to keep alive as he can Disengage. The heroes themselves are equal at higher levels, but Mutant is just easier to get there.
Make use of your Leader. Weapons of Destruction causes your damage-dealers to dish out impressive damage.
If it suits your playstyle, unlocked Warpguard tend to perform better than Darksouls at higher levels.

[DonCarlos]

There is a similar post in this section: "How do you build chaos?" with may valuable tips.

[MrPyro]

Thanks for that guide pokerhabs, some interesting stuff in there. The RPer in me probably won't allow me to hire warpguards for a Chaos band, but if my Darksouls keep getting murdered I might consider it later on.

There's been a serious lack of armour in this game so far, and what I've got is going striaght onto my heroes, so that might explain some of the casualties. There's also not been as many maces as I like, since they are great in the early game to counter terrible WS scores.

I've just started using WoD more in missions, and that does seem to be helping.

[pokerhabs]

Np. Yeah, I now only use my leader to buff and debuff. I no longer use him to fight since WoD on the impressive and heroes does the job. Hes now built for high initiative, high spell chance and low curse chance. Sometime, my impressive alone can take out 3 henchies in one turn, using Adrenaline rush and then Order from my magister. I got really lucky on my impressive`s mutations.

Problem I had with darksouls is the fact they dont have much movement, so they always show their butt to the fight 1-2 turns too late. Once you get the rats, its no longer a problem. Also, rats gets you rich alot faster since they travel to far away loots and stones really quickly, and can disengage and outrun pretty much anyone, also bigger climb chances than darksouls I believe. They are immune to wyrdstone effect, wich is nice.

Also, since my buffed impressive and heroes deal decent damage, I can sometime take 3 of my rats to loot stuff around. I mostly play Normal diff tho...Since I got my rats, I am no longer short on stones and money, so I can skip days to get the best possible deployment.

In my game, I got plenty of armors but seriously lack armbands and shields.

[Bror]

In the beginning your henchies will allways ore should allways fall instead of heroes, they are disposable. Can allways be good to have low lvl henchies when you lvl up heros but that a nother story.So its noramal for chaos :)

My opinion on warpguards vs darksoul is mixed, use two rats and one darksoul. Darksoul is slow but imune to all alone so can tank anything and anyone, rats fast and can keep up with my clawfeet warband :)

[MrPyro]

I'm well aware of the sacrificial nature of henchmen, but even with that I normally don't lose many people at all playing as Mercs or SoS; I was regularly getting tactical victories on Brutal/Deadly with those.

Some of it might just be down to having to adjust to a level 0 band again after having been playing level 10's for a while; at high level you can get away with a little bit of slackness because your guys are so good.

Now the shop has turned up some decent armour and I've managed to get some Darksouls to the all important level 3 (+1 OP) it's actually going a lot smoother. I'm probably going to have to fire my heroes at some point due to poor mutations though.

[Bror]

True just started a skaven band ffrom skratch and needed to start beeing carful again :)

Story of chaos, I never got the perfect mutation unit yet...but soon the gods will reward me :)

[Leland Gaunt]

Kill yourself! Switch to Skaven.

[Stymie Jackson]

Originally posted by MrPyro:

I'm well aware of the sacrificial nature of henchmen, but even with that I normally don't lose many people at all playing as Mercs or SoS; I was regularly getting tactical victories on Brutal/Deadly with those.

The big 'problem' is Darksouls trade Martial Points for Physical Points. They also have the lowest cap for Weapon Skill. It's hard to build a really good tanky guy without at at least 15 Weapon Skill by Rank7+.

They also have higher cap on strength, at the expense of toughness. Again, makes it harder to tank.

So you need weapon skill enchants to properly make the Darksouls into as good Tanks as other factions. Rune of Squires for WS and Toughness is ideal, IMO.

On the bright side, they have that extra slot of inventory at the beginning, make as good two-hander builds as Warpguards can, and even in tank builds, give 'em an Axe and Shield and they will out damage other faction henchmen.

Oh, and they will never flee. So I think over-all it's a fair tradeoff. But until you get those runes unlocked they will be just a little weaker at tanking than you are used to.

[melkathi]

The Purple Toe has been using Dark Souls to tie down enemy reinforcements, while the main part of the warband takes out whoever they are fighting. Darksouls seem to last long enough to let me take out an opponent, and even if they go down, as due to their All Alone immunity they have never had their Leadership increased, they have minimal moral impact themselves.

[Warlord]

darksouls hit hard and can take a beating. You always want them to engage first. Use the rest of your troops to gang up and mop up. Chaos was the first warband and I've had no issues with them other than possessed always dying. I use usually use two ranged, 1 globidier and 1 archer when I play.

[Idi Amin]

Breakdown of units.

DarkSoul
Pair these guys with Waraxes, they have increased weapon penetration, your dark souls can only attack once regardless of weapon type so might as well go two-handed.
Furthermore you can boost the armor penetration with WoD.
I have made two warbands of Chaos and both have gotten to at least rank 7.
One was a nurgle warband focusing on health and heavy armor.
The other one was based of Slaneesh and used cloth and invested in agility and alertness with a few points in strength.

The slaneesh combo has worked better then the Nurgle suprisingly, Dark Souls can get to 50% dodge with cloth very quickly, combined with their naturally large health pool and no all alone they are incredibly potent.

Cultist?
Forget their troop name, these guys are wasted as anything other then archers.
Since Chaos lacks mobility these guys are a must, my nurgle group had none and had difficulty with Skaven and mobile enemies.
Overwatch when triggered wastes and enemies Strategy point so have one or two can keep an enemy from charging to soon.

Mutant
I have mixed feelings on this guy, as someone stated before he is the only mutant that can disengage however it comes with him having 5 points in ballistic and I have never gotten a ranged built mutant who didn't eventually develop an arm mutation.
They are able to wear heavy armor though, which the Norse mutant cannot.
Combine this with the leg mutation and Heavy armor Expertise, bull charge and hit and run, and you have a Guerilla warfare monster.

Norse Mutant
I love these guys, 20% increased damage on succesful charge. Unable to be routed, however unable to disengage.
First thing you want to do is remove their second weapon, on charge they will be unable to follow up with a second attack making the 20% bonus worthless.
Go with empty hand to increase the weak dodge and initiave.

Possessed
Worthless, I really wanted to like these guys.
Health is meh, which sucks considering they are unable to wear any armor, and suck at dodging.
On top of that because of the bonuses the AI recieves 70% they will pass their fear check and stay immune for a turn.
Despite being a hero they are very easy to stun annoyingly so.
If you really want one, get only ONE, at first and level it be usable, then replace another hero unit only after that one is useful.
I've made the mistake of having two rank 2 possessed who were unable to be useful in any way except meathshields.

Chaos Spawn
Really like this unit, not much to say about it other then try to aim for all arm mutations or leg mutations.

Leader unit
Great unit, probably one of my favorites. I have used him as a competent melee fighter as well and managed to get my leader up to 75% dodge.
People mention chains as a great spell but I prefer curse of Chaos because of the AOE effect and its no more difficult then chains.
However it doesn't prevent offence skills being used.



Though it seems like CoP is supposed to be high toughness and strength I've had infinitely more success, by using high agility with medium gains in strength, high alertness which rivals skaven when finished and weapon skill which helps compensate from lower strength gains.

I also started having better luck after making a Slaaneesh based warband, so maybe try that and see if the Prince of Pleasure protects you from the Fifth Chaos god, the darkest one yet, Randomola Ruler of RNG.

[Stymie Jackson]

Originally posted by Kwisatz Haderach:

Though it seems like CoP is supposed to be high toughness and strength I've had infinitely more success, by using high agility with medium gains in strength, high alertness which rivals skaven when finished and weapon skill which helps compensate from lower strength gains.

The strength of chaos is they have the best Physical stats. They start with high basic numbers, have high caps, and get the most physical points to spend.

So you can really do any combination as you see fit. Strength and Toughness for 'traditional role'. Stength and Agility for 'glass cannon'. Toughness and Agility for pure tanking (melee resist, dodge, and HP soaking when those fail).

They get this at the expense of Martial stats, which is why you probably find your slanesh does better, as traditional builds (armor, parry, etc) rely on Weapon Skill for Parry to be high, and Dodge only worries about Agility (which you can get lots of, second only to Skaven).

And you can't rely on shields for your heroes, negating a lot of Parry capability. So better to do dodge on a lot of guys actually, unless you get some wicked mutation combos (shield arm is normal, 1000 eyes, demon soul, wyrdstone horns is the ultimate in resist builds).

Dammit, I guess I'm gonna have to stop trolling you now that you are being constructive and all.

[Galdred]

After I started firing any Darksoul who reached level 2 (where you are supposed to buy them 1 skill), my warband started to perform much better. I only use darksouls, so I cannot comment on the archers. My first mutant had gone ranged, then got an arm mutation. I waited for the second one to get some mutation before speccing him, and he is now a happy melee beast with crusher arm. His 5 points of BS are wasted, but heh, such is life (he got wyrdstone horns and clawed feet to make up for it). Replacing Darksouls with warpguards takes a lot of warpstone shipments. My Warband is level 6, and I am still very far away from being able to do so.