grave guard or cairn wraiths

[Lord Potassium]

So im working on a general army list to use and i can't decide bewteen grave guard with greatswords or cairn wraiths. Is ethereal worth the lack of armor?

[SnugglyPuffs]

Nope, it's almost always worse.

[kampfer91]

Cairn wraiths only work against those have small unit size or montrous unit .

They suck against anything else , even tier 1 infantry will beat them to pulp....

[Lord Potassium]

thats a shame :/ what about hexwraiths?

[Kanova]

Hexwraiths are pretty baller

[SnugglyPuffs]

Hexwraiths are alright. They do okay against other calvary and are just about the only unit that's a quality fight for Demigryph knights. Just keep them away from Grail Knights.

[Lord Potassium]

yea? Their stats are less than the lance cavalry, but they have ethereal armor piercing, terror, and fire damage. So i dunno which would be better.

[SnugglyPuffs]

Originally posted by Lord Potassium:

yea? Their stats are less than the lance cavalry, but they have ethereal armor piercing, terror, and fire damage. So i dunno which would be better.

Calvary aren't going to be a great strength as VC. I'd take Hexwraiths as insurance against Demigryph knights over lance knights all day every day. You don't need calvary to kill infantry or to tie up ranged units, you have a wealth of the best flying units around for ranged units and your Graveguard chop up infantry pretty well.

[Lord Potassium]

what about chariots? I've never really used them because they didn't seen worth the effort to get.

[SnugglyPuffs]

Originally posted by Lord Potassium:

what about chariots? I've never really used them because they didn't seen worth the effort to get.

I don't really play Chaos but I find chariots are a pain to deal with at times. If they get caught out in the open too long and focus fired then they can fall flat. When skillfully used to avoid direct fire and getting pinned down they can be insanely tough to take out. I'm not really sure beyond that, I don't see them often.

[Lord Potassium]

Originally posted by SnugglyPuffs:

Originally posted by Lord Potassium:

yea? Their stats are less than the lance cavalry, but they have ethereal armor piercing, terror, and fire damage. So i dunno which would be better.

Calvary aren't going to be a great strength as VC. I'd take Hexwraiths as insurance against Demigryph knights over lance knights all day every day. You don't need calvary to kill infantry or to tie up ranged units, you have a wealth of the best flying units around for ranged units and your Graveguard chop up infantry pretty well.

Thats a fair point. Terrorghiests are 100% worth it to me. They cause terror, have regeneration, armor pen. All the good stuff. So i guess cavalry aren't necessary. Not sure whether to use varghiests are not though.

[Lord Potassium]

Originally posted by SnugglyPuffs:

Originally posted by Lord Potassium:

what about chariots? I've never really used them because they didn't seen worth the effort to get.

I don't really play Chaos but I find chariots are a pain to deal with at times. If they get caught out in the open too long and focus fired then they can fall flat. When skillfully used to avoid direct fire and getting pinned down they can be insanely tough to take out. I'm not really sure beyond that, I don't see them often.

well vampire counts have the black chariot. I've used it a couple times and it really wasn't a game changer

[The Mighty Mulletman]

Originally posted by Lord Potassium:

So im working on a general army list to use and i can't decide bewteen grave guard with greatswords or cairn wraiths. Is ethereal worth the lack of armor?

Depends on what you're facing and what you need them for. Cairn Wraiths are good for flanking, not direct combat and if the enemy doesn't use magical damage against them they can get some serious damage done.
Grave guards are more general purpose.

[Toadally Awesome]

Ethereal is a trait that appears disguised in other factions as well. The savage orcs of the Greenskins with their tribal tattoos, the dwarven Slayers of the Dwarves with their slayer oath etc. All in all these units have 0 armor but they take 75% damage less from each source.

That means they are the best unit to fight the best unit, but lose against weaker units. If you do not fight minor factions in the campaign, you should indeed buy them because everyone will be running around with their best of the best. They are also super resistant to artillery because of that.

As VC I prefer a cross-breed between, like 4 grave guard, 3 cairn wraiths, mannfred, a necromancer to heal my troops and 11 terrorgheists. Of course that works mostly in auto-resolve and manual siege(auto-resolve sieges are a bad idea).

[Prolific Avocado]

I love hexwraiths, terror on a cav uit is pretty nuts, they will do some crazy work by charge cycling.

[MrMurLock]

The strange thing with the wraiths is that they do AMAZINGLY well againts elite and monstrous units... but at the same time do terrible against even unranked starter units....