Whilst chatting on twitter the other day, I suggested that the best way to play Warhammer was to use 3rd Edition army lists with 6th edition Rules.
Someone added to this that you could play with any edition army list as long as your opponent was happy with it.
This got me to wondering...
As you may or may not know, I've been working on a Chaos Army for ever, based on the army list from the battle report in White Dwarf 123 Look Here
As you can see from the snippet above, that army comes to 3000pts.
It made me wonder how much a roughly equivalent army might come to using 6th edition Army Books.
The First problem is that some bright spark decided to split Chaos into two different factions which means that you have to make a list using both. Not the best way to make friends in the Warhmmer world.
The Second problem is that there is another set of army list you could use.
Ravening Hordes (the second book of that title -GW loves to recycle a title!) was a book of 'Get you by' army lists for use with 6th Edition that was put out before the rest of the Army books were published. The costs and lists are different so we will have to do two lists!
First of all, the army book lists.
I've gone for characters that are as close as possible in cost to the 3rd Edition ones, rather than worrying about stats. If that meant buying magic items to bump them up to nearer the 3rd ed cost, that's included. I haven't detailed any equipment cos that's dull.
In 3rd ed there are 3 levels of Chaos warrior, Thugs, Marauders and Warriors. Thugs have, by 6th have been renamed Marauders, and Marauders have disappeared. Warriors have been become weak and puny and beastmen have lost a wound. You can no longer just drop a hero into a unit, you have to upgrade a model to a unit leader. So with that in mind, here is the first list.
Chaos Champion - Exalted Champion -102
Chaos Sorceror Level 2 - 170
20 Beastmen (Bestigors) + Hero - 332
20 Thugs (Marauders) + Hero - 247
4 Centaurs + Hero - 120
10 Marauders (Warriors) - 180
20 Beastmen (Bestigors) + Hero -332
4 Minotaurs + Hero - 240
10 Marauders (Warriors) - 180
20 Thugs (Marauders) + Hero - 247
Total - 1910
Well over 1000 pts cheaper! Even if I bought characters to drop into units there would still be loads of points left over!
So lets try the Ravening Hordes list
Chaos Champion - Exalted Champion -109
Chaos Sorceror - Level 2 - 115
20 Beastmen (Bestigors) + Hero - 302
20 Thugs (Marauders) + Hero - 155
4 Centaurs + Hero - 120
10 Marauders (Warriors) - 190
20 Beastmen (Bestigors) + Hero - 302
4 Minotaurs + Hero - 240
10 Marauders (Warriors) - 190
20 Thugs (Marauders) + Hero - 155
Total 1878!
Even cheaper! (there are no centaurs in the Ravening hordes list so I had to copy over fro the army book)
Bloody hell!
Now, it must be pointed out that the stats of the warriors and beastmen are far below what they would have been in 3rd ed and the flexibiliy with hero's isn't there in later editions but for shear number of hooves on the battlefield they are as similar as I can make them.
Basically if, you are going up against a 6th edition army with a 3rd ed one. Your troops an heroes may be of better quality but your are going to be horribly outnumbered!
I think the steady drop in cost was part of a drive to sell more figures. It's unfortunate because it makes it harder to appropriate cost out things that are of similar (but different) usefulness.
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