Chaos Marauders?

[Kingpin]

So after my first couple games in our league here in Olympia I am looking at what to add next to my list. Being new with fantasy I have a hard time just looking at a units entry and being able to tell how it will play on the table. I was going to run a nurgle army but after looking on the internet I found that everybody runs nurgle so I am going Tzeentch instead. I was thinking of adding a block of Marauders. Other then just being bodies to protect my caster can they actually preform in battle? What is the best way to gear them with mark of Tzeentch? Help a new guy out

[dkieft]

Unfortunately, Marauders on foot are fairly terrible.Point for point a unit of Warriors will do everything better. I was actually planning a maurader heavy army until the latest edition, now I have a hard time justifying taking any of them. Marking them just makes them more overpriced, but if you were going to do Tzeentch I'd stick to Hand weapon, shield and light armor to maximize defense... But I would still spend the points on warriors instead.

[djellum]

marauders are great but they aren't your killers.  for what you want they are good, they can be tough as tzeench and you can maintain steadfast by having a lot of them.  they also fulfill one major roll which is to add ranks.  getting marauders in combat with 8 ranks deep makes your warriors and monsters much more effective for breaking steadfast.

 

id run a unit or 2.  5 wide and as deep as you can afford, just put them in combat with some assistance somewhere.

[TJP]

A couple of notes:

 

If you want to run Nurgle, do it! Even if other people are, if that's what you want to do, do it. That said, for flavor reasons I run Tzeentch/Slaanesh, so welcome to the realm of uncontrolled magic and flayed skin!

 

To expand on what dkieft and djellum are saying, a marauder with light armor, shield, and the Mark of Tzeentch is a T3 model with a 5+ armor and a 5+ parry or 6+ ward for 8 points. A warrior with shield and Mark of Tzeentch is a T4 model with a 3+ armor and a 5+ parry or 6+ ward for 17 points - almost exactly 2 for 1.

 

For the same price, would you rather have 40 marauders or 20 warriors? How many will you have left of each after a round of combat with the same enemy? Essentially, the warriors are pretty much always better.

 

HOWEVER, the difference is not that much. Unless you are a competitive player playing other very competitive players, there's no reason not to run a 5-wide, 8-deep block of Tzeentch marauders if you like the idea! Just make sure you have something else with some punch to support them, because as noted, they won't do a ton of damage or win a grind. If you like chariots, knights, giants (another fun but suboptimal choice), trolls, ogres, or other hard-hitters that could use the support of some ranks, they'll love the marauders.

 

...you could also run massive blocks of unmarked, unequiped bodies. Most other armies would kill for models as cheap and well-statted as your base marauder. Flavor-wise, they are the ravening hordes of tribesmen trying to catch the eye of one of the chaos gods by throwing themselves into battle.

[Kingpin]

Thanks for all the feedback. I might try running them bare bones and just seeing if a cheap block works for me. I like the models and wanted a little flavor in the army other then just warriors.

[Don't Panic]

yea both responses combine to be what i think :) they are not good(warriors are better, albiet they are also probably overpriced), but if used definitely take shield to get them defense and have a 5++ parry.  use to break steadfast as stated.  got to be careful with them though because they still die fast to most things and if you multi charge you can lose something you dont want to lose... my good friend from iowa use to play them and he never does now though in this edition.  

[generalripphook]

Run lore of metal so you can give them 5+ scaley skin and boom they are practically warriors.

[MexicanNinja]

One thing which has scared me a few times are mauraders equipped with flails and mark of khorne. Sure, a bunch will die but you shold kill a bunch back before combat is over. 40 of them 10 wide and 4 deep pack 40 S5 attacks in the first round of combat. That does a lot against most other infantry and can do a number on cavalry as well.

[Fixxer]

Honestly my cousin runs a block of 32 Nurgle marauders with GW's and puts his unkillable chaos lord, his BSB, and his lv2 in there and its honestly so underrated I cannot even handle it. 

 

I would say as a character bunker to center the army its awesome because warriors and knights dont need character support to be effective. 

[dkieft]

Run lore of metal so you can give them 5+ scaley skin and boom they are practically warriors.

Buffing them certainly helps... but that buff would do so much more for a unit of Warriors...

[Kingpin]

Found something out about marauders today.... They suck to assemble with flails. Real pain in the butt.

[dkieft]

Found something out about marauders today.... They suck to assemble with flails. Real pain in the butt.

and that!