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Home » Great Library at Hoeth » Book of Warfare » General » On Chariots (6th Ed HE)
| On Chariots (6th Ed HE) |
| By Orlanth |
Good Prince, this primer is presented to aid you in obtaining the maximum effectiveness from your chariots and to help you avoid pitfalls resulting from uninspired usage.
The Hitting Power of Chariots.
If you are considering using chariots then first compare them with the nearest equivalent unit for you to take; Silver Helms.
A Silver Helm unit charge has normally five or six lance attacks. Four, maybe five, for the Silver Helms plus one for the champion upgrade. If you have more they likely won't count due to unit widths.
They have to hit, probably on 3's.
They also have four or five horse attacks to back them up.
This costs 136pts as 'standard' allowing for five Silver Helms, champion and musician.
A chariot automatically has d6 S5 hits on the charge. To this you add two horses (never take four) and two s4 spear attacks - which factor in most favourably.
All this costs only 85pts
D6 S5 hits is roughly equal to the power of a lance charge for 50pts less. All in all the two units are roughly even in hitting power. The Silver Helms gain later on survivability though, as a chariot is of little use once bogged down in combat. Consequently if you want a unit that can charge into an enemy in order to stall them, do not use a chariot except as a measure of desperation. However if you wish to attempt to charge to destroy units then do consider chariots for your force.
When do you take Chariots?
Almost any High Elf Army can make good use of chariots, so long as it includes a good proportion of mobile agressive elements, which include heavy infantry in an offensive role. The point to remember is that they are best used on the charge, and if you are not going to be in a position to present that charge you are not going to make best use of chariots.
Chariots don't make good flanking forces though as they have only a Unit Strength of four and are poor choices for supporting counterassault units unless you are certain that you wont be exposing them to missile fire while they are standing and waiting for the enemy advance.
Correct use of Chariots.
Combination charges.
D6 S5 attacks are good but you need that plus a unit of Silver Helms or other cavalry. Your units, not chariots, provide the combat resolution bonus that makes the attacks viable. Where Chariots help is in corner attacks. Look at the Silver Helm unit attack I described above and the five lance strikes it generates. If you added another unit in the corner you would get at best two more lances from the units champion and may have to pay for that by losing one lance attack if you shift over to give the other unit room in the charge. Yes a character can help more, but each character costs a lot of points. However a chariot using the same corner of the attack front provides the FULL POWER of the chariot charge. This is when chariots get very nasty. You have five lance strikes ( six minus one because you overlap) from your Silver Helms *PLUS* d6 S5 impact hits and two s4 spear attacks. Even if you fail to break the enemy your cavalry will allow you to fight what is left on more or less even terms.
If you have a ten strong unit of Silver Helms it gets even better. The number of attacks doesnt change but you have a standard, one rank bonus, and to pile on the pain further the normally insignificant US4 of a chariot adds to the not insignificant US20 of the Silver Helms so that you most often get outnumbering bonus too. In total you are now only 1CR behind a fully ranked up infantry unit, and that is without having to account for the casualties you will inflict.
This is far better than having to pay the exorbitant cost of a third rank of Silver Helms. This way even if you roll badly on the number of impact hits the odds are still very favourable that you will rout the enemy. All this for a very reasonable total price of 350pts for 10 Silver Helms plus Chariot.
Infantry support
While a chariot gets the most of its striking power when accompanying cavalry it cannot easily do so because a chariot cannot march move. However this does mean that a chariot can keep pace with an infantry advance, the chariot moving 9" the infantry 10". Therefore you may find it expedient if not optimal to charge alongide infantry.
The results are similar to supporting a cavalry charge except that instead of the combined hitting power of lances and the chariot you need to rely on just the chariot plus the rank bonus of the infantry.
Therefore you are best deploying the infantry, in a deep and fairly narrow formation for optimal effect.
There are exceptions however. White Lions and Swordmasters do present a S5 or 6 charge which may prove enough to break the enemy due to casualties inflicted as per a cavalry attack.
The value of two bow attacks.
You can't march move so if you are not charging shoot! Yes you will do this, but do you understand how significant those shots are?
A High Elf army only has three or four salvoes in it per turn, probably six at most. A salvo is a single volley of fire and might be sourced from a character with a magic bow, or a bolt thrower or an archer or shadow warrior unit.
Sometimes, in fact quite often, you can do a job with just one wound caused, such as killing a rank bonus of an expensive and dangerous infantry unit or causing a panic test on a small unit. Sure you can fire six bolt thrower submunitions or ten arrows, but why use such firepower if two arrows may well do the job. And if you fail allocate the next chariot to the task, so that your main firepower can be used elsewhere.
Its not unknown for chariots to inflict about 30pts of shooting damage each by destroying rank bonuses and routing light units in the one or two turns of advancing before the charge. But only if you choose your targets carefully!
Incorrect Use of Chariots.
If you are not getting much joy with your chariots you are probably making one of the following mistakes:
Flank attacks
Yes a chariot can hit heavily into a flank, but this should always be taken where you have significant strength in the combat to ensure victory, rather than on blind opportunism. High Elf chariots do not take away rank bonus unless they have a character added to them. See below.
Adding characters to chariots
Meanwhile adding a character is a bad idea because you lose one crewelf, including his valuable bow and spear attacks; while you make the character vulnerable as he can no longer hide.
This vulnerability is accentuated because unlike a character riding a monster, a character falling from a chariot can take additional damage.
Misdirecting charges.
Chariots need to break the enemy on the charge so they can strike again. Many players throw chariots into tough opponents because of the guaranteed d6 S5 hits. This is not good as with careful use of chariots you should make two possibly three such charges in a game with each surviving chariot.
Teaming two chariots together.
The most common mistake. Some players use two chariots together for 2d6 impact hits. This is problematical as the attacks are not frequent enough to even out and 170pts is a lot for no certain gain. Its also poor as chariots together are vulnerable to high strength attacks. Finally they add up to a very poor total for combat resolution, if you do not slaughter with impact hits you lose, and lose hard except against small light units.
Further notes.
Attack S7 targets with caution.
This doesnt mean don't do so. Chariots must break an opponent on a charge anyway and if you can team up a chariot with a unit against some Kroxigor (for example) it may well be in your interest to make the charge, S7 great weapons or no. A chariot attacking alongside another unit will only be exposed to a corner of the enemy unit, normally one model of nasty big stuff. Between the chariot and the unit it should be easy enough to elimiate the enemy in contact so that there are no S7 return attacks.
Exposure to cannon sniping is inevitable.
But again there is something you can do. Not only should you manoeuver to prevent multiple shots from cannon, also remember to seperate your chariots entirely if you can. Chariots are juicy targets, so much so that cannon are often fired at them even when other even more vulnerable targets are in range. While noone is going to 'forget' to fire on a Dragon, they often do overlook deep penetrating shots against cavalry in favour of shots at a chariot.
Don't despair, a chariot is a fairly small target when viewed from the flank - and most cannon are set up in a flanking position. Even accurately guessed gunnery misses a lot due to bouncing shot. |
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