Warhammer Armies: Realm of Chaos (5th Edition)
From Lexicanum
Contents |
Background
The Warhammer Armies: Chaos book is copyright 1997 and describes a primarily mortal Chaos army for the 5th Edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battles by Games Workshop.
Chaos Gods
The only Chaos gods mentioned in the text are the primary four, Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle, and Slaanesh.
Additional Elements
The book was published in a boxed set accompanied by 30 chaos spell cards (10 for each power except Khorne), 12 Chaos Gift cards, 20 chaos reward cards, five magic standard cards, a summoning template and 16 counters to track bonuses from the cards. The spell cards were a supplement to the regular spell cards found in the Warhammer Magic supplement, and the chaos reward and magic standard cards were simply wargear cards.
In contrast, the Chaos gift cards continued the practice from the Warhammer Armies: Chaos (4th Edition) boxed set of providing temporary random bonuses or penalties to the Chaos forces.
This book retains the daemonic animosity rules from 4th edition unchanged.
Army Composition
Army composition for the Chaos forces is based on warbands. A Chaos force is simply one or more warbands, and each warband is a warlord and that warlord's retinue of one or more units. One limiting factor in warband selection is that the units selected as the retinue for a warlord had to equal or exceed the warlord's value, and marked daemonic warlords could only have daemons of the same mark in their retinue.
Army composition differs between this book and both its successor and predecessor in that it is not possible to mix mortal, beast, and daemonic warbands in the main body of the army. However, as part of the allied forces for the army, warbands from the other two types of Chaos forces were permitted, in addition to other permitted allies depending on the main army type.
Unit Types
There are several unit types present in the army book, grouped into categories based on the type of warband to which they belong.
Daemonic Units
- Bloodthirster of Khorne
- Lord of Change
- Great Unclean One
- Keeper of Secrets
- Daemon Prince
- Chaos Spawn
- Bloodletters of Khorne. Bloodletter units could be mounted on Juggernauts if desired and the mounted unit was referred to as 'Bloodcrushers'.
- Flesh Hounds of Khorne
- Nurglings
- Plaguebearers of Nurgle. Plaguebearer units could be mounted on Beasts of Nurgle and the mounted unit was referred to as 'Plagueriders'.
- Beasts of Nurgle
- Horrors of Tzeentch
- Flamers of Tzeentch
- Daemonettes of Slaanesh. Daemonette units could be mounted on mounts if desired. No special name was provided for the mounted unit.
- Fiends of Slaanesh
Chaos Furies were not present in the army book.
Mortal Unit
- Chaos Knights
- Chaos Warriors
- Chaos Hounds
- Chaos Chariots
- Chaos Marauders
- Marauder Horsement
- Ogres
The Chaos Warlord could take a mark of chaos to gain various effects including unlocking the ability to take a Juggernaut, Steed of Slaanesh, Disc of Tzeentch or Beast of Nurgle as a mount. The palanquin of Nurgle remains absent from the army book as it was in 4th edition.
Beast Units
- Beastmen Gors
- Beastmen Ungors
- Bestigors
- Beastman Chariots
- Minotaurs
- Chaos Hounds
Monstrous Host
- Harpies
- Chaos Trolls
- Swarms of rats and similar vermin
- Dragon Ogres
- Various large monsters such as Chaos Dragons, Manticores and Wyvern.
Special Characters
No special characters are present in this rulebook. Instead, the special characters are detailed in the Warhammer: Champions of Chaos (5th Edition) supplement.
