First foray of the Riders of Slaanesh

Last Saturday was the premiere of my Warriors of Chaos army, the Riders of Slaanesh. Starting at 750 pts and escalating from there. Quick list:

• 2 units of 5 warhounds for cheap blocking and bait.
• 2 units of 5 Marauder Horsemen with flails, light armor, and throwing axes for annoyance, charge-baiting, and flanking.
• 1 unit of 5 Chaos Knights with lances, for smashing things in the face.
• Sorceror on a barded Chaos Steed, with Book of Secrets and Power Familiar for 6 power dice and 3 spells. Woo!

Everything that can has the Mark of Slaanesh. It's the cheapest mark, gets rid of annoying fear, terror, and panic with no downsides, and the Lore of Slaanesh has plenty of spells that eff with the enemy.

Game was vs. Nick's all-fast-cavalry wood elves and was pretty much different than any other Warhammer game I've played (not that I've played that many).

Game 1

Symetrical deployment on both sides - Maraders, hounds, knights, hounds, maraders for me and two shooty-elf units in front and 2 stabby elf units behind for him. He places his free woods in the center and proceeds to gallop into it. I wait outside for him to come out, but my wizard manages to miscast on the first roll and blow himself and one of the knights away. Things don't get better from there - his army is so fast and maneuverable that I don't get a single charge and I'm pretty quickly destroyed.

Game 2

Similar deployment, except I put the sorcerer with a unit of Marauders. He does much better this time and manages not to miscast the whole battle, though it takes time for him to get within range of the enemy as on the first turn, the elves gallop off into a corner. I do manage to whittle down his numbers with magic missiles, and rout a unit with thrown axes, but thanks to being on the receiving end of charges at all times, and the World's Worst Dice Rolling Ever in the challenges between characters and unit champions, I am destroyed. Closer than last time, at least.

Thoughts

Fun, but wow, we galloped all over the board. Against (and with) fast cavalry, it's hard to keep the enemy in your charge arc. I don't think my current army list has much chance of reliably beating this army (good luck with a charge and break could do it) - it either needs to be massivly shooty (not WoC strong point at all) or have a big block of metal so nasty that it just dares them to attack.

Gonna try it against more traditional armies before bumping to 1k - Nick plans on drafting 750 pts of gunpowder- and crossbow-packing Empire. We'll see how it goes.