[TOW] Black Orcs or Bull Centaurs?

Chaos Dwarf Discussion Army List and Gaming Discussion
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Hello everyone!
I’m pretty new with the Chaos Dwarfs and TOW but not in the game range. I play from 6e to 8e with Dark Elfes, O&G and others.

I try and fail to understand the roles of the black orcs versus the bull centaurs in a CD list.

Many lists from the web use BO, sometime with a lot of orcs with a “Tiny” boss. Other with a heavy boss mounted on a wyvern and just a few orcs.
Time to time, I just see bull centaurs. But rarely. Maybe it’s already a debate but I want personnal point of view, not just statistic or meta.

Why are you playing Black Orcs this way?
Or
Why are you playing Bull Centaurs this way?

Thank you

PS: for context, it can be for competitive games or fluff games or beer and pretzel games.

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I tend to play them this way, with a demonology support. They kill a lot of thing on charge, are kinda hard to shift, are very tanky. Great to contest objectives (because core). The bigboss in this set up is almost a taxe, but you can build him “average” in order to gain more wounds in combat resolution (by brutalizing characters and units alike)

So basically big anchor in a central position and supported by magic.

Bull centaurs I have less experience with, but they work best for me as a flanking impact hits unit, small squads almost like a chariot. The character goes a long way to make them punch harder. They are way too squishy to be used as shock troopers, like you would with Demigryph knights for exemple.

Welcome to the the forum deamonsmith :hatoff:

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Whay do you think about the Wyvern? it can be a great option for the boss, no?

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It can be quite strong, but it is susceptible to gunlines, warmachines, loses static resolution against infantry with the challenge lock. In my opinion almost work as a “distraction carnifex”. It’s a great target without the great target boons, doesn’t benefit from the LoS all that much and is rarely my general so, no interesting command range signal boost synergies.

But if you are able to get some good flank with him on some high value targets could make his point back.

On the otherside, maybe you want him to be a distraction carnifex, in order to protect your precious sorcerer prophet.

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Hey mate,

Welcome welcome! I recently went 2 wins and a draw and had the black orc boss on wyvern with the triple save and 5 black orcs with shields and no wizard at all. The black orcs I just sat on my baggage train all game and I paired the Wyvern with the Castelan on Bale and together they munched through anything in front of them. I went up against an extremely oppressive 30+ outriders and triple cannon list but kept them out of LoS for the first turn and then went straight into the triple cannons - I was fortunate enough that the cannons didn’t do much on the turn I was right in front of them before I could change but between the 2 characters and 2 x Tau’ruk’s I was able to 19-1 him, without losing any of them

I haven’t tried a big brick of black orcs due to not having the models but they will delete anything they can charge (same with the ironsworn) especially if they are buffed up, if thinking strictly competitively (in my opinion) it’s hard to go past 90+ hobgoblins being tarpits giving you the chance to flank with most other units in your list

I haven’t tried the bull centaurs but from what I’ve read/heard - they are quite expensive for S4 with shields giving them a 4+ or S6 with GW giving them a 5+, the T5 is nice and they are the unit that I want to try next but as mentioned already if you can get them into a flank I’m sure they will do well

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No wizard?!
Oh that’s interesting
Are you talking of something like that:
0 - Renegades (Square Based)
341 - Black Orc Warboss, Great Weapon, Shield, Wyvern, Trollhide Trousers, Talisman Of Protection
385 - Infernal Castellan, Heavy Armour, General, Bale Taurus, Armour of Destiny, Mantle of Stone
65 - 5 Black Orc Mobs, Shield
117 - 25 Hobgoblin Cutthroats, Shield, Light Armour, Boss, Standard Bearer, Musician
117 - 25 Hobgoblin Cutthroats, Shield, Light Armour, Boss, Standard Bearer, Musician
117 - 25 Hobgoblin Cutthroats, Shield, Light Armour, Boss, Standard Bearer, Musician
234 - 12 Infernal Guard, Hailshot Blunderbusses, Shield, Drilled, Deathmask, Standard Bearer, Musician
310 - Iron Daemon, Steam Cannonade, Hellbound
159 - Bull Centaur Taur’ruk, Great Weapon, Enchanted Shield
154 - Bull Centaur Taur’ruk, Great Weapon, Charmed Shield

I want to try that

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Very very close to what I had, I haven’t used the blunderbusses before, they seem like they would be fun but are pretty expensive and the short range would take a bit of setting up to do without buffing them through magic

This was mine - I can’t take credit for it as I saw a similar one had won a tournament overseas but I made some slight changes to fit the scenarios I was playing;

Infernal Castellan [394 pts]
(Great weapon, Full plate armour, Shield, General, Bale Taurus, Armour of Destiny, Mantle of Stone)

Black Orc Warboss [339 pts]
(Great weapon, Full plate armour, Wyvern, Talisman of Protection, Trollhide Trousers)

33 Hobgoblin Cutthroats [149 pts]
(Hand weapons, Shields, Light armour, Boss (champion), Standard bearer, Musician)

32 Hobgoblin Cutthroats [145 pts]
(Hand weapons, Shields, Light armour, Boss (champion), Standard bearer, Musician)

32 Hobgoblin Cutthroats [145 pts]
(Hand weapons, Shields, Light armour, Boss (champion), Standard bearer, Musician)

5 Black Orc Mob [65 pts]
(Hand weapon, Full plate armour, 5x Shields)

10 Sneaky Gits [60 pts]
(Two hand weapons, Throwing weapons)

Iron Daemon [275 pts]
(Steam Cannonade, Hand weapons)

Bull Centaur Taur’ruk [214 pts]
(Great weapon, Heavy armour, 2x Mantle of Stone, Charmed Shield)

Bull Centaur Taur’ruk [214 pts]
(Great weapon, Heavy armour, 2x Mantle of Stone, Charmed Shield)

4 x T7 and 1 x T6 helped for magic missiles and BS shooting but I did have a bit of trouble going into a night goblin list that had a lot of buffs/hexes

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My final list if here:
0 - Renegades (Square Based)
339 - Black Orc Warboss, Great Weapon, Wyvern, Trollhide Trousers, Talisman Of Protection
394 - Infernal Castellan, Great Weapon, Full Plate Armour, Shield, General, Bale Taurus, Armour of Destiny, Mantle of Stone
65 - 5 Black Orc Mobs, Shield
121 - 26 Hobgoblin Cutthroats, Shield, Light Armour, Boss, Standard Bearer, Musician
121 - 26 Hobgoblin Cutthroats, Shield, Light Armour, Boss, Standard Bearer, Musician
222 - 12 Infernal Guard, Hailshot Blunderbusses, Shield, Deathmask, Standard Bearer, Musician
310 - Iron Daemon, Steam Cannonade, Hellbound
214 - Bull Centaur Taur’ruk, Great Weapon, Charmed Shield, 2x Mantle of Stone
214 - Bull Centaur Taur’ruk, Great Weapon, Charmed Shield, 2x Mantle of Stone

I stole your Taur’ruk: I never think of dropping 2 MoS on a single character. This is great to put them on T7.
For night gobos, Hobs could do the job with help from behind maybe. I’ll see in time

Thanks a lot for the ideas and comments

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Nice one!

Looks like a very strong list - let me know how you go!

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I’ve enjoyed trying out the Bull Centaurs recently.

3, full command w/ Great Weapons and the Totem of Wrath - 248.

I typically run them with a Taur’ruk too. Exactly as you’ve kitted them above, although I have been testing out the Icon of Fortitude over MoS number 2. That way you can eat a cannon ball or 2 and still get into combat. Depends on if you’re expecting cannons.

Really powerful with Battle Lust cast on them too for Frenzy and Hatred when you need it.

Because of First Charge and Swiftstride you can collide head on with something, do 3D3 S4 impact hits and D3+1 S5. Then 10x S6 AP-2 with hatred and rerolling 1’s to wound. Plus the Taur’ruk with another 5x S7 AP-2.

this will reliably blow away most infantry and then they get no ranks. Once they’re cleared you can round through the opponents flanks where you’re cancelling ranks through hitting them in the sides.

Main draw back is flyers and faster more manoeuvrable stuff that can stop you from charging, but I’ve found them to be quite impressive with the new banner.

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That’s a great point! I think I’ll be including them in my future lists for sure

How do you run your wizard - mounted or on foot and what items?

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That’s a great question. Dark Magic can feel like a downgrade on Daemonology when self buffing, and the Daemonology +Atk buff is self targeted so can’t help your cents that much.

Here is what I run in a list specifically trying to do the thing.

Sorcerer-Prophet [445 pts]

  • Darkforged weapon
  • Heavy armour
  • Wizard [Level 4 Wizard]
  • General
  • Lammasu [Sorcerous Exhalation]
  • Armour of Meteoric Iron
  • Talisman of Protection
  • Tome of Spellcraft
  • Power Scroll
  • Dark Magic

You can swap the Tome of Spellcraft for a Lore Familiar if you’re not keen to YOLO Battle Lust. :smiley:

I’d also say that running this fella on a Bale Taurus is still fine. Dark magic has a couple good assailments you can land on and Storm of Ash will still own. But you might not be able to handle holding up a dragon et al. without back up.

Also worth mentioning is that Dark Magic comes with Word of Pain, which is hard to cast on a 10+ but it can really turn on the 5” template of your DSR’s so I like to run x2 in this list.

Last but not least, Phantasmagoria buys you time if they fail their leadership to bomb them and line up charges, but if they pass they’re impetuous. So I like a khan and a wolf riders to Fire & Flee and bait things into a bad position to hit with your cents.

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Ahh gotcha gotcha, I can’t seem to run the Lammasu to its full potential it just becomes a target for everything shooting so that’s probably a positioning issue on my behalf

I do default to demonology when I run a wizard which as of late hasn’t been at all. As you said with the DSR’s I like to run 2 aswell but trying to get gathering darkness off to force the failed panic test with the rockets + steed and vigour to round it off seems like a very strong caster

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I brought this up in another tread. The sorcerer on a Lammasu, I feel, is best played as a skirmisher that stays out of hand of hand combat. Though open to other thoughts.