🏰 The Best Chariot in Warhammer The Old World: The Empire Reigns Supreme
Do you remember when The Empire had all kinds of units except chariots? Well… not anymore, lol.
In this post, we’re going to talk about all the chariots in Warhammer The Old World.
I’ve done the most thorough analysis I could, keeping the functionality and objective in mind: allowing you to compare them at a glance. It’s been quite a bit of work.
Some of the cheaper chariots, like Snotling Pump Wagons or Goblin Chariots, I’ve grouped together. To compare them properly, I considered what two chariots would do instead of one, since their low point cost and weak stats make it pointless to analyze them individually.
The “Guys and Horses” Column has been evaluated as follows:
- 1 for those that either have very few attacks or whose attacks are useless.
- 2 for those with few attacks, but at least somewhat decent ones.
- 3 for those with six or more attacks and of good quality.
Cheap Chariots
Defining what a cheap chariot is can be tricky, but I’ll consider all chariots below the Chaos Chariot as such.
Some brief thoughts:
- The Scourgerunner Chariot of the Dark Elves is not a good chariot. It may serve another purpose, but when evaluated as a chariot, it makes no sense. It costs the same as the Tuskgor Chariot, which is infinitely better.
- The Lothern Skycutter doesn’t feel like a chariot at all. Even though it looks like one, I already covered it in the High Elves’ Rare Units analysis, which I’ll link below.
- Special mention to the Slaanesh Daemon Chariot as the most absolute garbage from the depths of hell, and to the Snotling Pump Wagon, which is the most absolute garbage from the Badlands. With 2D6 inches of movement, it will never reach combat.
- The Goblin Chariot, on the other hand, can work as a redirector. As a support chariot, it makes no sense at all.
Orc Boar Chariot
Now we’re talking about something solid. This chariot has Toughness 5 for only 90 points, which makes it the first big jump in resilience. That makes it very interesting. The downside is that it is impetuous or frenzy, but it also has Warband which helps them to not to fail too many charge rolls (even when they have no the winning combo “this one”, cause they have no swiftstride).
This chariot got better in 1.5 thanks to the improvements to both Impetuous and First Charge. For Orcs, Impetuous can basically be ignored if you’ve got a Black Orc within 6 inches — but even if you don’t, it now relies on a Leadership test, so you can just keep the frenzied unit within your general’s command range.
First Charge, on the other hand, is a more useful rule now because you’ll be able to remove the rank bonus from more units, since it’s more common to see infantry blocks with multiple ranks built specifically to score in secondary missions.
Chaos Chariot – Top of the Mid-Tier Range
Now we’re getting serious. The Chaos Chariot is very good compared to the rest. We’re talking about a chariot with Strength 5, Toughness 5, a 3+ save, and four wounds. Plus, if you give it the Mark of Nurgle, enemies must reroll 6s when hitting.
In my opinion, this is the best chariot in the 90 to 140 point range. Plus, with how the Chaos army ended up in The Old World 1.5, it’s likely we’ll be seeing it a lot as a mount for both combat characters and wizards.
Empire War Wagon
Toughness 5, 3+ armor, 6 wounds. Add in the impact hits from charging plus Stomp Attacks and you’re looking at 1d6 + 1d3 + 2 hits, and it can march and shoot so it doesn’t get bored on the way—140 points.
It’s a beauty. On top of that, you can mount an Engineer on it for an extra 45 points, which bumps the chariot up to 8 wounds total and combos really well with your artillery.
How does it compare to the Gnoblar Scraplauncher? Well, it’s neither a proper chariot nor a real catapult. Slaanesh’s Chariot? Total garbage—it folds like paper. Skaven Doomwheel? Its random movement can be fun, but at the end of the day, it’s really all about the shooting phase.
In the higher tiers, we start seeing chariots that have additional abilities, like shooting cannons (ogre kingdoms), magic (burning chariot of Tzeentch), or the Black Coach, which does absolutely nothing for 205 points.
I don’t think we can compare a chariot that functions as a chariot, like the Empire War Wagon, to these. Their role is more akin to war machines that can maneuver and withstand enemy attacks, which goes beyond the scope of this post. Buuuut…
The Empire Steam Tank, with 10 wounds, Toughness 7, and an absolute wrecking ball in combat, is really good. Despite costing 265 points, you can send it against really, really strong enemy units. And don’t forget—it’s Unbreakable.
I see it as far superior to the Chaos Dwarfs’ Iron Daemon (it gets shooting penalties because it has to roll to hit, since it carries an organ gun and not a steam cannon).
Careful—don’t get fooled: it’s classified as a Chariot unit type, which means it has unit strength 5, not 10, even if it has 10 wounds. So it doesn’t get the +1 combat res from having close order.
I don’t usually talk about prices or miniatures, but honestly — with the battalion price, I’d never buy a tank on its own (you get one in the battalion anyway).
Besides comparing chariots from different armies, it’s always important to consider what other options are available within the same army. For example, Dark Elves don’t have many useful options in their army, so perhaps the Scourgerunner Chariot is a good shooting and mobility choice for them, even though, as a chariot, it leaves much to be desired.
Chariots — even if they’re strong compared to those from other armies — don’t see that much play on the table, mainly because:
- Orcs have some seriously strong units in their army, and spending 90 points on a chariot usually means cutting 90 points of Night Goblins, for example.
- Chaos, on the other hand, loves using chariots as mounts — that Toughness 5 and 4 extra wounds for their characters, plus the 5+ save from “Chaos Armour” on the chariot itself, is a great synergy.
- As for the Empire war wagon, it’s an expensive and hard-to-find model — that’s the main reason it doesn’t see play. But honestly, it’s not that hard to kitbash, so maybe someone out there will take up the challenge 🙂
Hope this breakdown helps you get a clearer picture of how chariots are doing in Old World 1.5. Overall, we’ll probably see them a bit more now — they add some extra punch to infantry blocks and take up very little space, meaning they can charge alongside infantry without costing you attacks.
Check out the related posts below — I think you’ll find them interesting too:
🔹 High Elf Rare Units Tierlist (updated v1.5)
