✠ Warriors of Chaos in Warhammer: The Old World: Guides, Rules & Army Lists

From a lore perspective, it’s a very broad army, ranging from barbarian tribes to elite warriors clad in armor. This concept was particularly reflected in the infamy lists, especially with the release of the Arcane Journal.

That release introduced the Sea Wolves of Chaos infamy list (focused on barbarian tribes, Huscarls, and Berserkers) and, on the other hand, the Heralds of Darkness: the most powerful troops in the Chaos Warriors war, mounted on horses and chariots, surrounded by monsters (with no infantry units).

Here, I wrote this post when Chaos was updated with traits.
You can also find the cults there.

It’s an army that’s been nerfed in some areas and includes a lot of fairly useless units — slow, expensive infantry like Chaos Warriors or the Cursed. Others, like Chaos Chosen (whether on foot or mounted), don’t even score, which makes them even less appealing.

The Infernal Puppet has had its range cut to 15″, and since this is an army with no shooting and magic has been generally toned down, it now struggles more to reduce enemy units below Unit Strength 10 (so they can’t score), and it also has a harder time dealing with enemy support units.

The Chaos Lord on Dragon — once a popular pick — no longer makes as much sense due to the 500-point cap, the price hike on the Ogre Blade, and other tweaks.

Anything good? Well, yeah — Chaos Knights can now countercharge, which is nice… but overall, they’ve lost more than they’ve gained.

In November 2025, GW released a very interesting army update in the Arcane Journal called Razing of the Westerland. You can check out the contents in the posts you’ll find below.

That Warhammer Fantasy book had a much larger number of units by including Daemons (although they generally weren’t very usable).

In this case, the army lacks flying light troops to threaten war machines, which they did have in 6th edition. In fact, they no longer have access to the typical Chaos Champion on Tzeentch flying disc, who remains only in our memories and display cabinets.

The only daemons found in this book are the Daemon Prince, Daemon Mount, and Chaos Cannon, which are far from optimal in unrestricted games.

As always, this army allows for troop customization, and thanks to the five Chaos marks, units gain different abilities. But keep in mind that most lists tend to use the same ones, with Nurgle and Khorne being the most popular, and Slaanesh and Tzeentch being reserved for more specific uses—like a Tzeentch sorcerer in a matching-mark unit to cast spells with a +1 bonus.

With the November 2025 Razing of the Westerland update, Chaotic Traits and Barbarian Tribe Cults have been added as new and interesting customization options. You can see what each one offers in the post dedicated to this update found below.

This army shares units with the Beastmen, such as the Dragon Ogres, Chaos Giant, or Shaggoth, since the release of the game, along with others added via the Arcane Journal (Warhammer Chaos Old World features unique units like the Chaos Giant Spawn, which is very popular in the current meta).

Will Games Workshop ever release Chaos Daemons for The Old World, and give them more daemonic troops?

There are some rules to play with allies but no one is using them cause it makes the different armies lose their essence in my opinion.

Old World Chaos fans have plenty of options thanks to recent miniature releases. On one hand, they still have a large part of the classic miniature range that was specifically released for The Old World. But they also have access to the newer Warhammer: Age of Sigmar miniatures, where you can find almost any unit represented, and most of which can be easily adapted.

Some Sigmar models are hard to fit into “close order” due to flowing capes, size, or weapon positions. But the truth is, the increase in square base size that came with The Old World helps a lot in making this work.

Regarding the meta, we can say that they are widely played in games without restrictions. The Chaos Lord on Dragon is a classic example—while the High Elf Star Dragon might be stronger than the Chaos Dragon in raw stats, the combination of a Chaos Lord with the dragon ends up being more powerful than the High Elf Prince.

Also, between Grand Army and the Chaos infamy armies, the flexibility offered by the Old World Warriors of Chaos allows players to adapt easily to competitive restrictions (like not being allowed to spend more than 600 points on a single character, or investing only 35% in characters instead of 50%).

Chaos the Old World doesn’t end up at the bottom of the rankings unless you’re relying on a very narrow, min-maxed list, as can happen with other armies like the Dark Elves.

It’s an army that can be played with heavy cavalry, light cavalry, chariots, or light infantry; with more or less magic…

It gives you a lot of room to play with on the table and allows you to adapt your army to any restrictions that may exist in your local scene.

With the Arcane Journal, TOW Chaos has seen a significant boost in competitive viability.

You can tell Games Workshop has put care into the armies that received an Arcane Journal, and has done a great job with them.

Although some are more powerful than others—which I think is inevitable—they all offer viable list-building options for competitive play, something that didn’t always happen in previous editions, no matter how nostalgic we get. For example, in the book Warhammer Fantasy Warriors of Chaos 6th edition, infantry was practically unplayable (warriors, chosen, marauders… NOTHING). The Chaos Warriors Arcane Journal has made their light infantry much more viable, especially with the addition of Tribe Berserkers.