Disclosure: This post is reader-powered and contains affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you.

Wolves of the Sea are having a moment in Battle March, and I love it. Small games reward cheap, violent Core units, and this army has plenty of them. Below are eight lists from 500 to 750 points: three built straight from the box, three tournament lists from Entoyment, and two ways to grow into 750.

What comes in the Warriors of Chaos Battle March box

• 1 Sorcerer
• 8 Chaos Warriors
• 4 Chaos Knights
• 5 Marauder Horsemen
• 20 Chaos Marauders

For Wolves of the Sea, the box gives you a Sorcerer to lead, two ten-model Marauder units, a fast Horsemen unit and a Chaos Warrior block. Chaos Warriors count as Special in Wolves of the Sea, but the 8-model unit fits inside the 500-point Special allowance, so you can field the whole lot. The four Chaos Knights sit out of these lists.

As the army grows, I would treat the Marauder Horsemen as a placeholder for Huscarls, and the Sorcerer as the first character to upgrade: Level 2 costs 30 points more and arrives at 600.

500-point Battle March box list

The whole box except the Chaos Knights

This is the box, built and ready to play. The flail Marauders with Unnatural Fortitude are the unit that charges; the great weapon Marauders are the unit that waits. Our tests showed great weapon Marauders do their best work when the enemy charges them, because Press of Battle lets the second rank swing too, while flails want to strike first. My best Chaos Marauder build guide has the full numbers.

The Chaos Warriors are the real threat. In our testing, eight Khorne Chaos Warriors with halberds won 89.5% of their charges across six benchmark opponents (see the best Mark for Chaos Warriors). The Horsemen screen, throw axes and hunt light units: they are not a frontal combat unit.

600-point Battle March box upgrade list

The box, plus five Huscarls in place of the Horsemen

Two upgrades take the box to 600. The Sorcerer goes to Level 2, which gives you a second spell and a better chance of getting something off each turn. The Horsemen make way for five Khorne flail Huscarls, and that swap changes how the list plays.

Huscarls tested very well for us. Six Khorne flail Huscarls won 80.8% of their charges, and five flail Huscarls won 9 of 10 charges into Clanrats in my narrated fights (see the best Huscarl build and Huscarls with flails). They are a hammer, not an anvil: when the enemy charged them, they lost most of the time. Point them at ordinary infantry, ideally after the Warriors have done the hard part.

600-point Berserker Rush tournament list

Entoyment 1st place: Berserker Rush, 600 points

This list won Entoyment Battle March, and it does exactly one thing: it runs at you. Twenty-seven Berserkers with flails, Unnatural Fortitude and Frenzy go forward together, the Chieftain makes the big unit even nastier, and the Gigantic Spawn turns up somewhere the opponent would rather it did not.

It lines up with our own testing. Thirteen flail Berserkers won 76.6% of their charges across six opponents in my Warriors of Chaos lab, and they won 29 of 40 charges in my narrated fights (see the best weapon for Berserkers and Berserkers with flails). Their weak spot was deep blocks of ranked chaff, which can out-score them on static Combat Result even when the Berserkers kill more.

Other Entoyment Wolves of the Sea lists

One winning list could be one good player with one odd idea. Entoyment looks different: Wolves of the Sea finished 1st, 3rd and 4th out of 18 players, and all three lists leaned into aggressive pressure pieces.

Entoyment 3rd place: Aaron Best, 3W-1L, 600 points

Entoyment 4th place: Alex Peake, 2W-0L-2D, 597 points

These lists are not identical, which makes the result more interesting. The winning list goes hard on Berserker bodies and a Spawn. Aaron Best’s 3rd-place list uses two mounted Aspiring Champions as the real killers, with small Berserker units doing the Core work. Alex Peake’s 4th-place list brings one huge Berserker block and backs it up with Skin Wolves.

The shared pattern matters:

• Every list uses Berserkers.
• Every list uses fast or awkward pressure pieces.
• Two of the three use a Gigantic Spawn.
• All three want to force decisions quickly rather than play a slow trading game.

That is the heart of it. Wolves of the Sea look dangerous in Battle March because they can bring cheap, violent Core units and still fit in problem pieces that many 600-point armies struggle to answer.

600-point alternative tournament list

Two Berserker units, Huscarls, Warhounds and a Spawn

This list spreads the threat around instead of stacking it. Two Berserker units, a Huscarl hammer and a Gigantic Spawn give you four things that want to charge, and the Warhounds screen, redirect and soak up a bad charge. The great weapon Chieftain with the Rod of the Damned is there to kill characters and armour. I like it into opponents with one big scary unit, because you can let the Hounds absorb it and hit everything else.

750-point Battle March box upgrade list

The 600-point upgrade list, plus a Gigantic Spawn

Take the 600-point upgrade list and add a Gigantic Spawn. Two of the three top Entoyment lists took one, and it does a job nothing else in the box list does: it moves unpredictably, it soaks attention, and it forces the opponent to decide whether to deal with it or ignore it. Either answer suits you.

750-point Berserker Rush expansion

The Entoyment winner, plus 10 Berserkers and 5 Warhounds

If the Berserker Rush list is your army, 750 points just means more Berserkers. A third ten-model unit adds another threat the opponent has to answer, and five Warhounds give the list the screen it lacks at 600. The plan stays the same: everything goes forward, and the opponent runs out of answers before you run out of Berserkers.

Which list should you build?

• You just opened the box: play the 500-point list. It uses almost everything and teaches you how Marauders, Warriors and Horsemen fit together.
• You want to grow the box: buy Huscarls next, then a Gigantic Spawn. That takes you to the 600 and 750-point upgrade lists without wasting anything.
• You want to win events: buy Berserkers. Every top Wolves of the Sea list at Entoyment took them, and our tests showed why.
• You want something different: try the alternative tournament list, or borrow the mounted Aspiring Champions from the 3rd-place list.

Final thoughts

I think Wolves of the Sea are one of the most exciting armies in Battle March right now. The box gives you a playable 500-point force, the upgrade path is obvious, and the tournament results back up what our simulations already suggested: flail Berserkers and Huscarls hit very hard on the charge, and an army full of them forces the opponent to react. I will keep tracking results as more events come in.

For more on the units, see the Wolves of the Sea hub, my best Chaos Marauder build guide, and all my Battle March unit tests.