# Considering playing Fantasy



## KellysGrenadier (Jul 13, 2008)

Hi there. 

I have my shooty Tau army and my Drop Troop IG army. After hearing that Fantasy requires more tactical thinking than its 40,000 sister, I'd like to get into this part of the hobby.

I'd like an army that is considered the most tactically challenging to play. I don't mind what it is conceptually or fluffwise, it just has to require a lot of thought to play.

If anyone could give me some advice it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

Darks Elves have a tasty new Army Book out, but the High Elves Magic, Weaponry and Elite Troops make up for the Beasties that a Dark Elves can field.

Chaos have the Daemons in a particularly nice way of playing, and are pretty hefty, while you can have a beardy, Chaos Warrior Heavy Army, with Massive Knights. Empire and Dwarves as well with huge blocks of Infantry and Artillery can take a beating.

If you want a challenge, i recommend Wood Elves, Beasts of Chaos, or Ogre Kingdoms - sure having an Ogre Army sounds cool - hell yeah, but when yur basic troops are the price of 2 Chosen Chaos Warriors, you can start to feel scared.


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## KellysGrenadier (Jul 13, 2008)

Hmm... Beasts of Chaos, eh...?

Still open to ideas. Thanks for the advise though.


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## Othiem (Apr 20, 2008)

It's pretty hard to go wrong with any army in WFB, so I'd say the bigger issue is not finding an army that needs tactics, but an army who's tactics match you. Anyway, a few thoughts...

Bretonians: they may be the least tactical, being dependent on a small number of heavily armed cavalry and charges to simply hit a line and break though. Lance formations and variety of cav types make them interesting though if you like highly mobile elite forces.

High Elves: their army wide always strike first rule negates a large portion of the strategy of the game, ie maneuvering to get the charge off. I'm not in the camp that say their a tactless army, but they can be frustrating to play since most opponents will spend time running around trying to pick them off at range, not engaging. 

Wood Elves: Opposite of High Elves, you'll be running around avoiding directly engaging the enemy while picking them off with range. WE could be the only viable mobile ranged army in the game. 

O&G: Widest variety of units in the game, animosity rule forces you to execute multiple plans simultaneously, because most of them will fail. Fun to play, but the worst balanced army book in the game makes them a bad choice if you want to be competitive in tourneys. 

Dwarves: The opposite of O&G, high leadership and multiple leadership rules makes them the most reliable army in the game; they'll do what you tell them to do. However lack of any magic phase at all can feel like you're playing a lobotomized version of WFB. 

Chaos Demons: Heavily dependent on high powered special characters and their special rules, a crazy powerful army that ignores much of the tactics of troop movement simply by being that much stronger then everybody else, rendering troops ineffective vs them.

Empire (my personal army, so note the bias): The "combined arms" type army, weak troop blocks made useful through a detachment system that gives them great flexibility, imo best fast cavalry in the game with pistoliers (yeah yeah DR are probably better), decent heavy cav, access to widest variety of warmachines outside of dwarves, access to all lores of magic and their own Prayers of Sigmar that focus on buffing blocks of troops. 

Anyways those are the only ones I have experience with. IMO starting with Empire is a great place, since you can get a taste for nearly every aspect of the game, find out what you like, then chose a next force that focuses on that aspect, or just focus your Empire force. But if you're not into multiple armies, that's probably not a path you'd like.


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## Ancient Tiel' a fier (May 5, 2008)

The most difficult to master of the armies are definately wood elves, followed by the other elf armies and skaven.


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## Green Knight (Feb 25, 2008)

What about Beasts of Chaos I thalt they were hard to play but I now that wood elves, followed by the other elf armies Are hard


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## neilbatte (Jan 2, 2008)

the armies are only hard to play if they don't suit your mindset dwarves are easy unless you want a swift counter attacking force. orcs and tombkings are easy if you can remember all the little details at once. Beastmen are definatly a tactical challenge although less so with the chariot/ big monsters combo that are popular at the moment a lot of it depends on how you want your army to look and play as every list can be themed it raises its own tactical challenges a lot more than if you play a 40k army as each list has more viable options for each slot where 40k has units that pretty much pick themselves and as a rule there is less variation between 40k lists than fantasy


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## Inquisitor Varrius (Jul 3, 2008)

Beasts of Chaos all the way! My only problem I've found with them is that their big monsters die _fast._ They're especially bad against dwarfs (thunderers and 'organ' guns, anyone) but their ambush rule is a blast.

If you're looking for a tactical challenge, take orcs. It's a lot harder to plan out an attack when your soldiers wander off aimlessly.


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## KellysGrenadier (Jul 13, 2008)

So I'm getting here that Beasts of Chaos and Orks are the most tactically challenging, followed by the elven armies?


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## Ancient Tiel' a fier (May 5, 2008)

beasts and orcs are challenging, elven armies you acn pick up reasonably quickly but mastering them is something else. The elf races have the right tools for every foe but balancing them and utilising them is a very difficult skill.


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## Ambrose (Jun 11, 2008)

How much is it to get started?


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## Ambrose (Jun 11, 2008)

I always thougt about getting some but I don't want to wast my money.


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## Othiem (Apr 20, 2008)

Ambrose said:


> How much is it to get started?


For a reasonably diverse force.....either an army box or 2 battalions, so $180 there. Then you'll need at least 3 hero types, so about another $36. Most armies have a special type unit in metal, not plastic, so another $40 if you want to field a small size of them. So bout $250 can get you into a 1000 point game. If you know the exact army composition you are going for though, you can avoid the army sets and battalions and just buy the smaller unit sets, but it'll be hard to justify the cost, since battalions and army boxes have huge savings. If you're really on a budget, just play Oger Kingdoms. A single battalion and 2 heros will get you most of the way there.


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## KellysGrenadier (Jul 13, 2008)

That's roughly £134.


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## Ancient Tiel' a fier (May 5, 2008)

I generally look at £200, give or take 50 to make a reasonable army at 1500pts. But of course this varies wildly as some armies have more plastic kits or more useful one and some armies are just plain bigger.


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## KellysGrenadier (Jul 13, 2008)

I was thinking of making a Dark Elf army with *tons* of warriors.


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## neilbatte (Jan 2, 2008)

by mix and matching box sets dark elf armies can be relatively cheap as most of the units have an elf unit that with a bit of converting can stand in for its metal counterpart
i have seen good dark riders made from woodelf cavalry the same goes for dragon riders, chariots and even the bolt thrower from high elf kits even easier if you have some greenstuff skills my friend bought both the high elf and dark elf battallion sets a dragon and 2 boxes of glade riders plus a few characters and after a few days tinkering had a 2k army that looks amazing


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## Lord Reevan (May 1, 2008)

There are plenty of ways to save money with dark elves..... For some reason they sell a lot on ebay, large amounts of warriors anyway. Also neilbatte is right a few extra warrior bits on a glade rider makes a dark rider easily.... I spent less on 8 models than I did on three proper dark riders....


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## Captain Galus (Jan 2, 2008)

depends on which army you pick...some battalions have close to 1000pts whereas the VC box has a unit of zombies, a unit of ghouls, and a corpse cart, which amounts to (roughly) 10 pts.
lolz.
I just recently got into fantasy and went with the High Elves because I love their fluff and I don't like bad guy armies. I bought the battalion, a dragon prince, and the two mages box and it cost me about $200 (appx). But you've been playing 40k so you're no stranger to overpriced pieces of plastic lol.
Good Luck!


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