# can't decide on warhammer army.



## axmel (Jul 18, 2011)

Hey, this is my first post so i hope it's on the right forum, but anyways. I have just started playing fantasy a few months ago and so far things have been pretty fun. The only problem is right now I play wood elves and while I picked them for there look and there fluff I'm not really liking them on the table top. So what i did was i went back to looking at all the other armys and tried to find one that fits my play style better. I should say that i have been playing 40K for 2 years now and they entire time I've been playing space wolves. They are an army i completely love and I've always used them as a very assault heavy army. Looking at the army that i thought matched that style of assault and also versatility I decided on either empire, high elves, orcs and goblins or Warriors of chaos. I ruled out high elves because so many people at my games workshop play them, and them empire because they didn't have enough heavy assault and I didn't really like there look. I liked orcs and goblins for there look and there crazy play style( even though it was different) I also liked warriors of chaos for there great armor and strong attack, even though they don't have the shooting of my wolves. There is someone will to buy all my wood elves for 100 dollars( i payed 265 for them new) but he is also willing to throw in a box of chaos knights, fifteenth warriors and a chaos lord. As well as a extra set of marauders and a hell cannon that he already owns if i can paint all the wood elves. Or he can just pay me 200 dollars and i can buy an orcs and goblins brigade. I really can't decide and was wondering if anyone had some advice on the two armys and how they think it will work with my preferred play style. Or any army you think would be better for my play style. Thanks!


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## Ratvan (Jun 20, 2011)

To be honest with Warhammer fantasy unless you have a dedicated shooting army (Wood Elves, Empire Gunline ect ect) then the shooting phase is going to provide little joy with the exception of a few casulties, which to be honest are more of a bonus then the basis of solid tactic.

Orcs and Goblins I have just started and they are without a doubt the most entertaining, frustrating and joyous army I have played in the 15 odd years in been into fantasy.

The choice of troops are astonishing and you can mix and match or go a fluffy route with your army. The combat phase (when your army FINALLY stops bickering and fighting amongst itself) can be deadly even with the standard Orc Boy he can strike with a S4 hit in the first round of combat, upgrade him to a big un thats stength 5 paired with a toughness of 4 and a few choice spells of the waaagh and you got a attrition unit with serious clout.

Warriors of Chaos are a very very good army (I have three regular opponants who play them) due to the fact the Chaos Warrior is a beast in combat however along with most elite armies they do tend to suffer from small numbers but those numbers can easily make their points back and more.

WoC also have access to arguably the best protected sorcerers in the game (damn them casting spells with armour) and this can more then make up for the lack of missile troops if you choose your spell order correctly.

To be honest I love greenskins so so much I've come back to them for the fourth time, but I would say that probably Chaos Warriors would be a good starting army of even Lizardmen as they have solid core troops with Saurus, fantastic mages with the Slann and nice big gribblies!! Plus their shooting phase can be fantastic. 

I think that High Elves were a good choice to drop as they are very much alike to the Glass Hammer, it takes careful planning and precision to use correctly (Glass Cannon as you're a 40k player) and make a mistake and your army will punish you for it


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## blackspine (Jun 9, 2010)

Holy cow.
The WOC deal is absurdly good. let me get this straight:

100 dollars.
1 Sorcerer lord
15 warriors
1 box of Chaos

and if you paint your Wood elves, which can't be TOO numerous, 

1 hell cannon
? # of marauders

That is a fantastic deal.

Playstyle, WOC are very much 'march, magic and stomp the enemy's face in'. They don't have a terrible amount of shooting, but a Hellcannon can ruin anyone's day.

There's a lot of great builds out there, just look around.

While not as flexible as your white wolves, the WoC Core 'warrior' is the standard for 'bad *ss' core soldier. I can't think of any that comes close. He has it all for CC. Great armor, good options (even magic banners), great WS/ I, 2 attacks and decent T/S. If you're used to taking hits, this is the army for you.

O&G are good, just be warned, there's a TON of models in most O&G armies and the cost is absurd for many fully built options. WoC have less models and are more often than not, the most cost effective army in WHFB (that's not in the isle of blood...)

Best of luck.


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## blackspine (Jun 9, 2010)

Ratvan said:


> I think that High Elves were a good choice to drop as they are very much alike to the Glass Hammer, it takes careful planning and precision to use correctly (Glass Cannon as you're a 40k player) and make a mistake and your army will punish you for it


I don't think High Elves are 'glass cannons' at all. Yes, they have a mediocre/ low T, but they have access to some of the most lethal killers in units and very dependable and under-priced formations.

Speed of Asyruan makes up for any 'mistakes' a general made. 
Near infallible magic dominance : lore of life access.
amazing magic items
well rounded 'phases' and fast army 

just some of the reasons I don't think they're a 'glass cannon'. Anyone staring down the throat of White lions or Swordmasters will support that.


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## Ratvan (Jun 20, 2011)

Maybe the High Elf players that I been playing against don't use their armies to the full potential as I have never had that much difficulty in defeating this army.

Agreed Swordsmasters and White lions are extremely good at slaughtering troops in combat but as all elves they are very squishy and can easily get swamped and ripped apart after their strikes.

In my opinion I just dont see them as highly competative in this edition or a good starting army other then the fact that you get some good points in the IoB boxset and cheap on ebay


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## olderplayer (Dec 11, 2009)

I did an analysis of the four most recent Indy GT's in our region (no special characters and no Book of Hoeth allowed). If high elves are allowed to run special characters, then they can become a very strong, top tier army (with Teclis in a bunker unit with banner of the world on a BSB and other special characters), but that style of play is not very fun to play and not very fun to play against. Ironically, wood elves are actually more competitive if run very differently and played very differently than they were in 7th edition (lore of life castors, treeman, glade guard hordes). 

Absent being able to run a few broken items (Book of Hoeth) and characters (Teclis), High elves are stuggling in 8th edition. A good player can have a winning record with high elves but not reliably. A lore of life lvl 4 mage with the two magic items that protects the mage from non-magical close combat attacks and makes all magical weapons in close combat mundane can sometimes win the game (especially if the wizard gets off dwellers and casts consistently and reliably flesh to stone on a special unit like swordsmen, white lions, or phoenix guard). Also, high elves have good options for magic defense. However, toughness elf makes such armies very vulnerable to shooting and magic and easily killed. While the ability to always strike first and re-roll with hit with higher or equal initiative was thought to help high evles in 8th edition, the ability of opposing units to remain steadfast (lower cost per model), step up and give supporting attacks means that elite high elf armies will simply not have the numbers in many instances to survive extended combat against horde armies. Compare high elves with dark elves, dark elves have an undercosted monster in a hydra, better scouts in shades, better fast cav in dark riders, better shooting in repeater crossbowmen (lower cost, double shot and armour piercing even with light armour and shields), cheaper core spearman, comparable mages and magic (sac dagger lvl 4 can overcome high elf magic defense), a cauldron of blood (which high elves do not have), slightly better for the price heavy cav in cold one knights (at least with BSBs), and equal or better lords and master set ups (due to magic items like pendant of khaleth, 1+ armour save, and whip of agony). Thus, dark elf armies will reliably beat high elf armies unless high elves are allowed to use special characters and a few broken tricks. 

I really like warriors and Mark of Tzeentch with the common magic items in the rule book and war shrines can make that army quite formidable. They can be really fun to play. Warriors are doing quite well in our tourneys (behind lizardmen and dark elves and skaven). But the army really lacks a lot of options and the lords and heroes are very expensive. That makes the army very vulnerable to gunline armies (empire and dwarves) that have sufficient shooting to kill a lot of troops before they can get into combat and vulnerable to armies with a lot of cheap flanking options that cause impact hits or their equivalent. For example, an orcs and goblin army with snotling pump wagons and mangler squiqs and wolf chariots can throw a lot of these cheap units at the expensive, elite warriors units and kill far more than their points worth anmd leave the units so depleted that savage orc units and trolls can then clean up the remainder of the army. Without normal shooting, warriors simply do not have a defense for such an army. Shooting options are really limited and that makes the army very vulnerable. Thus, warriors of chaos are best run in elite units with limited supporting units (warhouds are cheap throw away diverters and screeners but simply do not last and are not effective) and lot of magic banners and protective items. The one viable option for a large horde unit, chaos marauders with great weapons, are slightly overpriced for what they can do and warriors of chaos are quite expensive. 

While I think that the new Orcs and Goblins army book has flaws, it is a fun and challenging army to play with a lot of playable options that make the army interesting to play and sufficient to avoid getting bored with the army. I understand the concept of common magic items and limiting the special army-specific magic items, but I'd like to shoot the idoit that took away the most interesting and fun OnG magic items in the old book and replaced them with overpriced and limited-8-items of which maybe one or two are even playable. I kind of like the new animosity rules (makes the army now more reliable). The repricing of orcs, big uns upgrades, and cav and chariot units made this a much more playable and competitive army. I like night goblin shamans (when used right with orc shamans) and the new lores in the book can be quite effective. Thus, whereas Orc and Goblins were one of the worst armies to play in 7th edition under the prior rule book, they have become an army that can win in 8th edition and have a consistently winning record, even if they are not top tier. It is true that the numbers make the army more expensive to play (same problem with skaven) but it is well worth it and one can buy old skull pass models and convert them accordingly (orcs with two hand weapons with a bit of war paint make fine savage orcs). Get two doom divers (awesome with the redirect ability), two snotling pump wagons, a larger unit of night goblins and with a few fanatics, a large unit of savage orcs, maybe some boar boyz, some trolls (buy cheaper or used models and convert them), some squiqs (for mangler squip conversions or to run a squiq herder unit), and some characters. In our area, people have been buying Tomb Kings chariots and converting them into wolf chariots by buying some used wolf riders units. Consider a unit of black orcs as well.

I like empire as an army and it is an above average army with lots of options, but its core units are kind of limited (state troops are modestly overpriced for their characteristics) and the army has become somewhat predictable (lots of war machines- cannons and mortars primarily- with engineers, a lvl 4 castor with lore of life, an arch lechtor likely on a war altar, a steam tank, maybe flagellants). The combination of magic and shooting means this army has the ability to beat any other army with some luck in 8th edition (and if well played). Because of the complete set of options (excellent magic options and defense with warriors priests and arch lechtors, war machines second only to dwarf machines with runes, and lots of troop and unit options), this is one of the armies I like to play (daemons of chaos, orcs and goblins, dark elves and warriors of chaos are my other armies). One concern with empire is not knowing when (maybe next year?) a new army book is likely to come out and how that will change the army. The current army was designed in the context of sixth and seventh edition (like the prayers of sigmar) and the army book is kind of dated now. 

If not too late, look at the three top tier armies in our area in dark elves (better options and more flexibility than high elves), daemons (flamers, bloodletter hordes, heralds of khorne and heralds of tzeentch make this army go), and lizardmen (excellent tough and strong units, cold one leadership tests, best castor in the game in a Slann, excellent scouts and skirmish skink units, and interesting monsters and beasts with salamanders). A lizardmen army is a very flexible army (with poisoned shooting and some of the best magic offense and defense with the Slann but also able to go toe to toe with temple guard units) and has a newer army book (meaning it is likely to remain top tier).


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## axmel (Jul 18, 2011)

I mostly just play pick-up games with the people at my games workshop or otherwise participate in campaigns with my friends, and as such am not very concerned with the competitiveness of an army as far as tournaments go. Nor do I like to play or play against very competitive lists. It is also for this reason that any army I play has to be one I really enjoy the look of as well as the fact that I love the fluff for my armys and am constantly reading black library novels. 
As such i am not very interested in dark elves or daemons, However the Lizardmen do sound interesting. On the other hand i already own the new Orcs and Goblins book, and if I sell my wood elves the guy is going to give me his old warriors of chaos book in exchange for my wood elf army book. Also I had 2000 points of wood elves, spending the 100 dollars on a WoC battalion will I be getting roughly that many points back?
I'm going to give Lizardmen a closer look, but I think I'm going to go with WoC just because it's such a good deal, plus the fact that i love elite armys and there a force i can really get behind(Same goes for the lizardmen though) I think this deal will be good, mostly because i really can't put a lot of money into fantasy on account of I'm only 14 and don't have a job.(i can get maybe one unit every two weeks.) Anyways, thanks for all the advice!


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## olderplayer (Dec 11, 2009)

Makes sense. Warriors are a good casual play army, very forgiving and can hit really hard. It matters where you are and how you are able to pay. Also, you need to know how many points your games will be at. Warriors play better at 2400 to 2500 points and above. Trading wood elves that you paid $265 for (assuming retail) for about $200 of stuff is pretty fair, and if you paint, the stuff he's offering is worth more than $265. Everything being offered is likely playable. If your parents (my son is 16 and started at 14) let you and you are in the US, then a box of knights plus 15 warriors plus a chaos lord (I assume on foot, different story if archaon) and the book can be bought used online or used for about or slightly less than $100. 

A war shrine is simply a chariot with steeds that you can buy used (on ebay from an army or unit no longer fashionable) and convert adding some warriors from something else. You'll probably want a war shrine or two (depending on the points level ) playing warriors. 

A decent unit of warriors is 18 to 24 (15 are playable if you are playing smaller battles at 1000 to 1500 points). 

Marauders (on foot with great weapons) are cheap but need to be in larger units (30 min and over 50 in many instances in 8th editions). 

Chaos knights are best run with 6 to 10 models (a box is five) and are really good if run with mounted characters (boosts their armour saves) in the unit and blessed with the war shrines. The biggest problem knights face is running into a cheap/steadfast unit that tar pits them and holds them up forever because there are too many cheap models to kill to cut through them. Thus, the unit needs to match up with someone or hold something up that is ultimately killed by warriors or something else with more attacks. 

Hellcannons plus marauders (I assume on foot) might be worth close to $100 if there are enough marauders (like 30 or more on foot). Marauders are kind of squishy and I prefer warriors to marauders. 

You'll definitely need a couple of sorcerors (mounted and on foot, some like a lvl 4 with a disc and use the chaos lord as a BSB).


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## axmel (Jul 18, 2011)

Okay, so I'm getting 40 marauders, 40 warriors, 10 knights, a sorcerer and a chaos lord. As well as a hellcannon and 10 war hounds and the army book. I think that's somewhere around 2500 points, Which is 500 points more then I had. it's a great deal to me and I can't wait to start painting my new warriors(I'm going for the classic black, or possibly red) 

Blood for the blood god!


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## olderplayer (Dec 11, 2009)

Well, that's excellent! It is a great deal for that many models. 

You don't need more than 10 war hounds (two units of five are enough to act as cheap drops and as screening and redirection units, they are sacrificial) and 10 knights most of the time is the most you can afford or want to run. Ideally, at 2500 points, you may find you will want 50+ marauders but you can use unit fillers for such a large unit (make a filler that takes up four slots and looks like the mark the unit has on it). Unless at an official GW event, unit fillers and cheap conversions are commonly used and accepted in play. 40 warriors is a good number unless you want to run some warriors as chaos chosen conversions (chaos chosen + two war shrines is a very strong combo). At 2500, you probably will need one more castor and one more hero/lord. I like to mount my characters in the chaos knights unit, so mounted characters is something to consider. It should be noted that a character on a disc counts as cavalry (same troop type as the chaos knights) and a mark of tzeentch lord on disc and/or lvl 4 castor on disc is a fun and popular option right now. A disc is easy to model (just a 40mm based plus a good stiff and short metal pole and some well carved wood or thick metal disc will do if not at an official GW event). A character model on foot can be designed to be put on the disc, that way you can have the character mounted on disc and on foot, for flexibility. 

Also, look at how the models are kitted. I often kit my warriors with half handweapon and shield (Mark of Tzeentch plus HW & shields is a common combo) and half halberds and shields (mark of tzeentch or mark of khorne) and use the models in the front row. It is pretty standard to put great weapons on the marauders in 8th edition, but, in 7th, flails were more commonly used. Some people do play handweapon and shield marauders to make the unit more resilient but paying for shields (given the low point cost) is a marginal proposition. With a larger unit, hitting harder is often more important, especially with a lot of T4 and some T5 units and characters out there. 

As you build the army up, consider adding:
2 war shrines (no official GW model, so can be anything on a chariot base, but a chariot converted with some chaos warriors on it is a good starting points)
lords/heroes/sorcerors mounted on chaos steeds 
lords/heroes/sorcerors mounted on discs (one lord/hero and one sorc)
6 to 10 chaos marauder horsemen (fast cav give you some flank protection, redirection and bait and flee ability and can run down light skirmishers)
10+ marauder additional infantry
10+ warrior infantry (you may find marauders die too fast and want an all warrior army)
Consider eventually a unit of 8 to 12 chaos ogres with great weapons and chaos armour (buy cheap plastic ogres from ogre kingdoms armies and convert then)
Consider eventually a unit of 8 to 12 chaos trolls (buy and convert sometime to trolls, don't buy the GW chaos models-too expensive) with a model converted into Throgg (only run this unit with the leadership in chaos knights nearby and/or with Throgg in the unit; chaos trolls and Throgg have a special vomit attack that is S5 with no armour save that is devastating against heavy armoured troops and they get blessings from the eye of the gods table every time that get 2+ regenerations in a phase)
Consider a unit of 6 dragon ogres
Note: ogres are cheap in terms of cost per point due to plastic models but trolls and dragon ogres are pretty expensive. Because these models are immune to killing blow, they can be very helpful in screening and going after units with killing blow that can kill off your expensive chaos knights. 

You'll find that two warshrines blessing gifts of the gods from the eye of the gods table on a unit with mark of tzeentch and a character or champion with the cheap magic item favour of the gods can be quite potent.


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