# Sell me on Warhammer Fantasy.



## Truth Bearer (Jul 30, 2008)

So I have been into miniature gaming for about 12 years now, but just now finally broke down and got into 40k. I have a lot of friends involved in Fantasy Battles as well, and while I am pliable, there is a certain amount of convincing I am looking for - as well as some good points or even counter points as to why I should or shouldn't get into Fantasy Battles.

I like fantasy games in general, and I think some of the turnoffs of Fantasy Battles are mainly aesthetic, such as the regimented look of everything.

But either way, gimme the pro's and cons - the positives a person who plays and truly enjoys 40k may see in the game. Also, if you all could give me your opinions of different armies, as well, that would be prime.

Danke sehr!


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## Trigger (Mar 12, 2008)

Well, you could collect an army of skirmishers, wood elves maybe? I would say if you find the regimented look a turn off, then a game of regiment wargaming might not be for you! Warhammer is far more tactically challenging, and the lists (to my mind) are far more flexible. You can get a lot of character into a fantasy army.

If you like shooting, you can go Empire, Dwarfs, Elves to a certain extent. If you like prancing around like a girl you can cllect Elves. If you want to hack people into tiny pieces then all the armys will do it!


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## Lord Sinkoran (Dec 23, 2006)

well the big pro is you know people who play fantasy.

Also its a more elite game with more complicated rules. Its more strategic than 40k.


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## Truth Bearer (Jul 30, 2008)

The regimented formations aren't a PROBLEM so much as something I am simply not used to. My first and truest love in tabletop gaming is BattleTech, which is alot of independant units - far more independant moving than even 40k. But that isn't to say I am not capable of a bit of regimental action - and modeling wise I like the idea of posing an entire group rather than one guy... but yeah.

I am a big fan of a strong advance, crushing my enemies beneath my boot. What kind of stuff would I use for such a thing? Perhaps Brittonians? I don't know. Tell me more.


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## Blackhiker (Dec 28, 2007)

For a string advancing army I would suggest one of the following:
Brettonia (there knights are quite strong, but that is an expensive army to go with)
Dwarfs (tough little guys, but slow)
Empire (Well rounded army average in most places)
Lizardmen (I don't know much about them, but Slann mages are POWERFUL)
Orks (they are tough, but they may start fighting each other before getting to the enemy.)
Undead either tomb kings or Vampire Counts (the regular units aren't that strong, but if you outnumber you opponent with them then you will usually win. and the only armies that can add more units to the army during the game.)
Wood elves (mostly skirmishers, but have more powerful units then normal elves.)

These are the armies that would probably fit your style. Hope it helps
What I would suggest now is to go to the games-workshop website and look at the models and see which ones you like the look of.


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## swntzu (Dec 25, 2007)

The previous poster seems to have forgotten one of the most powerful forces within fantasy: Chaos mortals.

It is true that they are due for an update very soon but that shouldn't stop you from having a look at them. The core play style (from what I have seen) is heavy infantry based which sounds like it would suit your style. Chaos lords have the best base statline (barring stupid things like Greater Daemons) in the game as well.


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## Blackhiker (Dec 28, 2007)

Sorry forgot about them. I have never played against them so I don't know anything about them for the most part.


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## Saint7515 (Apr 30, 2008)

So, long-time friend told me one thing: no matter how cool it looks, Fantasy is horrible since everything moves in blocks. EVERYTHING. hafting to worry about flanking movements and not having nearly enough ranged attacks (he heartily plays Tau and Detroyer based Crons' btw) he doesn't particularly care for the game; everything else works for him, but the movement system. That and being forced to wheel your army's marching blocks makes no sense to him, but he never marched before (I think I'd live, but thats both Band and ROTC working for me).

So, from a 3rd party's perspective, if you can get past the movement of the entire game, it looks like a great choice since everything else is peachy!


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## swntzu (Dec 25, 2007)

Saint7515 said:


> So, long-time friend told me one thing: no matter how cool it looks, Fantasy is horrible since everything moves in blocks. EVERYTHING.


You forgot about skirmishers and beastmen herds.

On the contrary, I prefer a game where the movement phase and therefore careful placement of troops is a deciding factor.


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## Truth Bearer (Jul 30, 2008)

A lot of good information here. I will definitely weigh all of this into my decision, once I can afford it anyway... though I am one of those people who just buys everything he needs at once - so research and the like from suggestions here and elsewhere will definately play a big role in my decision.


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## PaleKing (Jul 31, 2008)

I'd offer a couple of points about the issue of regimented troops and 
flanking/movement :- 

WFB is a game that is won and lost in the movement phase. That is very much the 
point of the game - to out-manoeuvre your opponent to the point where you can bring 
a lethal combined charge, or a flanking move that breaks your opponents lines. Of 
course your opponent is trying to do the same to you. So with this in mind I think 
that one or two of the posts above might perhaps be missing the point of the game 
slightly. 

So it's true that regiments of troops form the majority of the figures on the table 
but that can be a pretty cool-looking sight when they are arrayed against each 
other. However - if you don't like the blocks of troops there are plenty of aspects 
of the game that don't fit into that catagory. WFB has plenty of skirmishers; Wood 
Elves are almost entirely skirmishing, as are Beastmen and other armies such as 
Lizardmen and Skaven can field armies made up predominantly of skirmishers. There 
are also, fast cavalry, chariots, flyers, swarms and monsters in loads of armies 
that cut about the battlefield without having to worry about wheeling manoeuvres or 
other regimented aspects of movement.

I love the game and would obviously totally reccommend that you give it a go. 
Collecting a 1000pt force dosn't have to be an onerous task, especially if you go 
for something like Ogre Kingdoms who function with rather few models. Then you can 
give it a try and build up from there. It's a little different from 40K in that the 
object is to out-manoeuvre your opponent rather than to out-blast him.

Regarding which army to go for - I would always suggest that you go for the one 
that captures your imagination the most. If you love the models and you love the 
background material then that is as good a reason to collect them as any as all 
have their strengths and weaknesses.

I'll give you a brief note on each army if it helps:

*Empire* - Men! Think Guard and you are on the right lines. Empire are flexible and 
have elements that feature every aspect of the game. Lists can be written to 
concentrate on combat, missile weapons, cav, war machines, magic, monsters etc etc 
. They have access to it all but are not elite with any of it. They function best 
as a combined-arms force.

*Bretonnia *- Chivalric "Grail Quest" style imagery. Heavy hitters. Lots of knights 
with some cheap missile support and some excellent flying cav too. It's all about 
the charge. A good general will spend a couple of turns positioning the army to 
then deliver a crushing set of combined charges.

*Dwarfs *- Stoic, tough, low movement, reliable and with plenty of war machine 
firepower. No cavalry. Personally I think they are a little dull to play and to 
play against as the lack of movement options and no magic phase cuts out two of the 
phases of play.

*High Elves *- Good at every phase of the game and extremely versatile and flexible 
in the type of army options available. Fast, always strike first in combat, great 
at shooting, good at magic and excellent chariots. Expensive and elite though, and 
Toughness 3 means that they suffer badly in protracted combats. Another 
combined-arms force.

*Wood Elves *- Virtually all skirmishing. Fast and excellent shooting. Hard for the 
opponent to get to grips with. Their lack of ranked-up units means they need to 
pick their combats carefully, however point for point their Dryads have one of the 
finest core-troop profiles in the game. 

*Orcs & Goblins* - Masses of choices within the list so plenty of options to combine 
or max-out on any element of the game. A horde army that uses weight of numbers to 
overcome. Unreliable and low leadership. Plenty of whacky comedic elements to their 
battles as they can end up doing as much damage to themselves as to their enemy. 
Access to a destructive low-cost magic phase.

*Ogre Kingdoms* - Hard-hitting, high movement, high strength, big chargers with magic 
designed to buff their own troops. Cause fear which is obviously great against low 
Ld armies. Low model-count so easy to get onto the table. Great at smashing up big 
tough enemies but can get surrounded and swarmed by horde armies.

*Skaven *- Horde! Expendable cheap troops and some powerful elite characters. Some 
very destructive war machines. Fast infantry but no cavalry or flyers. Lots of 
variety and options including plenty of dirty tricks. Once they start running they 
tend to keep going.

*Vampire Counts* - Currently extremely powerful. Very reliable and forgiving. Some of 
the most powerful characters in the game. Mixture of expendable hordes and elites. 
Killer cavalry. Very magic-heavy, no shooting attacks. Has the ability to raise new 
units into the game or to add to existing ones.

*Tomb Kings *- the other undead. TKs function rather differently to other armies and 
are therefore perhaps not the ideal beginner army. The magic phase works 
differently and success in the magic phase is the difference to whether the army 
does what you want to or not. If your opponent shuts down your magic the TKs are 
sitting ducks. If you have dominance in the magic phase the TKs have loads of 
potentially fun and effective manoeuvres available. Access to units of light 
chariots and useful magic items.

*Warriors of Chaos* - Chaos is currently split into three. Mortals are making do with 
a "get you by" list available from WD or GW online until the release of their new 
book in November. The mortal elements of the old Chaos list is called Warriors of 
Chaos and is currently a very basic and limiting list. I'm sure that the book will 
address that in Nov... The other elements of Chaos are:

*Daemons of Chaos *- Some extremely lethal combinations available. Pretty elite force 
with powerful magic available. Some people are not too comfy with the mixing up of 
the four powers in the way that the book does. Single-god armies are possible but 
have tactical limitations.

*Beasts of Chaos* - Lots of skirmishers, mages that can hit hard in combat, some big 
monsters and hard-hitting beasts, make use of ambushing rules, good chariots but no 
war machines.

*Dark Elves* - Fast and fragile; in the same way as other Elves are. Repeater 
crossbows and bolt throwers can put a frightening number of bolts into the enemy 
force. Assassins are deadly! Access to monsters and just about everything else the 
game has to offer. Can be hard for the opponent to get to grips with.

*Lizardmen *- A little bit of everything with probably only war machines and chariots 
not really featuring. Plenty of viable skirmisher choices plus monsters and some 
powerful character options. Excellent magic.

So - hopefully this wee run down will help to shed a little light on how the armies 
function. All have strengths and all have weaknesses but that is all part of the 
fun. WFB is a great game with endless options and I'd reccomend you give it a try.


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## Truth Bearer (Jul 30, 2008)

Really liking the sounds of some of this stuff - especially after watching a few games of Fantasy at the local GW yesterday. It's just frustrating that so many factions interest me! In 40k it's easy - humans or bust... but here, alot more sounds... fun.


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## Othiem (Apr 20, 2008)

Recently started playing both 40k and Fantasy at the same time. Currently preferring Fantasy by a wide margin. Here's a few of the important differences.

The Magic Phase:
Between movement and shooting. Wide variety of damage spells and utility spells that all have interesting uses, can completely change the course of the game. The opposing player's option to use a limited pool of dice to prevent spell casting can turn the whole phase into a pokeresque bluffing game to make sure the spells you really want to go through do go through.

Psychology:
If you haven't already, take a look at the psychology section of the WFB rulebook. Leadership tests and the many events that can cause them, combined with a far greater range of Ld values than 40k make psycology something you have to consider. For example, If a unit breaks and runs away, this forces every nearby unit to check to see if they will run away, and so forth, which can ripple down your line and cause your whole army to break. 

Static combat resolution:
Many factors go into who wins a combat, not simply which side caused more wounds. This takes some of the randomness out of combat since you can control more factors and choose combats that favor your troops

Block movement:
It's way faster moving a block of 20 troops on a single movement tray than moving 10 models individually. Wheeling is only a little annoying the first few times, then you get the hang of it. Like others in this thread have said, movement really is the defining phase of Fantasy. And there's just something cool about seeing your blocks of troops making a solid wall like out of some medievil war move. The only annoying thing about fantasy movement is it is much harder to use the interesting terrain features you can use in 40k.

Charge reactions:
The charged unit actually has options, for instance they can just run away, drawing a unit further into their lines. Baiting charges to open up flank countercharges is a huge part of the game. However this is balanced by the possibility of fleeing units causing your whole line to break.

Shooting hit modifiers:
Shooting does not grant a cover save. Instead units in cover cause the shooter to take a modifier on their to hit roll. This makes cover far more powerful than it is in 40k. 

Both games are great, but Fantasy just feels like I have more control over the game. You really can't go wrong with either of them.

OT to PaleKing
I gotta defend my little Dwarves in your analysis. Yeah they only have movement 3. But with their immunity to march blocking, when your lines close with the enemy, it's now that Dwarves that are the more mobile force. You still won't get the charge off, but you are in a stronger position for deciding which unit will get charged, and Dwarves are made to get charged. Sadly you're right about the magic phase, some kind of ability to cast temporary runes during the phase would go a long way for the army.


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## Beaky (Dec 15, 2006)

i play both fantasy and 40k and love both of them. what's already been posted is all exactly right. a few things that have been missed out above:
-magic can be dispelled, unlike 40k when to stop pychic powers you need special wargear.
-you get a much wider range of unit types (instead of tanks, jump infantry etc., you get monsters, mounts, infantry, chariots, skirmishers etc.)
-you can get a lot of special rules on a single model sometimes, it helps to write them to down so you don't forget them.
-no cover svs whatsoever
-there is a lot less shooting, units are either CC-orientated, with no bows or crossbows etc., or a shooting orientated, with longbows and muskets. you will do well to find a unit that can do both, and still take a lot of them.
-virtually everything has a much lower strength in Fantasy, compared to 40k, for instance, a swordsman is still S3, but there is no model with S10, 9, or 8 that i am aware of.
-shooting has a much lower S. the typical S for shooting is 3.
-you get a lot more high Ws and Bs.


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

The biggest gaming difference is that 40k is straight up straight down no suprises what you see is what you fight. Fantasy however is sneaky and cunning, magic items, spells hidden characters, fancy maneauvers all come together to make a game that twists and turns from player turn to player turn.


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