# Want to get started in Fantasy from 40k



## moswantd407 (Jul 7, 2011)

Hello I am interested in getting started in fantasy from 40k where I collected massive amounts of space marines. The armies I am between High elves and Vampire counts, but I am remotely considering Dark Elves. I hear Fantasy is more balanced, but I still don't want to pick up the "Tau" of fantasy. I want a fun army to use, but I also want it to be competitive as everyone else I play with is as well. I like High elves because of dragons, cavalry, and magic, while i like Vampire counts for their magic, undead, and CAPES! Which one of these should I pick that's competitive, and not boring to play. Any suggested units I should pick up/ any staples I should get for my first purchases to have fun and be competitive while I am building up my army and learning my personal preferences? i am looking to you veteran fantasy players for advice before I begin my playtesting phase.


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## Barnster (Feb 11, 2010)

High elves are easier to learn how to play than VCs and are also far more competitive. 

If you go with HE IoB is a good buy if you can trade the skaven to another player. If not pick up the battalion. the key units in the HE army are spearmen and archers. supported by swordmasters, pheonix guard and dragon princes

VCs rely on ghouls and skeles, supported by grave guard, and rare creatures like the terrorgheist or vargulf, again the battalion is a good start, but if you are just playing friends and not in GW or tournies I would urge you to look at Mantics undead range very affordable and nicer troops for skeles ghouls and zombies IMO

Both rely on really strong magic undead to keep in the fight and elves for offensive punch

Tau of fantasy is wood elves..


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## neilbatte (Jan 2, 2008)

I suppose it depends on what your looking for overall.
High elves are a top tier army that has a fair few competative builds, Most of the models are available in plastic which makes a real difference when collecting (and depending on how you plan to build the force there is plenty of cheap island of blood stuff floating around)
The gameplay for High Elves is fairly forgiving as a starter army too which helps the only real downside to HE is that they are slightly more challenging to paint to a really good standard than undead although generally there will be less to paint.

The Undead are a mid /mid high tier force and can be competative when played well but they can get really expensive especially when you factor in te extra's you need for raising with magic (And the starter set is the biggest pile of gash for your £ out there in my opinion as its just a random collection of models)
The saving grace for Undead is how easy it is to paint a coherant force to a good standard providing you have a good bone recipe and the fluff is awesome.

Dark Elves can be viscious with access to good monsters that ofset Elven low toughness and are by far one of the most agile of forces in the game with good damage output.
Painting wise they are more forgiving than High Elves as they use a darker pallette but again only half at most of the army is plastic so the elites can really eat in to your budget as they are mostly finecast.


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## moswantd407 (Jul 7, 2011)

TY very much I was leaning towards HE myself I like their models. How is HE compared to brettonia competitively? An average game of fantasy conists of how many points? For an average game how many spearmen, archers, special/ rare units should I look at? The base of the army is easy to construct I imagine , but what HQ's/ rare/special are worth/ necessary in getting. Are HE the space marines of fantasy that constitute a vast majority of players? appreciate all of your help!


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## olderplayer (Dec 11, 2009)

Fantasy is different from 40K in that the tactics involve much more movement and linear battle tactics. A "shooty" high elf will not win and has no chance in 8th edition. This will be longer but will give you my perspective as someone who owns and has family that plays 10 of the 15 “base” armies in WHFB. High elves and vampire counts, if played right with a well-designed army, will both give you a competitive army that can be fun to play and play against, but neither army is top tier right now. 

I'll discuss high elves first in the remainder of this post. I wanted to play high elves and bought all the stuff to play high elves in 8th edition up to 5000 point armies, but have continued instead to favour my dark elf, daemons of chaos, and warriors of chaos armies and I have some friends that love high elves, so this is from that perspective. 

With the new Island of Blood starter kit and new plastic models, high elf armies are cheaper to construct and play than vampire counts. You can also pick up used high elf models cheaper on the Internet and locally because they have been chosen and played more often in the past. High elves were initially thought to be a top tier army in 8th edition when the new 8th edition book came out but have turned out to be less competitive than expected absent certain "tricky" builds that are not that fun to play with or against (Teclis in a larger unit in a fortress with a BSB with world banner). They are average and can win some but are not top tier and will struggle against certain top tier armies (dark elves, lizardmen, skaven, ogres) and absent the ability to take special characters. If they have a lvl 4 mage with lore of life or lore of shadow and get certain spells off at the right time they can win, but, if not, they will struggle often against certain armies. If they have access to special characters, then high elf armies become more viable and much more competitive but you need to consider whether to play some of those "broken" combinations some people are playing and whether that is really a "good" game. 

High elves were initially thought to benefit from the new 8th edition rules allowing high elves to strike first even with great weapons and to always re-roll to hit if attacking something with equal or lower initiative (as long a the target model does not have ASF). However, 8th edition also allows for models in units to step up to replaced models killed and hit back and allows for “supporting” attacks. Thus, whereas high elf units could hit first and limit the number of attacks back in 7th edition but killing some models in the opposing front rank, they will get full attacks back from larger, ranked units in 8th edition. Also, units with more ranks can remain steadfast to break tests and, thus, if in range of the BSB and general, larger cheap rank and file model units are tough to beat and able to wear down and outlast smaller, more expensive high elf units. 
Also, 8th edition rules favour long-range war machines with no BS shooting, such as cannons and stone throwers by eliminating the need to guess ranges (making shooting far more accurate) and by replacing virtual line of sight with true line of sight and not introducing a cover save. This means dwarf and empire armies with cannons are more common and viable and skaven warp-lightning cannons are more threatening. Additionally, a cannon hit on a monster hits all the models on in the unit, meaning that a character mounted on a dragon will take two hits one on the character and one on the mount. Certain 8th edition magic can also easily kill characters and monsters. Thus, large monsters like dragons are too vulnerable to be played in the absence of some terrain that fully blocks line of sight and some obstacles and impassible terrain to stop cannon ball bounces. 
The advantages of high elves are: excellent special and named characters (if allowed by tourney or house rules); good magic offense and defense (including magic items and banners to boost power dice and take away opposing power dice; excellent magic items to make characters hard to kill and protect units and boost magic; options to take all common magic lores and a decent high elf lore; and a +1 boost on dispel rolls and a good signature spell in drain magic to increase the casting cost of opposing magic); the ability to always strike first with high initiative giving a good chance of re-rolling to hit; and great special infantry in phoenix guard, white lions and sword masters (but expensive per model). 
Their problems with high elves are: high cost per model; low toughness; relatively low strength with the exception of white lions; poor resilience with the exception of phoenix guard; low S shooting; and a lack of diverse and competitive rare options for the 8th edition environment. High elf infantry cost a lot more but, with the exception of phoenix guard, die just as fast as much cheaper infantry. High elf core are good but priced too high for S3 and T3 models with limited armour options and 8th edition forces you to spend 25% of your army points on core. High elf archers and sea guard struggle to kill a lot with shooting with S3 single shots. Spearmen are about 1 to 1.5 points too expensive when compared with dark elf spearmen; archers are probably 2 or more points too expensive (compare with dark elf crossbowmen that have multi-shot and AP shooting and better armour); and sea guard are similarly overpriced for what they can do. 
In comparison with dark elves, high elves lack a model like the cauldron of blood (gives an option for a BSB with a ward save, that is stubborn and makes certain units stubborn, and can bless one unit each turn with either a 5+ ward, additional attack, or killing blow), have no monster comparable to the hydra (with fire breath weapon, handler attacks, and regen), and lack the multi-shot option of repeater cross bows that make dark elf scouts (shades) superior, dark elf fast cav (dark riders) superior and dark elf core shooting infantry (repeater crossbowmen) superior to high elf equivalent units.


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## olderplayer (Dec 11, 2009)

Vampire Counts are a different type of army. If they lose combat, they will begin to crumble (take additional wounds based on the amount by which they lose combat) but do not break and flee. If they lose their general, they can start to crumble. So they require some skill and careful deployment. 

One winning build is to focus on ghouls as core and a mix of magic oriented vampires with grave guard in larger formations with a mix of other specialty units (blood coach, corpse cart, dire wolves). Another winning build is ghouls for core and a cav-oriented "deathstar" unit with a regen BSB banner and fighting vampires with some casting abilities. 
With the reduced benefits of fear in 8th edition as compared with 7th edition, some vampire units, such as zombies and skeletons, are too costly in terms of points. Additionally, the new step up, supporting attack, and steadfast rules have made black knight and blood knight units less effective (although still viable). Also, the structure of the magic rules and winds of magic have made vampires magic different and less advantageouos in 8th edition in comparison with 7th edition. Thus, whereas vampire counts were clearly a top tier army in 7th edition, possibly the most advantaged army in certain tourney environments, they are still competitive in 8th edition but not winning nearly as much or winning as reliably. 

There are rumours of a new Vampire army book out early in 2012 and a recent addition to the army in White Dwarf added some models/units to the army. Games Workshop seems to have a stated policy that units/models playable in the most recent army book will still remain in the new army book and be playable but that is no guarantee that the currently favoured army builds will remain as viable in a new army book. Given the changes in Tomb Kings in the new army book, it is expected that the cost of skeletons will be substantially reduced such that skellies will be more playable as core models and the focus on grave guard as special units will likely remain. Also, the points costs of cav models will likely be reduced, given that cav units suffered under 8th edition rules. However, expect a drastic reduction in the magic items available (may be difficult with vampires) and vampire magic lores to conform more to the 8th edition common lores in style and focus (possibly with a lore attribute that regrows units when one successfully casts augments on friendly units, as was done with Tomb Kings). I would expect that the black coach rules will change to conform to 8th edition and the model will possibly be designed to be two different possible rare models. I would similarly expect to see a modified corpse cart still playable. Finally, expect Games Workshop to emphasize monster rare options (which are not necessarily playable in 8th edition) as they did with in all three of the new 8th edition army books (Orcs and Goblins, Tomb Kings, and Ogre Kingdoms). The focus in a new army book will likely be more on selecting fighting units and making the army better in combat with magic augments but probably less effective or powerful in terms of using magic to cerate new units and continually regrow units and less able to choose magic items by limiting the number available and/or increasing the points costs of favored items such as banner of barrows, drakenhoff banner, black periapt, helm of commandment, blood drinker, and flayed hauberk and a redesign on the vampiric powers (more limited or put in as options for vampires to take within a list). 

While 8th edition and the new 8th edition army books appear to be more balanced, Games Workshop appears to be favouring the focus on balanced armies that rely on common magic items in the rules book, army-specific magic rules and lores that are consistent with the common magic rules and lores, and making the different army books more alike, than different, in terms of how they play and their special rules while still retaining some of the fluff and special units in each book.


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## Azezel (May 23, 2010)

High Elves...

We have _Dragons_. We have _Wizards_ riding _Dragons_. What more do you want.

Er. More seriously.

All High Elves have a special rule: Speed of Asuryan. That means that, regardless of initiative they Always Strike First (ASF). In addition, if the Elves' initiative is equal to or higher than the enemy's, they reroll to-hit.

This is not nearly so powerful as sounds, since elves are weak and have thin armour, but it is cool, and very flavourful.

We have good stats, even basic core troops are WS/BS4 I5 Ld8, and it only goes up from there. We also have movement 5 across the board.

Elves typically rely on Great Weapons. Great Weapons give the weilder +2 strength, but normally make them Always Strike Last (ASL) - however, The Speed of Asuryan overrules that so they ASF even with Great Weapons.

The High Elf force is actually one of the least cookie-cutter armies in the game right now. No two people agree on just what the ideal list is, and in fact, most people differ significantly. That's nice.

However, there are some common elements.

Your typical High elf army is led by a Level 4 High Elf Mage.

Like All High Elf Magi, he has an extra+1 to Dispel (for +5 total) which is very very useful. He has good leadership (9) and like all elves, he moves fast and has good initiative, with Always Strike first.

High Elf Mages may choose from _nine_ Lores of Magic. More than any other army in the game. They may use their own Lore of High Magic, or any of the eight Lores in the main rulebook.

(Most armies have access to only a few core Lores, some have their own Lore as well or instead. Only Ellves have their own Lore AND access to all eight core Lores)

High Elves also have some of the best wizard-enhancing magic items in the game, such as the silver Wand which grants an extra spell, and the Banner of Sorcery which adds an aditional d3 Power Dice to our pool, making for a very strong Magic Phase.


High Elf combat characters are not the best in the game, but have a number of key advantages.

Unlike anyone else, Elves may wield Great Weapons (+2 Strength) without the initiative penalty. In fact, even with a Great Weapon, Elves Always Strike First - that means not only do Elf characters hit hard, they hit first. With the ability to hit first, reroll to-hit, to-wound and make enemies reroll successful saves (armour and invul) an Elf character can be extremely lethal in a duel with another character.

Since a Great Weapon is so useful to us, our Characters almost never nead a Magic Weapon, which frees up points for other magic items, of which we have a lot of good ones.


High Elf Core Troops are normally a large block of spearmen or several small units of Archers, or a blend. All our core troops have excellent WS and BS Always Strike First and usually re-roll to-hit, allowing them to go toe-to-toe with even the elite troops of other armies. Elf spearmen and Seaguard always fight with one rank more than any other army's Spearmen allowing for a huge volume of attacks.

Our core troops also have high Leadership (8). Elf spearmen with the spell Mindrazor (use Leadership instead of strength to wound) make other armies cry for their mummies.


High Elf Special however, is where we truely shine.

First, unlike any other army in the game, we can field more than t of the same kind of Special and Rare units. Hell yeah.

Swordmasters are like an elf-shaped buzzsaw. WS6, STR5, I5, two attacks, Always Strike First. See that hoard of badguys. Boom, gone. Next.

White Lions. Yeah, that's right, they're lion-strangling lumberjack Elves. Strength SIX! Stubborn with a 3+ save Vs shooting. Our go-to Monster Killers.

Phoenix Guard. Four. Plus. Ward. In fantasy, Ward (Invul) saves are taken as well as Armour. These guys have 5+ armour and if that fails they still have that 4+ ward. Only Strength four but with that Ward, add in the Banner of the World Dragon (unit is utterly immune to magic) and you have an anvil that will survive anything.

Dragon Princes may just be the bbest heavy Cavalry in the game. 2+ armour AND 2+ ward against flamming attacks (including cannons - yes, cannon balls just bounce of these guys), Elven Steeds (faster than other horses, and twice as elven!) Two attacks at WS5/I6 Always Strike First.



High Elf Rare units are all about Great Eagles.

To quote from my last opponant 'Those Eagles aren't strong, but they're _so_ annoying!'

Yes. Yes they are, that's how you know I'm using them right. Whether it's hunting war machines, blocking marchers, preventing charges or just getting the hell in the other guy's way, Eagles are there.




High elves are not a top-tier army, but they are hugely fun to play. They have a massive list of funky tricks and really reward the technical playstyle.

Of the models in Island of Blood, only the Swordmasters and Mage will get much use. Seaguard, Reavers and the Prince on gryphon are really sub-par units.


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## moswantd407 (Jul 7, 2011)

Dark elves do sound cool, but not as fun to paint. High elves are cool, but then again I dont like getting schooled by power players and would like to hold my own. I had no idea what I was really choosing game play-wise i am as fresh to fantasy as it gets. The only armies I was considering were: Brettonia, Dark elves, Empire, High elves, and Tomb Kings. Out of these I was unsure what I wanted so I went by aesthetics . Overall I would enjoy a magic army that is balanced at combat and ranged that is resilient. What of these would fit that profile, without me becoming what I hate ( plays only for winning).


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## Creon (Mar 5, 2009)

High Elves have some of the most powerful builds in the 8th edition, but are very fragile to some things. 50 Swordmasters with a banner that prevents magic from affecting them are very close to unstoppable. They are a very dangerous unit. As are 50 white lions, or 50 sea guard. The key to HE are LARGE, dangerous units, but few of them. They need finesse, but hordes of them are very dangerous. 

DE are magic heavy, and very flexible, but tend to be weaker in the current edition due to low T and Armor (elf problems) without ASF and 2 hand weapons. However, they do have nasty monsters in the Hydra. 

The dead of either stripe I don't Recommend to beginners, as they are difficult and frustrating to play when learning the rest of the rules, due to the Crumble rule, which wipes out units rapidly.


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## Azezel (May 23, 2010)

High Elves are, of the armies you listed, by far the least resistant. Toughness three and armour caps out at 5+ apart from Cavalry and characters.
Empire and Bretonia are both fairlyresistant. Again, toughness three, but better armour.


High Elves have the best Magic of the three and are good at combat, as I said, but shooting is not a strength for them.

Tomb Kings have the worst magic, and their combat and shooting are both average. They, like High Elves, require a certain technical mind. You need a great deal of finesse and logic to get the most out of TK or High Elves, but if you have that, you'll find either a very rewarding army to play.

Brettonia are all about knights, which means great armour saves (and if they spend the first turn praying, they get a 5+ Ward save on top of their armour!). They are strong in combat (although cavalry is not great as a whole in 8th edition) with so-so shooting and one of the best warmachines in the game, the almighty field trebuchet.

Empire are jacks of all trades. They have solid magic (and very good anti-magic), are capable of both mellee and gunline style armies (or hybrid) with some excellent black-powder warmachines.

What you specified was:


> a magic army that is balanced at combat and ranged that is resilient.'


Of the armies you listed, Empire come closest, however, frankly, what you just described is _Lizardmen_.

I know they're not on your list, but no other army fits your description better.

Lizardmen have the best non-named-character Wizards in the game and access to all eight core Lores.

They have Saurus wariors who are tough and well armoured.

They have Skinks who shoot well with poisoned blowpipes and salamanders with breath weapons.

Lizardmen have Scaly Skin which improves armour saves, and are Cold Blooded meaning Leadership is rarely a problem for them. They are competant at both ranged and mellee combat (albeit leaning slightly more toward mellee in this edition) and, as I say, the best Wizards in the game apart from the High Elf special character Wizard.


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## The Dog Boy (Oct 6, 2011)

*Another take*

Well I'm an older player just returning to the game after a long hiatus, but it seems that my advice should be universal, and that is to enjoy your army. Take just a moment and decide if victory is what you really enjoy most, or if you would rather take it on the chin a few times to learn how to make an army that you really enjoy painting, organizing, and playing into a victorious army. That is really the first step. I really enjoyed playing the Dark Elves back in 5th and 6th edition. They were excellent troops, but few in number, with lots of dirty tricks and powerful magic and this only seems to have increased. I really enjoyed my army and the defeats and victories became less and less important the more games I played. If you want to be really competitive, then I think that Dark Elves should be your choice, but if the thought of buying and playing a bunch of sadistic and expensive black and purple models that a bunch of other people already have drives you nuts, then don't play 'em! You wont enjoy any of your games!
By the way, I've ditched the DE completely and gone with the one army that I always wished I had started...The DWARFS! And for the exact reason I mentioned above, and I can't wait to get our campaign rolling!


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