# Hardest army to play with in Warhammer



## The Sullen One

I'm thinking of getting back into Warhammer and outside of Ogres, Empire, Beastmen and Skaven (as the people I'd probably be playing already have or want those armies) I want to know, what's the hardest army to play with in Warhammer?


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## Turnip86

Probably Wood Elves as you have to be very tactically aware and every unit needs to work in synergy with each other to be really effective. Dark Elves also have a similar 'problem' but have more builds from the army book that are viable.


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## Vaz

Wood elves are fairly simple when you get used to the idea of working together and not being ablebto fight unsupported. 

Dari Elves and High Elves are fairly similar in that aspect.

Weakest army? Tomb Kings, still.


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## olderplayer

None of the other 11 army books are easy to play. Maybe warriors of chaos is the most straightforward army because of its combat focus. Daemons of Chaos, if you play the right types of army builds, can be an easier army to learn to play while still have a good BS shooting unit (flamers), a great combat unit (bloodletters), a decent hard unit (plaguebearers), and some faster units (fiends and fleshhounds) and redirector/chaff/war machine hunting units (chaos furies). Dwarves can be simpler to play in that you sit back and let the enemy come to you and shoot them with war machines (organ guns, cannons and grudge throwers) and try to shut down their magic while you position you rank and file units to deal with the threats and match up with them as they come to you. 

Wood Elves are reasonably competitive once you learn how to play them and adapt them to 8th edition, but a newer player will struggle with them. 

Dark Elves have some tricky elements especially below 2400 points, but once one learns all the tricks and uses things like the pendant dreadlord and sac dagger lvl 4, it can be a reasonable army to play. Dark Elves have most of everything in a flying war machine hunting and redirector unit (harpies), a great core shooting unit (repeater crossbowmen), a great monster (hydra), one of the better 8th edition cav units (cold one knights), excellent character options (dreadlord, sorcoress, master and death hag with cauldron), and soem interesting elite infantry (blqack guard and witch elf horde). The issue is learning how to balance the mix for army comp and deal with threats because you are dealing with T3 rank and file models and only have the hydras to give you monsters, the 2+ armour saves of the cold one knights, and the pendant dreadlord to deal with certain high S/high T threats and combat units. Playing with two hydras makes dark elves relatively straight-forward to play. 

Absent playing a broken Teclis build, High Elves are harder to play than people think because of the high cost per model and the army lacking the monsters that wood elves have with treemen and dark elves have with hydras. You have basically eagles and chariots (maybe also a cav unit) to act as redirectors and chaff and deal with the enemy army's redirectors and chaff units. I see some very experienced high elf players do well with them but, with Teclis and Book of Hoeth being banned in most tournaments and Teclis always banned in our area, even very experienced but more average high elf players are struggling to establish a winning record in five round tournaments. 

Tomb Kings are also hard to learn to play and vulnerable to certain threats such that experienced TK players can do well but even experienced players are struggling to even win 50% of the time.

Some vampire counts builds can be pretty straightforward but others require a lot of finesse and understanding of the synergy of the units and magic casters is essential to make the army work. 

Orcs and Goblins can be relatively straightforward with some builds but you have to deal with failed animosity tests and learn target priority with war machines (doom divers) and fast hitting models like snotling pump wagons, wolf chariots, boar chariots, and mangler squigs.


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## Azezel

It strikes me that there is a world of difference between 'easy to play' and 'easy to play well'.

F'rex, Dwarves are damned easy to play. You take your favourite five War Machines, a Runlord and whatever Great-weapon big-block infantry floats your boat. You shoot for three turns then either win or lose depending on how much of the enemy reaches your lines. It's the easiest thign in the word and you'll win a lot of games.

I don't think that's playing the warhams very well, though. I don't think either you or the enemy will have much fun, as easy as it is for you.

On t'other hand, as hard as people recon it is to play Wood Elves, I've never had an un fun game against them, even when they've convincingly handed by my arse in gift wrap it's been a blast to play. And I think it's pretty easy to play Wood Elves in a fun way, even if you may not win as often.


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## Archaon18

Wood leves can be slightly hit and miss, depending on your foe. I played a guy who had a supped up Noble, who slaughtered my Knights, with about 9 attacks then his Spellweaver blew up, taking Wulfric and his marauders with her. Then he faced a gunline army and the same noble was blown of the table at turn 1. So yrs, hit and miss (With some builds).


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## The Sullen One

I've been quite tempted by Wood Elves and I've actually got about eleven or so of the Glade Guard. To that end do people think it would be possible to convert the High Elves from the Island of Blood set?


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## Azezel

Note remotely.

I mean, you could paint them green, but they would obviously be High Elves. Wearing armour and high helms, carrying the wrong weapons, being gryphons, you-name-it.


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## Tim/Steve

WE are a division of HE... so there's nothing really stopping you using some of the HE models as WE if the weapons and armour fits.


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## Ratvan

The Sullen One said:


> I've been quite tempted by Wood Elves and I've actually got about eleven or so of the Glade Guard. To that end do people think it would be possible to convert the High Elves from the Island of Blood set?


I think with some convertion/sculpting skills this could work fairly well, the Sea Guard models fit the rules of the Eternal Guard you would need to remove the iconography on the shields and give them more of a woodland feel, hell even the armour could be painted to represent a scale armour formed of leaves.

Obviously the Griffon can be converted into a great eagle with some clipping, cutting and sculpting

The Reavers could make nice Glade Riders/Wild Riders, again with some minor conversions, also the Wild Riders would need more work then the Glade Riders

Not really sure on the Swordmasters, you might be able to convert them to wardancers but I think it'll be a fair bit of work.

Damn you Sullen one, I have a couple of sets knocking about and you made me want to do this now ireful2: too many projects already)


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## stalarious

Well simply its the one that is not your play style if your a tactical person then wood elves are not that bad if your play style is just to throw your army at your opponent and hope it kills them then Wood eleves would be the worst choice for you so I would have to ask whats your play style then we could say dont take this or that army. Just asking whats the worst army in warhammer may exclude the army that you would be best at.


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## The Sullen One

Ratvan said:


> Damn you Sullen one, I have a couple of sets knocking about and you made me want to do this now ireful2: too many projects already)


:laugh::laugh:



stalarious said:


> Well simply its the one that is not your play style if your a tactical person then wood elves are not that bad if your play style is just to throw your army at your opponent and hope it kills them then Wood eleves would be the worst choice for you so I would have to ask whats your play style then we could say dont take this or that army. Just asking whats the worst army in warhammer may exclude the army that you would be best at.


I used to be a chuck em forward and hope for the best kind of guy, but now I've become a little bit more tactical, so Wood Elves wouldn't be too bad a choice, plus I want to be a good player.


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## OgreChubbs

I would say daemon of chaos, are the hardest with high point cost and instability rule they can take big damage from range. Woodelves are fairly hard to play but with some skill they are really good. Weakest army is "depends on what you are fighting" ogres vs etheral lol you dead boy. Daemons vs a mass horde of skullies or skaven, poof goes the daemon. When trying to walk across a board 6 turns later the dwarf made it to the middle of the board. When playing a horde type army high elves with tecticlees or what ever his stupid name is with purple sun yay for spam.


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## Vaz

Daemon's are about as point and click as you can get.

Siren Song Keeper of Secrets
40 Bloodletters+Herald x2
2x5 Furies
2x5 Seekers
Fiends of Slaanesh

Sorted. About as bang tidy as you can get. 

Ogres Versus Ethereal? Who takes that amount of Ethereal anyway? VC's? They can't do enough damage to last long enough before they crumble to nothing. Plus, they can be magicked off the board. Plus, Full Ethereal leaves you wide open to Daemons, Wood Elves, High Elves, Skaven, and any other army that has easy access to powerful magic.

Skaven? Not too sure how Skavenslave busses can stand up against 40 Bloodletters. Instability when they're on about +15 Combat Resolution? Shoot in combat, and see 1/3rd of the wounds bounce off? Siren Song/KoS/Furies/Seekers/Fiends rape War Machines, and KoS challenge breaking a Screaming Bell Sorcerer into nothingness?

Dwarfs? Marching across the board? Anvil of Doom, Oath and Honour, Longbeard Rangers. Even Gyrocopters (but no-one takes them anyway). All makes Dwarfs "Fast" - and you can't really argue with 150 WS4 S6 Troops moving 12" a turn.

As a horde, you should have enough models that losing around 15 isn't that big a deal. Goblins? Well, you're gimped anyway. Skaven? Slavebus+WLC/Jezzails. About the only "Horde" army that suffers against them are Breton [email protected]/Archer Hordes, and well, they're gimped also. Ogres don't do too well, but they tend to fight through, because they can avoid enemies, and a Skrag/Gorger list rapes Teclis.


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## olderplayer

Daemons are not that hard to play. Nothing is easy. One of my friends is second ranked in US on RankingsHQ and for fun he sometimes plays his army against yours and then plays your army with you playing him. It is funny to watch him table the other guy in both games (including my son who has been placing very high this year with one best general and two second best general awards in three five-round tournaments).

This is the Daemon list at 2500 I played last month to a 3-1-1. The loss was an ironblaster getting a luck shot through a screening fiend unit and rolling a 6 for the number of wounds on the Keeper after I failed both the fiend and the Keeper ward save, (monstrous infantry stop cannon balls unless they die so a cannonball must roll to wound, I must fail the ward save and the cannnoball must roll a 3 or more in order to continue on to hit the Keeper; upon hitting they have to roll to wound the Keeper on a 2+, the Keeper gets a 5+ ward and they must then roll a 5 or 6 on the number wound to finish him off or else the Keeper will recover the wounds with spirit swallower on him). The tie was to skaven where the guy's war machines and spells decimated my bloodletter unit before it got into combat. 

Fiends of Slaanesh (3#, 165 pts)

Flamers of Tzeentch (6#, 210 pts)

Herald of Tzeentch (1#, 240 pts)
Battle Standard Bearer + Great Standard of Sundering, Master of Sorcery, Spell Breaker, Lore of Life

Chaos Furies (5#, 60 pts)

Chaos Furies (5#, 60 pts)

Bloodletters of Khorne (48#, 631 pts)
Full command, Icon of Endless War

Herald of Khorne (1#, 140 pts)
1 Armour of Khorne, Firestorm Blade
Pink Horrors of Tzeentch (12#, 144 pts)

Keeper of Secrets (1#, 585 pts)
+ Level 2 Wizard + Spirit Swallower

Flesh Hounds of Khorne (6#, 210 pts)
Fiends of Slaanesh (1#, 55 pts)

At 2000 points I played this list in an escalation tourney:

Herald of Tzeentch (1#, 240 pts)
Battle Standard Bearer, Great Standard of Sundering, Master of Sorcery, Spell Breaker, 
Lore of Life

Pink Horrors of Tzeentch (10#, 120 pts)
Flamers of Tzeentch (4#, 140 pts)
Fiends of Slaanesh (1#, 55 pts)
Bloodletters of Khorne (46#, 607 pts)
Full Command, Icon of Endless War

Chaos Furies (5#, 60 pts)

Herald of Khorne (1#, 140 pts)
Firestorm Blade, Armour of Khorne,
Fiends of Slaanesh (3#, 165 pts)
Flesh Hounds of Khorne (6#, 210 pts)
Flamers of Tzeentch (4#, 140 pts)
Chaos Furies (5#, 60 pts)
Chaos Furies (5#, 60 pts)

Neither list is totally optimal but they were still ranked (on comp scored by opponents) as among the harder lists (among 44 players). 

Daemonic instability is the price one pays for having units that cannot panic, are immune to psych and cannot break. Daemonic instability can be dealt with as Vaz noted by running large units (either in horde formation to max ACR or deep in ranks to ensure steadfast) and then picking the battles to fight with the smaller units or using those units for flanking and similar tactics where the larger unit will generate SCR with ranks when fighting a deathstar or ranked up that one might see in a horde/mass formation army like vampire counts or skaven or even empire or chaos marauders. The stubborn banner is expensive but makes the army in range of the BSB almost indestructible. The stubborn banner is often rejected as over-the-top in many of our tournaments. I find (playing Dark Elves a lot) the benefits outweigh the risks. Tomb Kings and Vampire Counts face the undead instability rule where they don't even have the chance of avoiding losing models when they lose combat on CR. 

Just don't run a bloodletter horde into a witch elf horde (especially if they are blessed with a 5+ ward save or extra attack from the cauldron). The witch elves with hit first (greater initiative) with a lot more attacks (two hand weapons and frenzy) with re-rolls to hit for hatred and autowound on all rolls of 6 to to hit (from poison). They can easily cause 20 to 24 wounds, of which the bloodletters will only save one-third. Even if you had a unit of 50 bloodletters and got your full 30 attacks back, you will do about 19 wounds and they will save one-third with the cauldron ward save blessing. You will lose by enough to likely fail the daemonic instability test (causing you to lose enough more models) and they will hit first in the next round of combat and deplete the bloodletters enough to reduce significantly the attacks on the witch elves and almost certainly pop the unit on the daemonic instability test with them having 30 attacks just from the 10 witches in the front rank.


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## Tim/Steve

In a turn around I think the hardest army to play is also the easiest: WoC

Most people will now think me insane (if they didn't already), but there is logic somewhere in the murk of madness. I'm also splitting "playing well" from just "winning against noobs"

Playing WoC its very very easy to get caught up in point sink uber units, or just lots and lots of powerful infantry units which give you a very powerful army. The problems come when you play against someone who isn't scared of your army; who can either out muscle, avoid or tarpit you long enough to achieve their own victory. With an army that is mostly M4 it can be incredibly difficult to reclaim the initiative... especially when there isn't a large amount of shooting or powerful flankers to use.

Mainly I say WoC because I've seen far too many beginners start with them, become very powerful without really having to think about tactics and then never learning to develop alternative strategies. Learning to avoid just sinking all your points into incredibly powerful infantry units and instead buying ranged support, flankers/blockers or taking cavalry, who not great, but are sometimes necessary.


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