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I bet you guys get this a lot. I play 40k and I looked at some fantasy stuff today. It intrigued me greatly. I have one or two friends that play WHFB. I looked at all the factions and I was just wondering what each one plays like. Originally I had the idea in my head that I would play vampire counts. A single vampire with some big bats and a ton of ghouls. Looks like that list could work out for me really well. I could paint it quickly (Series of dry brushing techniques and different washes) and I already like vampires (not Twilight vampires, but real honest to goodness B-movie Dracula/Nosferatu vampires). But instead of just rush into something that I might not enjoy the playstyle of I want to do a little research. What are the factions in WHFB like?

i'll do a quick run through of each armies play style.

-Vampire Counts
These guys are based mostly on the lords and heroes of the book. Basically you'll have 2-4 vampires (and 1-2 necromancer if you only have 2-3 vamps) and the rest of your units act as meat shields and delivery systems for the characters. other than that you can use some bad arses like the vargulf, carin wraiths, blood knights, and grave guard for hammer units, but you'll prolly only have one or two of those units included due to point costs. the weakness is if the vamps start dying, because then you'll be losing you other models in droves and not be able to replace any of them.

-Dwarves
slow, tough as nails, hard to break in combat, great shooting, great leadership, good unit choices (ironbreakers, long beards, etc), no magic. basically dwarves can shut down almost any magic from other armies without using up character slots on magic users. also due to the ability to march no matter what they can be very good in close quarters maneuvering. if you like having a gun line (stand and shoot at the enemy) dwarves do it best and can hold it for ever. their war machine crews are tough as nails too

-Skaven
craziness! they are great, have amazing shooting like jezzails, and ratling guns. they also have assassins which just plain scare people, and different clans to follow. slaves when fleeing don't cause panic in friendly unit (which can end up causing your entire army to flee in some cases so that's good), and they lead from behind meaning you wizards and fragile characters won't be getting hurt often. if you like having gobs of models on the table with lots of scary shooting then they can be a great army to use.

-Ogres
not a great starting army. they either run well as MSU, which is lots of 3 man units setting up charges as bait and then having a mutil charge from multiple of the small unit follow soon after. the other way to play well is by using large units of 15 or so. either way magic can be either super heavy or really weak for them so they tend to go 1 butcher (their mage) or 3. though army to play but easy to build/buy/convert with only 20+ models not 100+.

-Empire
very versatile list. you can pretty much do anything you want with one or two exceptions. the only things you really can't do with them is go magic heavy. other than that your hearts desire is your limit.

-Bretonians
usually played as knight heavy, with massive cavalry charges, and they can take special vows/formations to make their units attack better and be far more survivable. they incorporate peasants as well and with them you can grab some fast cavalry (good for flanking), shooting, war machines (trebuchet), and even big units. They also are character heavy so remember that. these armies are usually low in numbers but heavy hitting. oh and their knights move 1" farther than other barded knights (as they bred amazing trained war horses) which can make a world of difference.

-Hordes of Chaos
this refers to the mortal chaos list (which will be changing soon). they are insanely good troops on foot, chariot, or knights, backed up by mediocre marauders which are basic humans. they have good weapon skill, good armor saves, and the toughest wizards in the game after the lord level ones and ogre wizards. they have good magic potential, and can be used as followers of any one of the gods. if your general is marked from on god all other things that can take marks must take the same as he or undivided, unless you play undivided in which the rest of the army can have any mark you want. depending on the choice of god, or lack thereof you may have a lot or few models. either way the troops are great and are used in big blocks to hammer the enemy.

-Beasts of chaos
not the best army to start with. hard to play, and even harder to master. they are skirmisher heavy (meaning to win in combat they need to kill a lot) but don't have the hitting power to win easily. the bestigor units are great, as are minotaurs and trolls, but you must keep trolls near he general so they can use his leadership for stupid tests (test against leadership to see if they function normally and if they fail they move forward at half their movement rate). the dragon ogres and dragon ogre shagoths are beasts in combat, so if you like lots of big scary monsters then this may be the list for you. also the best herds can ambush, which is similar to the way that the new scouting and infiltrate can work in 40k.

-Orcs and goblins
I only know enough about goblins to say anything for them so someone else will have to fill in for me about orcs. goblins can be played as the silliest army in the game. they can have squig hoppers which are devastating, squig herds (likewise), giant cave squigs (again!), huge units of 30-40 goblins, bolt throwers, goblin doom diver (super accurate stone thrower), archers, wolf boys (fast cavalry), and the list goes on. also you can play reg goblins or night goblins (which are the ones with all the squigs) and night goblins suffer a -1Ld penalty.

-Daemons of chaos
someone else needs to fill him in. what i do know is nurgle is the best of the four gods.

-High elves
amazing magic defence, everything always strikes first (just a special rule they have), lots of choices for units, expensive. due to always striking first the HE units are more expensive than similar stat line things. other than that they can do a great deal of cool things, like amazing lion chariots, good cavalry, good shooting, spears that fight in three ranks (versus the normal two for spears), good flyers/march blockers.

-Wood elves
you can play the all elf list, the treemonic legion, or a mix of the two. the wood elves are the best shooting army in the game due to high BS, great abilities (like S4 shots for bows at 15" or killing blow shots) depending on which units you take, lots of good fast cavalry, good flyers, and even some rank and file units. the tree spirits have ward saves which you can look up in the main rule book and are hard hitting in CC. the only problem with all of the WE units is they need to win combat by number of kills rather than ranks etc. meaning they have a tough time. essentially a good way to do them is whittle down enemy units with huge volleys of arrows and finish them off with dryads, wardancers, treekin, etc. all in all a fast moving army but very fragile

-Dark elves
too new, someone else take this one up

-Lizardmen
best for last (as i am biased). They are the most involved army with every phase of the game. they have decent shooting (skinks, and salamanders are amazing), great CC with saurur, kroxigors and other big guys, god march blockers like terradons and skinks, and good magic (slaan is the best mage in the game). they are either tough or fragile but the fragile units end up only costing 60-70pts (not too shabby) and the tough ones just don't die easily. they test for leadership on 3D6 picking the two lowest which can make them unstopable and have some cool tricks with magic gear, ect. good beginer list as they are tough to really botch up if you have a solid list build.

i'll say the same things about tomb kings and dogs of war...don't, not until you are an experienced player will you find anything good in either dogs of war or the tomb king army. both are the toughest armies to master and can confound/frustrate many a new player, which can put them off to the game. i myself am starting dogs of war and finding nothing but grief in the playtests, but that's just my two cents.



hopefully this has been of some help and you'll be able to make an informed choice about which army is best for you based upon information from myself and other to kill in the gaps I left behind.

I'd like to add on Vampire Counts that pretty much the entire army causes fear due to being undead.

Dark Elves have hatred against everyone, IIRC.

Dark Elves only hate High Elves in the current book, but it sounds like they will have hatred for every one in the new book comming soon.

If you like vamps then I'd say that's the way to go. Really powerful, fairly forgiving, and very maneuver dependent; all of which are great things for a new player to cut his teeth on. Plus the book is only 2-3 months old so you're guranteed to have a playable army for quite some time.

Vamps are a good easy to play army. they dont have much in the way of shooting but are quite stacked in all other departments, and if you do something stupid and get all your guys killed you can just raise some more!

Arion wrote:Dark Elves only hate High Elves in the current book, but it sounds like they will have hatred for every one in the new book comming soon.

Hate everyone (normal) and Eternal Hatred for High Elves (Hatred doesn't go away)

high elf spearmen can fight in 3 ranks? That's 15 attacks if 5 wide?

I Thought it was just 2 ranks

exocorp wrote:high elf spearmen can fight in 3 ranks? That's 15 attacks if 5 wide?

I Thought it was just 2 ranks

Normal spears yes.

High Elf spearmen have a special rule that allows them to fight with an extra rank (ie. 2 ranks if charging, 3 otherwise)

Ok, so it looks like Vampire Counts it will be for me. I looked into it a little further on the GW website and talked to some people (who were far too optimistic about the game/every unit's viability in play). What I really need to know now is what actually sucks. Coming from playing against Vampire Counts and playing with them. I really love the look of that huge vampire bat model it looks so terrifying. I'd hate to see two of those fly onto my flanks. And I have the perfect paint scheme in my head for ghouls. Are the core 'troops' equal in their ability? Or does one of them pale in comparison to everything else?

the skellies are basically just for moving vamps into combat untouched (like a meat shield, but more dead). don't take zombies as they are better off summoned, so that'll save zombie models needed to be bought. essentially the main core units for me are a toss up between gouls and skellies. if you want more attacks, don't care bout armor (as gouls are naked) and like the looks of them then go for gouls, but if you prefer the idea of hoards of skeletons shambling twards the enemy then go with them.

Bastirous666 wrote:the skellies are basically just for moving vamps into combat untouched (like a meat shield, but more like a bone shield)

Fixed your typo.

i meant it like that tho

Typeline wrote: Ok, so it looks like Vampire Counts it will be for me. I looked into it a little further on the GW website and talked to some people (who were far too optimistic about the game/every unit's viability in play). What I really need to know now is what actually sucks. Coming from playing against Vampire Counts and playing with them. I really love the look of that huge vampire bat model it looks so terrifying. I'd hate to see two of those fly onto my flanks. And I have the perfect paint scheme in my head for ghouls. Are the core 'troops' equal in their ability? Or does one of them pale in comparison to everything else?

If you choose by aesthetics it's probably reaffirming to know that none of the vc core choices are bad in any sense, so you won't go terribly wrong by taking one over another as they all do have their uses. It's wise to notice that characters can't join zombie units so you'll better have at least 1 or more units of ghouls/skeles for your characters to hide in if need be. Lastly, many people seem to agree that the ghouls are best if you examine pure cost/effectiveness (they have similiar durability with the skeles but they hit harder, and zombies are... well, zombies).

I hear that in a VC army you can kind of raise undead out of nowhere? Am I right in that thinking and going on that do I need to atleast buy a few units of zombies then?

Besides the undead, are the corpse carts and carriage thing worth their salt? I see them mentioned around occasionally. They seem to boost what your undead near them can do without a vampire around.

And finally the vampires themselves. Do a lot of the units count as vampires? And how does that huge vampire bat looking thing do? I really like that model and would it be viable to run two of them in tandem to rush the flanks of a squad?

ok well the zombies can be raised via a spell, and yes you will need a bunch extra or you can't actually raise them.

the corpse cart allows units to do things they couldn't before, i think they can march when within 6" and it can raise zombies as well. dunno exactly. it's worth it either way.

vamps are all characters (other than necromancers) and so are blood knights. you need vamps around or your units become pretty toothless. the big bat is called the vargulf and is pretty awesome as it has no flanks or rear (which is huge) and can be regenerated. not sure how many you can take but two would be dirty so i say one is enough

The units that count as Vampires are: Vampie characters, Blood Knights, the Black Coach, and the Varghulf. Of these, the best choices are generally considered to be the characters (obviously), and the Varghulf.

Speaking of the Varghulf. Those things are mean as all hell. They don't fly, but M9 is damn close to it. They count as vamps so you can use them to lead flanking forces in the form of Black Knights and Dire Wolves. Plus they hate everyone, regenerate, and cause terror. Most lists I have seen include at least one of them. I've also seen them fielded in pairs, though this is overkill unless you want to run the Knightstar (a single massive unit of nigh unkillable Black Knights).

Good choice typeline! the undead are a very solid army for someone’s first WHFB. The undead core choices are quite good, and ive seen competitive armies consisting of nothing but core, although to really be feared/respected amongst your friends (mostly feared) their special+rare elevate you to a top tier force.

Undead core units win combats based on strength in numbers and fear. Fear is the single biggest threat to the opponent’s army, and you should be very familiar with those rules before you point up an army. To a lesser extent i find that many people coming straight from 40k (where kills determine combat) have a hard time adjusting to the different combat resolution system, take note of the rank bonus/outnumbering/banner as those will be crucial to your army.

After you brush up on the technicalities you will probably come to the conclusion that undead core work best in large fear causing blocks, kindly referred to as tar pits. These units are rubbish at dealing wounds but have many benefits that outweigh their below average statline. Fear can never be underestimated. It will (occasionally) stop units from charging you, and means that as long as you outnumber an enemy and win a combat: they auto break and run. Your units should always start with +5 to combat resolution for +3 ranks, +1 outnumbering, +1 banner, and you might get a wound or two on top of that. Since your units will never run and you can raise more to replace models killed, all that is left to do is wait for your opponent to roll poorly, lose combat and get run down.

Zombies are the quintessential tar pit, cheap, weak, expendable. I run a unit of 35 and a unit of 10 in my 2k, and i rarely raise any more into these units. The 10 man is good for claiming table quarters or tying up weak flankers, and i prefer to run my 35 right into enemy cavalry (especially if there is a hero/lord in it). The 35 might be my favorite unit in the army for the sheer fact that i love the look on peoples faces when their lord+retinue crashes in, doing 10 wounds and crumbling another 5, and then flee the next turn because they cant do enough wounds and autobreak from outnumbering.

If you prefer your units to have a little more bite to them, then skeletons might be for you. I run two units of 20 in my 2k with spears. These are much more effective when receiving outside influence, and i always attempt to have at least one effect on both units at all times. If they are engaged with a unit of ws 3 or lower i prefer the helm of command from my lord, giving them ws7. This means that the skels will hit on 3+ and will only be hit on 5+, this all but guarantees combat victory and the auto break. If the unit has ws4+ i love the corpse cart or similar spell/bound spell, 11 ASF attacks are bound to do a bit of damage and reduce the wounds you take in return, greatly increasing your chances of victory.

Ghouls are the stat-mans unit in undead. T4, 2A, Poison makes them hands down the most 'hitty' troop choice. I dont run any in my army due only to the fact that i didnt like the previous models, but i have seen them used to great effect when combined with the ghoul based vampire powers.

Dire wolves make great screens/flankers. Units of 7 are also widely used to bog down powerhouse enemy lords. Since the undead tend to grind into a war of attrition, they are best used to protect your rank bonus/take away the enemies.

I take a single corpse cart in my 2k, with the +1 model raised upgrade. It is a handy construct, adding a little bit of hitting power and offensive magic to my front lines. I still feel vampires are a better use of 100 points, but if your character choices are full (and they should be) this is a good way to supplement your strongest areas. Alternatively ive heard rumor of 2 carts with the -1 to cast upgrade and then fighty vampires, but i havnt tried it.

The vargulf is literally a close combat monster, but i think you should look into bloodknights before you run a pair of the beasties.

How do you run a 10 man unit of zombies when they are 20+?

And zombies are weaker as tarpits this edition because they tend to take more casualties and so lose more to CR. Skellies with hw/s are solid tarpits, but spears is still kind of a waste since they are not there to kill, just to not die. Ghouls are probably underpriced a point or two and 2 poisoned attacks w/T4 is really good, especially with the Helm and Ghoulkin/Danse.

Bat swarms suck (too slow), but fell bats are solid WM hunters. Don't expect them to do much in real combats, though, as they are only S3 T3. They can be useful to charge into the flank of 1 rank cav, though, to tie them up. Remember, fell bats count as infantry, so you can res d6 per invocation. In many ways, this means they can kind of overtake the functions of dire wolves. But wolves are cheap, and core, so meh.

Grave guard got a big boost thanks to being infantry this time around. With the banner of regen, GWs, and the Helm or Cart nearby, they are mean. Black Knights are incredible this go around, being able to effectively ignore terrain. A very mean thing to do is to take the banner of barrows or strigoi and stick a wight king bsb with the regen banner in there. Extremely tough unit.

Blood knights are hitty, but too easy to divert. The varghulf is excellent support. Counting as a vampire and M9 means he helps with flanking BKs, wolves, etc. so they don't slow down. T5 regenerating means he doesn't go away easily. If only he was US 5.....

The cart's okay. It can do some fun combos, but ultimately a bit overpriced. The model is great, though, and I like the balefire upgrade alot.

Really, almost everything in VC is solid, so it's hard to go wrong, even if your list isn't optimized.

"someone else needs to fill him in. what i do know is nurgle is the best of the four gods. "

I disagree. Nurgle might have the best infantry for fighting, and the best GD for character killing, but that's about as far as he can claim the edge over his brethren.

Locally, Khorne and Tzeentch are being brutally successful, while Nurgle and Slaanesh haven't really impressed.

also you can play reg goblins or night goblins (which are the ones with all the squigs) and night goblins suffer a -1Ld penalty.
red goblins are no more and night goblins have a fixed low ld no longer the -1 to test. O&G can be a really good start army, if you like hordes of greenskins screaming WAAAAAGHHHH as they charge across the table top, as long as they dont fight amonst themselfs. IMO O&G can be the most diverse army in the game with all the different choices they have. Go warmachine heavy for dirt cheap point cost wise, lots of fast cav and a slow but really good heavy cav. some of the toughest rank and file troops in the game, black orcs, and lest i forget giants. anyways VC is a good choice only played them once since the new rules for them came out and ill say this much about those knights OUCH!!

I did a little more research by reading a bit of the codex and looking at some batreps in my spare time. The ghouls look really good. But I don't see anyone playing VC running them, what gives? I see a ton of skellies though.

A lot of it comes down to T4 or a 4+ AS in HtH. most will go with the save as it will allow the unit to suffer much less wounds in the combat and stay around longer for the harder hitting units to come in.

I still like the idea of ghouls in the list and think they do add some nice character to a VC army.

Bought the army book, 2 boxes of ghouls the and winged vampire model. I had a model from a different game and one I'm converting to be a vampire aswell. Here is a small 500 pt test list.

10x Crypt Ghouls w/ Ghast 88 pts
10 Crypt Ghouls w/ Ghast 88 pts

Vampire w/ Flying Horror 130 pts
Vampire w/ Red Fury, Sword of Might and Flayed Hauberk 190

Sound good?

I'd recommend only using the one vampire,dropping red fury for Dark acolyte + the ability that makes ION better on ghouls, and buying some more ghouls to bulk up the units/ION raise.

And the lack of units of ghouls is probably due to ghouls used to be A. Metal and B. Skirmishers, where skellies were big blocks.

Are the more magic oriented vampires better/more viable than the martially oriented ones? I suppose numbers might be a better way to victory in the lower point brackets as well. How does this look now then?

Vampire, Dark Acolyte, Summon Ghouls 145 pts.
10x Ghouls w/ Ghast 88 pts
10x Ghouls w/ Ghast 88 pts
10x Ghouls w/ Ghast 88 pts
10x Ghouls w/ Ghast 88 pts

I also have another question. Say I gave a vampire the Avatar of Death trait, could I give him two hand weapons both enchanted with the Sword of Battle? And would it do what I think it would (give him 3 extra attacks, 1 for each sword and 1 for dual wielding)?

No. Using a magic weapon (like the sword of battle) prevents you from wielding a second hand weapon. Also, taking magic weapons does not imbue normal weapons with additional capabilities. Rather, magic weapons are an altogether separate class of weapons, and so do not benefit from the rules governing normal weapons.

So the Sword of Battle would grant you +1 attack that could be combined with a shield, but not another weapon.

dogma wrote:No. Using a magic weapon (like the sword of battle) prevents you from wielding a second hand weapon. Also, taking magic weapons does not imbue normal weapons with additional capabilities. Rather, magic weapons are an altogether separate class of weapons, and so do not benefit from the rules governing normal weapons.

So the Sword of Battle would grant you +1 attack that could be combined with a shield, but not another weapon.

Ok I understand that. What benefits does one gain from an extra hand weapon?

Just +1 attack, but as the hand weapon takes up the off-hand a model with 2 cannot use a shield.

@jmurph : ive only played one tourney with that list, but i cant believe it slipped by! i guess people dont complain much about taking a small unit of the worst block in the game .

On topic,
I think the last list,

Vampire, Dark Acolyte, Summon Ghouls 145 pts.
10x Ghouls w/ Ghast 88 pts
10x Ghouls w/ Ghast 88 pts
10x Ghouls w/ Ghast 88 pts
10x Ghouls w/ Ghast 88 pts

is the best so far. Magic heros arnt always the best in VC, but when each of your troops is capable of going toe to toe with the enemy all you really need to do is make sure you have enough. It might be worth it to diversify your units a bit, wolves spring to mind. You could get at least one unit, however i would suggest two msu's. That would give you a bit more mobility and the ability to threaten flanks/gunlines/warmachines.