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Since I am still relatively new to WHFB I am wonder what people think are the best armies to use at the different point levels.

At 1000 points which army would you use and why?
At 1500?
At 2000?

With the tendency of late that the new books are really making a shift in the abilities of armies and do you see the need to keep up and get the latest army or can newer players build an army over a 1 month, 1 year period and still be competitive?

Opinions accepted

In my opinion all of the current armies around work relatively well in 2000-2500 range, altough there's seems to be a bit of a power creep in the air with the fresh VC and Daemons armybooks. If lower points to 1000-1999, some older armies have noticable problems. The TK have serious issues with lower character and special slot count. Low leadership armies without ld-boosting tricks to help them have problems as well (mainly beasts and OK).

2000+ it becomes a matter of personal choice.

I have never played in the 1500 point range.

At 1000 or below, I would avoid Ogres, since you won't have enough models to be viable. Probably Tomb Kings as well. Daemons, High & Wood Elves- too expensive.

Dark Elves actually have really cheap core warriors now, and devastating magic. They might be a tough army if you took a unit of Dark Riders with repeater crossbows, a couple Lvl 2 casters, and a bunch of cheap spear units.

Empire, Skaven, O&G, and possibly Dwarfs should be good. Core are cheap, and specials are effective- Empire Pistoliers or Goblin Squig Herds have an impact all out of proportion to their cost. I don't know how viable a Dwarf gunline is at 1000 pts, but Empire gunlines at 500 have made me cry.

Bretonnians in small (5-6 man) units are costly, but good- the lance formation lets you deliver a lot of attacks in a small area.

Vampire counts used to be the best at low points- take a couple of necromancers and a bunch of ghouls, then raise units of skellies/zombies until you outnumber your opponent. I don't know if that is a viable option with the new book, but a ghoul horde/vampire+necro list still ought to be worth trying out.

I think, if 'codex creep' is a concern, the Vampires are your best bet. A low points list should be playable, and it should only get more powerful as the points go up.

In any army where most of the models are costly- Daemons, or Wood Elves, where every core model costs 12 points, regardless of what unit it is from- you need a goodly number of points before you can field a viable army.
Thing is, WHFB doesn't scale evenly. While 1000 points of Daemons is a wimpy little army, 2000 points of Daemons is scary tough. Lots tougher, probably, than 2000 points of VC.

Thanks for the information.

I was considering making a OGRE army for a 1000 point tourney coming up.

Now I may have to consider somehting else.

My Daemons sure won't cut it.