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Well my brother and I love 40k, and I have a good sized group that we play with. The problem is, it gets a little boring ALWAYS playing 40k. So we were talking about possibly getting into WHFB.
So I come to you fantasy guys. Whats the major drawbacks/pros to playing fantasy? (besides cost thats a given lol) We are both all about playing fun games, but we dont want to pick an army that is pretty much useless (much like DE or Tau, they pretty much have 1 or 2 tactics, thats it) And we are thinking of being something totally different then what we play in 40k. I play Orks(so Orcs are out for me) and he plays SM (so hes thinking Empire is pretty much out for him)

Basically, just give me a run down on some things, so Im at least somewhat in the know if I actually get into fantasy

There is no real Space Marine army in Fantasy first of all. Empire aren't much like them.

Probably the biggest problem with Fantasy is that the books aren't that well balanced against each other. Daemons is the most powerful book, by far and away, then Vampires and Dark Elves, then Warriors of Chaos, Lizardmen, certain empire builds, then the rest, with orcs and ogres down the bottom somewhere.

If you pick one of the upper end armies that isn't demons, you'll probably have a good few fun games.
What do you like in a wargame? It's always hard to answer these threads when you don't know what the OP enjoys.

Well having been in and out of playing at 40K and looking at fantasy for Fantasy for a long time before I started I am still very aware of the differences to 40k.

Pros
-All armies are heavily supported, there are still some weaker armies but they aren't ignored like some of the 40k armies ( yes DH and DE I mean you).
-Each army is very different. They each have a diiferent think that they excell at and a different reason they are good at it.
-More Variety in unit types and models. In fantasy there are infantry, monsters, cavalry, and multiple types of large weapons, cannons, stone throwers. Also as there is no large organisation controlling multiple armies (like the imperium in 40k) all the models look very different. You can also play with armies made entirely of large models (Ogres or Warriors of Chaso Troll army) or cavalry ( Bretonnians).
-Magic. Fantasy has another phase for casting magic which help you or damage your opponent. This is critical to the game. Some spells can be game changing.
-In fantasy movement is very important, each model has a movement value to show how far it moves in inches. being ranked means that you have to think tactically when moving.
-Many people consider it more tactical because you have to think about formations and combat resolution.
-Characters have more options, imaging 40k before GW took away the armoury options in many of the codex.


Cons
-Some armies are horribly underpowered (Ogres) while others are very overpowered (daemons or Vampires).
-There are many more rules about different unit types to remember.
-The game doesn't flow as easily as 40k (IMO) because movement can take a lot of time.
-The game can be dependant on deployment.
-Magic can be very confusing.
-Requires more models, making it more expensive and assembling and painting all those models can be a pain.
-Some units can easily be abused. They are many units which can be spammed or used with certain equipment to make them horribly powerful.
-Some armies rely heavily on characters meaning they have maxed out hero and lord slots but less of everything else.
-Different FoC Some characters, lords, are restricted to 2000 point games.

The armies which you would probably want to avoid are:
Ogre Kindoms, because they have very few tactics and even these just slow down yor inevitable loss. It is possile to win with them but you need to practice A lot. Like Dark Eldar except even when you get good they still loose a lot of the time. However the models do look awesome.

Dwarves are a great gunline army and are competitive when played with lots of missile troops and cannons surrounded by heavily armour combat soldiers, but this is all they do. Having a movement of 3 means they can't do anything else very well.

Daemons. They are a great army but they loose you friends very fast. All of their units are underpriced and you have to actualy work hard to make a list which isn't going to destroy all other armies whcih aren't built for competitve games.

Good starting armies are:
Empire: the basic human army. Can be built to do many roles. A good all rounder army.
Dark Elves:resonable at combat, Great at shooting. Fast.
High Elves: Very fast army can focus on shooting or combat.
Lizardmen: very combat and magic based. Very tough and hard to move.
Warriors of Chaos: combat based army with small, expensive units. Many units ar heavily armoured. Think the Combat SM equivilant of 40k.

4M2A - Wow, you pretty much nailed exactly what I was asking for lol. Thanks for being incredibly informative.
Da Boss - Yes I know I should of put what type of army I was looking at. But the thing is, I literally played fantasy once in my life, while my brother used to play it like 12 years ago lol. So in that sense, Im not sure at all how things go in this game other then the super basics.

Ill tell you what armies we have been thinking about. Personally, Ive been eyeing Warriors of Chaos(first mini I ever painted was one of those old school Chaos knights from the HeroQuest game) Dark Elves, and probably tomb kings. I thought about Ogres, but rather quickyl found they to suck really badly. I want to play fun games, not die every time.
My brother was thinking Beasts of Chaos(anyone know how they play?) Dwarves, High Elves. He plays SM and doesn want to even think about the Empire simply because they seem like the fantasy equivalent. Same as me with Orcs, I love ORKS and play Orks, so I dont want the same thing in fantasy.

So hows about some info on the above?

Warriors of Chaos are an elite close combat army. You can get an army together relatively cheap, and the book seems fun. Dark Elves are an elite all rounder army that is a bit fragile. They have one of the better books power wise. The cool thing about them is that every unit is fairly useful. The bad thing is that a couple of the magic items are overpowered, but you can play without them.
Beasts have a new book coming out, so he could wait til it hits to find out. Dwarves are very static and shooty, but tough in close combat too. I'm enjoying them, but people do get fed up of the playstyle, also they have no magic ability.
High Elves are okay but their core units aren't great.They're an elite army with good magic and defense. Not as good as Dark Elves but not bad either.
I don't know much about Tomb Kings. I've heard they're challenging to play with.

Chaos warriors aren't a bad choice to start. They lack in ranged but are great at everything else. They also have a lot of themed options like a troll army and some of their units have some very cool modeling oportunities.

Dwarves don't have magic like the other races but they aren't innactive during the magic phase. They have many dice to roll to prevent magic being cast on them and some rune magic which I don't really understand having not seen dwarves much.

Empire aren't really a SM equivilent as there isn't one. They are similar in being a good all rounder army but they are no more elite than any other army.

High elves have a play style kind of like eldar where you have some very elite stuff with good skills but they are almost all S and T 3 so have trouble getting through armour and killing higher T enemies.

Beasts of chaos are likely to be good ( GW power creep lol) but I suggest waiting a while to see what they are like. I belive the basic idea of them is fragile but hit hard from many directions ( that was the idea with the last book).

I thought about Ogres, but rather quickyl found they to suck really badly. I want to play fun games, not die every time.

Yeah it's a real shame I love the models and the idea but being killed every game takes the fun away. GW has tried not to make them overpowered by making them too good in CC but forgot thats what they are meant to do. If you like the idea of big creatures try putting Throgg the troll king in a warriors of chaos armies he makes chaos trolls (similar to ogres without the sucking) core

Dwarves do get magic defense, and the anvil of doom is SORT of like magic. Except it happens in the shooting phase and can't be defended against. The most magic-y thing they get is the runic weapons rules, which let you make your own custom magic items. Which is pretty sweet.

As far as Beasts of Chaos... we're all going to find out how they play in a couple months, when they release the new edition rules for them.

I actually think Ogres are great. Ok, they may not be right up there with the armies that always win, but they do win, don't believe anyone that tells you they "suck". Of course, I'm also the type of person who likes a challenge

Another thing to consider is that an Ogre Kingdoms army book revamp is most likely going to be released later this year, so if you get in on them now, you may beat the "ohhh it's new and shiny and I want it" rush, lol.

*Rush into room*

Traitor!

*Runs out*

I just want to point out that despite Fantasy using more models , they generally also get more models per box.

I think the armies you're looking at are great to start. Warriors of Chaos would be really cool! If he did Beasts of Chaos, you could fight with OR against each other in friendly games, I think

You can get away with 60-70 models in a 2250 point army list with an All-Plate armour list by taking advantage of Warriors.