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You've probably heard this story a thousand times by now, but here it is. I'm a 40k player, (Blood Angels, hiss hiss boo) and due to the increased amount of Fantasy playing at my FLGS, I want to see what this Fantasy nonsense is all about, and I wanted to try that by diving in. I like Small Model, Elite CC orientated armies, so I was recommended WoC. I have about 200-300 boondollars to spare on this, and I know 50 or so (I forgot the price) is going to the Big Fancy Rulebook. What products/models/tactics should I be looking into? I know the Battalion one is a steal, so most likely going to be grabbing that.

(When it comes to Chaos Gods, I like them all BUT Khorne. I see too much Khorne at my FLGS, would like to do something different.)

Thoughts?

One:
Skip the rulebook. Wait for the starter box to come out in September so you aren't getting ripped off by GW. Literally 400+ pages of it is a waste of time, even for a new player. The starter box will have over 100 minis and a rulebook for almost the same price as that awful paperweight they sell now.

Even if you don't want to play High Elves or Skaven, you can trade/sell the models for WoC ones. Although High Elves can also be a small elite cc army.

Two:
I would avoid the battalion because you will have a tough time using cavalry well in the new rules as a new player. Especially expensive Chaos Knights.

Three:
That leaves you with lots and lots of blocks of troops. Blocks of marauders do well as do blocks of chaos warriors. You can arm them in a variety of ways, hand weapon and shield for units you want to take a lot of punishment, flails/halberd/great weapons for units you want to do damage. Probably a couple of 20-30 man units of each type would do you well for starters (probably smaller units for chaos warriors like 15-25 max).

Four:
Two Hellcannons is a must, but because the model looks like a sphincter taped to an empty toilet paper roll, get four cavalry bases (or two 50mm square bases), and convert your own on top of them. Anything large, demonic, and shooty looking will do. Even just large and demonic will do. I recommend waiting for the new daemon prince models and using those.

Five:
Hounds. Hounds are great for redirecting enemy units, setting up charges, getting flanks, etc. Find dog/wolf/hound models on ebay and start off with 10-20 of them. Run them in units of 10-15 and try and hit the flanks of your enemies. Spawn are good for this too, but then you can't take two hellcannons.

Six:
Did I mention Hellcannons?

Seven:
Plan on having either a sorcerer lord with one or two level two sorcerers, leading your army or a chaos lord with a two or three level two sorcerers. Avoid putting your characters on big mounts. They make big targets for shooting.

Eight:
Know your marks. Mark of Tzeentch and Mark of Khorne got a huge boost in 8th ed. Tzeentch makes your units harder to kill (5+ ward save in cc with hand weapon and shield) and mark of khorne turns even marauders into something to be feared. Mark of Slaanesh is now next to useless, though was probably the best mark in 7th.

Nine:
Hellcannons.

I hope this helped.

Kasrkinlegion wrote:One:
Skip the rulebook. Wait for the starter box to come out in September so you aren't getting ripped off by GW. Literally 400+ pages of it is a waste of time, even for a new player. The starter box will have over 100 minis and a rulebook for almost the same price as that awful paperweight they sell now.

I hope this helped.

I don't think it's such a waste for a new player, especially if that player loves fluff and, being new, doesn't know the whfb fluff at all. If all he wants is rules, sure, wait for the new starter set, otherwise the book is worth it.

Two:
I would avoid the battalion because you will have a tough time using cavalry well in the new rules as a new player. Especially expensive Chaos Knights.

just because you don't like how cavalry works now doesn't mean it isn't good. it's just different. and useful. the battleforce is a good deal.

Four:
Two Hellcannons is a must, but because the model looks like a sphincter taped to an empty toilet paper roll, get four cavalry bases (or two 50mm square bases), and convert your own on top of them. Anything large, demonic, and shooty looking will do. Even just large and demonic will do. I recommend waiting for the new daemon prince models and using those.

Six:
Did I mention Hellcannons?

Nine:
Hellcannons.

He clearly stated he wanted a close combat oriented army. Hellcannons cost a lot of points, and they shoot. that's quite a few points he could spend on close combat.


Everything else I agree with.

I personally think that units of 12 chaos warriors work well, and you can experiment with the different marks, to be honest all of them are good, but I like Nurgle the best due to the large number of times it will drop people to needing 5's to hit your WOC, in close combat, and it protects you from some shooting. I should point out that it doesn't help you with the sheer number of templates that are suspected to be a basic strategy for some armies now.

The following 1000 point army list is pretty cheap cash wise, effective at CC, and I think a good start to learning the game since it has a lot of variation. It also is a great starting point for expanding your army, since it has more than 50% core.

Chaos Sorcerer (Put him in one of the warrior units) & I suggest the Lore of Death
Level 2, Enchanted Shield, Shrieking Blade, Dispel Scroll, General

12 Chaos Warriors (6 wide, 2 deep)
Shields, Extra Hand Weapon, Mark of Tzeentch
Musician, Standard

12 Chaos Warriors (6 wide, 2 deep)
Shields, Extra Hand Weapon, Mark of Tzeentch
Musician, Standard

5 Marauder Cavalry (5 wide)
Light Armor, Flails, Throwing Axes, Mark of Slaanesh

6 Trolls (3 Wide, 2 Deep, oh and keep these near the Chaos Sorcerer, the stupid rule is a tad bit annoying.)

children of filth wrote:
I don't think it's such a waste for a new player, especially if that player loves fluff and, being new, doesn't know the whfb fluff at all. If all he wants is rules, sure, wait for the new starter set, otherwise the book is worth it.

just because you don't like how cavalry works now doesn't mean it isn't good. it's just different. and useful. the battleforce is a good deal.

He clearly stated he wanted a close combat oriented army. Hellcannons cost a lot of points, and they shoot. that's quite a few points he could spend on close combat.

There's plenty of fluff online and on GW's website for free. You can buy Warhammer novels for next to nothing at used book stores. The problem with buying the new book for fluff is that once you've read it once, you're done and then the book just sits on your shelf because it's too heavy to take to games. If you really want to read the fluff that badly in the rulebook, just read it from someone else's or the store copy. Buying that $75 piece of crap is the same amount of money you could spend on two or three units of troops.

The battalion is a good deal, but you can get dogs way cheaper than that (plastic wolves are about $1 each on ebay and look pretty awesome) and the knights are going to be super hard to use for a new player. I'd start off with infantry, hounds, and hellcannons and then add cavalry once I got the hang of the game if I really wanted them. In every game I've played so far of 8th, cav has gotten smacked around like rag dolls and has been super ineffective. Not a good unit for a starting player.

As for Hellcannons, he'll get plenty of close combat with two hellcannons in a WoC army. Two hellcannons are an absolute must in the WoC army now. They'll keep the game from being frustrating because he'll have more of a fighting chance. Not only that, but if you're a new player, you'll actually learn to use the shooting phase. I still have trouble remembering where the shooting phase even is during my games because I started with chaos back when they had no shooting at all.

I would suggest either going all tzeentch, or all gods, and although I would suggest Khorne upfront, you said you don't like him... Anyways, I'm also starting an army, so I wish you the best. (Blood for the blood god!)

Kasrkinlegion wrote:

children of filth wrote:
I don't think it's such a waste for a new player, especially if that player loves fluff and, being new, doesn't know the whfb fluff at all. If all he wants is rules, sure, wait for the new starter set, otherwise the book is worth it.

just because you don't like how cavalry works now doesn't mean it isn't good. it's just different. and useful. the battleforce is a good deal.

He clearly stated he wanted a close combat oriented army. Hellcannons cost a lot of points, and they shoot. that's quite a few points he could spend on close combat.

There's plenty of fluff online and on GW's website for free. You can buy Warhammer novels for next to nothing at used book stores. The problem with buying the new book for fluff is that once you've read it once, you're done and then the book just sits on your shelf because it's too heavy to take to games. If you really want to read the fluff that badly in the rulebook, just read it from someone else's or the store copy. Buying that $75 piece of crap is the same amount of money you could spend on two or three units of troops.

The battalion is a good deal, but you can get dogs way cheaper than that (plastic wolves are about $1 each on ebay and look pretty awesome) and the knights are going to be super hard to use for a new player. I'd start off with infantry, hounds, and hellcannons and then add cavalry once I got the hang of the game if I really wanted them. In every game I've played so far of 8th, cav has gotten smacked around like rag dolls and has been super ineffective. Not a good unit for a starting player.

As for Hellcannons, he'll get plenty of close combat with two hellcannons in a WoC army. Two hellcannons are an absolute must in the WoC army now. They'll keep the game from being frustrating because he'll have more of a fighting chance. Not only that, but if you're a new player, you'll actually learn to use the shooting phase. I still have trouble remembering where the shooting phase even is during my games because I started with chaos back when they had no shooting at all.

As I said, I am a MASSIVE noob when it comes to Fantasy. Having not even glimpsed through the Rulebook yet, all I know is that there is a Magic phase in addition to the others, how I arrange my units in my formations matters incredibly (Though I don't know the effect) and that initial placement/movement is probably the most important part. (Correct me if I am wrong, I have only learned this through an odd Internet osmosis of info.)
I'll probably start with a thousand points, so the list that was posted, I'll probably try. I don't want to look at big games (To me, 2000+) yet until I have a good grasp of game mechanics. I pick them up pretty quickly (40k took me about a week of reading the mini-rulebook over and over to get all the rules stuck in my head, really haven't had to consult it much now). Now, I've been told that the WoC are also a defensive army, and that I should focus more on luring my opponent in to where I want them instead of running after them. Is this true?
Now, Hellcannons. I don't remember the exact percentages of points that I can distribute, so how many of them would I be able to take in 1000-1500 points? What do they do, other than just ranged Dakka that can go insane if I'm unlucky?

Probably one in 1000 points, but at 1640+ you can get two hellcannons. You can't get three hellcannons, unless you have a 3000+ point army, in which case you can get up to 4.

I just started and I'm running something vaguely like:

Sorcerer - MoT, Level 2

24 Marauders (6x4) - Hand weapon and shield, MoT

24 Marauders (6x4) - Flails and MoK

15 Chaos Warriors (5x3) - Hand weapon and shield, MoT, Standard Bearer with Blasted Standard (have 4+ Ward vs. shooting or 5+ Ward in CC)

5 Chaos Knights - MoT

5 Chaos Hounds

I think that's it. It's been doing fairly well for me and my knights have been decently effective (only one game they failed because I charged a Stegadon and it went very, very badly ). It's done decent vs. Lizardmen, Ogres and Empire. Hopefully this little bit of knowledge is worth something.

I want to just ask a slightly OT question.

But I know the fantasy players here are really nice so they might lend me a hand.

Did the mark of Nurgle change at all? is it still -1 WS in CC?

Shadowbrand wrote:I want to just ask a slightly OT question.

But I know the fantasy players here are really nice so they might lend me a hand.

Did the mark of Nurgle change at all? is it still -1 WS in CC?

No, it's -1 to Hit roll in combat and in shooting, the WS stays the same (I beleive let me check my book)

Edit: Nope, I had it wrong: Enemies are at -1 WS in combat and suffer -1 to hit with shooting.

Edit 2: Unless of course a new Chaos rulebook came out when I wasn't looking...

Ok a few things that can be picked up here

Firstly the guy asked for our opinions and well some have been good and others (Karskinlegion - im looking at you here) arent so good.

Chaos Knights are awesome - they cause fear and hit hard - I run them in units of 10 ( 2 ranks of 5) so far so good they make a mess of the enemy.

Marauders in regiments of 30 or 40 are a must as they benefit from the new horde rules.

Warriors in 3 or 4 ranks of 5 will chew things to pieces.

Ogres are good but buy a box of orge bulls and use spare parts from a spawn kit to make them chaos ogres (featured on GW site - very good idea)

Consider a single god Army - I like Nurgle but as you like close combat look at Khorne - no magic but the mark gives frenzy and therefore extra attack so win for the hand to hand.

Marauder Horsemen or Warhounds for the flanks

Hellcannons are overated and you can spend points better on other units. The limitations on whats taken no longer applies so you could take 2 hellcannon and some spawn now.

Also if you take spawn/hounds they can be used in beastmen forces if you ever decide to give them a go.

When you can't afford a BSB, say in 1000 point games, the Mark of Slaanesh is still very very good. With only a few units running around, failing a panic test can be devastating.

Go on GW's website and order a bitz pack of the halberds. Two packs is all you'll need and chaos warriors with halberds are BRUTAL. Going first against most things at S5 with WS5 is really ridiculous. Give them the Banner of Rage and tear people up!

Scottie wrote:Karskinlegion - im looking at you here) arent so good.

Chaos Knights are awesome - they cause fear and hit hard - I run them in units of 10 ( 2 ranks of 5) so far so good they make a mess of the enemy.

Marauders in regiments of 30 or 40 are a must as they benefit from the new horde rules.

Warriors in 3 or 4 ranks of 5 will chew things to pieces.

Consider a single god Army - I like Nurgle but as you like close combat look at Khorne - no magic but the mark gives frenzy and therefore extra attack so win for the hand to hand.

Hellcannons are overated and you can spend points better on other units. The limitations on whats taken no longer applies so you could take 2 hellcannon and some spawn now.

That unit of 10 knights costs the same as almost three units of marauders. You will not get more use out of one unit of knights than three units of marauders ever. Chaos knights are just way too overpriced for what they can do now and they're way to vulnerable to warmachines with how huge the models are with true LoS.

Marauders in units of 25+ are great. Hording them up in ranks 10 long is a waste. The fact that they are on big bases means you will never engage enough models to get that many extra attacks from hording up and other people will have a much easier time throwing multiple units at you because you're such a large unit. They're also hell to maneuver around the cornucopia of stupidity that you can generate withe the new terrain generator.

Single god armies are great for friendly fluff filled games. Even friendly pick up games at your local store will demand a mixed mark army unless you're dying for some kind of theme. The new WoC book is about as unfluffy as any army book GW has ever made and the list begs you to mix marks. Considering you can do stupid things like give khorne items to characters with marks from other gods shows they weren't even trying. Neither should you...

My Hellcannons have been consistently killing about 20-40 models a game, especially when I play against armies that use 20mm bases, which is most of them. If you roll a hit with the template over the middle of a block of troops you're rolling 20 dice to wound and that's only one turn. 410 points for two of them is some of most efficient model removing juiciness in the WoC book. They also auto defend against warmachine hunters and you can screen them with 25 points of hounds if you really want. Always take two hellcannons, there's no reason not to.

The book is fluffy because you're supposed to mix marks. That's what fluffy is now. The other stuff is outdated and I wish everyone could see that :/

As far as the horde rule being a "waste," do people not realize Swift Reform exists for a reason? Don't run your guys around in blocks 10 wide, run them in something more reasonable and use it when it's advantageous. Saying it will never be useful is a fallacy, even if it won't be as often.

If you like small, elites units that are beast in close combat, WoC is the place to start, and a battalion box alongside a general generally gives you a working (albeit small) army to practice and learn the rules with. As you improve, consider adding more units, such as wizards, hellcannons, and other stuff.

Khorne is often considered "the" CC mark, (also they have the coolest slogan), but Tzeentch is right up there. I am unfamiliar with Nurgle's current status in 8th edition, but I've always been a supporter of the "choose what looks cool" ideology.

Otherwise, unless you want the HE and skaven in the new starter, I'd suggest the battalion, a general (he could be a wizard if you want) and the BRB, the sheer amount of awesome content in the BRB is too good to pass up. That would/should be inside your 200-300$ budget.

Kasrkinlegion is right about Knights they are over cost now. 5 Knights are just screaming for a bolt thrower or warmachiene to shoot them. Your looking at a 300ish point unit, that will hurt units in a flank charge but isn't much use elsewhere. I'm running a unit of them in my campaign army because i needed the cap room to free up some cash for later.

Hellcannons are good. You should at least take one of them.

I also agree that a mixed list will in the end be better than a mono mark army.

Warriors - MoT or MoK are best, MoN works but isn't as good as MoT imo
Marauders - MoT or MoK, MoN works but same as above
Marauder Horsemen - MoS or MoK
Chosen - No Idea don't use them
Chariot - No Idea don't use them
Knights - MoT, MoN or MoK - I'm currently thinking MoN will be best because of the -1 to hit penalty at range.
Warshrine - MoT
Giant - MoS or MoK

Okay, first off, the big rulebook is NOT a big waste of money.

It is, by far, the best rulebook GW has ever put out in its history of fantasy, you'll be missing out if you don't get it.

Its gorgeous, and the fluff is excellent, as well as the scenarios and the extra stuff they put in (the dwarven blimp, the chaos siege tower)

Its up to you, but I see far too many talking bad about the hardcover rulebook because they just play to win, and don't give two gaks about the actual backstory of the game (a broad generalization, but I've found it to be true in the majority of cases)

Karon wrote:It is, by far, the best rulebook GW has ever put out in its history of fantasy, you'll be missing out if you don't get it.

Its gorgeous, and the fluff is excellent, as well as the scenarios and the extra stuff they put in (the dwarven blimp, the chaos siege tower)

Its up to you, but I see far too many talking bad about the hardcover rulebook because they just play to win, and don't give two gaks about the actual backstory of the game (a broad generalization, but I've found it to be true in the majority of cases)

I am a casual player, I don't play the game just to win by any stretch of the imagination.

But I also don't like being ripped off.

Paying $75 for fluff which is essentially the same fluff they've had for the last 25 years is a ripoff. You can read a lot of it for free online or by buying very inexpensive older GW books or by reading black library books which you can get for next to nothing.
Paying $75 for 200 pages of artwork that's already appeared in other publications is a ripoff.
Why pay $75 when the same rules will be out in September but will come with about 100 miniatures for almost the same price. That giant book will just collect dust on your shelf because the only book you'll ever have with you is your tiny rulebook anyway.
The starter box is 100 times better for new players because it's just the rules, comes with minis, comes with a starter book that warms you up the game, comes with dice, comes with templates, and isn't a ripoff like the $75 book that comes with none of that.

Casper wrote:Kasrkinlegion is right about Knights they are over cost now. 5 Knights are just screaming for a bolt thrower or warmachiene to shoot them. Your looking at a 300ish point unit, that will hurt units in a flank charge but isn't much use elsewhere. I'm running a unit of them in my campaign army because i needed the cap room to free up some cash for later.

No one in my area uses bolt throwers or warmachines I think it's kind of presumptuous to think everyone will be using anything.

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:

Casper wrote:Kasrkinlegion is right about Knights they are over cost now. 5 Knights are just screaming for a bolt thrower or warmachiene to shoot them. Your looking at a 300ish point unit, that will hurt units in a flank charge but isn't much use elsewhere. I'm running a unit of them in my campaign army because i needed the cap room to free up some cash for later.

No one in my area uses bolt throwers or warmachines I think it's kind of presumptuous to think everyone will be using anything.

What part of texas are you in.

Down here war machines are usually in a list...

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:
No one in my area uses bolt throwers or warmachines I think it's kind of presumptuous to think everyone will be using anything.

Unfortunately, the WoC book is so badly written that there are very few ways to play the list well. Hellcannons are so effective, there's really no reason not to take them from a strategy standpoint. In tournaments, I doubt you will see many WoC lists not take hellcannons and I also doubt lists that don't have them will do well. They can win games for you almost by themselves if you get some lucky hits. At the bare minimum they will give your opponent something they need to throw units at and they can fend off whole units on their own.

In friendly pickup games, there's still no reason not to take them. Without them you don't get a shooting phase and it's nice to participate in every phase of the game. It also adds a different level of strategy as it allows you more options and gives your opponent something to do besides try and flank your marauders and chaos warriors.

So aside from some kind of super fluffy fun list, a style of play most people don't engage in, there's no reason not to take two.

Oof, I've been gone for a while and this thread took off a bit. As I've heard in this thread, I need to mix my marks. So I guess I'll probably be going Khorne/Tzeentch in Marks but painting them Slaanesh/Tzeentch. I KNOW I'm getting the Battalion set, so I plan on using the Knights to convert into Chosen, and using the Horses for...I dunno. Now, I've looked at the money I'm getting, and the amount of money will most likely be 300-400. So, the Codex/Battalion/Rulebook (I want to get the BRB, I have NO reason to get the starter set. The people at my FLGS aren't much into HE and Skaven, so I wouldn't really have anyone to "trade" with, and I love a massive lug of paper to lug around and read. Also, my FLGS is cool with us using their dice/templates/etc, so I don't really need to spend money. Also, I don't have people over to game.) will set me back 300 after taxes, so about 50-100 to spend on expanding it. I'd like to make my General a Sorc, and with a few minor conversions I bet I could make some Chars+BSB from the Chosen Command box.

You don't have to mix marks! Khorne and Tzeentch got a lot better imho, with frenzy being easier to control with a leadership test, and of course the ability to improve a ward save having more use now that hw/shield gives a ward save. I think you could easily make an all-khorne, all-tzeentch, or all-nurgle army (which was already very good). Slaanesh I see having more of a problem, though...

So I vote mono-god, for what it's worth

RiTides wrote:You don't have to mix marks! Khorne and Tzeentch got a lot better imho, with frenzy being easier to control with a leadership test, and of course the ability to improve a ward save having more use now that hw/shield gives a ward save. I think you could easily make an all-khorne, all-tzeentch, or all-nurgle army (which was already very good). Slaanesh I see having more of a problem, though...

So I vote mono-god, for what it's worth

I would like to make it mono-Tzeentch, but I'm all for using appropriate Marks for other things. I know I want to slap some Tzeentch on my Casters and HW+S guys, but what do the other Marks do? (Have yet to buy Rulebook+Codex, grabbing them both+Battalion box this weekend) I know MoN does something negative to WS when resolving attacks against you, but other than extra attack, I don't understand Frenzy for MoK.

Frenzy forces you to declare a charge if you're able to; however, in the new edition I believe you can take a leadership test to attempt to not make that charge, which balances it out a bit. MoN also gives a negative modifier to shooting at a unit with that mark. Slaanesh, I'm not too sure (book's at home) but it's not as good as the others!

My point was just that, besides Slaanesh, the marks are all good enough that you wouldn't be handicapping yourself much at all by going mono-god now, and it'd be much cooler, imho!

Slaanesh is immune to fear, terror and panic.

@karskin: The model is horrendous-looking for one. I just don't like the idea of random chart things either. I'm not saying I would never take one, but there are other things I'd much rather take before I take one and no force is magically compelling me to. Nothing bad is going to happen if I don't.

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:@karskin: The model is horrendous-looking for one. I just don't like the idea of random chart things either. I'm not saying I would never take one, but there are other things I'd much rather take before I take one and no force is magically compelling me to. Nothing bad is going to happen if I don't.

I agree 100% that the model is awful. There are so many good models you could use for one though. Pretty much anything on a monster base with a cannon will do. Pick up some cheap cannons on ebay by themselves and glue them down with chaos warriors, or demons, or whatever fits the look of your army.

As for marks, Slannesh is pretty useless now since BSB lets you re-roll everything. Khorne is so much better than it used to be because you can indeed make an Ld test to keep from charging. Tzeentch is pretty awesome because if your unit has hand weapon and shield, you have a 5+ ward save in combat instead of a 6+. Characters with tzeentch can get a 3+ ward save.

Also keep in mind that you can always sell the models in the starter box on ebay and make a lot of the money back from the starter box. After carrying the BRB to a few games, you will break down and buy a starter set for the little book alone. Might as well just wait for it. It also comes with templates (which are much easier to use than the new spoked one) and dice, all of which you'd have to buy extra anyway if you buy the BRB.

ShivanAngel wrote:What part of texas are you in.

Down here war machines are usually in a list...

North DFW. Fantasy has been all but dead for a while around here though. I know some places around Hulen that have a scene for it but honestly Skirmish games get more play than Fantasy does.

And I wouldn't call Slaanesh useless because you still might have units that won't be in the magic bubble (marauder horsemen charging ahead), or as someone pointed out it might be better in lower point games without a standard. Not that I have tons of experience to argue with either, but I think extreme sentiments are kind of silly since nobody knows what they'll be facing next anyway. I still favor no dice over good dice having to be rolled.