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Which are the Best Armies in 8th Edition?

Best: High Elves, Ogers, Empire, Dwarfs, Lizardmen

Middle: Orcs+Goblins, Tomb Kings, Deamons of Chaos

Worst: Wood Elves

Not sure about all the other armies.

Can anyone help with the others or suggest movement up or down?

Some say Ogres are middle, i disagree BTW. DE, WoC and skaven are deffinetly in best. Brets are supposta be in worst but they have quite a few tricks so more like a finnese army. Beasts are in worst it seems. VC seem somewhere in middle to me not quite sure.

Ok then:

Best: High Elves, Ogers, Empire, Dwarfs, Lizardmen, Dark Elves, Warriors of Chaos, Skaven

Middle: Vampire Counts, Orcs+Goblins, Tomb Kings, Deamons of Chaos

Worst: Wood Elves, Beastmen, Brettonians

As long as you're doing this you might as well have a look here http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/312390.page

Yeah there are always different builds which can make some armies alot better than they seem. I've seen some pretty gross O&G lists lately which would move them up in the top tiers, but those are also played but folks who really know what they're doing.
Beastmen - I still don't know. Been running an almost all chariot army and have alot of success with it, especially against top tier armies.
Just my two cents - I would move Empire into the middle category since there are so many different builds for them and they really vary. Ogres definately middle. Dwarves middle as well. Lizards I would also move down as well since they are hurt so much by initiative, points percentages and reliance on a Slann to have any magic phase (and temple guard really are crappy this edition). I would say:

Top: High Elves, Dark Elves, Warriors of Chaos, Skaven (being the highest)
Middle: Ogres, Empire, Dwarves, VC, Orcs&Goblins, Tomb Kings, Daemons of Chaos (being the highest of the group)
Low: Wood Elves, Brettonians, Beastmen (being the highest of the group)

I disagree on your assesment of the lizzards, but then again i also disagree stegaspam is dead and have also made a point of proving it in my area by stampeeding over some pretty scary builds

Edit: Temple guard aren't as fail with the right tool, like a cheap banner that makes hydras and HPAs have nightmares

I feel like im on a mission to put high elfs down to middle, why does everyone rate them so well, you put dwarfs and empire mid tier but they will wipe the floor with high elfs 95% of the time.

Daemons are also still top there still very powerful even without kairos.

Lizards are slow but there still combat and magic beasts, salamanders rock and so do chameleon skinks, who cares if they go last they got high toughness and armour(saurus).

Has anyone used the Iob box set? The high elfs have over 300points more than skaven and yet its an even fight.

The only reason HE are high up is Teclis... Oh wait no he isn't they also have super duper ASF as well. Altho he's still the main reason.

I have yet to lose to high elves in 8th edition, even lists with teclis.

I have fought them with lizards, daemons, and skaven....

I dont see what the big deal is.

Me neither my slann eats Teclis on regular basis.

Same i havent seen high elfs win once,i have always won easily with my empire and dwarfs.

Dwarves are good this edition, I would consider them a top 5 army. I saw Dwarves take 2nd and 1st in two of the local pre-lims. Dwarves ran through 3 vary mean DE players for the 1st in one of them.

bennyboy6189 wrote:Same i havent seen high elfs win once,i have always won easily with my empire and dwarfs.

I have seen High Elves comfortably beat skaven several times.

Also I have seen Dwarfs be crushed by Dark Elves.

I personally believe that Skaven are the top army still. I tabled my first opponent this campaign who plays WoC and next up on the list should either be Dark Elves or VC so we'll see how I fare against them. I've assumed that Dark Elves will be the tougher of the two opponents.

But as someone points out in every one of these threads, it doesn't make any sense to rank whole armies.

A really well built High Elf list with Teclis can be very competitive, but it is very easy to put together a mediocre to poor list. Beastmen are not a strong army in general but a chariot heavy build can do all kinds of ugly things to the right opponents. And while armies like Ogres, Empire and Lizardmen are generally considered quite well and are capable of building very powerful lists, it's also possible to produce average and even weak lists.

It really depends on the build. You can't just rank whole armies.

The thing about Skaven is you are hard pressed to find something in the book that isn't worth taking. So this makes it easier in general to produce a good army list, they also have every counter to another army that you can imagine and you can usually fit them into every list. What I like about Skaven is that to me they aren't a real well known or frequently played right army. Lots of people play them now but I doubt you will see them winning a high percentage of their games. A good Skaven general in my eyes will however win a high percentage of their games against the whole variety of armies and play styles. I mean your right...there are just too many variables to say this army this, that army that. BUT I will say that some armies (Lizards and WoC for example) will range from say a 6-8 out of 10 on the scale of performance where I can see Skaven ranging from 3-10 depending on army build and skill level of the player. This is what excites me about them and I cant see a whole lot of other armies that I could say have up to a 10 on the performance chart under the right conditions even. I think Empire are close as well as Dark Elves and Dwarfs. If they get rid of animosity for Orcs and Goblins I would rank them the same way as Skaven likely but then again they do have more issues with Leadership because Skaven get 'Strength in Numbers'.

There are already threads like this. Use the search bar.

Plus these threads are usually useless as they cause nothing but arguments and the list gets nowhere.

Exodus2013 wrote:The thing about Skaven is you are hard pressed to find something in the book that isn't worth taking. So this makes it easier in general to produce a good army list, they also have every counter to another army that you can imagine and you can usually fit them into every list. What I like about Skaven is that to me they aren't a real well known or frequently played right army. Lots of people play them now but I doubt you will see them winning a high percentage of their games. A good Skaven general in my eyes will however win a high percentage of their games against the whole variety of armies and play styles. I mean your right...there are just too many variables to say this army this, that army that. BUT I will say that some armies (Lizards and WoC for example) will range from say a 6-8 out of 10 on the scale of performance where I can see Skaven ranging from 3-10 depending on army build and skill level of the player. This is what excites me about them and I cant see a whole lot of other armies that I could say have up to a 10 on the performance chart under the right conditions even. I think Empire are close as well as Dark Elves and Dwarfs. If they get rid of animosity for Orcs and Goblins I would rank them the same way as Skaven likely but then again they do have more issues with Leadership because Skaven get 'Strength in Numbers'.

Yeah, that's a pretty decent summary, and a decent method for considering the more powerful armies. The problem is that there's a lot of different ways of considering army strength, such as the most powerful possible build for a current army, the number of tournament standard builds available, the knowledge needed to put a competitive army on the table in either a friendly or a tournament standard environment, and so on. The problem is the individuals thought processes often go unstated, or aren't even really considered and you get these kinds of fuzzy rankings of armies without any kind of consistant reasoning.


Oh, and while skaven are very strong they are extremely vulnerable to flanking, because they lose their LD bonus if they lose their rank bonus. You can be steadfast all you like, but if you're testing on base 5 or 6, you're going to fail a lot. The trick then comes from successfully flanking those big skaven blocks.

I wouldn't say ogres are top.

ogres are probably between the Middle and top tiers.

Bretonnians are the best army

UNREALPwnage wrote:Bretonnians are the best army

i suppose everything is subjective at this point

sebster wrote:Oh, and while skaven are very strong they are extremely vulnerable to flanking, because they lose their LD bonus if they lose their rank bonus. You can be steadfast all you like, but if you're testing on base 5 or 6, you're going to fail a lot. The trick then comes from successfully flanking those big skaven blocks.

The problem here is, especially if the Skaven player takes a Screaming Bell, that you have an 18" bubble where the units can use the grey seers LD of 7 as well as a 12" bubble for BSB generated re-rolls. So even if I get flanked you are stubborn 7 with re-rolls as I usually run a castle formation to take advantage of this. To add to this as a Skaven player you army will most certainly have more units then the other so it will make it real hard to get a flank charge in.

I like debates like this with intelligent folk such as sebster. I do not understand why people have to come into threads like this and whine and cry and talk about how pointless threads like this are. If you don't like it don't post, simple as that. Find another thread that interests you in a more positive light.

Exodus2013 wrote:The problem here is, especially if the Skaven player takes a Screaming Bell, that you have an 18" bubble where the units can use the grey seers LD of 7 as well as a 12" bubble for BSB generated re-rolls. So even if I get flanked you are stubborn 7 with re-rolls as I usually run a castle formation to take advantage of this. To add to this as a Skaven player you army will most certainly have more units then the other so it will make it real hard to get a flank charge in.

That definitely true. I never said it was easy to get the flank charges in, just that it was a bigger threat to the skaven than to other armies

And as I've argued elsewhere, if you're facing a horde army then objective #1 should be to kill the BSB. Do that and suddenly any LD value looks a little suspect, and a skaven unit that's been flanked looks downright flaky, steadfast or not. It's isn't necessarily easy to do, but it's certainly possible.

Most definitely. What army do ya play again? What combo's work good for you against horde type armies?

Exodus2013 wrote:Most definitely. What army do ya play again? What combo's work good for you against horde type armies?

I play Empire, without any real theme. I've got a load of everything, really, and in any given game I'll look to build an army around whatever I've recently painted or something I haven't used in a while.

I generally go with a core of big blocks of infantry, each with full size ranged detachments. Generally their crossbowmen because I really like the added range, but sometimes I go for hangunners to take long rifles so I can snipe BSBs and mages. With minimum war machines it's hardly an optimum load out, so if I'm expecting a more competitive game I normally have to adjust to include more war machines.

For counterpunch I'm taking knights with great weapons - they're working a whole lot better than lances in this edition. I know a lot of people don't like knights but I think they have a really good role to serve to break units that have been anchored by an infantry unit.

Typically I pick one enemy unit and pound hell out of it, some people fire until they've forced a panic test - I keep going until there's so few guys left I can break them with my knights. The point is to collapse that flank, then turn on the rest of his army. That's the plan, anyway, things rarely go to plan.

sebster wrote:

I play Empire, without any real theme. I've got a load of everything, really, and in any given game I'll look to build an army around whatever I've recently painted or something I haven't used in a while.

I generally go with a core of big blocks of infantry, each with full size ranged detachments. Generally their crossbowmen because I really like the added range, but sometimes I go for hangunners to take long rifles so I can snipe BSBs and mages. With minimum war machines it's hardly an optimum load out, so if I'm expecting a more competitive game I normally have to adjust to include more war machines.

For counterpunch I'm taking knights with great weapons - they're working a whole lot better than lances in this edition. I know a lot of people don't like knights but I think they have a really good role to serve to break units that have been anchored by an infantry unit.

Typically I pick one enemy unit and pound hell out of it, some people fire until they've forced a panic test - I keep going until there's so few guys left I can break them with my knights. The point is to collapse that flank, then turn on the rest of his army. That's the plan, anyway, things rarely go to plan.

Thats where I plan to be with my Skaven, to have 10k worth of models so I can make whatever style army I feel like for whatever campaign, tourney or friendly battle. Currently I have enough for basically the same 2k list which is ok because my list seems to work exceptionally well (possibly aided by my gameplay style?). As for your knights with great weapons...I totally agree cause lances suck. I also agree that knights do have a purpose in your army and I couldn't see leaving home without one good unit of Knights for an empire list. Whats your thoughts so far on the Steam tank?

Exodus2013 wrote:Thats where I plan to be with my Skaven, to have 10k worth of models so I can make whatever style army I feel like for whatever campaign, tourney or friendly battle. Currently I have enough for basically the same 2k list which is ok because my list seems to work exceptionally well (possibly aided by my gameplay style?). As for your knights with great weapons...I totally agree cause lances suck. I also agree that knights do have a purpose in your army and I couldn't see leaving home without one good unit of Knights for an empire list. Whats your thoughts so far on the Steam tank?

I don't have a steam tank. I haven't really been keen to get one, as I've mostly played games around 1,500 and it just seemed a little goofy to put one on the field in games of that scale. It looks like a fun painting project though, so as I get towards fielding 3,000 I'll probably add one.

10,000 is a whole lot of skaven. Don't think I'll ever get near that, I'll likely get to around 4,000 or 5,000 points, that's normally enough to have a lot of flexibility with anything up to 3,000 point games.

I've played two games with my empire in 8th, both at 2k and both with one steam tank. Works pretty well. Used it to play mop up duties against lizardmen (after shooting thinned his lines down). Then lost it to a pit of shades (I didn't read in the FAQ where it says PoS doesn't work in it at the times.)

Also wiped the floor with a beastmen army with it.

My favorite empire unit in 8th though, even over the stank, is flagellants. A unit of 30 (same price as a stank) is just nuts, and tons of fun to play with. So far their kill total from those two games include an entire unit of temple guard (only 12 strong I think) plus the slann inside, and a unit of 6 minotaurs (in one turn I might add). I didn't get to finish the beastmen game, my brother finished it for me, so I don't know what else they took out.

Sorry, OT from what you were talking about, but just wanted to add my 2 cents.

Bretonnians are a mid army, they are good but dont have access to all the lores, but we are a 2+ armor save army with good heroes and lords. We usually have a 5+ ward so we are very hard to kill. Bretonnians also get some of the cheapest troops out there. At 5 points each Men at Arms are a force to be reckoned with. They have light armor, shield, and a halberd or spear. Bretonnians are not one of the worse armies. I would put wood elves at dead last followed by Beastmen.

UNREALPwnage wrote:Bretonnians are a mid army, they are good but dont have access to all the lores, but we are a 2+ armor save army with good heroes and lords. We usually have a 5+ ward so we are very hard to kill. Bretonnians also get some of the cheapest troops out there. At 5 points each Men at Arms are a force to be reckoned with. They have light armor, shield, and a halberd or spear. Bretonnians are not one of the worse armies. I would put wood elves at dead last followed by Beastmen.

The recent FAQs have also given the brets a boost as it confirms that it's 3 model wide lance formation counts as a full rank, with all the benefits thereof. Thus, if the knight unit is deep enough it can negate steadfast enemies while in a lance formation...