Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

what are the top three or four army's ?

Currently, Fantasy is pretty level. About the only army that cannot be argued to be "top" is wood elves, because they are weak in head-on combat.

So not true, wood elves can be one of the best armies if played right, the only problem is that people dont know how to play them. It takes allot more work to win with beastmen or wood elves, but if you know your stuff you can score wins just as easily as any other army.

The main reason people look down at wood elves is that they seem to be weak in close combat. This is only ture if the person playing wood elves sucks at what they are doing. Any wood elf unit with the exception of eternal guard or treekin will get its butts kicked in a strait up fight, but the key here is to multi-charge. For example treekin in the front, and wardancers on a flank or rear. If you play the army how it is meant to be played you will have no problems winning games. It is just that most players dont know how to play them and then usually get their butts kicked thus further spreading the rumor that WE are the worst army.

If you want to know the easiest armies to play those would be Warriors of Chaos, Dwarfs, and High Elves. Their stategies are basic and any player can win with them.

From what I have heard, Empire, Dwarves, Skaven, and Lizardmen are listed at the top. I have also heard Dark Elves are up there too.

At the bottom, Beastmen, Wood elves, Tomb kings, and Bretonnia.

Very arguable, different in different playing environments, and more level than it has ever been.

8th was a great leveler which seems to have made it a fairly even playing field, particularly with the great work GW has done with updating the FAQs. As long as you adapt to the changes you should be fine. There however are a few armies which still struggle to make decent lists given how limited their army books are. Wood Elves are a good example as they don't have many (any?) decent units which can take Banners to avoid auto losing in Blood and Glory, but have Treekin so can generally do ok otherwise. Bretonnia and Tomb Kings are also a bit limited on what you can do with them, but both should be pretty high up on the list of books getting an update.

Well there is a power curve but with the leveling 8th did i'd say that, on a scale of 1 to 10, the difference between the top and bottom army would be around 1,5.

Powerguy wrote:8th was a great leveler which seems to have made it a fairly even playing field, particularly with the great work GW has done with updating the FAQs. As long as you adapt to the changes you should be fine. There however are a few armies which still struggle to make decent lists given how limited their army books are. Wood Elves are a good example as they don't have many (any?) decent units which can take Banners to avoid auto losing in Blood and Glory, but have Treekin so can generally do ok otherwise. Bretonnia and Tomb Kings are also a bit limited on what you can do with them, but both should be pretty high up on the list of books getting an update.

Like most of these threads, I've seen counter points to most things.
Wood elves can have tiny units of scouts with banners, along with banners on fairly cheap core fast cav. They should have a problem with the banner issue, as their banners are going to be tough to chase down.
Tomb kings can have a very strong magic phase (tossing enough dice to make a slann jealous); or building a monster mash list (2 giants, 2 scorps, ubshati, w/ BSB). With less damage from combat res (-1 for construct, -1 for bsb), they can grind it out pretty well.
Brets can still do lances of doom, or run infantry hordes support by a lot less knights. Or, smaller lances between hordes of bowmen. For less than 200 points, you get 30 longbows with full command; in horde formation! 25 shots on a volley fire, then 30 attacks in melee; all while safe behind some spikes.

I think HoverBoy nailed it with his scale. On a 1 to 10, I'd also put all army books within 2 points of each other (not all builds, just all books).
I think skill, luck, and luck of the draw will have more to do with an outcome than anything else (especially luck of the draw; which mission you pull against which opponent).

-Matt

In the last couple weeks someone listed all of the armies, dividing them into three competitive tiers with two sub tiers in between. I had a look but couldn't find it, it was an interesting read.

Wood Elves weak?

Dryad similar stat line to chaos warriors witha 5+ ward

Treekin S5 T5 stomp +4 and +5 saves, fear. 3 wounds

Treeman S6 T6 5A + stomp, terror, 3+ and 5+

How is this weak? I see the same guy playing this army every week and haven seen him lose.

Imo, if you dont build specifically, youll have a hard time dealing with this list.

Im inexperienced, but they use lores to further buff those stats?

Yea, depending on what he is tying to acheve in his wood elves, he could use A caster lord to buff with beast or a caster lord to cast life, the tree lore isnt the best, but it can still make a difference

There are no weak armies this edittion, there are armies that lack overpowered builds and thus require a more skilled player.

The Broken Builds lie pretty heavily in:

-Skaven (A-bombs, Bells, Furnaces. Cannons + Slaves)

- Lizard Men (Life. Slann.)

- Warriors of Chaos (...3+ Tzeentch Chosen)

What else out there is really stupid? Maybe: - Orcs and Goblins (Bigguns/Black Orcs/Fanatics + Waaagh!)

A few armies can pull off some pretty sick Deathstars, like VC and OK.

I'm sure that we can all agree that Wood Elves and Tomb Kings are near the bottom. They might not be bad, but they are certainly not the best (please, spare us an explanation of why they are totally roxsors. We know).

Warpsolution wrote:
What else out there is really stupid? Maybe: - Orcs and Goblins (Bigguns/Black Orcs/Fanatics + Waaagh!)

Bigguns and Black Orcs don't really stand a point-for-point comparison against Saurus, WoC or Phoenix guard. You need to pump them with magic (waagh/bash 'em ladz/gork'll fix it) to stand a chance and a single dispell scroll is all the enemy needs.

We field them just because it's the only hammer unit we have (yeah, there's trolls, but with trolls you can to keep the general/bsb nearby or they'll fail the stupid test at the worst time).

The true strength of the OnG now is the core boyz (6 pt for a T4 boy w/shield is great), the versatility of NG (nets, fanatics) and the great potential for shutting down the enemy magic phase (staff of sneaky stealin' and mork spirit totem). Oh, that and cheap artillery, of course, doom divers and lobbas are neat, chukkas not so, you need at least 3 or 4 of them to hit anything.

I play HE and DOC and I think that DOC is in the middle, and HE a little above.

Empire and dwarves are downright tough. I likely have a 50% winning rate against either of them.

Empire and Dwarfs can field all that artillery. Empire has plenty of tar-pits to go along with that, but I think Dwarfs come out above them, simply because a warrior with a great weapon is such an efficient 10pt model.

@Jouso: That's why I included the "+ Waaagh!" in there. O&G have a Big Spell that has infinite range, and is very, very good. With these guys, I'd be surprised if my opponent didn't throw 6 dice at each attempt to cast that thing. The odds of IF at that point are pretty decent. Plus, there's always the off chance that you don't roll good enough (once your scroll is burned up, of course) to dispel it. But once that spell does go off, it can easily win them the game.

I think WoC might actually be on top, right now. If I had to pick any one army, it'd be them. I remember someone telling me that a flail-wielding Khornate Marauder was, point-for-point, the best model in the game. And beyond that, they've got so many good options. Nothing too obvious or stupid, but nearly everything is a good choice.
...and, as I said, that 3+ Tzeentch Chosenstar. Which, I might add, can be fielded at 1000pts. And that, everyone, is not very much fun.

Warpsolution wrote:@Jouso: That's why I included the "+ Waaagh!" in there. O&G have a Big Spell that has infinite range, and is very, very good. With these guys, I'd be surprised if my opponent didn't throw 6 dice at each attempt to cast that thing. The odds of IF at that point are pretty decent. Plus, there's always the off chance that you don't roll good enough (once your scroll is burned up, of course) to dispel it. But once that spell does go off, it can easily win them the game.

Yeah, but so many ifs there. You need to roll to have the spell (or have a lv4 + lv2 or 3xlv2 to get it for sure), you need to make sure that the opp doesn't have a dispel scroll hidden somewhere.... and if the spell doesn't get through (dispelled either by dice or by scroll) chances are that not many of your units will still be standing on your next turn for a re-roll.

I'm always willing to roll 6 or more dice just to get IF, but even then chances are slim (slightly over 25%) and a solid tactic cannot depend on a single spell going through, there are just so many things that can go wrong.

Obviously the waagh! charge combo is a powerful tool that can win battles against a newbie, but any opponent that has played at least a couple of games against orcs will know better and save a dispel scroll for that.

Yeah, there are a lot of if's...but a level 4 and a level 2 isn't all that unusual. The Power Scroll could certainly come in handy, as it does in so many lists.
I don't think they're top, but I think they're definitely a ton higher than they were in 7th (not hard, of course). Animosity really shouldn't be that big of a concern, but it just seems like every greenskin player I've ever faced had terrible luck on those rolls.

O&G got a ton better with the new release, don't discredit them yet till we see how they play, but their new rules are pretty good.

UNREALPwnage wrote:O&G got a ton better with the new release, don't discredit them yet till we see how they play, but their new rules are pretty good.

What are their new rules? I felt their biggest drawback was animosity. Did they fix that?

Not from what Minsc tells me. It's less bad than before but it still exists, and still in the sense of limiting movement.

It is still pretty bad, but their new rules can help them much more than they can hurt them, plus core got cheaper and their magic is stronger.

Warpsolution wrote:Animosity really shouldn't be that big of a concern, but it just seems like every greenskin player I've ever faced had terrible luck on those rolls.

If you look at the cold numbers, current animosity means 1/3 of your greenskins will do something you didn't tell them to. Of those, half of them means a whole unit will not even more or do anything that turn (not even stand and shoot) and if you're calling a waagh you get D6 hits on top of that.

The D6 inch advance might come handy, but then it's always to the nearest enemy (which goes well with the fluff of greenskin horde mentality) but it's a pain if you want to line up charges properly.

It's happened already many times to me that a key unit squabbles and thus fails to combo-charge, which in turn means another unit breaks. Or that you'll line up your charges perfectly hoping that the waagh spell will go through only to roll 3 power dice that turn and have your waagh spell easily dispelled.

An army that random can never be top-tier, and that's precisely why we play them, everything depends on Gork (or maybe Mork).

I'm eager to have the new rules, already pre-ordered the new book and aracnarock

The units that don't move are a pain, to be sure. But if you're running a Waaagh!+Power Scroll, you've probably only got a few units, and one or more of them may be Black Orcs. If you have 3-4 meaningful units, Animosity shouldn't (but probably will) hurt you.

I think the new book is pretty ironic; the O&G got a ton better this edition, and I suspect that the new book will actually tone them down in some respects. Perhaps the efficiency of Orc Boyz, or must-have items like the Staff and the Totem. Really, though, I expect the Waaagh! spell to go up in casting value and down in effect. I know I've talked it up and down, but that one spell can win you the game (three hordes of orcs march forward. Call the Waaagh!, cast Waaagh!, and kill stuff). A list that straight-forward shouldn't be that good, and no army should be so heavily defined by something so specific.

I don't think anyone could ever claim that O&G are going to be on top for many years to come, but they're certainly not at the bottom like they used to be. I just hope (dearly) that the new book is somewhat balanced and reasonable. And I hope (even more dearly) than Animosity is a risk/reward system. That should make it at least possible for this army to be da' best.

Warpsolution wrote:I think the new book is pretty ironic; the O&G got a ton better this edition, and I suspect that the new book will actually tone them down in some respects. Perhaps the efficiency of Orc Boyz, or must-have items like the Staff and the Totem. Really, though, I expect the Waaagh! spell to go up in casting value and down in effect.

Not toned down, all sources say that the waagh spell has disappeared for good, along with mork spirit totem and the staff of sneaky stealin'. Also gone is the triksy trinket and there are just a few 50+ pt magic items.

Plus boyz got 1 pt more expensive (though dual choppas is just 1 pt), nets got more expensive (45pt!) and the waagh special rule got kinda lame (+1 combat resolution). Black orcs and biguns got slightly cheaper (BO 1 pt less plus immune to psych and big'uns 2 pt less, for a net effect of minus 1 as the boyz got more expensive), boar chariots more expensive, Lobbas are now rare and cost 15 pt more, chukkas now can misfire (1 on the to hit roll). Gork'll fix it now causes the enemy to reroll 6, not turns them into 1s, Bash 'em ladz turns into let's get going (all orc units within 2D6'' reroll to hit).

Those are some serious cons.

On the pro side:

Toned down animosity (pretty much like 6th, but a double 1 will have TWO units tied down doing nothing all turn), everything-is-a-choppa, cheaper boar boyz, MUCH cheaper wolf gobbos, cheaper squig riders (plus characters on giant squigs can join the unit now as well), vanilla trolls 5 pt cheaper and special, others still rare, snotling wagon can be improved (faster, stronger, etc.), mushroom grenades for snotlings!!!!, cheaper wolf chariots in 1-3 units, squig riders now give impact hits of you roll a triple 6 on movement, option for savages to deal impact hits, cheaper wyvern, headbutt now deals multiple wounds and the template for gorks feet is back (S6 D3 wounds), brain bursta is pretty much the old headbutt.

Plus the new stuff:

Arachnarock: 290 pt, wow. I'll still buy the model, but that's some serious serious cost, especially considering that lobbas are now rare. Comes with a web catapult (stone thrower with S 1 (3) and gives ASL to hit unit) or shrine +2 to channel dice and gives all spells to the gobbo shaman.

Sneaky gits - gobbo assasins, the model is cool, other than that, meh.

Squig fanatics!! - 2D6 S6 armour piercing hits, t4, 3 wounds. No idea on cost, but sounds cool.

If all this turns out to be true, the effect will be pretty much negative. GW has gone hard on the greenskin strong points (defensive magic, core boyz, cheap artillery) without really offering anything comparable in return.

Animosity is less of a problem.

Nets are more expensive, but night gobbos can swap hw for spears and shields for bows for free.

Both gobbo and ork magic has improved.

Staff of sneaky stealin is gone, but sneaky stealing is the lore bonus to all little waaagh spells. After any spell is cast steal a dispell die on a 5+ and make it a power die.

The base spell of little waagh is naughty stabbing. Gives a unit AP and if the unit is in flank/rear it gives them rerolls to hit and wound.

5/6 of the spells look really good.

Night goblin mushrooms are free, less dangerous, and can be used every turn.

Big waaagh lore bonus is +1 str to all spells as long as more orks are in CC than fleeing.

The base spell is a 4d6 line (or 6d6 at a higher level) doing S4 hits to everybody under it (S5 with lore bonus)

3 of the orc spells are direct damage, one ups the shaman's cc, the other 2 are really nice.

Teleport a friendly unit 3D6 or 5D6"

All orks within a certain distance get rerolls to hit.

Defensive magic took a hit, but thinking about it shaman don't really need any magic items except some dispell scrolls exc...

Overall it looks like a good book with some solid combinations, but not a stupid OP codex creep like blood angels or space wolves.

jouso wrote:
Arachnarock: 290 pt, wow. I'll still buy the model, but that's some serious serious cost, especially considering that lobbas are now rare. Comes with a web catapult (stone thrower with S 1 (3) and gives ASL to hit unit) or shrine +2 to channel dice and gives all spells to the gobbo shaman.

Only 290 points for that beast? Holy ...

Animosity isn't a problem when you have the steadfast bonus. And with OnG you should always have the steadfast bonus, unless you're playing skaven, then you don't need it.

streamdragon wrote:

jouso wrote:
Arachnarock: 290 pt, wow. I'll still buy the model, but that's some serious serious cost, especially considering that lobbas are now rare. Comes with a web catapult (stone thrower with S 1 (3) and gives ASL to hit unit) or shrine +2 to channel dice and gives all spells to the gobbo shaman.

Only 290 points for that beast? Holy ...

I don't think it will outperform a steam tank, or be worth almost 2 hydras.

The only thing I'm impressed is the 8 wounds, which means it will take at least two cannon balls.

Well, measuring worth by the undercosted Hyrda may not be the best benchmark

Still, 8W, 8A (Poisoned, one which is essentially a poisoned cannonball!), all striding, Great Shaman carrying, etc. etc. Talk about a bargain!