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Hey guys I recently picked up my very first piece of GW merchandise ever, and as attractive as 40k was I picked up the island of blood boxset. Mainly as it seemed a lot more refined and easier to pick up and play with friends who havent tried wargames before.
Ive looked through all the armies and there respective lores and Im really interested in playing high elves but i have to ask, what is the most overplayed / overused race in WHFB, the space marines of the FB universe as it where. Im praying its not the hgih elves as if i do get into 40k I intend to play either blood angels or the soon to be released grey knights and dont want to feel like a shameless conformist.
Cheers guys
C-3

Ps the only other WHFB id be mildly interested in playing is either orcs or warriors of chaos, but most of these model ranges suffer from having really old school models. I know the orcs are getting new models soon but the standard orc "boy" / goblin units look really ravaged by the passage of time, same thing for warriors of chaos with models like chaos chosen / chaos chariots and regular foot marauders.

Well at my local gaming store it is these 3 with an honorable mention and you will probably find it true among all other areas.

Warriors of Chaos
Skaven
High Elves
Orcs & Goblins-Honorable Mention

Having said that I will say because of the IoB it's cheaper to get into Skaven and High Elves. I have been purchasing a skaven army and have a solid 1,500 pts for about $150 by buying parts of IoB on ebay. Usually an army will run you $150-$200 just for a 1k force. What are you interested in? If you want good elves but want an under used race go with Wood Elves. Some people will tell you, and it does make sense, that under sold armies are at risk of being cut or not developed by GW. WoC is also fairly inexpensive, their battalion and the Ogre battalion will give you the best bang for your buck. Maybe give us some more help on what you are lookling for.

Hi ChronoCupcake, welcome to the addiction

From what I've noticed there really isn't a Space Marine equal in fantasy in terms of popularity. I think the monotony comes more from cookie-cutter lists for specific armies than a certain race. For example, the All-Night-Gobbo list, the massed Mark of Khorne Warriors list, the pimpazoid Slann tons of skink skirmishers Lizardman list, the double Hydra lvl 4 Death wizard for Dark Elves, triple cannon & mortar Steam Tank Empire lists... almost every race has one (although, ironically, I'm not sure what High Elves is) and after a while, for me at least, it gets stale playing against the lists that try and max out the cheese factor.

ahem... rant over. I don't think High Elves are overplayed at all, and if you like that army the most then go with it. You're the one that has to paint all those models and look at them all the time. Might as well make them ones you like.

Hargus56 wrote:Well at my local gaming store it is these 3 with an honorable mention and you will probably find it true among all other areas.

Warriors of Chaos
Skaven
High Elves
Orcs & Goblins-Honorable Mention

Having said that I will say because of the IoB it's cheaper to get into Skaven and High Elves. I have been purchasing a skaven army and have a solid 1,500 pts for about $150 by buying parts of IoB on ebay. Usually an army will run you $150-$200 just for a 1k force. What are you interested in? If you want good elves but want an under used race go with Wood Elves. Some people will tell you, and it does make sense, that under sold armies are at risk of being cut or not developed by GW. WoC is also fairly inexpensive, their battalion and the Ogre battalion will give you the best bang for your buck. Maybe give us some more help on what you are lookling for.

Im pretty much set on playing high elves, the only real alternative would be orks / Woc but itd be a real shame considering I already have the foundations of a high elf / skaven army in the IoB box. Money would be a pretty big factor for me, but looking at the lore / minis I would only really consider playing High elves, Orks, Woc and perhaps skaven.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Cirronimbus wrote:Hi ChronoCupcake, welcome to the addiction

From what I've noticed there really isn't a Space Marine equal in fantasy in terms of popularity. I think the monotony comes more from cookie-cutter lists for specific armies than a certain race. For example, the All-Night-Gobbo list, the massed Mark of Khorne Warriors list, the pimpazoid Slann tons of skink skirmishers Lizardman list, the double Hydra lvl 4 Death wizard for Dark Elves, triple cannon & mortar Steam Tank Empire lists... almost every race has one (although, ironically, I'm not sure what High Elves is) and after a while, for me at least, it gets stale playing against the lists that try and max out the cheese factor.

ahem... rant over. I don't think High Elves are overplayed at all, and if you like that army the most then go with it. You're the one that has to paint all those models and look at them all the time. Might as well make them ones you like.

Its a shame to think people would go for ridiculous armies like that, Im one of those people that wouldnt field what i consider an "ugly" model so I doubt im going to be going for broken builds anytime soon. Id much prefer to field highly specialised infantry that can cover each others shortcomings, partially why im so drawn to high elves .
I hope I can still find some people who are out to play for fun with varied interesting units as opposed to me stepping into my local store for the first time to find a bunch of guys obsessed with winning.
High elves really appeal to me not only aesthetically but also lore wise I dont normally like elves but in the WHFB universe there just so awesome, the oldest enemy of chaos and the whole thing with Aenarion damning his race using the sword of Khaine coupled with the face that each high elf warrior is a master of his craft just epitomizes my definition of cool.
Which is to say a compact highly skilled / trained force with powerful magical abilities.

Is the all-goblin list really that prevalent? I just don't like the orc models, and I had all these goblins left over from Skull Pass. It seemed natural....

Lots of VC, Dark Elves and Lizardmen in my FLGS. It depends on your local community.

I would think the "YEAH HE WOO!" list would include Teclis and/or dragons.

I haven't really noticed the SM equivalent in FB, it's a much broader idea, where no army has 6 codices for a single faction during a single edition. HE are fun to play, and their lore is interesting, GW really used their "elite guardians of the world" theme well, what with their ASF (even with great weapons), their low numbers of well-trained troops, and their awesome monstrous mounts (griffons AND dragons AND lion-chariots!)

Also, keep in mind that as you have the IoB set, you are 1 battalion away from fielding a solid army that can actually run your Prince on a Griffon (which you can't normally use with the point count the IoB models give you). HE has some powerful magic seem to have access to a variety of tactics.

Anyways, check out your local store/gaming hangout, and ask questions, watch, learn, find out what armies are most commonly played before you choose yours. Nothing is more of a bummer than to choose one, spend loads of moneys on it, then walk in to find everybody else using the same army.

There isn't remotely a SM equivalent in fantasy. As stated, there are some min-max lists that become common. But that's also because some stuff just really compliments each other and you're playing a strat game. That, and people like to win.

ChronoCupcake wrote:Hey guys I recently picked up my very first piece of GW merchandise ever, and as attractive as 40k was I picked up the island of blood boxset. Mainly as it seemed a lot more refined and easier to pick up and play with friends who havent tried wargames before.
Ive looked through all the armies and there respective lores and Im really interested in playing high elves but i have to ask, what is the most overplayed / overused race in WHFB, the space marines of the FB universe as it where. Im praying its not the hgih elves as if i do get into 40k I intend to play either blood angels or the soon to be released grey knights and dont want to feel like a shameless conformist.
Cheers guys
C-3

Ps the only other WHFB id be mildly interested in playing is either orcs or warriors of chaos, but most of these model ranges suffer from having really old school models. I know the orcs are getting new models soon but the standard orc "boy" / goblin units look really ravaged by the passage of time, same thing for warriors of chaos with models like chaos chosen / chaos chariots and regular foot marauders.

I like how you say you don't want to jump on the badnwagon/use the overused race and then say you're gonna play Blood Angels and Grey knights in 40K.

In Fantasy there is no overused race. There is more of a balance between players. Round where I am practically every player has a different army. Except that there are two O&G players and two Doc players.

I like how you say you don't want to jump on the badnwagon/use the overused race and then say you're gonna play Blood Angels and Grey knights in 40K.

I don't want to be seen as doing that either, but i've expressed an interest in Grey Knights for a while; does that mean if I start collecting them when their new codex comes out, i'm going to suddenly become a bandwagoner? Because that would be an exceedingly close-minded way of seeing it.

Back to the original topic, and there aren't really any overused races in WHFB; Skaven might be quite prevelant, as might WoC and Empire; maybe Lizards and Daemons to an extent and possibly shoving Dark Elves in there too; but none of them really stand leagues ahead of the others in terms of use.

There's always a few "flavor-of-the-month" armies where a particular type of list is viewed as the most powerful for tourneys or somesuch. I find this is not nearly as common as in 40k though.

In 7th edition, I'd heard that VC or Daemons were the most beardy, given the power dice amounts (like 16) of VC and Skulltaker and the magical dominance of Daemons. In 8th ed, I haven't heard nearly as much regarding any type of one-sidedness. I'd say Skaven would be rather prevalent given their relatively new codex, models, and their presence in IoB, but otherwise I find Fantasy comes in all shapes and sizes.

OTTH, there are several under-played armies due to a lack of recent codices, such as Tomb Kings (they are Incoming! though), Wood Elves, Bretonnians and Ogres. But that might just be in my local group.

skaven by responding skaven youll have soo many skaven players 400 skaven players. no seriously thats all there is recently its rather annoying

I don't see that many skaven players, at least in tournaments, since it's so hard to paint that many rats. There are definitely some... but I see more WoC than anything (and that's what I play, too ).

There is no "SM equivalent", though. The box set armies are always popular (HE & skaven this round) and O&G are an old standby. But WoC I see often due to a rather low model count (in some builds) and high armor with high damage output... not too dissimilar to SM for 40k, but nowhere near the same level of saturation.

VikingScott wrote:

ChronoCupcake wrote:Hey guys I recently picked up my very first piece of GW merchandise ever, and as attractive as 40k was I picked up the island of blood boxset. Mainly as it seemed a lot more refined and easier to pick up and play with friends who havent tried wargames before.
Ive looked through all the armies and there respective lores and Im really interested in playing high elves but i have to ask, what is the most overplayed / overused race in WHFB, the space marines of the FB universe as it where. Im praying its not the hgih elves as if i do get into 40k I intend to play either blood angels or the soon to be released grey knights and dont want to feel like a shameless conformist.
Cheers guys
C-3

Ps the only other WHFB id be mildly interested in playing is either orcs or warriors of chaos, but most of these model ranges suffer from having really old school models. I know the orcs are getting new models soon but the standard orc "boy" / goblin units look really ravaged by the passage of time, same thing for warriors of chaos with models like chaos chosen / chaos chariots and regular foot marauders.

I like how you say you don't want to jump on the badnwagon/use the overused race and then say you're gonna play Blood Angels and Grey knights in 40K.

In Fantasy there is no overused race. There is more of a balance between players. Round where I am practically every player has a different army. Except that there are two O&G players and two Doc players.

You misunderstand I openly admit / accept ill be playing overplayed armies in 40k, hence why I want to play something a lil more uncommon in WHFB to balance it out.

Well now here's a good question, do the dynamics of the originally posed question change depending on a tournament, or non-competitive setting?

Strelka wrote:Is the all-goblin list really that prevalent? I just don't like the orc models, and I had all these goblins left over from Skull Pass. It seemed natural....

Strelka, I think you and everyone else that bought Battle for Skull Pass thought the same thing. Not saying the all-night-gobbos is overpowered or WAAC, it just got old seeing it over and over, but I put 100% of the blame for that on the box set. We finally got an Orcs and Goblin player who only had one unit of 20 Night Goblins in his army, and it was a welcome change of pace. We also had a guy for a while who ran 2 units of 10 skink skirmishers and 6 Stegadons and that was his army (back in 7th), which I think was fairly common.

My FLGS is really diverse in terms of armies played. If everyone came at once with their main armies, we'd have all of them represented (except Tomb Kings) with Skaven, OnG, and Lizardmen having dublicates.

The WHFB Space Marine equivalent is Orcs and Goblins, but they aren't nearly as prevalent as Space Marines are in 40k. However, you'll find that many WHFB players have an Orc and Goblin army in their collection, usually playing Shelfhammer. When the new O&G book drops, we're going to see a ton of green on the table.

I totally disagree... orcs & goblins are the equivalent of Orks, if anything! They don't come anywhere near SM for 40k in terms of how common they are compared to other armies, despite being one of the most common.

So definitely not high elves right so long as thats the case im good to go ! .

I see WoC more often than Orcs, but I think neither is overplayed to the amount of SM in 40K.

WoC have a freakin' sweet model line. I bet that Lord on a Juggernaught has sold more than one army

Good luck with your high elves, mate.

RiTides wrote:I totally disagree... orcs & goblins are the equivalent of Orks, if anything! They don't come anywhere near SM for 40k in terms of how common they are compared to other armies, despite being one of the most common.

Orcs and Goblins had been saddled for two editions with terrible army books, which is why you don't see them more often. With the new book release you're going to see a lot more of them as shelf armies become table armies. Orcs and Goblins have been included in three out of five WHFB starter boxes, and they're arguably the game's more iconic race. They don't saturate the community as much as Space Marines do, true, but overall they're the closest analog that WHFB can provide.

TBH, I woul say, if there was anything that was the closest it would be either High Elves or Warriors of Chaos.

High Elves because of Teclis, and super cool models (Swordmasters anyone) along with being in the new starter.

Warriors of Chaos because they've always been really popular. Super elite with enough magic to kill anything, as well as amazing modeling potential.

HE's and Skaven will be the most popular because of the IoB which is a fantastic deal(although STILL not a legal army inside )


if you do play HEs, and i haveno problem with anyone playing them, beware Teclis lists.


Teclis is such a good deal and insanely powerful that if you do take him you will likely be viewed as a power gamer.

don't use the Crutch that he is. when he does get hit with the nerf bat(and belive me, it's time) it will leave alot of HE players in the dust.


"Friends don't let Friends use Teclis"

How about Tyrion? I love his model (I feel like Teclis' fig is too "meh" IMHO, but Tyrion seems fairly powerful too. Are there any HE special characters you can run without being a power gamer? Or Eltharion on Stormwing, or Alith Anar.

It seems to me most HE generals run a high chance of being extremely powerful (like dragon-rders), so how do you avoid the stigma?

Well, the Teclis model is the oldest Special Character model in WHFB.

it's only had 1 resculpt, awhile ago, and it barely changed anything.

I think Teclis is only consider OP because of his special rule, Tyrion isn't half as dangerous, nor any of the rest.

Yeah? Ok, that's good. Some of the fluff and models for the HE generals are too awesome for me to pass up (Like Tyrion and Malhandir trampling a Dark Elf), but I didn't want them to mean I'd have trouble getting games.

It gets to a point where it's easy to tell which models are older based on how much better scuplts have gotten over the years (IoB Sword-Masters vs the metal ones, for example), but dang, Teclis is uuuugly!

Caradyan and Korhil are pretty awesome-looking, Eltharion is pretty good (Stormwing shows its age but not too much), and Alith Anar and Tyrion show *some* age but again not much.

I love High Elf models, they are eloborate enough to really get itno painting them without getting OTT (espcially the helmets that seem bigger than they are )

Is it just me or is it odd that Imrik still has a model, despite his long-time death as the Phoenix King, or that Alith Anar still can be fielded, despite meaning that he'd be still around since the second Phoenix King's rule?