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A little background information I am the only empire player at the store. I didn't know that empire was that powerful.
So today the usuall vetran players and myself ranked the top five armies, so how does this look for top 5?

1 High Elves
2 Empire
3 WOC
4 DOC
5 Dark Elves


The one I question is Empire, how is empire a top 5 army? I know they are good, and I am undefeated with them except one watchtower loss (he had 100 VP's left and I had over 1500 remaining). But how is empire considered top tier?

And Skaven isn't on there at all? The list is definitely wrong...
If people are telling you Empire is one of the top 5 armies, then they haven't played Dwarfs. Dwarfs can do just about everything Empire can, but better.

I think the real list should go, imo at least:

1. Skaven
2. Daemons of Chaos
3. Warriors of Chaos
4. High Elves
5. Dark Evles

All 5 of these are really hard to beat though, and I wouldn't say to put them in any particular order, becaust Fantasy is so balanced right now...but these are definitely the 5 armies giving players headaches right now.

DE after HE... ROFL.

IMO
Skaven
DE
Dwarves
HE
Lizardmen

Skaven
DE
HE
WoC
DoC or Lizards i'm not sure.

Not played against a diverse enough pool of opponents to formulate a full top 5, but Empire should be up there because of the diversity of their army list. To any who say that Dwarfs can do anything Empire can do but better, Dwarfs can't have wizards of any of the eight lores and neither an they have a full army of 1+ cavalry if they wished.
Have to say, never lost to Skaven, but the Skaven player in our club is a bit of a gak general, and he refuses to buy a Hellpit Abomination because his housemate's convinced him that if nerfs the game or something stupid like that.
High Elves and Dark Elves are a no-brainer. High Elves because of the always strikes-first meaning they effectively have eternal hatred, and Dark Elves because of Hatred and the fact that you can't really choose a 'bad' unit.
But Dwarves are nasty opponents, aye, especially when they hole up in one corner, with their never-missing-organ-gun and their template weapons, and the fact that if they have an anvil, you may as well send you wizard forwards as fodder, for all the good it does you.

Honestly assuming your just tryihng to make the most nasty army possible...

Empire
Dwarfs
Demons
Lizzies
D elves

This is a highly silly thing to do though because of how subjective it is. For instance a lot of people are saying WoC... I've never lost to a WoC army in 8th.

Shrug. It is interesting to see others opinions on the top books.

There is no true scale. One meta could have a Beastmen player who rules WHFB in that area, with evetyone else using Empire, WoC etc. That doesn't make Beastmen a good army though.

An army depends as much on its owner as it does on its build, and whilst some armies seem all-powerful, a wily and experienced player will still give it a run for its money.

Empire, WoC and Skaven are definately three of the armies seen as the most competative, but there isn't exactly an order that they slot into.

Why does it really matter? Is your store that competitive that they are instituting a handicapping system? It's not always the army that determines the outcome of a game, but the player.

Top 5 for me assuming WAAC with a good general.

Deamons of Chaos
Lizardmen
Skaven
Empire
Dark Elves

I'd say Skaven and Empire are tied on the opposite ends of the spectrum. Empire does more reliable damage as compared to Skaven but if Skaven gets good rolls on say Warp Lightning Canon strength 10 template and Wither/Plague 13th Dreaded off they are the nastiest I've seen. Runner ups would be VC, HE and Dwarves and Brets with the gap between these and my top 5 is so damn close. 8th ed balance is so good imo and I hope it stays that way.

I personally don't think empire shoudl be up there, I have won tournements with them but i havent been able to find a true killer list yet, so what is a WAAC empire list?

Look at which armies are winning the big tournaments, and you'll have your answer. (Hint: It's all Elves, Skaven, Chaos, and Lizards)

We go over this every couple weeks. I still say the "best" are the armies with the most options. Some guys out there are totally one-trick ponies. And that's fine and all, if you're fighting an infinitely large pool. But in reality, you may have some ability to tailor your list to what is coming.

Skaven I think has about the most options in the game.
WoC is definately close
Lizardmen and Daemons are kind of decent options with multi-trick ponies.

I don't know either Elves well enough

WAAC lists that are dominating tournies aren't Dwarves. Sorry. You're going to be looking at Teclis HE, Skaven Slave points denial lists (3+ 100 model hordes of slaves. That's 600 pts horror show, with a nice character bunker behind them and all the warmachines you can muster) Demons (still) WoC, and I would think Empire taking a place over DE, for its access to all lores, amazing WM, and cheap fodder.

LM are also pretty nasty, but are more defensive than dwarves and have a magic phase. Dwarves are a good, solid army, but are far from the top 5.

Bear in mind, these armies were chosen with the ease for any person to come in with no experience, get a list from the interwebs, and be competitive because of the rules, not because of skill. Add skill into the mix and all bets are off, but those lists have significant advantages.

At the Semis in Utah, Dwarves took 1st and 2nd and DoC took 3rd. There were 3 HE players with Teclis and none of us placed (I was one of them). In my experience, dwarves are in the top 5.

UNREALPwnage wrote:A little background information I am the only empire player at the store. I didn't know that empire was that powerful.
So today the usuall vetran players and myself ranked the top five armies, so how does this look for top 5?

1 High Elves
2 Empire
3 WOC
4 DOC
5 Dark Elves


The one I question is Empire, how is empire a top 5 army? I know they are good, and I am undefeated with them except one watchtower loss (he had 100 VP's left and I had over 1500 remaining). But how is empire considered top tier?

No mention of Skaven? Empire as number two? Your local store is full of crazy people.

I agree completly. Empire shouldn't be up there and skaven shoudl. where do you all think the top 5 should be?

Daemons rule in this area... real similar lists took 1-2 at the 'Ard Boyz semis near here, and I believe 3rd was also daemons.

People seem to think that just because you can't run them like they ran in 7th edition, that they're not as crazily overpowered, but I've seen the opposite.

Also, imho skaven are scarier on paper than in reality... how many 50-strong slave blocks are most people actually bringing to painted tournies? And even if they are, it's pretty unweildy... they're good, I just don't think they're #1.

I'd put Daemons, Skaven, WoC, DE, and Lizardmen as my top 5... the only one of the "big 3" from 7th edition that really tanked in 8th edition was VC, imho. As to others mentioned: High elves are good, but I don't think they're top 5, personally... and the same goes for Empire/dwarfs.

Just my $0.02

Around here, (and in general IMO):
High Elves
Warriors of Chaos
Daemons of Chaos
Lizardmen
Dark Elves

in general,

Tier 1(in no particular order)

High Elves(Teclis)
Empire(multiple Steamtanks, warrior priests, and popemobile)
Warriors of Chaos(Hellcannons and Chosen shenanagins. Elite and sturdy infantry or cheap and numerous infantry. good monsters and characters)
Dwarves(shut down magic phases like its nobodies business. solid infantry and ranged weaponry)
Lizardmen(powerful wizards, powerful heavy infantry, good monster and skirmisher support)

Tier 2(in no order)

OnG(flexable army with dirt cheap warmachines)
Ogres(all monsterous infantry supported by deceptivly powerful magic and tough characters)
Vampire Counts(magic isn't as good as it used to be. Hordes of cheap and raiseable troops. some really nasty character builds)
Tomb Kings(good supporting magic, cheap infantry, powerful monsters, Casket)
Dark Elves(pretty shooty, cheap cc troops, and moderatly powerful magic. and Hydras)
Skaven(hordes of cheap expendable infantry. decent medium and heavy infantry. powerful monsters. Warmachines are good, but can always fail so utterly)
Brettonians(good heavy Cavelry. suffers from the new 8th rule set, but can still do very well. Trebs are perhaps the best warmachine in the game)
Deamons(good, but the new magic rules brought them down a notch)

Tier 3

Beastmen(Skirmishers are in 8th. infantry is too expensive for their survivability. Monsters are ok. Minotaurs are only bright spot)
Woodelves(again, skirmishers are the new cover rules mean they can't hide from enemy shooting as reliably as they once did. Forest Spirits are the only way they can hope to compete)



the difference between these tiers is very slim. good generalship can completely compensate for a poorer army.

Things do well in 8th

1. Powerful infantry block. (Either through good stats or number)
2. Powerful magic/anti-magic (Extra power/dispel dice, ways to increase the odds of IF)
3. Powerful Monsters (The likes of Hydra/Abom)
4. Powerful Warmachines. (Cannons, Warp Lightning Cannons, Mortars, Organ Guns)

Armies with 2 or more of the items above tend to be close to top 5.

Skaven should be at the top of the list. They just do everything well. From what I've seen, O&G and TK in the hands of a competent general are great too. Warriors are phenomenal with new 8th ed rules and Dark elves with their mass hydra spam are great too. You're right, your FLGS has no idea what a "good army" is, apparently.

1. Skaven
2. High Elves
3. Warriors of Chaos
4. Dark Elves
5. Daemons

1. Beastmen
2. Warriors Of Chaos
3. Vampire Counts
4. Daemons
5. Tomb Kings

Trondheim wrote:
1. Beastmen
2. Warriors Of Chaos
3. Vampire Counts
4. Daemons
5. Tomb Kings

lol wut

Trondheim wrote:1. Beastmen
2. Warriors Of Chaos
3. Vampire Counts
4. Daemons
5. Tomb Kings

My brain kind of imploded at seeing beastmen at #1...how does this result even happen?!

IMHO:

Skaven
DOC
Dark Elves
High Elves
WOC

Here's my list, in a slightly different format:

Teclis
Slaan
Power Scroll Seer
Power of Darkness + sacrificial dagger + darkstar cloak
3rd Eye

6th place I'm giving to: Master of the Black Arts x2, have not tried it a lot, but it looks promising so far.
-Matt

UberhAxTHC wrote:Dwarfs can do just about everything Empire can, but better.

???

Cast spells.
Run cheap infantry blocks.
Fast throwaway units.

FWIW, I don't think the tiers are extremely well defined anymore. I think Daemons, Dark Elves, and Lizards need to be up near the top, though.

HawaiiMatt wrote:Here's my list, in a slightly different format:

Teclis
Slaan
Power Scroll Seer
Power of Darkness + sacrificial dagger + darkstar cloak
3rd Eye

6th place I'm giving to: Master of the Black Arts x2, have not tried it a lot, but it looks promising so far.
-Matt

Hehe, good ol' sac dagger. With a good magic phase I'm usually saccing shades to it after my shadow played switcharoo a couple times with an assasin. Nothing like a purple sun down the lines to make people regret paying money to play me... Of course this is my tournament build, I try not to be that baleful in a standard game. As for a ranking system, it is fairly well balanced, with beastman probably close to the bottom with ogres. The two wood elf players at my club, the one who runes tree spam looses while the other never looses with skrimishers. Of course he is also the guy who cleans house with his bloody brets. My top five for power are probably:

Skaven (Though the local players are rubbish)
WoC (I find it hard to crack, with those suberb statlines and excellent armor/ward, you can hardly even nuke it to death..)
Lizardmen (Slann, I mean really.)
High Elves (Them getting super hatred annoys me, and Teclis/book are both so incredibly nasty. Also even though they finally cleaned up ASF + ASL, they saw fit to ignore it.)
As for spot five... Iunno. DoC? DE? Not sure. Nothing else really sticks out to me.