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So my friends and I have decided we'd like to get into WHFB together. My friends have already all chosen their armies (High Elves, WoC, Daemons of Chaos, and Empire) But...I have no idea what I want to choose. :s

My favorites are Orcs/Goblins, Vampire Counts, Dwarves, Wood Elves and Bretonnia. Are any of them not good? I have (I think) a rudimentary knowledge about each - Orcs/Goblins are close combat-y hordes, Vampire Counts are hordes that can make more hordes with good melee and strong magic, Dwarves are solid blocks of infantry with warmachine backup, Wood Elves are shooty, mobile, and tricky and Bretonnia are elite-cavalry with weak infantry backing. Unless I'm wrong, feel free to correct me. :s

I've played a bit of 40k, and I mainly played Blood Angels and Nids - fast, assaulty armies with neat backup tricks seems to be what I kind of like.

I guess what I'm overall asking is, what would you folks suggest for me to start with? And if I'm wrong about any of the aforementioned armies please feel free to correct me. ><

You got the general jist of each army down pretty well, although take in to account WE have tree lists (which make them not bad) which aren't as finesse as the pure/mostly elf lists.

In terms of your fast style preference I'll say Dwarfs are pretty slow. The rest are/can be fast. So I'd rule out Dwarfs.

Left w/ O&G, VC, WE, and Brets, I suppose it comes down to your preference of fluff and visuals. And maybe even their relation (both/either fluff-wise and/or competition-wise) to the 4 other armies you'll be playing. Also, in terms of your question of "are any of them not good", the general consensus is that WE and Brets are 2 of the weaker armies, however, they can still compete and defeat any army, given the right list and generalship. O&G are decent, not a top-tier army, are a bit "random" (they fight each other), and are definitely on the fun side (they fight each other). VC is a pretty strong army who have the best magic out of these 4. Your preference of assault-y 40k armies applies to pretty much every army in WHFB, so no worries there.

If fluff or flavor is important, you got the zany O&G who're always looking for a fight. The ambitious, powerful, and isolated VC. The WE who are all about protecting their forest at any cost, even though the forest itself isn't always kind to the WE. And finally the Bretonnians who are all about chivalry and serving a sexy lake lady!

Cool you have chosen fantasy welcome to the game.

Choosing your army:

Go for what looks more appealing to you fluff and model wise you do seem to be fighting very tough opponents, as well...

I will say go for VC mainly because you can well... RESSURECT and have zombies and vampiric werewolves and 28 days later zombies/cannibals (crypt ghouls) and massive undead bats and lots of grim reapers ...

Hope this helps if you want to know more about them I can answer your questions...

I am with Happygolucky! I mean, a pure Zombie army ! How awesome is that!

VC can be really expensive if you are going to be playing at GW or with GW models themselves, unless you find a cheaper alternative if you plan for a zombie or resurrection based army you will need your set list-full of models as well as models for resurrecting purposes and I wouldn't say they were particularly fast.

Brets are fast but as far as competitiveness with a balanced list goes its difficult to get that real 'army feel'. I found that when I played brets if I stacked a grail knight unit, there main elite unit you could overkill alot of units and move on back in the day, but with steadfast thats not so likely either. So while they are the fastest there not really the strongest, I would say though dwarves are a sure bet for solidity. If you don't mind the slow move up the battlefield there charging wont be any different from any other race as its 2d6 charge distance for everyone.

If you and your friend(s) both buy a current starter box, then swap off one of the armies with each other, you'll have a great start. You'd only need a few of the uncommon and rare units to have everything.

Scaven and High Elves are in the starter set.