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Hi all, I've been trying to get into Fantasy, but I've had a hard time choosing an army, and setting up an army in general! I've only played one game so far, and that was with some High Elves borrowed from my FLGS. I had fun playing as them, more fun than I've ever had playing 40k. But, I have a majority of the Vampire Counts battleforce sitting in my basement. And I've heard Warriors of Chaos are pretty beefy when it comes to core units. What do you think is better for a beginner? I really want to do High Elves, but I'm not so sure if it's a great starting army. Help please? If you leave any advice, thank you so much for your time!

VC are a very forgiving army to play but requires deep pockets and the time to paint up the 300 zombies needed to fill out your core.

WoC are indeed very beefy and low model count making them cheap and easy to play.

High Elves are low model count but require alot of finesse as any mistakes will cost you dearly.

Ergh... I think I assumed as much when I saw the zombies.

WoC look entertaining, but I already have a CSM army, so I'm not terribly excited about another Chaos army. I would play it though if I thought it was fun!

Yeah. My first game didn't go great, but then again, I didn't have all the units I would originally want.

Woc stuff just click the link in my signature down below.

The army is tons of fun because of the options you have.
Example you can do an all marauder army, all warrior army, cavalry army, monster army and many more.

You can build lord and heroes for any task. Be it a khorne lord with 9 attacks or a tzeentch sorcerer flying around on a disc casting spells.
There are lots of really neat things that can be done with the woc book that can still produce an army that in the very least can hold it's own.

Ra ra ra join the dark side and conquer the world in the name of the dark gods.

The good thing about warhammer is nearly every army is viable and takes some time to master so just pick one and hurry and take the plunge the water is awesome!

It also sounds like you leaning towards HEs to very rough guide to collecting them is max out your special allowancs on elite infantry (they are all great) min core (still good but pricey) a level 4 archmage and a BSB and you are good o go with just a few chaff units sprinkled in for redirecting (eagles)

If you are not sure then I suggest check out the army books read some fluff and check out the models. Then go with witch you think you will enjoy playing more and which models you like. You spend more time with fantasy models then you do with 40k ones (or so I have found) so if you spend the time with models you like then you will have a better time overall.

@ cowpow16 - Thanks! I will most certainly check it out! I might also go up to my FLGS to ask if I can borrow some WoC to play test, and see if I like using them. I love the models for both the HE (sadly, they all look like women when they're actually dudes), and the WoC, who just look absolutely amazing. I definitely get bored of painting Space Marines all day, every day. (all of my armies so far are some variant of SM ) so any new models are welcome! I'll play a game with some WoC, then decide from there how I would want to play em, then compare them to the HE. I know VC is probably not good for me, considering the 300+ zombies I would most likely need.

@ Jubear - I already know I'll love Fantasy, considering it's not all about list building like 40k. When I play tested HE, I had Korhil. Is Korhil all that great compared to other Lords and Heros? Yeah, I definitely enjoyed the White Lions and such. I've though about doing an army featuring Korhil with around 30 spearmen, 10 archers with a mage (haven't decided on what kind, as I'm still getting used to using magic at all, even psychic powers in 40k), Phoenix Guard, White Lions, Dragon princes, and even a Bolt thrower. Does that sound like a good setup for a beginner?

Demdiddydizzy,

I'm reading over the replies below and I feel the need to tell you a couple of things regarding the Armies your looking at.



High Elves -

Playing high elves is a fun experience for a lot of people because you have a lot of neat units with really neat fluff to look at. Add to that their rich fluff ( some of the better in fantasy ) and the special rules they have give you big edges. As with any army using 20mm bases there's lots of painting to do, and unlike most armies, there's really no way for the HE's to build for a low model count. On the bright side, there's STILL a ton of people willing to split the beginner boxes which include HE's and Skaven, and there's a lot of secondhand and barely used HE models out there on ebay and bartertown.



Vampire Counts -

First off, you can take the notion of HAVING TO OMG PLAY ZOMBIES and throw it out the window. While it's a single list type for the book, there's plenty of attractive model options that do not include zombies.. and even if you do choose to use them, it's a lot of fun building them. They're friggin zombie. Too lazy to attach an arm? Who cares? Remove a head, remove a leg.. do what you want. You dont even have to use the VC official zombie. Use any 20 mm creature from any army in your block and have fun. The best zombies I ever saw where made from nekkid dwarfs. It as hilarious. Also.. if you have a flair for the arts and crafts portion, consider using attractive unit fillers..


Like the ones in this article..http://www.dorkwars.com/vccore.php



Warriors of Chaos - I play warriors myself and they have a lot of benefits. Generally, theyre easy to paint as most of the models are either fully armored or are mostly skin tones. Second, they do have a lot more customisation than most armies due to the options in list building. The one thing to be careful of though is that they are STRONGLY rumored to be getting a new book this year, and given the homogonization of army books lately I wouldnt be surprised if they are hardly the same army afterwards.

Thanks for the advice!

High Elves seem like a rewarding army to start out with, but considering my other options, I wanted to play test them first. High Elves, from what I understood when I played them, are fairly good. I'm already expecting huge amounts of spearmen (and huge amounts of warriors in general for any WHFB army), but it will be so much better than painting Spess Mahreens every day, all day. Land Raiders are boring! Gimme some dragons or something!

Vampire Counts are fun, don't get me wrong. I would have a fungasm putting together millions of zombies. The reason I would prefer relying less on them is because I hate how frail they can be. Vampire Counts do have VERY lovely models, especially those Blood Knights. Curse you high prices! I want them so bad!

Also, that page ='s Me gusta.

Warriors definitely look like they bring a lot to the table. And, from what I've heard, they have the beefiest core choices. If they are getting a new book, I might wanna put them off. So, now it's between Vampire Counts and High Elves. Now, which one is the one for me, is the question.

Well, if your looking for a combination of awesome models and good armies, youve picked two great finalists.

You mentioned disliking frail. That almost knocks elves out of it. Consider the following about V-counts. They have ghouls, knights, wraiths, and all manner of T4 beasties/units.

Now, if your willing to take it a step further into the meta, most Elves run either Teclis or his annoying little cousin. A popular lore for elves is shadow, because your Toughness 3 doesnt matter when your reducing enemies to Str 1 or 2 every turn if you wish, almost without fail...then factor in how much winning just 1 round of combat matters and your looking at a beastly unit of Str5 ASF elves with WS4. Sure the enemy will get some strike backs, but likely needing 5's or 6's to wound you...

Vampire Counts can use magic to keep their army alive. Elves use it to do the same thing, but much more reliably and with much more variance to their situation.

Oh yeah, forgot about their fancy special units. I love that about both armies. They both have great special units.

Teclis sounds like a great character, but how many points is he? I want to start out small first, before buying any huge armies just to run one guy. And I never knew the Lore of Shadow did that! Wow, that could really help my army.

Yeah, VC does have that ability to create more zombies (everlasting tar pit anyone?), but I've heard High Elf magic is very reliable.

Demdiddydizzy wrote:@ cowpow16 - Thanks! I will most certainly check it out! I might also go up to my FLGS to ask if I can borrow some WoC to play test, and see if I like using them. I love the models for both the HE (sadly, they all look like women when they're actually dudes), and the WoC, who just look absolutely amazing. I definitely get bored of painting Space Marines all day, every day. (all of my armies so far are some variant of SM ) so any new models are welcome! I'll play a game with some WoC, then decide from there how I would want to play em, then compare them to the HE. I know VC is probably not good for me, considering the 300+ zombies I would most likely need.

@ Jubear - I already know I'll love Fantasy, considering it's not all about list building like 40k. When I play tested HE, I had Korhil. Is Korhil all that great compared to other Lords and Heros? Yeah, I definitely enjoyed the White Lions and such. I've though about doing an army featuring Korhil with around 30 spearmen, 10 archers with a mage (haven't decided on what kind, as I'm still getting used to using magic at all, even psychic powers in 40k), Phoenix Guard, White Lions, Dragon princes, and even a Bolt thrower. Does that sound like a good setup for a beginner?

Korhil is a great choice for a combat hero at lower point values.

As for your core with HEs I tend to find that with archers and bolt throwers its go all out or dont bother. What I mean to say is I ethier fill my core with archers and take a couple of bolt throwers and a spell lore the works well with shooting (I like shadow debuffing Toughness is the only way I can make bow fire work) Or go the other way and just take a hode of spearmen so you have atleast one unit with alot of ranks. I prefer the later because its not magic reliant.

And yes He magic is very reliable but it requires Teclis or the book of hoath and both are things that wont earn you many friends if you run them non stop.

Sweet! Glad he is!

So all archers or all spearmen for the core? Wouldn't I want the bolt thrower for some ranged support regardless?

I could see a non-magic reliant army working for me, but I've been getting more into magics themselves, so I think magic will become a standard in my Fantasy armies.

Demdiddydizzy wrote:Sweet! Glad he is!

So all archers or all spearmen for the core? Wouldn't I want the bolt thrower for some ranged support regardless?

I could see a non-magic reliant army working for me, but I've been getting more into magics themselves, so I think magic will become a standard in my Fantasy armies.

Oh every HE list over 2000pts should include a level 4 archmage even if its a combat army. As for the bolt throwers it depends on your meta against cheap rank and file they will rarely make an impact however it does give you some options against smaller elite units and monsters. I tend to include them in games around 2500pts with a unit a 20 or so archers with the fire banner to hunt down Hydras and abombs. However the the rest of my core still goes into spearmen at lower point values HEs simply do not have the enough points to do both.

So, should I choose HE, I should expect lots of Spearmen, some archers, lots of special units, and at least a mage?

Sounds like your figuring it out Demdizzy. Elves have a lot of options and running Teclis isnt their only one.

Teclis requires around 2000 points to play with considering the % system that fantasy uses.

High elves have a lot of items that help their magic phase and their defence. The banner of the world dragon makes one unit completely immune to magic.. so taking all your characters and a running a huge horde of guys in that one block makes it hard to beat and its immune to counter-attacks or mass damage spells that usually are used to thin blocks of troops down.

On throwers.. all the new books are pushing monsters more and more. They're always useful in my opinion, especially since you can target models specifically with them by aiming at a certain troop.

I'm glad it's coming a lot easier now! I'm liking Fantasy more and more, yet deciding on an army is holding me back.

That percentage thing is taking a bit to get used to

Ohhhhhh, that already makes me a happy boy! Blob squad Spearmen, here I come!

So, they'd be used for character sniping?

Also, what about Chariots. How good are those in VC and HE? And I need a bit more info of VC. Anything else you guys can feed me on them?

Etherials are a pretty big thing right now. Using zombies to eat up your core requirements (or ghouls, if t4 is your thing) you pretty much only take the bare minimum required. Then you take as many small but effective units with the ethereal special rule as possible.

The ethereal rule makes it so that only units with magic weapons can hurt you. This is limited to about 1 or 2 (usually expensive) units in each army, as well as characters.(usually)

So you wind up with only one or two of your blocks even able to be wounded by the foe while you can whittle them down with near impunity. And since undead don't break in combat if they lose (although they take wounds instead) you usually come out ahead. Especially if you win the combat.

The downside to that is its possible an enemy brings some artillery that has its attacks count as magical, or they bring the more explodey lores.

I had the great fortune of playing two of the new zombie lists last week. He started the game with 60 zombies in three units and ended with 205 on the board.

If your a good general.. I mean really a good one... zombies CAN win. It just requires a vast knowledge of the system and what they can and cannot effectively tarpit forever while your hammers go to work about the board.

(Think of them as a very brittle wall that your spell dice are keeping upright. They can hold out certain things indefinately, but others break through. And because most people deploy their juicy and high point units behind their zombie wall, they feel obligated to dump enough magick into them to keep their wall up and protecting, which means no augments or hexes. Now zombies are your ENTIRE gameplan hinge. This is why I dont like them.)

Oh, I've seen quite a few units like that in the Vampire Counts! They all sound pretty dangerous.

I don't want to rely on Zombies, but having a Block of them could help.

I wanted to mostly rely on Skeletons, Zombies and possibly some Ghouls (since I have them), then use special units like Hexwraiths, Black Knights, and Grave Guard to beat the enemy down. I say I would use zombies only as a meat shield, as I can always resurrect more to throw mindlessly at the enemy.

Considering that Zombies can be raised from nothing you don't have to have them in your list at all to begin with, which saves you points to spend on other stuff.

I often see people raise zombies to block enemy charges as speed bumbs/redirectors. Mostly to prevent a particularly killy unit from smashing into something else.


Raised Zombies also don't give Victory points so that is also something to consider. A purchased Zombie unit is still worth something to the enemy, a raised one is truly a worthless tarpit.

Maybe I should consider a blob squad of some zombies (40ish?) then raise a whole lot more afterwards.

I start my zombie units at 20-25 and raise them from there

That sounds like a good number of zombie.

+1 for VC, this might be a bit bias since I'm doing a VC army of my own at the moment. But as people have been saying they cost an arm and a leg to get that core down.
But then again if money is what is stopping you from doing them I think this is the wrong hobby for you :>

VC core does not cost a arm and a leg IMO when you can have a zombie arm sticking up out of a base.

Well, I have no problem spending money, but I'm not gonna spend 200+ dollars on zombies that will never kill anything. Zombies have terrible stats. They are only good as meat shields imo.

VC core is not ment to kill things besides kind of ghouls

Well, I want everything in my army to be doing something. If they can't kill stuff and are only good at being killed, I'd honestly rather choose spear elves vs zombies.

Don't get me wrong, I love VC, but HE sound a little better for a noob like me.

You can't class the VC's the same as every other army. Unlike other armies, they win by attrition, not overpowering people. You also win by unit buffs (e.g. corpse cart) and psychology (fear bomb).

I think I should save VC's for later. I am a noob.