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I've been considering starting a Fantasy army for a long time now, but haven't been able to decide what army to go with. I play Chaos Space Marines in 40k and I really like the Warriors of Chaos, but I think I want to stay away from Chaos for now (that includes Daemons, but not Beastmen). The armies I'm considering (this is based on how much I like the looks of the models only) are: Beastmen, High Elves, Ogre Kingdoms, or Wood Elves. What I want to know is kind of a basic overview of how they play on the table as well as what the average army size is for each. Like are they hordes that require a lot of models or can I get by with just a few. I'm asking because I want to know how much money I'll be looking to spend and how much time I'll spend painting. Finally, what would be some good models to start with just to get a basic army on the table so I can start playing. Thanks for your input

ITs Warhammer every army is valid in the hands in a decent general.

If you are planing on playing at 2400 (the standard sized game) you are going to need to paint atleast 100 minis for a low model count army and around 300 for a horde.

Orgres are the exception using far less mdels but they are larger so it takes around the same time to paint as a normal elites style army.

As for cost warhammer at first seems alot more expensive but remember you are not buying and painting so many 35 points boxes as in 40k so that helps balance out the cost.

As for play styles do some bloody research =p it is a question that gets asked so much on this forum it makes me wonder if google started to charge per search...

After I posted this I did do some searching on tactics and what I got was basically this. Beastmen are great in combat and pretty resilient; High elves rule the magic phase and are also good in combat as well as being a serious threat at range, but they are fragile; Ogres are what you would expect, tough as hell to take down and have no problem stomping most things. I couldn't find a lot of info on Wood Elves though other than they have some great archers so any info on them would be a lot of help. Feel free to add anything I'm missing here or correct me on something I am wrong about. A question I do have is how do Ogres and Beastmen fair in the magic phase? At the moment I'm liking Ogre Kingdoms, but magic seems to be a big part of the game and I haven't found much on their wizards. If I don't go that route then I am considering High Elves because I love the White Lion of Chrace and their Chariots and would like to base an army around them.

TasadarTheMadBear wrote:After I posted this I did do some searching on tactics and what I got was basically this. Beastmen are great in combat and pretty resilient; High elves rule the magic phase and are also good in combat as well as being a serious threat at range, but they are fragile; Ogres are what you would expect, tough as hell to take down and have no problem stomping most things. I couldn't find a lot of info on Wood Elves though other than they have some great archers so any info on them would be a lot of help. Feel free to add anything I'm missing here or correct me on something I am wrong about. A question I do have is how do Ogres and Beastmen fair in the magic phase? At the moment I'm liking Ogre Kingdoms, but magic seems to be a big part of the game and I haven't found much on their wizards. If I don't go that route then I am considering High Elves because I love the White Lion of Chrace and their Chariots and would like to base an army around them.

Sweet all I ask is you do some google fu.

Now onto your questions, Beastmen are a horde army that have some nasty tricks in order to do well in the magic phase however you need to build your army around it here is a well repected Beastmen players youtube bat rep channel to let you see them in action http://www.youtube.com/user/oncebitten360?feature=results_main The man knows his stuff and makes some damn fine bat reps.

High Elves can field the most dangerous caster in the game in the form of Teclis (he is so OP many folk refuse to play against him) However they can still be very strong without him. Whitelions are a great unit however WL chariots are terrible and that sucks because the model is sexy as hell.

Wood elves have some great shooting backed up by some great units in the form of treekin and dryads however the book is very old and requires a good general to do well as just sitting still and blasting away wont work. Again here is the bat rep channel of a skilled WE player to peruse http://www.youtube.com/user/tmarichards

Ogres fair ok in the magic phase but where they really shine is kicking the living gak outta of the enemy and they dont really need buffs to do so. They also have access to some very strong units and some damn right OP ones (ironblasters) They are very much "top tier" at the moment but like I said before its your skill as a general that will decide who wins the day.

If you do decide to go with HEs feel free to PM myself or maybe contact Aerethan as we are both the most active HE players on the forum (our advice often differs but this is a good thing)

Thanks for the help, I have limited down to either High Elves or Ogres for sure, but which one is proving to be a hard decision.

I'm sad to hear the White Lion Chariots suck as they do look awesome. How does Korhil fair on the table? If I go with HE I would like to build some kind of army based around the White Lions and he seems like the natural choice for my leader (along with a mage or 2). What models would you recommend I get first just so I can get a basic army on the table?

Get your core choices first for HEs so to me that means about 50 or archers or about 65 spearmen (I like archers) Korhil is a great hero to lead a horde of spearmen (hes wasted in a unit of WLS oddly enuff) then grab yourself atleast 30 WLs to give you a nasty combat block.

Lords

Archmage
Hand Weapon, Level 4 Wizard
Magic Items
Arcane Items
Book of Hoeth
School of Magic
Lore of Shadow

Heroes

Mage
Hand weapon
Magic Items
Arcane Items
Dispel Scroll
School of Magic
Lore of Fire

Noble
Battle Standard Bearer, Great Weapon, Hand Weapon
Magic Items
Magic Armour
Armour of Caledor
Talismans
Dawnstone

Core

Archers
21x Archer, Musician
Standard Bearer
Banner of Eternal Flame
Archers
10x Archer, Musician
Archers
10x Archer, Musician
Archers
10x Archer, Musician

Special

White Lions of Chrace
Musician, 30x White Lion
Standard Bearer
Banner of Sorcery

White Lions of Chrace
Musician, Standard Bearer, 30x White Lion

Rare

Great Eagle
Great Eagle

Created with BattleScribe

Ok thats my attempt to create a WL themed army that is competive. Its fairly straight forward to use during deployment drop your eagles on the flanks then start dropping archers blocks at the 11" mark and sit your WL hordes behind them. During the first few turns of the game just debuff the enemys toughness with magic and nuke them down with archers. Once the enemy gets close enuff to charge flee as your charge reaction and let them bounce thru your WLs hordes. This will then let you charge on your turn with your nasty WL units and keep your archers alive.

Ok, thanks for all that help! I went to my local GW store and they have a large HE army I can use in some practice games so I'm going to try them out and see how it goes. I think they even have enough models to use the list you just posted so that worked out well. What about Bolt Throwers? Are they at all useful?

I feild 2 in my list but most folk dont like them (they are overcosted) But I just enjoy the range and it gives me an answer to heavy armor.

So I loved how the HE played (I won 2 out of 3 games!). I'm going to get a couple of boxes of spearmen and archers, plus a box of White Lions and Korhil to start things of. What should I get for Lord or Hero choices? I'm going to use Korhil just because I love the White Lions, but what else? I want some mages obviously, and probably a prince on a mount, but what works good on the table? Is an Archmage on a dragon competitive or just too many points? What about Dragon Mages? Their cheaper but only use the Lore of Fire.

Look around and try and get this sucker which was out not to long ago and is now out of production:

http://www.fanatic.dk/produkt/11438

These sold I think for about $215 which is roughly what the spearmen, white lions, 75% of the archers and 50% the dragon princes would run you. I would check local gaming stores and even GWs might have some left in stock I think mine still does.

TasadarTheMadBear wrote:So I loved how the HE played (I won 2 out of 3 games!). I'm going to get a couple of boxes of spearmen and archers, plus a box of White Lions and Korhil to start things of. What should I get for Lord or Hero choices? I'm going to use Korhil just because I love the White Lions, but what else? I want some mages obviously, and probably a prince on a mount, but what works good on the table? Is an Archmage on a dragon competitive or just too many points? What about Dragon Mages? Their cheaper but only use the Lore of Fire.

Gratz on the wins.

Grab yourself a few mages as you will always field atleast one archmage and usually a support mage in most list.

Dragons are not a great choice in my meta at the moment, Mainly because cannons kill them dead very quickly and they cant break steadfast due to not having ranks and they lack damage output (archamge on dragon is a really bad idea) Dragon mage is really one of the worst choices in the book full stop. The last thing you want for a close combat dragon is to put a squishy mage on top. Also from a collecting point of view one box of WLs is not going to be enuff I would wait till you can buy atleast 3 and make a decent unit.

Yeah White Lions 3 boxes will run you as pretty penny. If I ran high elves I would make good use of unit filler based on the price alone. White Lion Filler would be quite easy utilizing the Lions from the chariot kit. I know some people are against it but I'm not gonna hold it against someone who runs 40 WLs if 10 are filler. 40 is well over $150 for 1 unit go ahead and sir!

Cost me $210 for my WL horde =( They are great on the table but I could have choosen the core for an entie other for that. (horrible models to build and paint aswell)

Ok so no dragons, but more mages. And I like the idea of using the White Lions from the chariots as fillers. I'll look for that box set, but the only thing they have online at GW is the smaller one with 20 archers, 20 spearmen, a chariot, and a bolt thrower. it's still a good deal for the price so I might pick that up if I cant find the other. Should I even include a Prince of any kind or just stick to mages of different levels as me lord and hero choices?

TasadarTheMadBear wrote:Ok so no dragons, but more mages. And I like the idea of using the White Lions from the chariots as fillers. I'll look for that box set, but the only thing they have online at GW is the smaller one with 20 archers, 20 spearmen, a chariot, and a bolt thrower. it's still a good deal for the price so I might pick that up if I cant find the other. Should I even include a Prince of any kind or just stick to mages of different levels as me lord and hero choices?

Mages are the more competitive choice. I have tried running a prince, but the gear he has access to isn't that great when I compare him to my dreadlord. *Cough* Pendant *Cough* But he can be fieldable.

Ogre magic looks deceptively average, but if it gets off it can turn what is already a powerful melee army into a nigh unstoppable force.

its centered primarily around buffs in the form of Augment spells. Gutmagic and Heavens are the 2 lores best taken.


For example, today I played a 2500 point game. 1 lvl4 and 2 lvl2s. The lvl4 had Gutmagic, both Lvl2s had heavens.


I ended up with Toothcracker(+1T), Bullgorger(+1Str), Bonecruncher(2d6 Str2 hits with no armor allowed), Spinemarrow(stubborn), Harmonic Convergence, Comet, and 2 iceshards as my spells. Ok, those last 2 are actually Hexs but whatever.

All of these spells have fairly low casting values because individually they arn't all that impressive.

But once I start stacking these spells together they become devestating.


My opponent conceded when I got 2 Iceshard debuffs off on his main unit of Chaos Warriors that were bunkering his General(-2 to hit and -2 ld) and my Maneaters had made a successful charge into them. While being buffed up with +1T and Harmonic Convergence.





Overall, the playstyle is actually quite tactical. its not an army that can just toss its units at the enemy. You must pick your targets wisely.

If you want specific questions answered, come over to the Stronghold. http://www.ogrestronghold.com/forum/index.php

Yes, the batallion is good I think, you get more core units, a bolt thrower for if you ever want to use one and a chariot. Chariots are great, I love using them with any army, those impact hits at str6 happening BEFORE any blows are made can wipe out small units of knights for example. Add in the lion chariot variants attacks too you have more str 5 hits happening in I order.

Was looking at getting 2 battalions to start off a return to a HE force.

On the subject of mages and lores, fire really is not bad. Neither is metal, both of these lores are overlooked a lot I think especially with HE and lizardmen who tend to go for life I noticed. The augments and hexes really help out and the damage potential is there with each lores damage spells.
Best to see what lore you prefer over a few games, even if you end up losing you always learn something from the games.