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Hello Dakka,

I am looking for a bit of advice on what Fantasy army to choose to play in my gaming stores local upcoming Fantasy escalation league. First of, I know nothing really about Fantasy, outside the bit of research I have done on the armies, and of course the mini rule book I got in the Island of Blood box. I play Ultra's in 40k right now, and I'm looking to change the pace in fantasy with an "evil" race, and even maybe a horde or semi horde army.

The league has set rules with what we are allowed to use every month, for example right now in the 40k league, on Month one we were only allowed a troop choice and 250 points to work with. Month two would increase to 500 points, an HQ and a Troop choice to add to the previous months troop choice. Every month escalates 250 points with limitations on what units we can choose to bring. I'm not sure if the fantasy league will run the same as the league rules haven't even been fleshed out yet, but I do suspect it will run in the same manner to some extent.

Here is where I need some advice. As stated I would like to play a chaos aligned army, semi to maybe even full horde. I have narrowed it down to a few armies that catch my attention model/painting wise to Tomb Kings, Vampire Counts, Skaven, and Chaos itself. I am looking for an army that will be competitive on the low point end as well as the high point end. Some info on how each of these four armies play would be great as well as a little detail on what it's like collecting and painting them. I am trying to stay away from armies that are "cheese" like i've heard about the High Elves.

Any info would be great, and if you all need anymore info from me about my intentions, just let me know! Thank you all in advance, and yes, I have browsed through the forums here, looked at codicies and so forth, I am just looking for more direct responses and a little bit of help fleshing out what my play style would be in fantasy, as I am trying to change the pace a bit from Ultramarines.

Since this is your first army and WHFB game, I wouldn't worry about competitiveness since all armies can win a game in WHFB. What I would worry about is your playstyle. If your happy to sit back and play a shooting game then this narrows your choices drastically, however if your like me who like to charge/get up close and personal in enemy faces, then this would affect your army choice. For example, chaos warriors have barely any shooting. After you have decided your playstyle, then it's a good idea to look at the fluff. Theres nothing more annoying than playing an army just because it "wins" and hating the models/story.

Anyway on a more direct note, I think you wouldn't go wrong with Skaven. They have many fun tricks and toys, and are reasonably versatile although not that good of a combat army, yet they do have the funnest units in game with my current favourite being the doomrocket?(not sure if this is the right name) that when misfires has an entry called "suspiciously off target", that cracks me up everytime.

Among the 4 armies that you mentioned, Skaven is the most horde-like with VC as a close second, while Chaos Warriors are about as far from horde as you can get. That is, unless you mean Daemons of Chaos as opposed to Warriors. Tomb Kings are fairly different as well, though they share some similarities to VC (being undead).

Its probably worth mentioning that Tomb Kings are solid Neutral rather than evil/chaotic, and certain breeds of Vampire could pass for Neutral as well. Just in case being the 'bad guy' was important.

In terms of playstyles:

Tomb Kings- extremely mediocre troops backed up with magic and animated constructs. The 'shooty' side of the Undead, mixing a horde of infantry with respectable firepower and some heavyweight units to carry the battle. Generally considered to be a weak book right now.

Vampires- hordes of mediocre troops bog down the enemy while a handful of murderous predators kill everything. Very much a 'hero' army in that the Vampires will do all the heavy lifting. Very little ranged elements and not much in the way of Scouting / Skirmishing, but plenty of Flyers and infantry blocks. Magic is mostly used in a supportive role.

Warriors- Ultimate melee infantry, with the best lists being based on hordes of Marauders with scattered units of Warriors. Nothing in the way of Scout, Skirmish or Flight means that it plays very much like a sledgehammer, an unsubtle punch to the head. Magic tends to be quite blasty and cavalry is extremely destructive.

Skaven- hordes of useless-yet-oddly-brave troops will bog you down while you kill things with extreme firepower. Extremely random with enormous potential damage, but also a very hefty amount of friendly fire / explosions. No real fighting infantry, although Rat Ogres and the Abomination are real killers. Beyond that, drown them in slaves and apply artillery.

Mozzamanx wrote:
Its probably worth mentioning that Tomb Kings are solid Neutral rather than evil/chaotic, and certain breeds of Vampire could pass for Neutral as well. Just in case being the 'bad guy' was important.

In terms of playstyles:

Tomb Kings- extremely mediocre troops backed up with magic and animated constructs. The 'shooty' side of the Undead, mixing a horde of infantry with respectable firepower and some heavyweight units to carry the battle. Generally considered to be a weak book right now.

Vampires- hordes of mediocre troops bog down the enemy while a handful of murderous predators kill everything. Very much a 'hero' army in that the Vampires will do all the heavy lifting. Very little ranged elements and not much in the way of Scouting / Skirmishing, but plenty of Flyers and infantry blocks. Magic is mostly used in a supportive role.

Tomb Kings are definitely not 'good', but they are not totally 'evil' either. They are a very individualistic army, morally speaking - it is all about how the Tomb King in question plans to spend his time. Going totally starking bonkers and trying to kill the 'barbarians' who come anywhere nearby is apparently what they all prefer to do.

The Tomb King army is a bit of an odd one. The first thing to note is that it's the slowest army in Warhammer, with even Dwarves marching 6" getting the pip on us. We have some really tough units - Sphinxes, the SnakeSurfers, Tomb Guard - but our Core sucks royally, though chariots can cause carnage on the charge, and we are quite dependant upon magic going our way on critical turns, with buffs being reasonably crucial. If you don't like the idea of magic, go construct (all the statues and whatnot) heavy, which all work well independently of magical supervision. We can make up for the lack of mobility with essentially our own form of Deep Striking, which allows movement once you arrive to correct scatter.

In comparison to Vampire Counts, the TK heroes and lords are not in the same league of lethality, but then they don't cost nearly as much, while our units can stand up reasonably well to any equivalent points-cost units from the VC book AFAIK.

 Charles Rampant wrote:

Mozzamanx wrote:
Its probably worth mentioning that Tomb Kings are solid Neutral rather than evil/chaotic, and certain breeds of Vampire could pass for Neutral as well. Just in case being the 'bad guy' was important.

In terms of playstyles:

Tomb Kings- extremely mediocre troops backed up with magic and animated constructs. The 'shooty' side of the Undead, mixing a horde of infantry with respectable firepower and some heavyweight units to carry the battle. Generally considered to be a weak book right now.

Vampires- hordes of mediocre troops bog down the enemy while a handful of murderous predators kill everything. Very much a 'hero' army in that the Vampires will do all the heavy lifting. Very little ranged elements and not much in the way of Scouting / Skirmishing, but plenty of Flyers and infantry blocks. Magic is mostly used in a supportive role.

Tomb Kings are definitely not 'good', but they are not totally 'evil' either. They are a very individualistic army, morally speaking - it is all about how the Tomb King in question plans to spend his time. Going totally starking bonkers and trying to kill the 'barbarians' who come anywhere nearby is apparently what they all prefer to do.

So... they're neutral? Kind of like what he said.

I'd say Warriors of Chaos. They are a great starting army and play fine at low points values. They just got a mini update in white dwarf and rumor is they will be getting a new book and new models next year. You can field hordes of marauders, they are actually pretty darn good! As others have mentioned, they do lack shooting , having only one stonethrower to choose from (hell cannon) and throwing weapons as an upgrade to a fast calvary unit. They have four book specific lores and a ton of really cool magic items to choose from. When the new book comes out you will probably lose some of the items, (its been the trend in 8th so far) but most other things will be very similar.

I've always thought of warriros of chaos as the "space marines" of fantasy.