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So, I went through all 15 armies in the sticky and have been reading all of the threads about army selection that I can find in this and the tactics forums.

I am coming from a 40k mindset and still wrapping my head around fantasy tactics, but I think I have it narrowed down to a few choices based on what I am looking for out of the army so I am looking for a bit more detailed feedback.

The short of it, I am interested in being good at (in order of important) magic, then melee, with shooting a distant third. While you obviously want to be as solid as you can in each phase, if I have to sacrifice one to be above average in the other two I would sacrifice shooting, just my play style.

Basically, I am looking for lots to do in the magic phase - both in quality/impact of result and options. I read a bunch that Vampire Counts are one of the best "magic" focused armies... but is that because they can simply add more models to their units, or because they have a plethora of options and can cause havoc? What else is a VC army like... are all the units just ablative wounds to get a vampire into combat? That is not necessarily a bad thing, but how many vampires am I actually going to run in a list?

I also read Lizardmen are "the best" in the magic phase... why? Slann are good, I see comments like that sure... but why? What can they do that makes them the best? How about the other lizardman units... do Saurus trudge up and punch things in the face? I imagine Kroxigor can bring some pain, but are they + skink worth running?

Finally, the elves... I really like the idea of mobility, which makes dark and wood elf armies attractive, but I have seen many things about how underpowered Wood Elves are. I am not against playing the underdog (go Sisters of Battle!) but are they due for a new book soon? What is their magic support like... and if I went with some mix of dryads, war dancers and treemen for my base would I be setting myself up for failure?

I am really just trying to get a clearer picture of how those armies play, thanks in advance for helping a newbie pick their first WHFB army!

I don't play the armies, but I am familiar with them.

I think Lizardmen would be your best choice. Yes, Slann are the best magic users (besides Teclis). They have good defense options (more wounds, etherial, bunker formation with temple guard), good utility (General and BSB, and can sit well in the center of your battleline) and of course great magic (all the main lores I beleive [Light and Life are the most common], bonous dice per cast, loremaster, cupped-hands [making your enemy take your own miscast). Note the one drawback is that in low points games, you won't be able to afford a slann so a skink priest won't do a whole lot.

Saurus are probably one of the best core units in the game, with the main weakness being Initiative. Of your options, Lizards can be the hardest hitting across the board (DE forcus more on spamming low str, and vamps do more 'screaming' and focusing on elites to do the killing). Lizards also have good skirmish shooting (pretty much pistol range, different feel than 40k), but its only a support role.

Awesome, thanks for the insight Texx -- can you elaborate a bit more on the vamp style of game play? I can guess screaming refers to some sort of shooting attack... are they low strength spam like the elves?

 Texx wrote:
I don't play the armies, but I am familiar with them.

I think Lizardmen would be your best choice. Yes, Slann are the best magic users (besides Teclis). They have good defense options (more wounds, etherial, bunker formation with temple guard), good utility (General and BSB, and can sit well in the center of your battleline) and of course great magic (all the main lores I beleive [Light and Life are the most common], bonous dice per cast, loremaster, cupped-hands [making your enemy take your own miscast). Note the one drawback is that in low points games, you won't be able to afford a slann so a skink priest won't do a whole lot.

Saurus are probably one of the best core units in the game, with the main weakness being Initiative. Of your options, Lizards can be the hardest hitting across the board (DE forcus more on spamming low str, and vamps do more 'screaming' and focusing on elites to do the killing). Lizards also have good skirmish shooting (pretty much pistol range, different feel than 40k), but its only a support role.

Slann ARE the best casters in the game. They don't have Teclis' raw casting power, but for the same cost they do SO much more. The best lores for solo slann are light/life. Dual slaan are best on life/metal. As for Saurus, they are easily dealt with, skinks do so much more for their points. They provide you with methods of dealing with monsters and chaff drops. Most competitive lizards lists in the UK meta are dual slann and skinkspam for a reason.

As a DE player, I can soundly say that they are harder to play than lizards but when they do hit, they hit like a train.(Also, the sticky on DE has several errors)

As for Vampires. They epitomise horde armies, not as much as skaven, but they epitomise them nonetheless. They take large units and can raise them back. As well as summon more units on the battlefield. However, their units don't do anything. But their characters do everything. The level 4 combat vamp being the prime example.

However, if you want to focus on magic, it depends how you want to do it. HE have a brilliant light council, as well as having the book of hoeth. Lizards have slann. And Empire surprisingly can do magic phases really well with their cheap mages.

quiestdeus wrote:

Basically, I am looking for lots to do in the magic phase - both in quality/impact of result and options. I read a bunch that Vampire Counts are one of the best "magic" focused armies... but is that because they can simply add more models to their units, or because they have a plethora of options and can cause havoc? What else is a VC army like... are all the units just ablative wounds to get a vampire into combat? That is not necessarily a bad thing, but how many vampires am I actually going to run in a list?

Yes, Vampire counts are basically an army that is all about getting your lord in combat and demolishing whatever he touches while your zombies tarpit the rest of his army. VC can defiantly do magic heavy but they are high tier magic, not the best.. They Do have the huge bonus of having caster that can get into combat as you can take a vampire lord, outfit him entirely for a caster role, throw in a mortis engine so he is casting at a +6 and when his unit gets in combat he is still a vampire lord so he doesn't have much to fear. Alliteratively you can make a vampire lord who will slaughter hydras and demon princes if they are dumb enough to try and fight him, while still being a lvl 4 wizard.
Vampire magic is all about synergy, you can spam raising spells to bring your units back up to full (or way past it in the case of zombies, they start the game at 20 and if it goes well for you they'll end it at 80). There is then the spell to make a new unit of zombies as well as the spells that give rerolls to hit and rerolls to wound. We only have a couple of spells that do direct damage but you generally want your magic to keep you winning combat. Combat is another thing we are damn good at, a unit of 40 grave guard with great weapons, the banner of the burrows, a vampire lord and the reroll spells on them are going to kill anything in their way.
As for shooting, we have no conventional shooting. We do have scream attacks however which are very nice, if short ranged. A scream attack is 8 inch range, you roll a couple of dice and add a 2-6 to the result (depends what your shooting with) then compare it to your opponents leadership. For each point you beat it you do a wound with no armour save. It is brilliant for taking out 2 or 3 knights out of a unit of 5 who would otherwise have a 1+ save against arrows, killing LD5 monsters, and threatening small to medium sized units.

Another consideration many 40k converts overlook is movement. In fantasy it is important and has to be considered as well as combat/shooting/magic. I have seen more than my fair share of new Warriors of Chaos players excited about their unbeatable troops only to lose because they can't get them in combat.


I don't play lizardmen but as Texx says, they have some of, probably THE best generic casters in the game. They have strong troops and good harassment shooting from their skinks.

Fro elves I'd go DE over WE as they are all round better really. They have some good combat units, some better shooting units and amazing offensive magic (slann are better but the usual tactic there is to buff your troops, same as VCs, DE are more about debuffing your opponent and throwing damaging spells at him).

Lizards are fantastic They are the only armies that can create loremasters of any book lore. Light Life and Shadow are my favorites. Saurus are fantastic in tourney play in the US. The UK uses a lot more comp in tournaments we do not so the raw power of saurus works quite well. Skink make excelent monstrous creature and warmachine hunters. Also Salamanders are quite good.


VC, DE, WE are not my forte so I will pass. However i will say that every vamp list I've seen is quite good. Grave Guard are nuts.

I will say that Skaven and Magic are good friends though. Also go look at Curse of the Horned Rat tis great fun when you can get it off.

Thanks for the awesome information everyone, very much appreciated.

 thedarkavenger wrote:
As for Vampires. They epitomise horde armies, not as much as skaven, but they epitomise them nonetheless. They take large units and can raise them back. As well as summon more units on the battlefield. However, their units don't do anything. But their characters do everything. The level 4 combat vamp being the prime example.

I think you've been playing against people who only run armies of all Core if that's your opinion of Vampire Counts.

VC Core is all about being a horde. Zombies are tarpits. Get them into combat, and keep raising more of them, and you'll keep an enemy unit tied up all game. Skeletons are bunkers. Stick a character in them. They can fight, but not well, unless you've got some serious magical buffing going on. Ghouls are fighters, but they're expensive. With 2 poisoned attacks each, they can reliably hurt units without a character to support them.

Once you get out of Core, you start finding more units able to fend for themselves. There's not much in Vampires Special and Rare slots that need a character in the unit, but it definitely doesn't hurt.

That said, your focus will be characters. It's not uncommon, in a 3000pt game, to eat up your whole Lord allotment on one Vampire Lord. It'll be a fething tough, totally blendery close combat monster that can melt ranks off regiments and brutalize any monster or lord in combat, and is also a level 4 wizard, but it'll cost you. Pay it - Vampire Counts armies should be led by a worthy Vampire. You'll then play a balancing game between Special/Rare units and Heroes. Necromancers, lesser Vampires, Banshees, Wraiths, Wight Kings... all are worthy of bringing, and all can really hurt the enemy in their own way. But so can regiments of Grave Guard, Black Knights, Blood Knights, Terrorgheists, Crypt Horrors, etc. All good units, and aside from needing the raising power from Vampires and Necromancers, can look after themselves well enough.

Vampire Counts are about balancing your heroes and regiments - finding a happy medium that works for you. The great thing is it's generally a really well balanced book internally. Almost everything is useful, which isn't something most Warhammer books can boast. The one area where internal balance is off is Vampire upgrades - generally, Red Fury and Quickblood are the only upgrade powers you'll even look at. You'll be using a lot of magic - and it'll again be a balancing act, between magic to support your army through raising new units or reinforcing units, buffing them and moving them, or using it to damage your opponents army.