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Which fantasy Book do you think is most powerful which is the least. Please rank the books as you seem them and give some reasoning and thought process as to why you have them where they are.

Here is the list.
Beastmen
Bretonnia
Daemons of Chaos
Dark Elves
High Elves
Lizardmen
Ogre Kingdoms
Orcs and Goblins
Skaven
The Empire
Tomb Kings
Vampire Counts
Warriors of Chaos
Wood Elves

Lets hear it.

Skaven.

Skaven, Lizardmen and Ogres are the current best 3 books in the game.

I'd say Lizardmen probably edge out pole position but it's close because, compared to the other 2 armies, you have to be very good with them to get the best out of them.

Skaven can be a little too reliant on their toys, but their toys aren't particularly unreliable.

Ogres have undercosted options across the book, with the options to mitigate the handful of weakness the book has (they're weak to magic, but can get 3 great items to shut down magic phases. The Gutstar doesn't like shooting, but they can spam cheap Mournfang who are impervious to most shooting. Their low model counts means they don't like artillery, but they have access to some of the best cannons in the game).

The worst book is Wood Elves by a long way. They're borderline unplayable unless you're playing in a weak metagame, with medium to heavy comp that often gives WE armies extra points, or against substantially less good players. Under an environment like the ETC comp, where other armies are comp fairly hard and WE get an extra 200pts they can actually compete, but the biggest problem with them by far is that they lack answers to deal with metagames that revolve around armour, cavalry and monstrous cavalry which can easily run over everything in the book.

I break it down into 4 categories - top-tier, upper-middle-tier, lower-middle-tier, and low-tier. I forgot which thread and who (there's been a ton of these) described it best, but basically, top-tier is forgiving, easy armies that have high %'s to win. middle-tiers are a bit less forgiving, somewhat limited, bottom tier is usually overcosted or difficult to play w/ limited valuable units and so on and so on. Also keep in mind that any army can beat any army, so these tiers are arbitrary, even for me to list them, and of course people may disagree which is perfectly fine. Generalship matters a lot too. I know a WE player who beats Lizardmen and Skaven fairly frequently, so this is all pretty salt grainy... But I love listing stuff! So here's mine (lists under tiers are in no specific order):

Top-Tier
Skaven
Dark Elves
Ogres
Lizardmen

Upper-Middle-Tier
Empire
Vampire Counts
High Elves
Warriors of Chaos
Demons of Chaos

Lower-Middle-Tier
Dwarfs
Beastmen
Bretonnia

Low-Tier
Wood Elves
O&G
Tomb Kings

I think in terms of how the tiers are described, it's like as follows:

High Tier (Tier A) is very easy to win with, you don't need a lot of skill (though you'll still need to know what you're doing) and they're very forgiving. In addition, there's more than one way to put together an army and win.

As you move down the tiers, all of these things get less and less true. So a Tier B army will still be pretty good, but slightly harder to win with and will have less viable options. As you move down to the bottom tier, you have to be very skilled to win and you normally have to stick to a certain type of army. So yes, Wood Elves can beat Skaven, but said Wood Elf player will be very good and you could probably guess what 90% of his list would be.

As for what's in what tier, I'd say Dr. Cheesteak as it fairly accurate, though I would argue that HE and Dwarves should both move up a tier each.

 The Shadow wrote:
As for what's in what tier, I'd say Dr. Cheesteak as it fairly accurate, though I would argue that HE and Dwarves should both move up a tier each.

Thanks. yeah even I once argued HE should be considered top-tier. But I can see the consensus saying they aren't b/c their reliance on Teclis and the 15pt Specials. As for Dwarfs, I can agree w/ you there too. They can be upper-mid, but I think their lack of an entire phase in the game and diversity should handicap them a bit. But yeah, no doubt they can compete w/ the likes of WoC and Empire, etc.

This is what happens when the kids from the 40k forums come to the adult forums. Do not feed the trolls.

I don't agree with TKs in the bottom tier, I've been decimated by them in a tournament and seen them go on to win it. They are harder to play but they are on the same level as say bretts, not WEs.

I think cheesesteak has the armies in the right order and tiers except O&G. Well have to see where the LM end up in the fall. They are a hard army to nerf because they have the cold blooded rule and good infantry.

Hargus56 wrote:
This is what happens when the kids from the 40k forums come to the adult forums. Do not feed the trolls.

No I'm not a troll I want to read peoples opinion. I happen to believe Skaven, DE, and LIzardmen in light of the new codices that have come out are Extremely Powerful with skaven being outright broken, (bouncing area of effect cannons for the win et cetera.)

I personally see the list as this

Best To Worst (based on an average player in control of the army.) (Also our local meta is very Chaos heavy so this does affect my opinion.
Top
Skaven
Dark Elves
Ogres
Lizardmen

Middle tier
Chaos Demons
Vampire Counts
Chaos Warriors
High Elves
Orcs and Goblins

Low-tier
Tomb Kings
Empire

BAD
Dwarves
Beastmen
Brettonians
Wood Elves

Hargus56 wrote:
This is what happens when the kids from the 40k forums come to the adult forums. Do not feed the trolls.

The OP did not say anything inflammatory, his question is fairly common I dont think its fair labelling the OP as a troll.

O&G are far, far more viable tha stuff like Beastmen / Wood Elves.Seriously. The are solid mid tier.

I dont see my wood elves as being THAT bad. I mean sure, they're no skaven but there not bad. Where we excel we excel a lot. Most people try to play WE as a shooty army, we arn't. Yes we have great bows, but bows dont bows cannons. What we do have is a very capabable assalt force with massive hitting power, if not staying power. Our magic isn't the best, but our dispel thanks to wand of wych elm is above average. Treekin are the best monsterous infantry in the game, and a unit of 6 is a very reliable core to an army. While cavalry took a hit this ed, wildriders stand at the top of the pile of fast cavalry by a long mile.

We have effective and fast warmachine hunters and while mounted can run rings around assalt armies. Our only problem lies in full gunline lists, save them wood elves can capably handle anything your army throws at us.

It's hard to gauge Fantasy armies due to the fact that some require a high skill tier.

The main issue is seeing what is the worst and which ones obviously high up.

Top-Tier
Skaven
Vampire counts
Lizardmen

Upper-Middle-Tier
Empire
Chaos dwarfs
Ogres
Warriors of Chaos

Lower-Middle-Tier
Dwarfs
Beastmen
Bretonnia
High elves
Daemons
O&G

Low-Tier
Wood Elves
Tomb Kings

The tiers themselves are the ranking positioning inside the tiers is ambiguous


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'll add though a skilful night goblins player from the north is brutally effective with them


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'll add though a skilful night goblins player from the north is brutally effective with them

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
I dont see my wood elves as being THAT bad. I mean sure, they're no skaven but there not bad. Where we excel we excel a lot. Most people try to play WE as a shooty army, we arn't. Yes we have great bows, but bows dont bows cannons. What we do have is a very capabable assalt force with massive hitting power, if not staying power. Our magic isn't the best, but our dispel thanks to wand of wych elm is above average. Treekin are the best monsterous infantry in the game, and a unit of 6 is a very reliable core to an army. While cavalry took a hit this ed, wildriders stand at the top of the pile of fast cavalry by a long mile.

We have effective and fast warmachine hunters and while mounted can run rings around assalt armies. Our only problem lies in full gunline lists, save them wood elves can capably handle anything your army throws at us.

I honestly could not disagree more with pretty much all of this.

Either way, unfortunately results tend to speak for themselves- without significant comp help, Wood Elves typically finish in at best resoundingly average positions at tournaments. This seems ok until you remember that, for the most part, WE tournament players are a very small group who consistently use the one army, at which point mid-table finishings can only be attributed to one of two options, and that this happens a lot points to one over the other.

Top Tier

Lizardmen
Skaven
Dark Elves

Mid Tier

Ogres
O&G
TKs
HEs
WoC
DoC
Brettonia
Empire
Chaos Dwarves
Vampire Counts
Beastmen

Low Tier

Wood Elves


There is so little difference in power level at the moment that you can only make general statements and any distinctions that exist are very minor.

The only top tier armies right now are Lizardmen, Skaven, and Dark Elves. Purely because they have not yet been updated and their books have aged very well. Every book thats gotten an 8th edition update has been plonked down solidly in mid tier.

The only book thats truly poor right now are Wood Elves, with Beastmen being a possible runner up.


All things considered, the difference between the tiers is very small. Leaving player skill as a very important factor.

You can win with any of the armies, I think as you get down towards the lower tiers its not so much that they can't win but that they are very unforgiving of mistakes and offer very little wiggle room in composition.

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
I dont see my wood elves as being THAT bad. I mean sure, they're no skaven but there not bad. Where we excel we excel a lot. Most people try to play WE as a shooty army, we arn't. Yes we have great bows, but bows dont bows cannons. What we do have is a very capabable assalt force with massive hitting power, if not staying power. Our magic isn't the best, but our dispel thanks to wand of wych elm is above average. Treekin are the best monsterous infantry in the game, and a unit of 6 is a very reliable core to an army. While cavalry took a hit this ed, wildriders stand at the top of the pile of fast cavalry by a long mile.

We have effective and fast warmachine hunters and while mounted can run rings around assalt armies. Our only problem lies in full gunline lists, save them wood elves can capably handle anything your army throws at us.

Ehm...the entire core choice neglible in terms of power. S3 shooting is mostly worthless and since the main melee infantry are Skirmishers, they face a SCR disadvantage of -1 to -3. Wildriders are far too points-ineffective to be "on the top" - I'd take my Wolf Riders over them anyway. 50 pts a unit. Treekin are good, but aren't the best monstrous infantry either - WoC got a new bunch of points-effective monstrous infantry as well. Still, Treekin make up for the only viable list WE can field. And even then, they suffer from their downright terrible core - at least 25% of every WE army are dragging you down. That's a considerable disadvantage.

WE aren't complete garbage, of course not, no army is, but they definitely are bottom tier. And with spammable flaming attacks in 8th, WE took another hit.

And again: O&G are NOT worse than mid tier. Throw your WoC army at my Goblins and I'll have you tabled by turn 4 or 5. O&G are a hard counter to any low-count, heavy armor army. O&G are extremely flexible and have a wide variety of very viable. They just suffer from many inexperienced players fielding them as they got a lot of shiny traps like the Wyvern. Facing a O&G gunline is a nightmare for a lot of armies.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
I dont see my wood elves as being THAT bad. I mean sure, they're no skaven but there not bad. Where we excel we excel a lot. Most people try to play WE as a shooty army, we arn't. Yes we have great bows, but bows dont bows cannons. What we do have is a very capabable assalt force with massive hitting power, if not staying power. Our magic isn't the best, but our dispel thanks to wand of wych elm is above average. Treekin are the best monsterous infantry in the game, and a unit of 6 is a very reliable core to an army. While cavalry took a hit this ed, wildriders stand at the top of the pile of fast cavalry by a long mile.

We have effective and fast warmachine hunters and while mounted can run rings around assalt armies. Our only problem lies in full gunline lists, save them wood elves can capably handle anything your army throws at us.

Ehm...the entire core choice neglible in terms of power. S3 shooting is mostly worthless and since the main melee infantry are Skirmishers, they face a SCR disadvantage of -1 to -3. Wildriders are far too points-ineffective to be "on the top" - I'd take my Wolf Riders over them anyway. 50 pts a unit. Treekin are good, but aren't the best monstrous infantry either - WoC got a new bunch of points-effective monstrous infantry as well. Still, Treekin make up for the only viable list WE can field. And even then, they suffer from their downright terrible core - at least 25% of every WE army are dragging you down. That's a considerable disadvantage.

WE aren't complete garbage, of course not, no army is, but they definitely are bottom tier. And with spammable flaming attacks in 8th, WE took another hit.

And again: O&G are NOT worse than mid tier. Throw your WoC army at my Goblins and I'll have you tabled by turn 4 or 5. O&G are a hard counter to any low-count, heavy armor army. O&G are extremely flexible and have a wide variety of very viable. They just suffer from many inexperienced players fielding them as they got a lot of shiny traps like the Wyvern. Facing a O&G gunline is a nightmare for a lot of armies.

I'd go so far and call O&G top tier or at least top of the middle tier. The only "drawback" I can see with O&G is that we cant take core magic lores but that's it pretty much. Our book is pretty good unitwise and we have a lot of options to build some powergaming lists.

Its interesting to see Dark Elves rated so highly by American players, I've never seen them as being that devastating when compared to lizzies, old daemons, vamps or skaven

Dark Elves get a massive boost in uncomped Warhammer, as their infantry lists really need Mindrazor to kill anything with armour which they can easily do with a 7+ dice casting. As soon as you cap them at 6 dice per spell that magic becomes a lot less reliable. In the UK they're still seen as a good book, but are getting less and less comp beyond the 6 dice cap.

That'd probably be it then, we only see about two uncomped tournaments a year here. And the ETC nerfs shadow which would take away from what your saying. ETC has a four dice limit on shadow for them (and everyone else I should add)

EU uses ETC restriction rules that drastically improve 8th and make for more fun and more competitive games e.g. max 4 dice / spell, maybe a reason for differences.

With the power dice generating spell and the sacrificial dagger the DE can generate insane amounts of power dice. Couple that with dice from death magic wounds and you can make a Slann cry.

is there an official site or pdf or something. I did a google search and found 2012 rules but they don't seem to have been adjusted for new DOC.

I don't think the 2013 ETC rules pack will be ready up until a while before the tournament.

The second etc draft for this year is up and has the daemons in it


Automatically Appended Next Post:
http://warhammer.org.uk/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=111991

Power level of the Books:

Rulebook Hardcover makes the most damage, then armybook hardcover, then e-book armybook on tablet, then softcover armybook, then starter rulebook

 Kroothawk wrote:
Power level of the Books:

Rulebook Hardcover makes the most damage, then armybook hardcover, then e-book armybook on tablet, then softcover armybook, then starter rulebook

Winner for quote of the week, I think so.