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I have no idea what's what with WHFB at all, I just know what armies I like the appearance of and that's it.

So anyway I was asking at a meeting - what's the WHFB equivalent of codex space marines, in terms of generally being considered the go to army for beginners as well as that "me too" thing with SMs coz just about everyone has them.

Nobody could really come to an agreement on the answer, so I shall ask you guys here

This is stemming from general curiosity as well as a growing interest in the WHFB side of things

There is no equivalent. Simple as.

WHFB has no "GW Poster Boy" like 40k, there's no single army that gets the vast majority of GW's attention in WHFB. Which is a good thing.

I suppose there is, however, a "to the go" army, i.e. one most beginners would start, and they would be either Skaven or High Elves, but only because they're in the starter set.

Warriors of Chaos are a good beginner army as they aren't too expensive to get and are extremely one-dimensional thus easy to learn.

For more complex armies, Empire and Goblins&Orks are a good idea to go to as they allow for a lot of interesting builds and are very versatile.

 The Shadow wrote:
There is no equivalent. Simple as.

WHFB has no "GW Poster Boy" like 40k, there's no single army that gets the vast majority of GW's attention in WHFB. Which is a good thing.

I suppose there is, however, a "to the go" army, i.e. one most beginners would start, and they would be either Skaven or High Elves, but only because they're in the starter set.

It is a good thing! Kinda glad that's the first thing that has been said here! :-D
So is there not even something along the lines of a more forgiving army for newbs?

Skaven are one of the bunch I like the look of, lizard men too

Both of those are good armies that are on the easy to play side.
Lizardmen are very reliable and only lack long range shooting, new book is rumored in fall so might wanna wait and see on that one.
Skaven are a bit less reliable but with low points costs and being a generally horde army they are considered by many the best army right now, it all comes down to a few old edition items truth be told, they're overall great fun if you don't mind assembling 50 dudes per unit.

I myself play lizards and they're kinda shoehorned into a narrow spectrum of builds to be competitive but quite fun in friendly games, same goes for skaven but you need twice the transport capacity to carry the army

 Sigvatr wrote:
Warriors of Chaos are a good beginner army as they aren't too expensive to get and are extremely one-dimensional thus easy to learn.

For more complex armies, Empire and Goblins&Orks are a good idea to go to as they allow for a lot of interesting builds and are very versatile.

Yeah, I totally agree. WoC is kinda the easiest army to start with. Not too many troop types, pretty "elite" army and kinda easy to get wins with. The Models are not too hard to assemble, easy to paint and you just need a few of them to start with. Later on you can try to follow a certain route like trolls, cavalry, mixed army, pure WoC, pure Marauder and such gimmicks to see if you can plug out a win with a themed army.

 HoverBoy wrote:
Both of those are good armies that are on the easy to play side.
Lizardmen are very reliable and only lack long range shooting, new book is rumored in fall so might wanna wait and see on that one.
Skaven are a bit less reliable but with low points costs and being a generally horde army they are considered by many the best army right now, it all comes down to a few old edition items truth be told, they're overall great fun if you don't mind assembling 50 dudes per unit.

I myself play lizards and they're kinda shoehorned into a narrow spectrum of builds to be competitive but quite fun in friendly games, same goes for skaven but you need twice the transport capacity to carry the army

Thanks for the pointers :-)
I've no idea how the game works at this point, just that apparently "its largely formation based"or something.

To be fair at the moment I'm looking at WHFB stuff purely as models to paint and enjoy displaying for myself, and if I do get some guys and end up playing I'll deal with my chosen armies strengths and weaknesses as I find them :-)

 Xiorell wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:
There is no equivalent. Simple as.

WHFB has no "GW Poster Boy" like 40k, there's no single army that gets the vast majority of GW's attention in WHFB. Which is a good thing.

I suppose there is, however, a "to the go" army, i.e. one most beginners would start, and they would be either Skaven or High Elves, but only because they're in the starter set.

It is a good thing! Kinda glad that's the first thing that has been said here! :-D
So is there not even something along the lines of a more forgiving army for newbs?

Skaven are one of the bunch I like the look of, lizard men too

Any top tier army, so Dark Elves, Lizardmen and Skaven (and probably HE now), are forgiving armies.

I also agree Woc

Especially with Slaanesh Mark... lol

I also agree that WoC are a good starter army. Ogres are also a pretty decent choice. Some of the other lists (and especially those in the starter set - HE and Skaven) can be difficult to master properly due to all the intricacies they have. This might change somewhat with the new HE book but I haven't seen it yet...

WoC and Ogres.

I started with Ogres. Pretty much everything in the ogre book is viable. Some choices may be sub-par internally, but you can easily buy whatever you like the look of and make it work. The army specific rules are fairly straightforward, which is good for a beginner army. They can work just by charging forward to meet the enemy, but they can also be played in other ways once you have a better grasp of the rules and the army. They also can have some neat conversion and painting opportunities. Since ogres live in tribes and often take up mercenary work, I've seen people get pretty creative with the look of the army

WoC are a neat army. You can play them very basic or more complex, similar to the ogres. The army rules also aren't very complicated. And they can do lots of themed lists as has been mentioned previously.

Honestly though, since you said that whatever army you choose will mostly be a painting project for now, pick whichever army you like the look of the most. All the armies are close enough in power level that you won't be completely gimped, and any complexities in the army can be overcome with practice. I do suggest picking an army that has an 8th edition book though. Those tend to be more "well-rounded", with few worthless units.

Woc is similar in army compositions, few in numbers and in heavy armour,

Empire is similar in that they are the protagonist army.

brettonia is the most similar in theme, seeing as SM are knights in space and brettonia are knights.

I'll probably end up getting some Skaven, I need to sit at my PC and browse all the models for all the armies to make sure there's nothing else with a few models I just have to paint but Skaven just seem to "fit" with me.

The original question didn't come from wanting to get an easy army or anything, I was showing a mate some test paint jobs I did on a couple of tac marines and the table next door had WHFB going on so it got me thinking :-)

WOC and Ogres

Both very hard hitting armies that are cheap to put together just take them and go straight at the enemy

One reason that there is not an equivalent space marine army in fantasy is simply that fantasy is all about precise movement and hth combat whereas 40k is a shooting game.

During 5th edition a fair number of people thought that GW greatly favored High Elves and they were the GW golden child like space marines.

Also at that time and continuing, the ever popular chaos range got a lot of love from GW because of its popularity.

While the power of armies goes up and down over editions it seems that skaven, lizardmen and vampire counts (formerly just undead in 3 to 5) have always remained at worst very good.

Elves are the SM equivalent as theres loads of them just in different colours and could all be rolled into a single book.

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:
Elves are the SM equivalent as theres loads of them just in different colours and could all be rolled into a single book.

But from the perspective of poster-boy status, I'd have to say that it is the dwarf slayers, especially the trollslayers, who appear in a lot of the promotional artwork, and look for an honorable death fighting trolls.

 Crazy_Carnifex wrote:

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:
Elves are the SM equivalent as theres loads of them just in different colours and could all be rolled into a single book.

But from the perspective of poster-boy status, I'd have to say that it is the dwarf slayers, especially the trollslayers, who appear in a lot of the promotional artwork, and look for an honorable death fighting trolls.

Its true though - the elves are bascially all the same except with different colour clothes and slight regional differences. Just like Space Marines.


I used to say that a good starter army for WFB was Empire, because they could do a bit of everything. No idea now though as its all about flinging big spells at each other and large plastic kits.

If i was looking for these things that are common for space Marines: Stats, low model count, ease of play, and forgiving for new players....

My answer would be WoC and Ogres.

S4, T4 is not as common in WHFB as it is in 40K. However keep in mind, fantasy has had a longer time to balance out external game play between armies. So because of this there is more diverse army play in the fantasy landscape then in 40k. There really isn't a one army that "everyone" plays. I'd say pick an army that appeals to you, and do some research.

From what I have seen with Stat, the learning curve of the army, and that, WoC and Orge is what my observation seems to be.

As for what is the posterboy, there is really no one that is, as WHFB is more diverse with what army you can play, so it is more of research what army you want to play and go from there.

The elves are no more alike than the empire and brettonia. At least not if you count wood elves.

I don't think he meant what's the posterboy army. I think he meant, which is a book with good saves, and elite units. Space marines are to 40k, as mario is to mario kart, as in, the jack of all trades, master of none. So, what is the jack of all trades elite fantasy army

 Evileyes wrote:
I don't think he meant what's the posterboy army. I think he meant, which is a book with good saves, and elite units. Space marines are to 40k, as mario is to mario kart, as in, the jack of all trades, master of none. So, what is the jack of all trades elite fantasy army

As I said, if I had to take a guess, that would have to be the Empire I would (but that does not often have good saves for their units) and/ or Warriors of Chaos with the addition of possibly Orge Kingdoms? (Although Orge Kingdoms seems one hell of stretch I would think. )

 Evileyes wrote:
I don't think he meant what's the posterboy army. I think he meant, which is a book with good saves, and elite units. Space marines are to 40k, as mario is to mario kart, as in, the jack of all trades, master of none. So, what is the jack of all trades elite fantasy army

Yeh that's sort of what I meant, but the poster boy thing is a factor. like if you are only sort of familiar with 40k the first image that'd come to mind is a Space Marine,most likely an ultra. That's gotta be a bit of a pain in the ass if you genuinely like SM but also wanna be different.

I'm kinda glad that it seems no one WHFB army is over populated and that it seems the power balance works out pretty even at the end of the day.

Just borrowed the big fat rule book to reads up on the fluff etc

Yeah warriors of chaos seem most like space marines. What I'm not thrilled about is how solid their stat-line, armor and marks seem to be. I'm not sure if they can also take banners. Mostly really hard to kill through characteristic tests and in ways much scarier to face than marines could ever be. You definitely have to thin them out a little before combat hits. Ogres are also scary to face but with a less solid stat-line. Hit ogres with enough multiple wound weapons and prevent some toughness and regeneration magic and you should be good. I'm not the best person to ask for advice though.

I should not have borrowed this rule book.
Turns out I like just about all of the armies lol. Probably the normal human looking stuff the least, but still...

For ease of play, it has to be the Ogre Kingdoms. They are very point and click.

Yea you point a LD test at them and they click off the field.

 HoverBoy wrote:
Yea you point a LD test at them and they click off the field.

It's more like pointing initiative tests at them and blinking them out of existence .