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Hey there Dakka. I have recently begun in fantasy mostly because I had a daemon army in 40k. As much as I love the daemons in fantasy I was looking at actually aquiring a square base army. That said I'm torn. Wood elves look like a fun army with heavy shooting which would be fun. Then again Bretonnia looks awesome because I love the knights everywhere idea. Is there any suggestions on which army would be fun to pickup? I'm looking at having about a 2800 point army. If I did Bretonnia I would probably do all cav since that looks cooler. As for wood elves I was probably going to shy away from anything tree based. Mostly pure elves

Well from what I know about those two armies they both have a harder time because of older army books.

Bretonnia can still do pretty well especially with the blessing of the lady giving them ward saves. They also have pretty good lords and heroes from what I recall. That's about all I can say about them from what I know.

Wood Elves suffer from various things but also have a few nice things. They aren't very tough being elves most of the army is only T3. Staying away from trees is possible but you are limiting some of the better units from your army. Also a lot of the stuff is pricy so you will have a lower model count than most other armies.

DoC are square base. Everything in WHFB is square base. It's just you can use the same models in 40K if you swap in round bases. You can use special trays to do this, or change out the bases. But DoC is square. They all are.

As said, WE and Bret are old books. I don't know them well except from what people complain about them.

Empire can have knights, can have archers, cannons, even a tank of sorts. They can basically do whatever you want. In that regards, you have a lot of options.

Warriors of Chaos have lots of knights and look super cool, but they have almost no shooting.

If you want to go elves, I would recommend the new high elves, which is a very strong book. Even though the elves in question have big stupid pointy hats.

Bretonnia is a decent book. Its old, has some quirks, but its special rules have aged pretty well, and the book is solidly mid tier.

1) Bretonnia does Cav better than anyone else. This is because of the Lance Formation, which lets Bretonnian Knights claim a rank with only 3 wide. This means Bretonnian Knights can 3-4 Ranks fairly easily, and due to the Lance formation rules, will stil get most of the attacks from that formation.

Because Cav's biggest weakness is how expensive it is to get ranks, and how necessary ranks are to break steadfast, the Lance Formation means that Bretonnian Cav has a better chance of breaking through steadfast hordes than pretty much any other army's heavy Cav.

2) Blessing of the Lady. For the small sacrafice of first turn, Bretonnia can grab a ward save accross almost the entire army. Ward Saves are a god send in fantasy, and a 6++ or a 5++ vs strength 5 or higher can do a lot to keep Knights alive. Of course you can lose it, so it has you play a ceratin way.

3) Lots of magic items. Because of the age of the Bretonnian army, Brets have a ton of magic items. Combined with cheap lord options, Bretonnian Characters can do some very streamlined builds to allow them to punch well above their weight. The most infamous is the Bretonnian Lord with Always Strikes First, Heroic Killing Blow, a 1+ re-rollable Armour save, and a 6/5++ ward from the Blessing of the Lady.

The other really popular combination is a Horde of Men at Arms accompanied by a level 2 Damsel with the Prayer Icon. The Prayer Icon confers the blessing save to any unit- including Men at Arms, allowing a huge horde of cheap infantry (which benefitted a lot in 8th edition) to get access to a 6+/5++ ward save until they lose it. Men at Arms with the Blessing can fight against opponents litterally hundreds of points more valuable then them.

4) as a side point, Bretonnia is relatively cheap to play as opposed to other fantasy armies. 2 Battalions will actually get you a solid core for the army, 2 Knight Lances, a Horde of 40 Men at Arms, 2 Peasant Archer Squads, and most of the way to a Pegasus Knight Squad. You want pretty much everything in the Batallion, making 2 a great way to start the army.

Its also quicker to get on the table, and less daunting to paint, since while it is indeed obnoxious painting horses, the Bardings make it considerably easier, and at the end of the day since Bret armies tend to be expensive Cav heavy, you will have less models to paint then most other armies- like multiple hordes of 50+ orcs for instance.

Just wood elves and bretonnian? Interesting that your mind went straight for the lowest tier awful armies. Are you looking just to have fun or want to be able to smash face?