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I'm simply looking for the most powerful army currently in fantasy.

I'm not a new player looking for easy wins, I'm simply looking to see if any of the recent books have shifted the meta. I like to ask this every few army books just to see what the community thinks.

This can be based on your own opinion but you could think about the following:

1) most competitive army
2) what army has a large amount of cost efficient units/magic items/spells
3) army wide abilities
4) tournament results
5) what army do you struggle against

Thank you, and feel free to discuss.

The most powerful books are the 7th edition books. Right now that is just Dark Elves and Skaven.

The 8th books - with the exception of Tomb Kings (which sucks) are all pretty much on par with each other.

The 6th edition books are hurting. Wood Elves most of all.

I wouldn't say it's so much a 'most powerful army' as it is really 'most powerful lists'

Daemons for example on the whole are rather average, but throw down an Epidemius list or heavy-Nurgle list and suddenly you have people crying cheese!

I'd say the top lists right now would be;
- Epidemius Daemons (as you can make Eppi completely unkillable by hiding him in the Portalglyph all game)
Or
Nurgle heavy w/2x Skullcannons + 2x min-sized Horrors

- WoC Chariot spam, supported by 2-3 Chimeras, Skullcrushers, 'unkillable' Nurgle Daemon Prince & 3++/re-roll 1's BSB

- High Elves points denial w/PG + BotWD WL's led by Alarielle or an Anointed, supported by Core cavalry, Phoenix/s a pair of Eagles & Bolt Thrower/s.

- Ogre Gutstar w/Runemaw banner, 2x Ironblasters & Mournfangs



That's what I tend to hear/see being bemoaned about locally by the competitive/tournament players when I'm around the LGS.

The Epidemius list is outright tops though... His table-wide buffs to ALL 'Daemons of Nurgle' are just plain ridiculous;
7+ kills = +1S/ 14+ kills = +1T/ 21+ kills = Killing Blow/ 28+ = re-roll failed ward saves

Run the list as a GUO or Nurgle Prince w/Portalglyph + Lv4 wizard (Death), Eppi, a BSB Herald with Lesser Locus, 2 Plaguebearer anvils, a Nurgle Grinder w/stone thrower upgrade, 3 units of min Nurgle Furies and then as many Beasts as points can fit. (or even a min-sized unit of Plaguedrones w/Burny Banner to take care of enemy regen unit/s)

Quite literally the only way your opponent wins is if they can either Turn 1 wipe you before you get a turn, or else they can Purple Sun/Pit you to death.
Otherwise it's not hard at all to have a pair of S5/T5 Core units holding things up forever, while those Beasts who are normally 'must haves' to begin with become S6/T6 and will simply murder anything they touch with ease.

I'm actually think the Daemon Prince is the better fit for the Lord slot: He gets access to a 4+ save + flight, and is still a bit cheaper than the GUO. Plus his mobility can keep him from being chaff'ed to death like Big Pappa, while also giving him some better targets for Death-sniping and potentially sending a Purple Sun across your opponent's lines...
On the downside, you're wasting your entire Gifts alotment on the Portalglyph & it means your General is likely out of range for his Inspiring Presence, but outside of really bad dice, within 1 turn your already resilient units should be at T5 or better, plus you still have the BSB where it counts.

If you want to make people rage-quit Warhammer and call you every dirty name in the book, this list would do it rather effectively!

Stop using meta. It doesn't mean what you think it means.

On paper, apparently, is Skaven. Experience would have told you it really wouldn't matter.

Dwarf gunline can still be pretty hard to beat, even though it is 6th

Dark elves are hell and skaven are great at literally everything. A decent VC lis can be deadly though.

Wood elves

DukeRustfield wrote:
Wood elves

But seriously, has to be either Skaven or DE. Surprised DE is getting so few votes. Skaven can be be very fickle, unstable, and self-destructive. DE have great shooting (well, just xbowmen...but man, they're great), hydras, and perhaps the best magic phase in the game. I voted for DE just for the consistency.

Skaven, as they still have a 7th army book and got their ridiculously overpowered Slaves.

I love the token vote for the asrai

Skaven can destroy anything quickly.

 Atlantic wrote:
The most powerful books are the 7th edition books. Right now that is just Dark Elves and Skaven.

Just pointing out, Beastmen is a 7th edition book. More recent than skaven even.

Yeah...

Yeah. The Beastmen book is gak. It quickly became outdated. I remember doing decent in 7th however.

 captain collius wrote:
Skaven can destroy anything quickly.

Including themselves.

Skaven is probably the most powerful, closely followed by Dark Elves. DE need some more love in this poll though, WoC shouldn't be placing ahead of DE.

I got very nearly tabled by the softest DE list my opponent could possibly build a couple of weeks back. My vote is for them.
It takes a lot of skill to play them that well but it was an outright embarrassing loss.

I voted Tomb Kings. Solidarity, yo!

Niteware wrote:

 captain collius wrote:
Skaven can destroy anything quickly.

Including themselves.

Yes to quote

We don't self-destruct often but when we do.....
We do so spectacularly.

I'm actually surprised to see WoC with so many votes, and Ogres with so few.

I haven't played enough WoC I guess.

I have found over the years that it seldom matters what the interwebzs says, I have seen a wood elf army tear a Skaven army appart faster than you could say cheese. or countless of other exampels of so called weaker books beating the snot out of the more popular armies

 The Shadow wrote:
Skaven is probably the most powerful, closely followed by Dark Elves. DE need some more love in this poll though, WoC shouldn't be placing ahead of DE.

Skaven are also probably the army with the highest probability of totally destroying itself with no input from the opponent.

O&G can do some wacky stuff with Animosity and Fanatics and stuff. I mean in one round they can really decimate themselves.

Empire. - Jack of all trades, master of none, when balance is found they wreck face.

I'm liking the fact that people think TK sucks. Over confidence leads to brazen activity, leads to more wins for me.

DukeRustfield wrote:
O&G can do some wacky stuff with Animosity and Fanatics and stuff. I mean in one round they can really decimate themselves.

Meh, Daemons decimate themselves way more than OnG's can.

I'd say Daemons are even more capable of it than Skaven - at least they can always opt to simply not shoot their 'uber toys of magnificent doom! (granted no self-respecting Warlord would ever pass up the chance to explode things-things!)
For a Daemon player however, there's no avoiding the Reign of Comedy table... And it tends to hurt us more than it ever helps us. (or at least it does whenever I play.)

Nuking your 500+ pts LoC on your first turn is beyond badly designed, let alone that one game I saw a fellow Daemon player roll snake eyes for Winds, then boxcar three entire units...

They can, but they don't. You have to be insanely unlucky to get self-smushed as DoC. It is pretty frequent with O&G.

The new HEs are definitely tops, followed by WoC.

I see the other top armies as DEs, Daemons, and empire.

The armies I see doing the best are ones that have an abundance of speed, high Initiative and great magic.

Daemons are definitely the most underrated book this edition, write it off at your own peril lol.

I am a Skaven General and I have to say that it is between Skaven and Dark Elves. Skaven because of how stupid cheap slaves are. You can speed bump practically everything and just stall the game if you wanted to.

Dark Elves and their damn Hydra's as well as potent magic. I cringe to see what they do to the next Skaven Armybook because everything we have at the moment is an awesome burger piled with awesome sauce with a side of awesome.

DukeRustfield wrote:
They can, but they don't. You have to be insanely unlucky to get self-smushed as DoC. It is pretty frequent with O&G.

Nah, I'd call that an urban myth. Animosity isn't much of an issue.

 Sigvatr wrote:

DukeRustfield wrote:
They can, but they don't. You have to be insanely unlucky to get self-smushed as DoC. It is pretty frequent with O&G.

Nah, I'd call that an urban myth. Animosity isn't much of an issue.

Not to mention O&G can work to mitigate the problem (black orc warboss in a unit of anything else stops them rolling doesn't it?)
Even if DoCs are running full Khorne with no wizards they can still suffer horribly from the table.

With the caveat that I've never played with or against Ogres, I'd have to say the Dark Elves or Skaven are potentially the most powerful armies.

Dark Elves have it all. Movement phase - fast, manouverable, particularly Dark Rider fast cavalry with high leadership - perfect for redirecting, blocking, flee and rally, and they can even cause the odd panic test with their xbows.

Magic - no limit to dice they use - they can get spells through when they need too, dagger can add power as required, good choice of lores of which Shadow is a particularly good multiplier. Magic items to protect fast moving lone mages

Shooting - repeater xbows are nasty. Small, cheap core units put out a huge amount of firepower. Bolt throwers aren't awful either.

Combat. High initiative, hatred and aforementione speed and reliable magic allows them to pick fights.

The Hydra is a really nasty monster, probably the best value out there.

Strong in every phase.