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Hi dakka, I've been considering a Fantasy army for a while now. I have been a 40k player for about 6 years and Fantasy has always interested me but the cost of starting an army combined with the fact that Fantasy has a lower player density in my area has always set me back. I suppose this is somewhat like a research to confirm myself.
Anyways, here are the armies I've been interested in:

Dwarfs - I've always liked these stubby alcoholics with awesome beards However, I hear often from local Fantasy players that they aren't very "good". The army book is old and doesn't offer much diversity. Most people said if I want to run cannons, I should turn towards Empire.
Vampire Counts - Only for their skeleton armies. The Wight King and other skeletal troops. The problem is that many say that if I like skelies, I should turn to Tomb Kings, yet I'm not fond of the whole Egyptian culture. Also skelly-only armies are meh on Vampies.
Wood Elves - Been hearing often that they are out-dated and bad.
Bretonnia - Same thing as Wood Elves.

I just want to weed out the bad rumors from the good truths. I'm no power gamer but picking an army that I won't enjoy (I prefer to keep my win/loss ratio 50/50) and my opponent won't isn't something I want to do. Anyone who can contribute will be appreciated.

 Zaki66 wrote:
Hi dakka, I've been considering a Fantasy army for a while now. I have been a 40k player for about 6 years and Fantasy has always interested me but the cost of starting an army combined with the fact that Fantasy has a lower player density in my area has always set me back. I suppose this is somewhat like a research to confirm myself.
Anyways, here are the armies I've been interested in:

Dwarfs - I've always liked these stubby alcoholics with awesome beards However, I hear often from local Fantasy players that they aren't very "good". The army book is old and doesn't offer much diversity. Most people said if I want to run cannons, I should turn towards Empire.

This is pretty true, unfortunately. On the very bright side, rumor has it they're getting a new book this spring, so if you hold out you'll hopefully be in for a good time.

Dwarfs are very one dimensional, and tend to be boring both to play and play against for their more standard builds. You can do some wonky things with them, but you'd be fighting an uphill battle just for the sake of it.

Empire has solid artillery with cannons and a LOT of variety. If they seem tempting, that might be something to look for.

Vampire Counts - Only for their skeleton armies. The Wight King and other skeletal troops. The problem is that many say that if I like skelies, I should turn to Tomb Kings, yet I'm not fond of the whole Egyptian culture. Also skelly-only armies are meh on Vampies.

Sadly, yes, to some extent. They're meh, but if you consider Grave Guard skeletons then you've got some options. Not a bad way to go if you're not looking to min/max, you can make it work just fine imo. I played VC in 7th and play TK now as my second army to my WoC, they're very, VERY different in play style... and TK are trickier to use for someone starting out, and generally considered not quite up to par with the rest of the 8th armies.

Wood Elves - Been hearing often that they are out-dated and bad.

Their entire game plan revolves around a style that's basically been nerfed to the ground in the latest edition. Very persistent players can get some neat mileage out of them, but you need to be dedicated. Also not always the most fun to play against, because they basically rely on being incredibly frustrating to pin down.

Bretonnia - Same thing as Wood Elves.

Cavalry took a hit in 8th, and that's kind of Bretonnia's 'thing'. They're better off than Wood Elves. Their main problem is not being able to break an opposing unit as easily, so you have to be very careful with positioning and picking your fights. They rely heavily on charging, and prolonged battles tend to go sour.

I just want to weed out the bad rumors from the good truths. I'm no power gamer but picking an army that I won't enjoy (I prefer to keep my win/loss ratio 50/50) and my opponent won't isn't something I want to do. Anyone who can contribute will be appreciated.

Sadly you picked the three of the four 'meh' armies, the fourth being Beastmen. Dwarfs is the big red flag for 'you won't enjoy and your opponent won't either', Wood Elves can get there too. VC is the 'strongest' choice of the lot, even if you want to focus on skeletons, but Brets can be solid if you stick with them and certainly wouldn't be 'unfun' to face as Dwarfs and WEs can be.

Well hopefully you get an army in fantasy!
Dwarves have been rumored for February so who knows.

I think VC is the best option out of the 4 depending on how the dwarf release goes.
I think if you like Brettonia (style wise) you might like Empire. They are pretty good when I have seen them being played and when I play them.
You can bring knights as core, spearmen etc and the rare choices are pretty good (Hellblaster is my fave)

I like Wood elves but they are really weak. I think you would like Empire though just check them out. I honestly think that you can win 50% of your games (like you want) fairly easily after you learn the armies and their pros and cons tactically. Some armies just have steeper learning curves than others.

Hopefully that was at least slightly helpful

Thanks for the heads-ups. I think I'll definitely avoid the Dwarfs although I'll wait to hear about their new book.

Since I'm not a big fan of the Empire and Wood Elves also has the tendency to annoy people, I strongly considering Bretonnia for now.

 Zaki66 wrote:

Dwarfs - I've always liked these stubby alcoholics with awesome beards However, I hear often from local Fantasy players that they aren't very "good". The army book is old and doesn't offer much diversity. Most people said if I want to run cannons, I should turn towards Empire.

Dwarves are fine and can be a very competitive army. The issue is that pretty much all competitive builds are extremely gunline-centric, with perhaps a single combat unit to "mop up". As such, these Dwarf armies tend to be very boring to play against (often for the Dwarf player too) and this is where the Dwarves' (often undeserved) "bad rep" comes from. Dwarves are by no means an underpowered army (though they are in a lower-tier), and they can go close combat too, just not quite as well, though still perfectly competently. There's still plenty of viable dwarf builds that are much more enjoyable, my favourite amongst them being the "Deep Striking Dwarves"

Also, rumours are pointing to Dwarves being re-done next, which will give them a small power boost to bring them up to the level set by most 8th edition army books and will likely add more lavour to the army as well. Dwarves are still a great army to start, as two Battalions will pretty much set you up for whatever will come in the new release. A few characters (potentially just converted) and a few of the new kits which I assume will be very good, and you'll have a good 2400 point army. If you're worried about cost, as well, Dwarves mitigate this quite well. They're one of the cheaper ones, and are certainly cheaper than the other three you've listed, at least at the moment.

 Zaki66 wrote:

Vampire Counts - Only for their skeleton armies. The Wight King and other skeletal troops. The problem is that many say that if I like skelies, I should turn to Tomb Kings, yet I'm not fond of the whole Egyptian culture. Also skelly-only armies are meh on Vampies.

I'm not sure what you mean by "Skeleton" here. If you're on about the unit, Skeletons, then yes, an all-Skeleton army would be terrible (though Skeletons aren't bad for filling up Core). However, the other skeleton-like (in appearance) units, such as Grave Guard, Black Knights, Terrorgeists etc are all perfectly viable (though Wight Kings not so much) and the latter two - BK and Terrorgeists - are some of the starts of the book. Vampire Counts have tons of builds and options that are viable and are very dissimilar to anything you'll find in 40k, which is nice for a change. They are renowned as one of the more expensive Fantasy armies to start though, but don't be put off by that. I started my own VC army and did it fairly cheap and I can give you low down on that, if you want.

 Zaki66 wrote:

Wood Elves - Been hearing often that they are out-dated and bad.

I'll start off by saying that "bad" in WHFB circles is not the same as "bad" in 40k circles. In Fantasy, rare is the battle ever decided before it's started and even Wood Elves who are indeed considered one of the "worst" armies in the game, can be competitive and effective. Just the other week I suffered a pretty bad defeat with my DE at the hands of Wood Elf player. The problem with these lower-tier armies is that, should you want to win regularly, you have to conform to just a few builds. Whereas with, say, WoC, two armies can be very different but equally competitive, this isn't the case with Wood Elves.

Wood Elves are a refreshing change for many people though - as they're rarely seen - but their often very shooty approach is quite boring for many people. It just depends who you play against. Wood Elves still have a few good tricks up their sleeve though. Free terrain, cool magic items plus "sprite" upgrades, good magic lores, plenty of skirmishers and the best ranged attacking characters in the game by a long, long way.

 Zaki66 wrote:

Bretonnia - Same thing as Wood Elves.

A lot of what I've said about Wood Elves does apply to Bretonnia, in terms of their standing in the general metagame, but their playstyle is a lot different. Whereas Wood Elves have mostly lightly armoured ranged troops, the core of a Bretonnian army is heavily armoured knights. The "low-tier" status is pretty much the same for both armies, and they're due to receive an update within a few months of each other. Really, it's a decision between which army's playstyle and aesthetics you like the most.

Hope this helps, if you have any more questions, just ask!

Dwarves are boring to play and boring to play against. I doubt that will change in the new book.

I just want to chime in with some of my usual advice for anyone thinking about starting bretonnia and/or empire
You can reduce costs dratically by taking historical miniatures instead of GW ones (and they often look better)
I recommand mainly Perry Brothers and FireForge as they have nice plastic ranges that suit empire/bretonnia well
They are both very cheap and of excellent quality (especially the Perry brothers of course), for about 25 USD, you get a box of 12 Cavalry or 40 infantry, multi-pose, sturdy and easy to build
You can also get decals/stickers specifically designed to fit those models' shields/barding/banners as well, don't remember the URLs but Google can help you there

for instance, I got 2 boxes of infantry and 3 of cavalry for my Brets, that gives me 36 Knights (built 16 as KErrants without cloaks, 20 as other kinds of Knights with cloaks and bigger helmets on, using the Fireforge Teutonic boxes) and 80 infantrymen (40 bowmen and 40 billmen from two HYW infantry boxes from Perry brothers). Add trebuchets (used GW ones as I'm lazy and didn't find any decent historical ones) and you're set. Those 5 boxes costed me 110 € at the normal retail price

JWhex wrote:
Dwarves are boring to play and boring to play against. I doubt that will change in the new book.

That's a sweeping generalisation. Only certain Dwarf builds, and only the most competitive ones that you'll see in tournaments, are boring to play against. Other builds aren't. And it's impossible to predict what new stuff the Dwarves will receive in the new book, but chances are it'll be something different and unique.

Hopefully they'll come back a bit to one of the previous editions, where Dwarfs were the only one not slowed down by Heavy armour+shield (meh, doesn't exist anymore), could always march (no Ld to be able to march at this time), had move & shoot handguns with +1 to hit at short range
They were a "close combat shooty army"

TanKoL wrote:
Hopefully they'll come back a bit to one of the previous editions, where Dwarfs were the only one not slowed down by Heavy armour+shield (meh, doesn't exist anymore), could always march (no Ld to be able to march at this time), had move & shoot handguns with +1 to hit at short range
They were a "close combat shooty army"

I can see them getting some snazzy new equipment. Steam-powered stuff, a new war machine or even a zeppelin are strong possibilities. And hopefully an Ironbreaker/Hammer dual kit. That would be very useful for the Dwarf players out there.

I think they should nerf the gyrocopters, reduce their points cost to maybe a third and make them a skirmishing unit of 1-3 models. I love the look and idea of the little buggers, and I'd love to see several of them on the table.

That flying around a zeppelin, guarding it like fighters around a bomber? Why isn't this a thing?

A plastic Gyrocopter is among the rumours of the upcoming Dwarf Release. They don't need nerfing though. Yeah, they were pretty awesome in 7th, when march-blocking was better, because they filled a role in the Dwarf Army that couldn't otherwise be filled. Now they're not as good.

A new kit, small points reduction, and the ability to take 1-3 in a unit would go a long way to increasing their popularity.