Trying to venture into WHFB

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**Evariuda**

Hi everyone ,

I currently collect warhammer 40k but my interrest is going towards warhammer fantasy aswel. Since i dont really have much game experience in 40k and absolutly none in WHFB i was wondering some things painting and gaming wise. The armies im looking into are vampire counts (i alway tend to go for these types of armies, hence i collect necrons and chaos daemons), Lizardmen and dark elves (mainly because i want to try something else and these peaked my interrest). I consider myself a painter beginner so i wonder the following things.

- With lack of experience in both warhammer games, how do the armies play and are they "beginner" friendly?
- Painting wise can i make the army look nifty without having expert skills?
- Do the armies carry allot of superheavies because i am currently quite scared of painting large models since i have never done that and i want to do a good job.
- How cost effective are the battalion boxes for these armies?

thank you guys and galls for your time

**Purifier**

I think Keyser rounded it all up quite well a while ago in this post:

You're looking for numbers 4, 7 and 13.

KeyserSoze wrote:
Lemme tell you a fewthings about current armies:

1.Beastmen:
+ Killers in close combat especially if buffed.
+ Strong characters, both in fighting and casting.
- Poor shooting.
- Overcosted units with poor defence.

2.Bretonnia:
+ If they charge they make big damage.
+ Mages are protected, access to good items.
- Limited choices, poor flexibility.
- Overcosted units, rely too much on charges,

3.Daemons of Chaos:
+Hard to kill units.
+Lots of choices, can adapt to any opponent.
-Chaos=random, daemons can destroy themselves.
-Pricy characters. Strong, but if someone goes wrong you lose many points from one bad roll.

4.Dark Elves:
+Destructive in close combat.
+Strong magic.
-Some units/characters are useless, which limits your choices,
-Low armour/defense.

5.Dwarves:
+Cheap and strong war machines,
+Strong anti-magic.
-Low mobility and manoeuvring.
-Poor magic.(no magic at all in old book, and not too many choices)

6.High Elves:
+Many and good shooters.
+Strong mages, with good items and lots of magic.
-Fragile army.
-Fast moving units are weak and/or pricey,

7.Lizardmen:
+Strong and hard to kill mages.
+Strong monsters(dinosaurs!).
-Poor shooting.
-Their mages must be protected at all costs, if not, you have problem because they cost many pojnts.

8.Ogre Kingdoms.
+Strong in close combat, especially if they charge.
+Mages can buff them and make them indefetable.
-They have problems against cannons due to multiple wounds, or spells and stuff with multiple wounds.
-Every army has few models, so they can be targeted easily from range.

9.Orcs & Goblins:
+Many and cheap choices, especially for high mobility and close combat.
+Strong magic, good mages.
-Not so strong shooting.
-Much randomness, things can easily go wrong.

10.Skaven:
+Cheap models, you can havemany units and confuse your opponent tactically.
+Strong magic, both in spells and items.
-Poor combat and leadership.
-Quite random magic and shooting which can destroy the army.

11.The Empire:
+Flexibility: you can do anything you want, countless choices.
+Many war machines, more reliable than others.
-Not very strong hitting force.
-Their "detachments system" is too situational, you may find yourself spending points for nothing.

12.Tomb Kings:
+Strong magic, many mages and items to choose from.
+Cheap units, you can brings huge numbers, and ressurect them if they die.
-Poor movement.
-If their mage dies, you practically lose the game.Not always!

13.Vampire counts:
+Strong characters, both in fighting and casting.
+Many choices for close combat, also good monsters.
-Same with TK, mage dies, you have problem.
-No shooting. At all.

14.Warriors of Chaos:
+Amazing infantry, they kill and they endure.
+Their combat characters can kill anything.
-Poor and unreliable shooting.
-Pricey models, you need to spent points to protect them from shooting/mages, in order to get them in combat.

15.Wood Elves.:
+Good archers.
+High mobility, which can combined with shooting.
-Overcosted models, you spent points for situational abilities,
-Poor magic choices,

As far as painting goes, It depends on if want forgeworld or not.

If you look at the most complicated painting of each of those three races from only games workshop, I'd say you're looking at;
Vampire counts Coven Throne

Lizardmen Stegadon

And the Dark Elves War Hydra

While they are all awesome, they are not something that you are simply required to take if you don't feel confident painting them yet. When you've painted the rest of your army, you'll be ready to paint them. Wait until then

**TanKoL**

Just some friendly advice as you already have Daemons, some companies sell "base converters" where you basically slot your round bases into partially hollowed-out square bases
Very nice way of having a dual-purpose army if you ask me

http://www.sarissa-precision.co.uk/store/trays/

**Evariuda**

Thank you guys for the info. My daemon army is rather small and i bought them more for small 500 points games just to learn warhammer 40k. Little did i know that the warpstorm screwed me over more and i really didn't learn much from it so i started necron and loving it all the way

. Anyways, i am still tempted by the 3 even though i hear vampire counts really needs allot of models. Never the less any information about the battalions being usefull ? And a followup question, which of the dark elf units are useless :p

**DudleyGrim**

If you are interested in Vampire counts, you DO need a lot of models. The battalion is ok, but if you are dead serious about playing them, I recomend the undead section of Mantic Games. They have very cost effective selections for your core, for black knights, and Grave Guard as well (Might need to do some converting to give them Great Weapons).

This really leaves only the big center pieces to really be bought from GW. And if you aren't interested in them, well nothing lost for you!

**The Shadow**

DudleyGrim wrote:
If you are interested in Vampire counts, you DO need a lot of models. The battalion is ok, but if you are dead serious about playing them, I recommend the undead section of Mantic Games.

I see what you did there

In terms of the three armies, I wouldn't recommend VC to a beginner, for the following reasons. Firstly, and most importantly, they take many of the key elements of the ruleset and throw them out the window. For example, you won't learn about panic, break tests, or even how to shoot. On top of that they throw in completely unique stuff like summoning. You won't get as good a grip of the rules starting with VC, though they're a great army for a follow-up. And, secondly, they do require a lot of models, time and money and although there's ways of mitigating this (as has been mentioned) it's really just straw that broke the camel's back when you think of the first point.

Lizardmen and Dark Elves are, however, good beginners armies, as they both have strong, recent books and can operate well in all phases of the game, which allows you to learn the rules nice and quickly. They also have a variety of units at their disposal (unlike, say, Dwarves) so you get to experiment with all the different unit types, should you so desire. If you don't, you can always choose the build you like, as both armies have a variety of different, yet viable, lists.

As far as Battalions are concerned, the Dark Elf one (well, the "Warhost") really isn't great. You'll have to convert that Fleetmaster into a BSB to make him useful and you'll rarely use the Chariot in half-way competitive games, and Cold Ones aren't a hugely common choice either (though still viable). The Lizardmen one is much better (although, once again, I don't think the Cold Ones are that great) since it has a good core of mostly usable models. The good thing about it is that it doubles up very nicely as well. Two Battalions (maybe another unit of Temple Guard, or a few Saurus to TG converstions), a Slann and perhaps a random Skink Priest and another unit of your choice, and you'll have a decent 2000pt list, which is a good sized army. I have a 2k list written up which uses 2 Battalions, a Slann, a Skink Priest, a Razordon and a Terradon unit.

However, don't get too fixated on building an army around a Battalion. Yes, you do get a saving, but that saving is often not that much in comparison to the overall cost of the army, and often leaves you with redundant units, or ones you don't want.

Hope this helps, any more questions, just ask

**Evariuda**

that really helped allot. I tend to go for the weird armies which really tends to avoid certain rules or make me learn the game in a difficult way so maybe dark elves/lizardmen is the way to go then for me. It is something different then my normal choice of army which would mostly contain daemons or undead

. never the less what would be a good start for dark elves or lizardmen then? I think i will start with 1000 points and try to fiddle with that to learn the rules on small scales. It really isn't about being competitive to me (though winning is ofcourse a plus), most of the time i just want to have fun and play around with certain ideas.

PS: i try to avoid finecast

Edit: had an amazing idea to paint the lizardmen in pokemon colours. Normal lizardmen and skinks are charmenders and charmeleons, skink priest is a treeko, the bastiladon could be converted into torterra (if i can find a tree to glue to his back) and the slann could be a polywhirl xD

Edit 2: did some research on dark elves. Are 20 corsairs 20 darkshards and a set of warlocks a good start for a little army ? (dont mean to say that is all i am going to play with but it is just to start an army)

**Evariuda**

I have made a possible decision and it is.... *drum roll* dark elves. I bought a box of corsairs to test paint and see if i got a feel for painting them and see where the army goes from there. All i need is something to work to before i buy the army book