pro's & con's of each army- noobie

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**Birdman**

Just after the pro's and con's of each army and their current best unit.

and if they are due for a new book.

**iLLiTHiD**

As KeyserSoze put it so aptly:

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,

**Birdman**

thankyou!

**BurkWolf**

Tomb Kings should have 3-4 negatives, if we're being honest.

And Vampires have 2 shooting things, which is only important because we all use (one of) them: yan Terrorgheist. Trust me, face one, you'll agree we have shooting.

**alex87**

Yeh to be honest there are quite a few innaccuracies within this list.

There's a good army specific run down in the background forums here;
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/470806.page
Looking over it now most of the entries are an army book old, so a few choices are missing. For the most part they are still good reviews though.

Might be time for the Dakka community to begin updating them to help new players.

**iLLiTHiD**

BurkWolf wrote:Tomb Kings should have 3-4 negatives, if we're being honest.

And Vampires have 2 shooting things, which is only important because we all use (one of) them: yan Terrorgheist. Trust me, face one, you'll agree we have shooting.

alex87 wrote:Yeh to be honest there are quite a few innaccuracies within this list.

There's a good army specific run down in the background forums here;
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/470806.page
Looking over it now most of the entries are an army book old, so a few choices are missing. For the most part they are still good reviews though.

Might be time for the Dakka community to begin updating them to help new players.

Execellent spotting - my apologies I hadn't looked closely enough to see if they had been updated. Definately take the list that alex87 referenced.

**thedarkavenger**

The dark elf one is wrong. Nothing in the book is poor, or useless.

**TanKoL**

You wouldn't even rate medusas and scourgerunner as "poor"?
Never saw one or the other fielded ...

**thedarkavenger**

TanKoL wrote:
You wouldn't even rate medusas and scourgerunner as "poor"?
Never saw one or the other fielded ...

I run 3 scourgerunners. And the medusae are useful. If you actually use them properly.

**Mozzamanx**

I don't think Dark Elves really have genuinely bad units, they simply have units that are less optimised to other units in the book. Being bad by Dark Elf standards is not the same as being *bad* and I'd say that Dark Elves came out like bandits regarding their units. Having sup-optimal units applies to every army and it certainly doesn't constitute a negative aspect when it's so limited; by any standards, I think the Dark Elves made out very well in terms of unit balance between options.

I think the list itself is a good basis but as mentioned, is a little out of date. I think it could also stand with a little expansion because it's awfully brief for something that should probably be a Sticky topic. I'm not expecting pages but a paragraph or 3 for each army, along with a little more depth to why problems or strengths are present, would do wonders for the forum.

**KeyserSoze**

I think the worst things about Dark Elves are these 2:
1)named characters
2)problem with alliance(I play 2v2 a lot, and half my games are ruined by the stupid alliance system).

**thedarkavenger**

KeyserSoze wrote:
I think the worst things about Dark Elves are these 2:
1)named characters
2)problem with alliance(I play 2v2 a lot, and half my games are ruined by the stupid alliance system).

Don't use them then.

**Warpsolution**

Current best unit? Hm...I'll take a stab, but that's highly up for debate.
And I'd point out that being "the best" unit doesn't mean you want as many of that unit as possible. Some armies have stupid-good chaff, or war machines, or what-have-you.

- Beastmen: Gors? Or chariots? I honestly don't know.

- Bretonnia: trebuchets

- Daemons: ...Plaguebearers.

- Dark Elves: Dark Riders or Warlocks

- Dwarfs: Gyrocopters!

- Empire: Steamtank

- High Elves: White Lions

- Lizardmen: Chameleon Skinks

- Orcs & Goblins: Savage Orc Big 'Uns

- Skaven: Slaves!

- Tomb Kings: Tomb Guard, maybe?

- Vampire Counts: Terrorgheist

- Warriors: ...Warriors.

- Wood Elves: Glade Guard

**Niiai**

The tomb king has a lot of neat units man. :-)

It is hard to say the best unit because the tomb king is full of good units that work in harmony. I would say the best unit is the casket of souls but that is not really what you are asking for I belive?

Best Lord: Level 4 hierophant

Best heroes: Prince and arcitect (both so awsome!)

Best troops: Skelton archers are a good mage bunker. Chariots is a very good troop choise. Skeleton horse archers are good chaff.

Best special: Tomb Guards (they are surpisingly good with backup from the rest of the army) Carrions are very nice. The sphinx is a monster. Scorpions are cool. Snake Knights are AWSOME!

Rare Unit: The other sphinx is sexy. SSC is cool. Casket of souls is obligatory in my opinion.

Tomb King is very funn. It is a codex that is very different then other armies so it is hard to talk about them unless they play it or they play against them very often. There are some cool builds with them. The 3 distinct builds are: Big magic (2 level 4 mages and casket) + archers. A lot of good mellee units (chariots for troops) and then TG or snake riders for special. The last build is sphinx heavy. There are probably other builds as well but they are the poles.

**DukeRustfield**

Warpsolution wrote:
Current best unit? Hm...I'll take a stab, but that's highly up for debate.

- Beastmen: MINOTAURS!

- Daemons: Beast of Nurgle!

- Lizardmen: I still say Slann.

- Warriors: Daemon Prince.

-Ogres: Mournfang

**Mozzamanx**

DukeRustfield wrote:

- Beastmen: MINOTAURS!

Not a chance! Minotaurs are utter drek and the only reason they ever see the tabletop is because they have the same unit type as a Doombull. A 55pt model with T4 and a 6+ save is just not suitable as a mainline fighting unit. In any situation that you could take a Minotaur, you could take 4 and a half Bestigor, and they simply win out in just about every instance.

Beasts- Bestigor/Razorgor
Brets- Trebuchet
Daemons- Beasts of Nurgle
Dark Elves- Warlocks
Dwarfs- Hammerers
High Elves- Frostheart
Lizards- 'Cowboy' Scar Veterans
Ogres- Ironblaster
Orcs- Mangler
Skaven- Warp Lightning Cannon
Empire- Demigryph
Tomb Kings- Casket of Souls
Vampires- Vampire Lord
Warriors- Daemon Prince
Woodies- Glade Guard I guess?

**DukeRustfield**

You can give them shields for not much and then they are 5/6+ and if you're doomying you have to take them or he'll get popped. And for MI they've got 3I and 4WS so they are harder to poof away with spells.

Manglers < Doom Divers. And I think most of their war machines.

**thedarkavenger**

DukeRustfield wrote:
You can give them shields for not much and then they are 5/6+ and if you're doomying you have to take them or he'll get popped. And for MI they've got 3I and 4WS so they are harder to poof away with spells.

Manglers < Doom Divers. And I think most of their war machines.

Remember. Minos lose their parry pretty quickly. Your best bet is 3 wiyh great weapons supporting 3 tooled up characters.

**DukeRustfield**

Ah, forgot. Frenzy.

**Warpsolution**

Oh, of course! Beasts of Nurgle all the way.

**Experiment 626**

Warpsolution wrote:
Oh, of course! Beasts of Nurgle all the way.

I'd argue that these guys are probably the single best 'base unit' in the game.

I honestly feel a little dirty every time I use a unit of 2 as chaff/chaff remover... It's criminal how under costed these bad boys are, and yet rather amusingly, Khannons seem to get more hate than Beasts!

**sackree**

Lizard men have poor shooting?

Obviously you've never faced a skink cloud list

**Andy06r**

sackree wrote:
Lizard men have poor shooting?

Obviously you've never faced a skink cloud list

Anything with armor does not care about s3 poison. The double flee is one thing, but the shooting itself is not that great.

**mickmoon**

Remember. Minos lose their parry pretty quickly. Your best bet is 3 wiyh great weapons supporting 3 tooled up characters.

So what characters would you have with the three minos?

**HawaiiMatt**

Andy06r wrote:
sackree wrote:
Lizard men have poor shooting?

Obviously you've never faced a skink cloud list

Anything with armor does not care about s3 poison. The double flee is one thing, but the shooting itself is not that great.

Razordons dish out a surprisingly stupid amount of shooting, and normal solutions for killing off shooting units often don't work on them.
As for armor not caring about S3 poison; anything with 2+ armor doesn't care. 3+ save is expensive and gets shot up effectively enough.
As any army as a whole, it puts out a decent enough shooting phase. It isn't a gunline, and cannot be a gunline, but can have an effective shooting phase.

-Matt

**TheKazz**

Best unit for the new wood elf book is defiantly not glade guard. I think I would have to go with Wild Riders as the best unit for them now.

**thedarkavenger**

TheKazz wrote:
Best unit for the new wood elf book is defiantly not glade guard. I think I would have to go with Wild Riders as the best unit for them now.

Waywatchers all the way!

**th3maninblak**

DukeRustfield wrote:
Warpsolution wrote:
Current best unit? Hm...I'll take a stab, but that's highly up for debate.

- Beastmen: MINOTAURS!

- Daemons: Beast of Nurgle!

- Lizardmen: I still say Slann.

- Warriors: Daemon Prince.

-Ogres: Mournfang

I agree with pretty much all of these, except that for the lizardmen it's becoming much more difficult to decide between the Slann and Oldblood on Carnosaur. The Slann is still one of the most brutal wizards in the game (top 3, easily), but have you ever run an oldblood with a 1+/1+/4++ and a great weapon on a carnosaur? There isn't a character that can take that. The problem with both of them is they both get better with a Scar Vet on a carnosaur, which adds target saturation for the latter and a great buff target for the former.

Actually... A scar vet on a carnosaur might be the best unit in the codex.