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Hi all, I'm going through my annual procrastination time trying to come up with the next WFB 8th ed army. Just too much loveliness to choose from.

So far I have armies for Orcs and Goblins, Dark Elves, Chaos Warriors and Ogres and if possible don't really want to duplicate play styles.

Also I want to be able to use GW models without too much eBay hunting.

I know people will say paint what you like. The issue is I can see the attraction in most armies.

Oh, last thing I'm not a tournament player and don't mind going fluffy (however it would be nice to win once in a while).

cheers

Right now the only armies you could probably do without too much eBay searching would be Skaven, Lizardmen and Beastmen. Those three armies mostly survived the purge. You may have to go searching for the odd model but that’s it.

Yeah, had noticed that.

Looking back through army books it's such a shame.

Lizardmen are great, and have a quite unique style of play

Skaven. With the dreaded 13th all armies become skaven armies!

A good chunk of the Dark Elf army survived too. Minus Bolt throwers and some of the Characters. Empire is missing some stuff as well but the majority survived.

Although if you want to avoid Ebay, as already stated, Lizardmen, Beastmen and even Ogres still have their full range available.

Both O&G and WoC have enough diversity in their books to do a variety of themed lists - so you could easily do a second, third or fourth army of each without duplicating playstyles. This would come with the added benefits of starting from a playable basis as well as building up to massive armies for much larger games.

One other army that is really easy to do with GW models these days is Vampire Counts. You might have to hunt down some older vampire sculpts, since the new characters are huge in comparison (some not even fitting on 20mm bases at all). Other than that the army is fine though, and just got a massive facelift that still keeps the range "WHF compatible".

I'd do Lizardmen, they're different enough from all your other armies to keep things interesting

Empire. Pretty much the entire roster is available on the GW catalogue, you may just need to buy cannon/mortar, knights and maybe some characters from 2nd hand market, but pretty much everything is still available. All on square bases, except maybe the tank and the griffon hero.

Beasts of Chaos have everything, although several kits (including the chariot and the cavalry) are in finecast.

Lizardmen are completely available too, but I'm pretty sure most (if not all) of their kit come on round/oval bases, so you may need to consider some extra to pay. I also don't think they're really to different than orc and goblins and I'd suggest one of the two other factions I've mentioned before.

Vampire counts have a problem: current models are not guaranteed to fit the square regiments as their pose look too dynamic. Only skeletons and zombies actually, anything else is legacy from WHFB or cavarly/beast that would definitely fit the rectangular base and the regiment with no problem, but since those new troop models are the back bone of the army there could be some problem.

I reinforce comments about going for Lizardmen, it is the most complete of WHFB factions in current production, alongside Vampire Counts.
Now Vampire Counts do have model scale creep but apart from the Black Coach nothing to be concerned over, and if you want a 200mm long black coach have one the model is awesome and you can apply rule of cool.
New Blood Knights do not fit cavalry bases easily, but then neither did the plastic Cold One knights (in more than one rank) or Chaos Knights (at all). New character sculpts can be elevated to fit, ort just ignored, Vampire Counts was not short of variance of official 8th era character models to choose from.

Now as you don't want to duplicate play styles choosing either of the undead armies next would be a smart move as it certainly ticks that box. With Orcs and Goblins, Dark Elves, Chaos Warriors and Ogres in your stable undead are the opinion that diversifies most from the above. Now Tomb Kings are the hardest faction to source , the factions models are curios and fetch high prices. Just go straight for Vampire Counts.

Lizardmen would be a sold choice also, they do play differently than most but in terms of game control work like scaly chaos warriors, so taking a large skink contingent will shake that up. Yes they are another solid option.

The third army to choose would be Daemons of Chaos. It is easier to collect this faction now due to the Start Collecting boxsets, and the new Greater daemons outstrip what came before. You will need custom 100x100 bases for them, but there was a precedent for that in 8th from the custom greater daemons in one of the supplements. It would not hurt the game any to put greater daemons on 100x100 bases, and will help offset their power by allowing more opponents to get hits in. Does this weaken them. Yes it does, but the faction was overpowered anyway.
Daemons of Chaos also diversify your play style, no other army wins in the deployment phase. Facing Daemons of Chaos, you have lost alreasdy, don't even bother. memes aside if you are massing multiple armies to host games you can self police your Daemons to prevent them from being too unfair. This is what I do, I have twelve armies, counting daemons twice as I have separate Nurgle and Tzeentch armies. I host games, that is to say. I provide both armies, you choose your lists. Except with daemons, where you play the list given or not at all. This is less harsh than it sounds as I play monogod chaos, it makes more sense, and there is very little list diversity in monogod chaos at any point level with each sublist being so thin. Yes i considerr my daemons an also ran list, but I can offer a more diverse Nurgle-Tzeentch daemon list in larger games, those over 3k pts.