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Made in us
Fresh-Faced New User




A friend of mine and I are looking to get into Warhammer fantasy, I'm just curious if there is an army builder app to simplify things.
   
Made in de
Charging Orc Boar Boy





Germany

Hey, welcome to the world of Warhammer Fantasy!

So, looking for some old school slaughter, huh?
Warhammer Fantasy and army builder... hmmm...

Depends on what edition you want to play.
Like in 40k or AoS, there have been several editions.
1st/2nd E were more linked to roleplay, so not even quite massed battle. I don't know if there are armybuilders for that in any way. Very 80's.

3rd edition is the first edition with actual massed battle rules, very clunky from nowadays view. Also, you need a referee to play

All of the above is generally referred to as "Oldhammer".

You can have a look at the stuff from back then in the inet, but I would not recommend it as a starting point for a new player used to modern days wargaming

4th/5th Edition Warhammer is referred to as the "Herohammer" era.
The armies were quite small usually, units were usually 10-20 models large, and a strong emphasis was placed on mighty character models, usually equipped with a heap of magic items that were often wacky, unbalanced, and very random
Army books (Similar to 40k 'Dexes) from back then were released from the early nineties (4th Edition rules) until the late nineties (5th Edition rules). Some armies got no new army books in 5th but had to use their old 4th E armybooks until the end of 5 E.
The rule changes were minor I guess (never played 4th actually, but only 5th), but the newer armybooks tended to be more versatile and more powerful than the old armybooks, A lot of the options in the armybooks never had actual models released back then, especially mounts for character models were pretty generic (you could put an Orc Warboss on a Emperor Dragon for example). You will need some certain expansions like the magic set to play this edition.
There are fanmade rulesets who adapted 5th edition in order to make it more balanced.

One is called "Warhammer Rennaisance"

and "Flail of Skulls Edition".

I am not sure if there is an army builder tool for these (probably there is!!), but a good place to look / ask for that would be the "Crown of Command" Discord. Friendly people into 90's GW systems there, very willing to help. Also, there is a Webzine
Called "Herohammer Fanzine" where you can have a look at typical Warhammer Fantasy (and 40k!) armies of that era. Really a good read, in the vein of old White Dwarfs.

Here's a link

https://herohammer-fanzine.com/#fanzine

After Herohammer, there was a trend of getting more competitive games and the improvements in plastic model moulds and production led to GW being able to supply a wider range of plastic regiment kits.
This is basically the start of "modern" Warhammer Fantasy, rule wise a quantum leap.

Focus went away from heroes and monsters to actual units and a different army selection system (slot system with Lords Heroes, Core, Special and Rare units). 6th and 7th edition are quite similar and like in the nineties, some armies never got an army book in 7th and used their army book from 6th through both editions. This is usually referred to as the "Middlehammer" era.

It was the heyday of GW sales wise for Warhammer Fantasy.

As the years went by, the army books in General got stronger than the one before and because of that, army books of 6th E tend to be better balanced in terms of power level than their 7E counterparts. The 7 E rulebook (at least for me) is rather a updated version of 6th with mostly minor changes.There ARE some, but it's not a totally different game. Some things have been streamlined, that's why I personally prefer 7th E rulebook to 6th E.


Rules and army books of that time are still easy to come by today. Minis of course it depends.

There are different army builder tools for this.

I would recommend the "Warhammer Fantasy Battle 6th edition" group or the "Middlehammer" group on facebook to get infos on a working army builder tool. I know for sure there is one for 6th edition.

There are also a lot of fanmade expansions, the one I prefer is Warhammer CE, its a mix of 6th and 7th E plus older units and newer units plus some extra armies like Arabia, Norsca,... With an excellent army creator tool.

https://online.armycreator.de/

You can also use this tool for 9th Age (another fan made system based on 8th edition WHF).


Then the latest official release of GW for Warhammer Fantasy was 8th edition.

Quite different, a lot of basic stuff was changed. Everything bigger, units, magic spells, guessing was removed. Many new big monsters. A lot of the range is still available at GW / usable for AoS also if you don't mind sqare bases.

There are of course a lot of army builder tools for this, but I am not following it, so if you're more into "modern" Warhammer Fantasy, some other guy here can maybe help you!



















This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/05/18 08:14:44


 
   
Made in nl
Doomed Slave



Netherlands

Yes, there is an army builder app.
It is called BattleScribe.

Don't get caught up in all the different editions.It may discourage you from playing this great game.

Yes, it is true that since the game was discontinued, the playerbase splintered. But the best way to get into the game is to find a local group of players and see what edition they play.

In the end it's not the edition that matters, it's the people you play with.
   
Made in de
Charging Orc Boar Boy





Germany

Yep, established gaming group that's fun to play with -> stick with them, edition is far less important. just wanted to point out what options there are when starting new.
   
Made in us
Fresh-Faced New User




Thanks for all the info! It looks like I am getting into 8th edition, and building an army that will hopefully be compatible with the Old World when it drops. Battlescribe has been a useful tool for building army lists even if I didn't have much luck in my first game. My vampire counts got crushed by lizardmen, probably because we agreed to no magic or magic items during our first match. We just wanted to learn the core game mechanics.

But, I digress thanks again for the responses.


P.S. My two friends getting into this game with me are playing armies with high leadership which I'm worried is gonna make my Vampires Count's fear ability weak. How are the matchups between Vampire vs. Lizardmen and Vampires vs. Dwarfs

This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2022/05/27 18:27:04


 
   
Made in de
Charging Orc Boar Boy





Germany



Post 27/05/2022 20:12:08 Subject: Re:Army builder for warhammer fantasy
Thanks for all the info! It looks like I am getting into 8th edition, and building an army that will hopefully be compatible with the Old World when it drops. Battlescribe has been a useful tool for building army lists even if I didn't have much luck in my first game. My vampire counts got crushed by lizardmen, probably because we agreed to no magic or magic items during our first match. We just wanted to learn the core game mechanics.




Basically a very good idea to get into the game. The result really shouldn't matter to you, because magic is really important for a Vampire Counts army, as you are relying a lot on the Invocations to heal or enlarge your units. I am confident that you will be able to prove an even match to Lizardmen and High Elves despite their high leadership as soon as you get a feeling on what the advantages of the hordes of Undeath are and how to use this to your best advantage.

I haven't played 8th in years, and only rarely against Vampire Counts, but in general, you are well advised to take into consideration that

- your troops never run. Therefore, if you have some considerably large units of Zombies (because they are the cheapest), you can block out far more expensive units. Use this to force the opponent to move around them or charge them.

If he charges you:

- In most situations, good for you. Even if you lose combat, the enemy will not go anywhere if your unit remains large enough to keep from totally crumbling due to combat res, and in the following turn you can fill up your ranks by magic again. You can bind a lot of the enemy's army that way, except if you are really massively outgunned (say, a horde formation of swordmasters or the like - these would probably cut through your zombies like a hot knife through butter)


If he tries to avoid contact:

- Also good, because that way you can more or less dictate his movement, and by this you can set up your own, more "killey" units to deliver a deadly strike.


- Exceptionally strong Lord choices. A Vampire Lord is amongst the most deadly characters in the Old World. Fast, hard hitting, can take a lot of damage (and heal it!). Get him where it hurts. Just don't get him in situations where you risk that he is crumbling away due to Passive Combat Res, if you
roll badly. So do not charge enemyunits with High CR with your Vampire Lord only , no matter how tempting it may seem. If your General dies, it will make it really difficult to stay in the game (In 8th I think it is not as bad as in earlier Editions, but still).

- Magic is your friend. The more, the merrier. Some units can be used to even further improve the use of certain spells, like the corpse cart. Make your opponent gnaw his fingernails, as he runs out of dispel dice very fast and has a really hard time to decide on what to dispel and what not.

- You have really strong mobile units. Look at the Vargheists, the Varghulf or the Terrorgheist. Try to keep them protected from enemy fire as good as possible, then flank attack them. Or rightout attack squishy targets. Try to get them in CC you won't lose. Remember the enemy gets no Rank bonus if you flank him with enough models, plus you get a bonus for flank or back attack.

That is my advice, anyone else more adept with Vampires may very well give you better advice, but for starters I think it is okay






   
Made in de
Fresh-Faced New User




Hamburg

redmoretrout wrote:
It looks like I am getting into 8th edition, and building an army that will hopefully be compatible with the Old World when it drops.

Welcome to the hobby!

I've been playing Warhammer Fantasy quite actively for some time now, so I often build lists. Unfortunately, the Army Builder costs money and BattleScribe, which I have used up to now, is often too nested and generally not easy to use. Being a frontend developer myself, I started building my own army planner some months ago .

So far, it supports some 8th edition WHFB armies (I'm happy for army data contributions), but as the name "Old World Builder" suggests, my target system is of course The Old World once it releases.

You can already test it here: https://old-world-builder.com

I am happy about every constructive feedback and every bug found! There's also a fresh Discord Server.

Since we don't know much about army building in The Old World yet, not everything can be fully prepared. As soon as there is new information concerning army building, I can take it into account.

>>> Old World Builder <<<

New army builder for Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer: The Old World (once released) 
   
 
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