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...um, yeah...sorry!

I am new to WFB after playing and investing myself into 40K for the last year.

I've been reading the BRB and whatever else I can get my hands on, and I'm looking seriously at 3 different armies right now:

Vampire Counts
Skaven
Lizardmen

Vampire Counts--I love the models and the old-school gothic horror feel of the army as a whole. My only concerns are that it looks like there's an utter lack of non-magical shooting in the army as a whole (I hate to lose an entire phase of a turn), and a number of players have said to me that the army tends toward being very repetitive in how the turns go (summon undead, swarm, etc.). This may be just their experience talking, but I'm keeping an open mind. My original impression was that the army could be run as a horde army or as a more elite force, depending on how you wanted to go. My only real reservation is the lack of shooting, and I'm wondering how much that really hampers the VC on the ground.

Skaven--Love the background stuff and the wide range of critters. The feel of the army-- a skittering, conniving horde--is great, and I love the idea of big war machines being pulled by slaves. My chief concern with them is how big a horde is one talking about for a normal game? I'm not adverse to painting and modeling lots of rats, but I'll admit that I'm a bit concerned about efficiently managing a huge horde on the battlefield (as well as affording it). They look to be more of a pure horde army, with variations more in how the horde is assembled and how it overwhelms the enemy.

Lizardmen--Dinosaurs rule. Mayan/Aztec dinosaurs are even better. They seem like a slower, but ultimately relentless army that can seriously drop the hammer when it hits. I like the mix of units--it appears to have great magic, and some good basic options for most other units. They look to be a flexible and pretty solid army that could run both as a horde army or as a more elite army, depending on your list. My chief reservations are the painfully slow initiative that the army has, and comments I've heard from a number of other players to the effect that Lizardmen really have only 1 or 2 decent lists. Again, I don't know if that's true, so I'm keeping an open mind.

My priorities for an army are that it's fun to play, fun to model and paint, and provides a good variety of builds. I'm likely to only be running one army in WFB (don't really have time for more than one), so I want something that will give me some variety in my lists and provide a good challenge in learning how to use it well. In 40K, I run Codex Space Marines. Any thoughts folks would have on these choices, or ones I've overlooked, would be appreciated.

im only diving into fantasy myself but by far orcs and goblins have been the most fun to build (also the most annoying due to sheer stabbyness of the minis)
its not your top choice but they have been fun to build and quite fun to read the army book and play with.

otherwise skaven are infamous at my FLGS for battlefield antics and sillyness.

The skaven 'army' is possibly the biggest walking joke since that one about the dinosaur on roller skates, wanna shoot your own men? Yes please. Wanna have the chance to rip up the enemies with a spinning wheel of doom? Yes please, or it might scarper off and slam into your own unit. Want to field units of men so cheap that you can run out of board space? You can do that too.

I'm currently getting into fantasy and love the way vampire counts look so I've started collecting them along with dwarfs. But skaven are also very cool looks wise.

Totally agree with you on the VC, Rotgut. The models are just amazing and look like they would be super-fun to paint and work with.

Welshhoppo, thanks for your comments on Skaven. I haven't had a chance to see them in play yet, so it's good to get your comments. I will have a chance to play the IOB Skaven in an intro game in early December, that should give me a chance to experience all of that first-hand.

Skaven can be fileded quite compact, but you can go for the 2 pts slave-spam.
Wich is funny.

I would actually go for Lizzardmen, just because have a feel about them that no other bar Chaos Dwarfs has. And beside their models do look rather nice, and they play well once you get used to them

Hi Kevin48220,

congrats on the choice to challenge yourself with WHFB, i did exactly what your doning now only 6 months ago..

except i was tossing up between WoC , VC and Lizzards. in the end i went VC purely because i like the idea of skellies fighting the living while there characters and builds can be pretty unbeatable at times and there heros are cheap, also i loved the look of the Grave Guard and Black knights.

i'd suggest a look at DE or WoC, for less of a horde based army

DE have there reaper crossbows which are very effective against an army with only magic to fight back at.

WoC have more of an elite selection of units even there core...

something to consider, but i'd personally go for the one you like the feel of the most

The shooting phase is probably the least important one in the game. Very few armies can actually rely on the shooting phase to do anything beyond some minor damage. The exception being warmachines, and then many armies don't have any that are worthwhile.

VCs don't do shooting, they don't need it.


Lizardmen have some shooting, but its more harrasment then anything else.

Skaven do have shooting, and some quite nasty shooting at that.


The low inititive on Lizardmen isn't a huge deal. They are tough enough to take a punch and then return the favor with interest. Although with a Slann packing Light Magic, you can completely reverse this issue. WS10 I10 ASF saurus kill stuff. But life is better. Become insanely durable and don't care about getting hit.

VC do have shooting in their Banshees and Terrorgheists, which have 'scream' attacks which cause wounds against the enemies leadership rather than toughness. It's not the amount of shooting you're probably looking for, but they can dish out some nice damage with those. They can then continue to keep screaming in combat once engaged.

Vampires are often called one of the most internally balanced books in Fantasy right now. While you can easily make an army build that doesn't work for you, it's very easy to make an army build that does work for you and is different to what others run, as most of the choices in the book are very good. There's few, if any, 'must take' units in each slot, and pretty much everything has its place.

From small, elite armies consisting of Grave Guard, Black Knights and Blood Knights led by blender vampires that are also level 4 casters backed up by more vampires, to horde armies led by more Necromancers consisting of lots of skeletons, zombies, Corpse Carts to bestial armies led by Strigoi Ghoul Kings consisting of Ghouls, Vargheists, Varghulfs, Terrorgheists, Crypt Horrors and any mix between, you'll very likely find something that works for you that probably doesn't work for someone else.

The main issue I see come up is the one that comes up for most armies - monstrous mounts aren't very viable when you're fighting a lot of artillery. Vampires have some great mount kits - the Coven Throne, the Terrorgheist and the Zombie Dragon, but they're not often seen due to Cannons tearing through them. If you don't fight Empire or Dwarves (or Ogre Kingdoms if your opponent likes the Ironblaster) often, you can make them work though.

 -Loki- wrote:
VC do have shooting in their Banshees and Terrorgheists, which have 'scream' attacks which cause wounds against the enemies leadership rather than toughness. It's not the amount of shooting you're probably looking for, but they can dish out some nice damage with those. They can then continue to keep screaming in combat once engaged.

Vampires are often called one of the most internally balanced books in Fantasy right now. While you can easily make an army build that doesn't work for you, it's very easy to make an army build that does work for you and is different to what others run, as most of the choices in the book are very good. There's few, if any, 'must take' units in each slot, and pretty much everything has its place.

From small, elite armies consisting of Grave Guard, Black Knights and Blood Knights led by blender vampires that are also level 4 casters backed up by more vampires, to horde armies led by more Necromancers consisting of lots of skeletons, zombies, Corpse Carts to bestial armies led by Strigoi Ghoul Kings consisting of Ghouls, Vargheists, Varghulfs, Terrorgheists, Crypt Horrors and any mix between, you'll very likely find something that works for you that probably doesn't work for someone else.

The main issue I see come up is the one that comes up for most armies - monstrous mounts aren't very viable when you're fighting a lot of artillery. Vampires have some great mount kits - the Coven Throne, the Terrorgheist and the Zombie Dragon, but they're not often seen due to Cannons tearing through them. If you don't fight Empire or Dwarves (or Ogre Kingdoms if your opponent likes the Ironblaster) often, you can make them work though.

This.
Vampires are a great book because you can make anything work. Lots of monsters, all cav with wolves for core, ghosts, ghosts and more ghosts, 3 units of a hundred zombies each, 5+ scream attacks, no matter what you want to run you should be able to make it work if you tool up your characters appropriately. Also there are a lot of shiny new models that look great and the older ones still hold up (though you might want to look at converting elves or going 3rd party for the actual vampires if you don't like special characters).
[/bias]

Lizardmen are awesome, Trust me. The saurus warriors are arguably one of the best infantry close combat fighters in the game, no BS, but that's for skink skirmishers with blowpipes or Javelins. They have scaly skin, 2 attacks, not to mention tough and strong. Cold-blooded is good for leadership tests. Skinks are good as meat-shields and to get some poison shots in your enemy.

and the Slann is probably the most powerful magic unit in the game.

Thanks again for all the comments. GT, I'm especially grateful for your comments on the shooting phase. Coming out of 40K, I'm thinking that I may have been worrying too much about that phase and not seeing the whole picture.

That is, the fact that WHFB has a shooting AND a magic phase, and (from what I've read) the most viable armies/lists use the magic phase to their advantage.

Loki & jonolikespie, thanks for your comments on VC builds. I suspected that the army book was flexible enough to allow for a great variety of viable builds, but what you're saying confirms that for me. I've read the army book pretty thoroughly and I'm liking what I see in it.

IC, I did look at the DE for a while. But, I admit, I wasn't taken with the background material on them. I'm one of those guys who has to be able to invest in the backstory and history aspect of a faction to be able to play it. This was easy in 40K, since my chapter of Space Marines is a DIY homebrew chapter. With the DE, I kept thinking that I was reading the backstory of one of those 70's metal band album covers--like someone wrote an army book about a Molly Hatchet record.

Kevin48220 wrote:

IC, I did look at the DE for a while. But, I admit, I wasn't taken with the background material on them. I'm one of those guys who has to be able to invest in the backstory and history aspect of a faction to be able to play it. This was easy in 40K, since my chapter of Space Marines is a DIY homebrew chapter. With the DE, I kept thinking that I was reading the backstory of one of those 70's metal band album covers--like someone wrote an army book about a Molly Hatchet record.

Hahaha i totally agree about the DE's, and im the same coming from DA to VC was very easy due to the gothic and undead look and i like the stories in the VC codex all about the Villan's and such except Vlad such a gentelman.

What was your previous chapter based on ( ie vanilla marines, DA, SW, BA, BT...etc.) ?

What type of background has you the most excited?

for my VC I like to think of my lord to be a bit like the red duke except without the crazyness fighting with his curse to save his homeland because he swore an oath to do so before he became a Vampire.

My Space Marine chapter is pretty basic, just the regular codex. I ended up with a mishmash of models--some generic, some SW, some DA, some BT, even a tactical squad of Ultramarines and a few guys who have modified Chaos Marine bits. As a result, I couldn't establish a unified iconography within squads or in the chapter as a whole; I also suck at freehanding and dealing with small decals, so that was right out for making them a unified chapter.

I decided not to worry about the details, and used the paint scheme to unify them as a chapter. My background is pretty basic--they started as a BT successor chapter on a far frontier of the imperium, but changed over time. Being isolated, they started to take in strays to make up for losses; that is, marines from other chapters who were cast out or exiled, or felt they'd betrayed their oaths, or whatnot (hence, the varying armor and iconography). Over time, they became the French Foreign Legion of the Space Marines--they ask almost no questions of any marine who shows up, as long as he's willing to serve the chapter, practice the Imperial faith zealously, and seek redemption in battle. Once admitted, the marine gets a new name and they treat him as one of their own. I admit that it's more than a bit far-fetched, but it was a way to justify having guys with stuff from so many chapters in one army. I gave them an earth-toned color scheme and desert-type basing, so the background feels right with their overall look.

With the VC, I'm attracted to their specific placement--that they're all more or less from the same place in the campaign world. One thought I had was that a VC army could be from one castle, or one small area of the map (a forest, etc.), and really do the modelling and paint scheme to reflect that. If I had a forest-based VC army, I might use a lot of wood elf bits to give them an outdoorsy look, for example, and they might have a color scheme that's more rustic. I think the sky's the limit with them on the modelling and painting end of things. I think one could really build a cool DIY background without going outside the flavor of the army as it appears in the book.

With the Lizardmen, I like the idea of really getting into working on their markings. Lizards have the most brilliant colors and patterns; it would be cool to really work out the mottling and variations for the different units, so they're cohesive as units but stand out from each other. One unit of Saurus might have black and white markings in a striped pattern, while another has a more speckled look or stripes that run in a different pattern. I haven't really had a chance to dig into the army book deeply, so I'm not sure on what I might do with the background stuff.

Are you going to try and base them around a particular bloodline? The bloodlines don't have any gameplay effects anymore, but they're great themes. Personally, I'm doing Lahmian, especially since it gives me an excuse to use the Coven Throne.

I don't know, I'm still picking between VC, LM, and Skaven--I liked both the VC and Skaven army books, and I don't want to make a choice until after I've had a chance to read the LM book.

Whichever one I pick, I want to make sure my backstory is broad enough to let me use all the units in the book. I don't go so much for the characters, unless it fits in my backstory (hence, I don't use the named characters for my Space Marines in 40K...just wouldn't work to use them for a DIY chapter).

WIth Skaven, you could make your own clan. I did that too.

 thenoobbomb wrote:
WIth Skaven, you could make your own clan. I did that too.

Of course, but how much can you really vary the color scheme? Or is it more a matter of using the detailing to create the aesthetic of your own clan?

Could create the scrubbing bubbles clan of skaven, and have them all sparkly clean. With mops and buckets for weapons.... Vacuum cleaners for weapon teams, and a giant roomba for a doom wheel?

!!! ... there's something not quite right about an entire horde of well-groomed rats with a hygiene fetish.

That's like finding an Orc with a Ph.D..

Kevin48220 wrote:

 thenoobbomb wrote:
WIth Skaven, you could make your own clan. I did that too.

Of course, but how much can you really vary the color scheme? Or is it more a matter of using the detailing to create the aesthetic of your own clan?

Most people do their skaven brown, but I give 'em blue clothing. Red and yellow looks nice too, and green fits also.
You could go on and on

Well, my decision was made for me. I was gifted a copy of the Warriors of Chaos army book (not in great shape, and I will have to get it rebound) and a small bag o' bits (enough to put together a few warriors). Took a look through it and decided that they'd be a fine place to start--less of a horde army, and it might be easier to get a full grasp on the rules if I'm not running a giant field of models.

Of course, this won't stop me from building a VC army later on...

Cool

Be careful you don't fall into the trap that I've seen many (ok it was only 2, but that's still both of the WoC players I know) a new WoC player fall into. Everyone seems to go for 2 huge blocks, one of warriors and one of something else (marauders/knights/skullcrushers) and that is their entire army. it is too easy for other armies to run circles around you (even the slow ones) and you'll never be able to get into the fights you need to. Invest in some wolves or small units of marauders just so you have some movement options, unlike 40k fantasy can be won or lost in the movement phase.

The problem I've got with WoC is the same problem I see other players have. They've got their Warriors, they've got their Marauders, they've got their Chaos Knights, they've got their Marauder Horsemen... and then they're stuck finding things to add for some variety. And everything basically does close combat. Does it well, but does close combat.

I like variety, and you don't get much more variety than in Vampire Counts. Every single unit not only looks different but behaves differently. You can spend a few weeks bashing out a block of Skeletons, then spend a few weeks bashing out a block of Ghouls, and for all you care, you're painting two completely and utterly different units. The only units that really feel the same are Grave Guard and Black Knights, and that's because Black Knights are mounted Grave Guard. And even randomising fabric and armour colours amongst a unit works because they're meant to be randomly raised on the spot.

If I don't get variety when I'm painting, I get exceedingly bored.

 -Loki- wrote:
I like variety, and you don't get much more variety than in Vampire Counts.

I'd argue Orcs and Goblins and Empire, don't get many war machines in VC.

Go with whatever models you like. I'm starting up a Wood Elf army even though they suck. Their models, to me, look great.

I love Lizardmen because they're fun and I love dinosaurs. My friend has both Lizards and Skaven and he prefers the Lizardmen - they're tough and they're fun. An army of Cold One Riders - what's cooler than that? Loads of lizards riding on velociraptors? That's cool.

Folks, I'm quite grateful for all the comments. I'm holding off on any big purchases until I've got a chance to follow up on some of the things that have been mentioned on this thread and in a few others I've read on the site.

I'm realizing also that flexibility and the ability to build a good range of lists is pretty important in my thoughts on armies. I like the look and background stuff on WoC, but after looking at the book again, I can see the points being made here about variety in their lists.

Loki, I can definitely see your points about variety and flexibility in the VC army book. I had a chance to look through it again this morning while I was out & about, and there is certainly a lot of room in that one. The new megaforce kit is also very tempting as a buy-in for that army.

If I can ask another question, and maybe open the discussion up a bit further--what armies are the most flexible? By that, I mean flexible in terms of unit variety/use, and in their ability to field varied lists?

Hargus56 wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:
I like variety, and you don't get much more variety than in Vampire Counts.

I'd argue Orcs and Goblins and Empire, don't get many war machines in VC.

The problem with Orcs and Goblins is... green. All green. Different clothes and sizes, but all green. The problem with Empire is, in order for it to look cohesive, their uniforms end up matching, so you end up painting a lot of one or two colours. Warmachines don't add that much.

With Campire Counts, every single unit is different with the exception of Grave Guard and Black Knights. Not only that, but it's fluffy to paint them all differently, even within a unit, because the army is meant to look like random undead raised right there.

Yeah, but that brings up another issue.

Painting up hundreds of models that are all unique is maddening. Thats why I no longer play Orks.