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I'm kind of curious. Out of all the armies in WHFB right now, which one do you think is the best; the most broken overpowered soul crushing army? Which one is the worst; pathetic, outdated, or just not written well?

I'd like some reasoning behind the decisions if at all possible. I'm just curious about different armies in fantasy and how they relate.

Im pretty new ish to fantasy, but brets and beasts seem to get alot of stick and get dropped to the bottom.

Also, WE are in need of an update.

Beasts, well, they have some nasty builds, but nothing that really compares to the really evil builds.

New HE are pretty nasty.
Banner of the world dragon gives them a 2++ against magic attacks, so against daemons, they cant lose.
But thats just a hard counter really.

Chaos seem pretty solid still aswell.

Double slaan lizards are pretty evil to play against aswell.
Simply dominate the magic phase and laugh.

Watched some pretty soul crushing games with armies versus Wood Elves where the Wood Elves player just kept away from eveything and the player didn't get to fight anything till the very last turn.........yeah that was a game worth playing............

Ogre Kingdoms are probably the strongest "point and click" army.

Skaven, WoC, LM, HE, VC, DE are all similar in strength.

OK are not point and click. Far from it.

You point and click an ogre unit into combat willy-nilly and you will lose. Ogres are a durable army, but you need to play smart with them.


True point and click would be WoC or a HE list heavy on White Lions or Swordmasters.

Of the current 8th edition books, (ie: ignoring the well known broken 7th ed gak & now-2-editions-old Brets/WE's/Dwarf problem), I'd say it would go like;

Top Tier:
- WoC due to Nurgle Prince of insanity, unkillable BSB, Core chariots, Chimera's, Skullcrushers and basic Warriors still being ace for their pts.

- High Elves due to flying circus, double Frosthearts are broken as filth while Fire 'Nixes are also pretty solid, Reavers & Silverhelms being Core, strong shooting phase, possible ward saves everywhere, White Lions & Phoenis Guard and the Banner of UltimateSkill Dragon pretty much removing all forms of magical attacks bar buffs/hexes/#6 spells for an entire unit. (plus all characters hiding in said unit!)

Middle/Main Tier:
- Ogre Kingdoms
- Empire
- Vampire Counts
All three are solid books with plenty of viable builds and good synergies. Can still build some nasty lists like the VC scream spam or Demigryph + Wizard mobiles, or Runemaw Gutstar...

- Orcs & Gobbos
- Tomb Kings
Both are somewhat below the others, but have a few tricks for competitive play. 6 Sphinxies is nasty as feth for example, while a Savage Orc horde is pretty dangerous as well with the right supports.

Bottom Tier:
- DoC
Lolz randomhammer! Only, unlike the 40k version, this feels like it's only a basic draft and nowhere near a complete book... Reign of Comedy table is stupid, random gifts may be awesomesauce but are more likely to be utter crap. No way to get a Lv4 wizard on the table for less than almost 400pts. Tzeentch & Khorne generally suck except for LoC, Doggies & Cannon.
Nurgle on the other hand is borderline broken - especially any list running Epedemius.

Where are Lizardmen on that chart? If they have an old book does that make them worse...i,e, off the bottom end?

Just curious because if I was going to pick up a fantasy army it would either be Tomb Kings or Lizardmen.

Lizardmen are definitely near the top. They have very powerful magic and solid troops.

 Jackal wrote:
... beasts seem to get alot of stick and get dropped to the bottom

Really? I've handed out some absolute hidings with Beasts, against Undead, Empire, Orcs and Dwarfs. Granted, I've not played every army but still, I'd hardly put them at the bottom?

 dementedwombat wrote:
Where are Lizardmen on that chart? If they have an old book does that make them worse...i,e, off the bottom end?

Just curious because if I was going to pick up a fantasy army it would either be Tomb Kings or Lizardmen.

Lizzies are pretty pants without their tooled-up Slaan in all honesty. Those tooled-up Slaan however are ridiculously good for their cost! Cupped Hands for miscast protection, plus antics like Focus of Rumination and a couple other upgrades make them scary-good at controlling the magic phase.
Their cav is heinously overcosted and pretty useless right now due to it. Saurus are decent Core, but fall victim to being I1 and just get raped by spells like Pit of Shades/Purple Sun. Salamanders though are pretty solid as well, and skirmishing Skinks w/poisoned blow darts are annoying as feth to face.

Mind you, Lizzies are heavily rumored to be the next book up for a re-do, so by the end of November, they could very well become a completely different animal to how they currently work.

They aren't bad, just not good enough.

Overpriced core, rare section that may as well not exist, and only one really good combat unit.

Compare Gors to Empire Swordsmen(current or previous book) and you'll see the deficiency.


If you get your magic off you can do decently, but that is dependent on magic going well for you.




As for lizards, while they are Initiative 1, Slann can take Light and make them I10 fairly easily. That's pretty nasty.

Best: Lizardmen

Worst: Wood Elves

 Grey Templar wrote:
They aren't bad, just not good enough.

Overpriced core, rare section that may as well not exist, and only one really good combat unit.

Compare Gors to Empire Swordsmen(current or previous book) and you'll see the deficiency.


If you get your magic off you can do decently, but that is dependent on magic going well for you.

Beasts are handi-capped by two factors;
a) They were being written during the same time as play-testing/development of 8th was on-going. They have some decent fits with the newer rules, like horded Gors being ace & Monstrous Infantry getting better, but just didn't quite get the final polish they needed like the other 8th ed books, bar Daemons, received.

b) The book was started by 1 author, who left the company and was then picked-up on-the-fly by a second author who had to finish it off.

The biggest downfall of the Beasts is that the Rare section is hilariously bad. Overcosted is an understatement.

Add to that, that some of their better units are expensive Finecast models, and/or require heavy conversion to make...
Razorgors, (aka 'Pumbagors') are actually a really solid unit! Same as the Razorgor chariot. But they're regarded generally as fugly looking models that are expensive to buy and the chariot must be converted to boot.

They also have a rather situational magic lore of their own, but Lore of Beasts & IIRC Shadows more than makes up for Lore of the Wild being pants.

 Grey Templar wrote:
As for lizards, while they are Initiative 1, Slann can take Light and make them I10 fairly easily. That's pretty nasty.

Just play 1 game against a Lizzie army that can't bring a Slaan to the table and you'll realise how seriously gimped the army actually is...

Being pretty much forced to include 1 very broken/OP model to make your army good doesn't polish the otherwise terd'tastic book that Lizzies have now become.

Best: Skaven

Worst: Wood Elves

Words like best and worst are pretty meaningless. If you gave your "best" army to a blind, moronic, 4 year old and the worst army to the living reincarnation of Alexander the Great, the worst army is going to win handily.

Armies have learning curves (Ogres being very easy). Theoretical limits on their power (WoC DP/double slann for instance).

Like, that doesn't mean Ogres are necessarily THAT much better than TK just because you don't have to take a wizard with OK and can buy nothing but bulls and stomp forward and the TK army will have to use all kinds of tricky trix just to beat you. But if you take the best general and tactics and cheese moves the book allows put them behind each army and they get a lot closer.

EDIT: I think all the 8th armies are within the same 75% percentile of each other. Like if you took each one with the same great generals and fought an all-comers list of some neutral army, dice rolls would play a greater decider in who comes out ahead than what army they chose.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
As for lizards, while they are Initiative 1, Slann can take Light and make them I10 fairly easily. That's pretty nasty.

Just play 1 game against a Lizzie army that can't bring a Slaan to the table and you'll realise how seriously gimped the army actually is...

Being pretty much forced to include 1 very broken/OP model to make your army good doesn't polish the otherwise terd'tastic book that Lizzies have now become.

Being practically forced to take a particular model isn't a downside if its an awesome model. And they're hardly very broken. They really just need a slight toning down, nothing major. Limiting the number of disciplines, take away the ability for the Slann to be the BSB, etc...

And if you actually can't take a Slann you are playing with too low a point total.


Lizardmen are solid combat troops, the Slann takes it to the next level.

And Slann-less lists focusing on Skinks can actually be pretty nasty. Heavens is a good lore.

Saurus cavalry are bad because cavalry in general are bad, nothing specific to Saurus cavalry.

I see what you mean about Beasts actually, after big units of Gors there's not much in there I want to take, but then all I tend to use is 2 big units of Gor, big unit of Bestigor, Beastlord, 2x Shamans and a BSB. There's not much room for useful variety, apart from Ungor Raiders to use as annoying screens.

Which really is a shame since the big beasts could have been awesome.

The core needs to be a little cheaper overall if they keep the current stats.

Daemons really aren't bottom tier of 8th, you just have to use their strengths, and plan proper usage if the random rolls don't help. My T8 KoS enjoyed laying smack down and wrecked ogre kingdoms, along with 'Crushers, Soul Grinder, Khorne-cannons, plague flies, and chaff (core).

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Daemons really aren't bottom tier of 8th, you just have to use their strengths, and plan proper usage if the random rolls don't help. My T8 KoS enjoyed laying smack down and wrecked ogre kingdoms, along with 'Crushers, Soul Grinder, Khorne-cannons, plague flies, and chaff (core).

Some of the older books are certainly worse off than the new Daemons, but of the updated 8th edition books, Daemons are clearly a level well below everyone else.

Half the book is terribad, a quarter of it is simply no-brainer, random gifts that will make-or-break you right off the bat, Reign of Comedy that can instantly sodomise one player's entire magic phase, General/BSB rules that only ever affect 1/4 of the book's units, etc...
It honestly just feels like a half-arsed rough draft of a book that's just waiting to be fully completed. Especially when you compare it to the 40k version!

Sure there's a couple awesome lists, (every book has their one or two power lists), but if you don't want to use that cookie-cutter build/s then you're left with a bad taste in your mouth...
For example, I play Tzeentch. My army is now a complete and utter laughing stalk outside of the LoC.

The DoC is a terrible book overall with a couple of hard as nails builds and a fatal weakness against the HE army. A very weird situation. I have played a Nurgle list in 5 games against BM 3 times and DE 2 times. In each game I tabled or virtually tabled the other army.

LM are shoehorned into taking a SMP which means you also need to take an expensive TG deathstar. It gets boring to play but that or a ton of skinks are about the only TAC options.

The SMP has been able to be the BSB in every iteration of the army. I doubt that will change. The LM need some options so you can build a viable army without a SMP to make it more fun.

http://warhammer.org.uk/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=114935

More discussion on this subject in that thread, and a link to a 90minute podcast on the subject.

In short, the best armies in no particular order are Lizardmen, Warriors, Empire, Skaven. That said, Warhammer is so balanced currently that pretty much everyone on the top12 atleast stand a very good chance when constructed properly.

 Therion wrote:
http://warhammer.org.uk/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=114935

More discussion on this subject in that thread, and a link to a 90minute podcast on the subject.

In short, the best armies in no particular order are Lizardmen, Warriors, Empire, Skaven. That said, Warhammer is so balanced currently that pretty much everyone on the top12 atleast stand a very good chance when constructed properly.

I think however a better assessment of an army's overall power level isn't so much by how much its one or two 'power-play' lists wreck face, as every single book can make at least one highly competitive list...

Rather I prefer to look at it as how much variety is there in list building overall?
For example, Daemons, Lizzies, Beasts & Wood Elves are low tier armies because they specifically lack variety in their army builds. There's very few viable units and most lists will tend to be a set cookie-cutter build with some added personal frills.
Or else if you remove 1 key model, like the tooled-up Slaan in the case of Lizzies, the entire army falls apart and becomes combat ineffective.

On the other hand, you look at the likes of WoC, VC's, HE's, Empire, Ogres et all, and there are a vast number of different lists to build and play that are all decently competitive.


I don't think Daemons for example suck because it's impossible to win with the new book - there are indeed a couple of very powerful/borderline broken lists.
I think the new Daemons suck because there are only those few lists that all tend to revolve around 3-4 units/characters that are effective, and everything else in the book is about as effective as a toothless, no-legged lion trying to hunt a zebra!

I agree that each book has a different amount of competitive builds. Some have many, some have a few, some have one, but the reality is that some still have none, and when people try to formulate a list of top armies they take all this into consideration. Beasts, Daemons and Wood Elves aren't low tier armies only because they lack variety. The best of their lists simply aren't as good as the best of some other books either.

Just to make a concrete example for you: At the ETC the Beastmen use 2700 point armies with almost no composition restrictions at all, while armies such as Warriors of Chaos play with 2400 points and some of the OP magic item combos and Chimera/DP/Crusher/chariot spam banned, and Warriors are still a favorite in that matchup. So you can imagine what the matchup would be like if both played the same points value and had no restrictions. Hence, Beasts are in the bottom 2 armies of Warhammer, while Warriors are in the top tier.

 Therion wrote:
Just to make a concrete example for you: At the ETC the Beastmen use 2700 point armies with almost no composition restrictions at all, while armies such as Warriors of Chaos play with 2400 points and some of the OP magic item combos and Chimera/DP/Crusher/chariot spam banned, and Warriors are still a favorite in that matchup. So you can imagine what the matchup would be like if both played the same points value and had no restrictions. Hence, Beasts are in the bottom 2 armies of Warhammer, while Warriors are in the top tier.

Warhammer tournaments actually have different points limits for different armies/unit restrictions for some armies?

What is this heresy... Learn something new every day.

Experiment 626 wrote:
Rather I prefer to look at it as how much variety is there in list building overall?

I don't think Daemons for example suck

No one else in the world considers variety effectiveness, however. If a boxer wins every fight by knockout you don't go, "wow, that boxer sucks, all he does is knock people out with a right hook." If something is effective, it doesn't matter if it has variety. You're talking about fun factor or...variety. Which has nothing to do with effectiveness.

And no one knew you thought Daemons sucked. That is the first time you've written that on these forums. It is totally surprising to hear that from you. To throw your own logic back at you, you are not effective in getting your message across...

I really dont think there is a "Best or worst" armies, A good General who builds his army to run the way he wants it can win with just about any army. Now that is not to say that it isn't easier two win with some of the newer armies, but this is becuase thier book is designed for this set of rules, If you took these newer books and pluged them in with the older rule sets, you would find that the tiers would be very different. The Balance between the new books (EVEn DoC) is getting alot better. I am sorry that DoC Players have to change the way they play, but this is not the first time GW has done this, And all the Talk about how HE broke the game. HE have one Unit that is hard as hell to crack, but every book has one. You just have to adjust. Is the BOTWD OP? Sure, should have been a little less than what it is, But it is better than, Magic attacks have no affect. It is only on one Unit Deal with it. With the Ogres it was Death fisting, and how Mournfang are way to good, While still really good, there is now other MC that balance things out. So the cring that HE are unstoppable needs to stop. give it a few months the Lizzards will be out, and everyone will be crying about something they get. Every army gets something Nastly. That is the way it is. Accept it and move on. Paint your army the way you want. Play your army the way you want. Enjoy your army or go find something else.

It's hard to really say what the absolute best armies are. It seems that there is a good group of well balanced armies that can be very competitive with a good list and when played right. Then on the other hand you have some absolute shockers which are in desperate need of an update like WE and Bret.

Skaven are pretty solid and are super well rounded, however I still want them to update just so I get an excuse to get more guys.

 dementedwombat wrote:

 Therion wrote:
Just to make a concrete example for you: At the ETC the Beastmen use 2700 point armies with almost no composition restrictions at all, while armies such as Warriors of Chaos play with 2400 points and some of the OP magic item combos and Chimera/DP/Crusher/chariot spam banned, and Warriors are still a favorite in that matchup. So you can imagine what the matchup would be like if both played the same points value and had no restrictions. Hence, Beasts are in the bottom 2 armies of Warhammer, while Warriors are in the top tier.

Warhammer tournaments actually have different points limits for different armies/unit restrictions for some armies?

What is this heresy... Learn something new every day.

ETC is a team tournament and really shouldn't be used as any kind of measuring stick because it's designed to play a totally different style of game... For example, most teams bring a combination of lists that are total beatsticks as well as a list/s that are designed to simply get draws/play pts denial to avoid hard-counter match-ups.
You get the chance to try and pair-up the most favourable match-ups possible, which is obviously something that is completely impossible in the more standard 1 vs 1 tournaments.

I've seen people try to implement the ETC rules for a regular tournament and it's nothing short of a complete disaster because it's not designed to work the 'normal' way. (though it does provide some good humor in the process!)

DukeRustfield wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:
Rather I prefer to look at it as how much variety is there in list building overall?

I don't think Daemons for example suck

No one else in the world considers variety effectiveness, however. If a boxer wins every fight by knockout you don't go, "wow, that boxer sucks, all he does is knock people out with a right hook." If something is effective, it doesn't matter if it has variety. You're talking about fun factor or...variety. Which has nothing to do with effectiveness.

And no one knew you thought Daemons sucked. That is the first time you've written that on these forums. It is totally surprising to hear that from you. To throw your own logic back at you, you are not effective in getting your message across...

Or rather, only competitive tournament players consider variety to be a pointless measuring stick as long as a book can be made into a decent beatstick. (which admitidly, every single book can do)

The game itself though is designed to be fun and not meant to be used as a serious competitive system. A big part of having fun in Warhammer is being able to take the units you like, weather because the models are awesomesauce, or you're aiming for a fluffy list or whatever... A solid top tier book does all this; able to cheddar it up, but also leaves players complete freedom of choice without feeling like you've just brought a wet noodle to a sword fight.
A book is low tier when it literally decides for you, the player, what units must be included in order to stand a chance at winning even a friendly game.

That's what makes the likes of WoC & High Elves top tier books. They have that endless variety in their list building options as almost every single unit is viably competitive AND they can be absolutely brutal when you want to play hardcore.
Playing a 'fluffy list' like for example a Hoeth theme or Lothern theme list from the new High Elf book can still be solidly competitive. Maybe not tournament thumping good, but still a good list. Same deal for WoC who can do solid mono-god themes, or VC's who can build to any of the major families and still remain solid.

Daemons, WE's, Beasts and such don't do that at all. Their units are either woefully out of date, grossly overcosted, and/or are just generally stuck with bad rules that make them clunky and forces them into set builds that become mindnumbingly boring to play with.
With Daemons for example, the new book is pretty much "go Nurgle + Doggies & Cannons or go home." Well great, maybe I don't want/like Nurgle at all... Too bad I'm pretty much shoe-horned into Plagebearers + Beasts because the only things that are viable for Tzeentch are the LoC + Burning Chariot.