Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

A recent discussion on my clubs mailing list has got me wondering what the opinions of people around the world are on the top 5 core choices in the game.

My own in no particular order are
Plaguebearers, Slaves, Skink skirmishers, inner circle knights and warrior chariots

Night goblins, savage orc big'uns, skaven slaves, peasant bowmen, empire halberdiers, empire knights, plaguebearers, skinks skirmishers, chaos warrior chariots, dark elf warriors, ungors, tuskgor chariots, centigors, chaos warriors, tomb kings archers and chariots,

BronzeJon wrote:
Night goblins, savage orc big'uns, skaven slaves, peasant bowmen, empire halberdiers, empire knights, plaguebearers, skinks skirmishers, chaos warrior chariots, dark elf warriors, ungors, tuskgor chariots, centigors, chaos warriors, tomb kings archers and chariots,

Centigors are a Special choice.


And honestly, Plaguebearers are kinda a funny one to consider 'Best Core', because they require a Herald of Nurgle to really make them solid.
On their own, they're simply 13pts Ghouls with a slightly different crumble mechanic. It's the Herald adding either the 'poison on a 5+' or 'regen' Locus ability that makes them truly shine.

They're certainly a great choice because taking them means you're always including a Herald to go with them and buff them further, but they don't quite stand on their own in the way that things like Chaos Warriors or Chariots or cheap hordes of Slaves/Gobbos do.

Dark Elf Corsairs.

/thread

....

Ok, maybe Skavenslaves as well.

Tomb king Chariots why? got bows and spears perfect place for flaming banner, get sweet impact hits. a 7 attack champion(11 with smiting) for challenge shenanigans.

Skaven slaves. Vastly overpowered crap.

Skaven slaves, in the same way as it could have been Chaos Marauders with the old book.

NG because of fanatics

Chaos warriors and chariots

Sea Guard! /jk

This is hard. There are a ton of great core units in the game.

I play HE & Brets.

For the Elves the best 2 choices are reavers & silver helms.

For Bretonnia - Knights Errant are a steal, KotR are solid (slightly overpriced compared to IC Knights & Silver Helms), I like Men at Arms -cheap halberd troops, & our bowmen are a steal. too.

Ironguts?

ComTrav wrote:
Ironguts?

Nah, chaos trolls.
Chaos chariots.
On the disposable side, it's tough to argue with slaves, minimum gnoblars (25 points and doesn't panic anything), or harpies (flying gnoblars).

-Matt

Niteware wrote:
Skaven slaves, in the same way as it could have been Chaos Marauders with the old book.

You will have to extrapolate this for me. Skavenslaves are a fantastic tarpit, but marauders were capable of destruction well beyond slaves.

Just both being undercosted?

 streamdragon wrote:

Niteware wrote:
Skaven slaves, in the same way as it could have been Chaos Marauders with the old book.

You will have to extrapolate this for me. Skavenslaves are a fantastic tarpit, but marauders were capable of destruction well beyond slaves.

Just both being undercosted?

Slaves are broken because;
a) They're too cheap.

b) They do not cause panic tests.

c) They're a tarpit that doesn't stop the enemy unit from being shot to bits! (Life is Cheap)

d) They have their own break/flee mechanic that can cause damage.

e) Count towards the 25% 'Core Tax' you must always take.


Add it all up and while it's true that Slaves themselves won't munch their way through most everything willy-nilly like the old GW Marauders did, they're increadibly annoying to fight, come in vast quantities and basically have 0 downsides for the Skaven player.

You forgot about Slaves having LD 10

 Sigvatr wrote:
You forgot about Slaves having LD 10

Last time I checked, all ranked Skaven units somehow get Ld10 as standard

Can you feed slaves the skaven brew?

 Atlantic wrote:
Can you feed slaves the skaven brew?

Nope - Clanrats & Stormvermin only...

Although just casting Death Frenzy a couple of times on Slaves can yield some fantastic results.

Dark Elf rxb, can get sword and board good low str high rate of fire and decent stats for a cheap cost.

 streamdragon wrote:

Niteware wrote:
Skaven slaves, in the same way as it could have been Chaos Marauders with the old book.

You will have to extrapolate this for me. Skavenslaves are a fantastic tarpit, but marauders were capable of destruction well beyond slaves.

Just both being undercosted?

Yeah - not really comparing them, except that they are hugely good ppm

Experiment 626 wrote:

And honestly, Plaguebearers are kinda a funny one to consider 'Best Core', because they require a Herald of Nurgle to really make them solid.

Slaves need a General and BSB, Halberdiers and ICK need a Priest or BSB and so on.

Chaos Warriors and Ironguts don't need support. Ofc, it can help a lot, but they can function well without

Top Beatstick: Chaos chariots/Bret knights/Ironguts
Top Tarpit: Slaves
Top Chaff: Noblars, some fast cav (coz I'm a fast cav fanboy, but I don't know all the points costs of different armies)

I think these are the three main roles your core choices can play (ok, and ranged support, but that's still damage dealing, so Beatstick is better). Most armies aren't gonna have a candidate in the Beatstick core category though :(. And when it comes to tarpitting/chaffing its pretty much whatever comes cheapest (and without causing too much panic)

Chaos warriors / charriots.
Skaven slaves.
Gladeguard cuz they be the best archers in the game ;P

It's hard to look at units independently. Because many aren't meant to be run independently. Like the whole army dynamic doesn't work that way.

Meh, I'm not commenting on 7th books.

Ogres, whether ironguts or fisty bulls are really good completely solo.

If you can take Throgg and make Chaos Trolls core, it's going to be hard to find anything that will beat them for cost. But they're the example of a unit that needs help, without LD they won't survive stupidity.

Saurus are still really really good for cost.

Bloodletters vs. other core are still really good. Their problem is they aren't as good vs. and other non core.

I'm always impressed with Chaos Warrior stats. In fact, for just core on core fighting, I'd say CW are way up there because of all their options.

Empire handgunners? They can put out a whole lot of hurt and aren't that expensive.

If we're taking all obviously broken 7th books out of the field, I'd say...Gnoblars.

In an unrestricted meta, you could troll the living hell out of your enemy with huge Gnoblar units. Or very small ones.

DukeRustfield wrote:

Bloodletters vs. other core are still really good. Their problem is they aren't as good vs. and other non core.

I hope that's a joke...

Unless of course we're talking worst core in the game, then I'd agree!

I can point out the like 40 pages of you saying DoC were worthless. The worst army in the game. And then you actually played them and you have high praise for certain builds. You need to think before you type sometimes or people are going to (start/continue) to discount your posts.

They are
-M5, faster than nearly all infantry core
-WS5, better than most core, and while that won't give them defense, it's often a +16% to hit bonus
-S5 which is as good as a Troll, better than all Core and negates 2 armor and makes to wound that much easier
-T3 which is standard/sucky
-I4 which is better than most core

-KB-which is arguably the best special rule you could want on mass core that's likely to be fighting other infantry
-Ward 5 not even Ogres Ironguts can take that away.
-Scaly Skin 6 isn't great. But it's there for fodder and stuff like HE and other non-elites which will outnumber letters
-MR1 doesn't seem great, but there's a lot of solid magic DDs in the game nowadays, especially in HE/Liz books. A 4+ ward is nice.

The only thing that doesn't make them gods is their cost. They come out pretty close with Saurus warriors. +16% to hit. Same to wound. Both armors negated. Letters hit first, move faster. 11% to auto kill with KB per letter. 32% ward. The big things Saurus have are +1 attack and cheaper cost. And predatory helps. If you gave them both a hero and Letters have Frenzy, they would come out ahead.

I'd go out on a limb and suggest Ungor Raiders and Harpies.

Both are cheap, and if you don't deal with them they will bite you in the ass. They aren't filthy, but you know that they have to be dealt with, which means that you are spending more points than they cost to deal with them whilst the rest of the army pushes at you.

Imperial Deceit wrote:
Empire handgunners? They can put out a whole lot of hurt and aren't that expensive.

I'm sorry, are you pulling our legs or worse? Empire handgunners are pretty good for crunching under your feet. They can't kill or hit anything; 3 guys until they're being charged simply don't matter (those won't be 3 Skullcrushers) and they're crazily overpriced. Missile units weren't stellar at the start of 8th; increasing the point cost of one of the worst units was the last nail in their coffin.

What's next, a Robohorse being the best core choice? Seriously, handgunners!

Well in a vacuum yes, handgunners can't stand alone, but like most core in Empire they aren't really meant to. They also make armor disappear except on very heavy units.