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Hi, I'm relatively new to fantasy and am planning on getting allies for my daemons when I reach 1500-2000 points but am afraid that they might actually be the worst possible choices that I can make (I almost always go for an army because I think they look cool) so what- do you think- are the 3 weakest armies currently in fantasy?

Fantasy dosent have allies like in 40k, The Allies chart in fantasy is made for 2 player games where you have 2 players on a team.

9th edition (rumoured for summer 2014/2015, though probably the latter) might change this, but as it stands Merellin is correct. The only allies you can take are from Triumph & Treachery, which is an add-on rather than part of the standard game.

That said, the weakest armies in WHFB are Wood Elves and Beastmen, and arguably Tomb Kings. Which isn't to say that these armies can't be competitive, they just tend to lack options and tools. Mostly against armour, which all three struggle against (Tomb Kings have wide access to killing blow, but that only helps against non-MC/monsters, which the meta is lousy with them right now).

We have used allies as a house rule. It works well and is not game breaking at all. We just said it must make sense, fall along the alignment chart, and it has to be a separate block of points that is no more then a 1/3 of the total points. I'm sure it can be used to break the game but for pick up games or very large team battles it is fun. We used the same principals of the undead/demon allies from storm of magic for the guidelines.

 namiel wrote:
We have used allies as a house rule. It works well and is not game breaking at all. We just said it must make sense, fall along the alignment chart, and it has to be a separate block of points that is no more then a 1/3 of the total points. I'm sure it can be used to break the game but for pick up games or very large team battles it is fun. We used the same principals of the undead/demon allies from storm of magic for the guidelines.

Sounds interesting I may have to give this a try. How did you determine who can ally with who? Did you use the BRB's multiplayer rules?

Wood Elves and Bretonnia occupy the bottom two spots, as they both suffer from having an underpowered and very old army book. The fight for third is probably between Beastmen and Tomb Kings. Both can be competitive, but they have to conform to quite strict restraints to do so, which makes them predictable. Overall though, I'd probably say that Beastmen are the 3rd worst, since Tomb Kings do pack some stand-out units.

It's funny though, that in the thread about the most powerful army, Wood Elves have four votes, while an army like Lizardmen have none.

While Wood Elves are generally considered hopelessly outdated, it seems most people agree that their problem isn't that they are weak, but that they only have one strong build which you're locked into using because the rest of the army is nigh on useless.

 Purifier wrote:
It's funny though, that in the thread about the most powerful army, Wood Elves have four votes, while an army like Lizardmen have none.

While Wood Elves are generally considered hopelessly outdated, it seems most people agree that their problem isn't that they are weak, but that they only have one strong build which you're locked into using because the rest of the army is nigh on useless.

Honestly, if you simply give all the elves ASF, allow their Lv1/2's to choose between Lore of Beasts or Lore of Athel Loren and treat the Forest Spirit 5++ as a true ward save you really start to even things up.

Wood Elves are simply overcosted right now because they're a 6th edition book.
Don't forget they were absolute filth when they first came out and considered pretty damn cheddartastic until 7th helped tonne them down. Their play style simply doesn't mesh well at all with 8th.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Purifier wrote:
It's funny though, that in the thread about the most powerful army, Wood Elves have four votes, while an army like Lizardmen have none.

While Wood Elves are generally considered hopelessly outdated, it seems most people agree that their problem isn't that they are weak, but that they only have one strong build which you're locked into using because the rest of the army is nigh on useless.

Honestly, if you simply give all the elves ASF, allow their Lv1/2's to choose between Lore of Beasts or Lore of Athel Loren and treat the Forest Spirit 5++ as a true ward save you really start to even things up.

Wood Elves are simply overcosted right now because they're a 6th edition book.
Don't forget they were absolute filth when they first came out and considered pretty damn cheddartastic until 7th helped tonne them down. Their play style simply doesn't mesh well at all with 8th.

Totally agree! That would easily push WE in to the middle of the pack.

Every option in every book can be a competitive choice, IF properly point costed. for example, minotaurs for beastmen. if they cost 30-35 points like a chaos troll rather than 50 odd they would be consider very competitive.

So for the the weakest armies MUST be the armies that do not have this.

So i would say the 3 worst are:

Wood Elves
Beastmen
Bretonians

I completely agree on Wood Elves and Beastmen, and I can believe it about Bretonnia as well. All old books, by coincidence particularly WE and Brets.

Yeah older books are easy targets.

although i personally think that for a fairly new book, the Empire book is very underwhelming.

All the armies have their win lists. I think we need to inctead focus on those armies that you can do well with by taking a mixed or core heavy army, or anything that doesn't rely on spamming specific optimised units.

Wood Elves then certainly qualify but Brets do not, the 'average' Bret army is quite tough. I would call Empire a weak army in this regards as its reliant on a limited selection of specialist units, I have heard some argue same for Daemons..

 Orlanth wrote:
All the armies have their win lists. I think we need to inctead focus on those armies that you can do well with by taking a mixed or core heavy army, or anything that doesn't rely on spamming specific optimised units.

Top 3 for me based on that statement about core:

1. WoC
2. Dwarfs
3. Dark elves

IMHO

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Purifier wrote:
It's funny though, that in the thread about the most powerful army, Wood Elves have four votes, while an army like Lizardmen have none.

While Wood Elves are generally considered hopelessly outdated, it seems most people agree that their problem isn't that they are weak, but that they only have one strong build which you're locked into using because the rest of the army is nigh on useless.

Honestly, if you simply give all the elves ASF, allow their Lv1/2's to choose between Lore of Beasts or Lore of Athel Loren and treat the Forest Spirit 5++ as a true ward save you really start to even things up.

Wood Elves are simply overcosted right now because they're a 6th edition book.
Don't forget they were absolute filth when they first came out and considered pretty damn cheddartastic until 7th helped tonne them down. Their play style simply doesn't mesh well at all with 8th.

True, the same is said for bretonnians (who imho are currently mid-tier) who in the last eddition could easily break pretty much any unit on the charge.

Three weakest for me would be wood elves, beastmen and tomb kings.

Having tried to play tomb-kings i find them under-performing as i find it really hard to control movement and get favourable matchups for already weak units.

 mixer86 wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
All the armies have their win lists. I think we need to inctead focus on those armies that you can do well with by taking a mixed or core heavy army, or anything that doesn't rely on spamming specific optimised units.

Top 3 for me based on that statement about core:

1. WoC
2. Dwarfs
3. Dark elves

IMHO

High Elf core is far superior to Dwarf core, as they get the best parts of their chaff/chaff removal game from that section; Reavers, Silverdarts & Archers. They literally don't need to spend another point on playing for the chaff/chaff removal after that, but of course, solo Eagles are solid drops and no elf worth their salt will ever leave their Bolters at home...

And thanks to ASF + above average initiative, even their spears are a decent buy, (amazing considering how gak spears are this edition), especially with easy access to all 3 of the best support lores for spears; Shadow, Beasts, Life.
Only Dark Elf spears beat then, because Murderous Prowess is far superior on S3 troops than Martial Prowess.

People saying Bretonnia are a bottom-tier army, I'm guessing, haven't played against a really strong Bretonnian general. Their book might be old, but they have a lot of tools in there that can utterly dismantle many armies. Lance formation lets them dish out the hurt while minimizing return attacks, and their mobility allows them to apply pressure wherever it would be most effective. In the hands of a good player it can be quite deadly.

I'd say they're quite solidly mid-tier.

Yeah, that was my impression from seeing the local Bret player, but I wasn't sure if he was just an outlier.

In my opinion, Wood Elves and Beastmen run away with the "weakest armies" honors... third place could be a toss-up between a number of other armies. Those two truly are "bottom tier", though.

I'm going to say Wood Elves, Beastmen and Tomb Kings. Wood Elves are just flat out weak - their good stuff is not any better than most armies and mostly flammable in a game where flaming attacks are in every army to stop regen monsters. They can still win, but they're definitely weak by comparison - kinda expected when their rules are so outdated and barely work in 8e. Beastmen suffer similar problems - I don't know anyone who doesn't think of them as the weakest army in the game. Tomb Kings are not too weak per se, but are just so outclassed it's insane. Unfortunately, they tend to end up either being maximum monsters (aka die to all Empire/Dwarf armies ever made) or weak Vampire Counts. Even winning armies tend only to be able to do so in uncomped tournaments with archer hordes.

That's not to say any of these armies cannot compete at all - they still have good builds. However, they're extremely predictable and generally outclassed (compare Wood Elves to High Elves and weep), so weakest IMO.

heres another vote for brets are definately not bottom tier....

Unless a bunch of the new books are "that powerful" (which i dont believe, i think for the most part everything got toned down in 8th)...

I did very well with brets in early 8th edition (like 4 books in).

A solid Bretonian general doesn't cover up the issues the book has due to its age.

As others have said a wood elf player with the right list and knowledge of how to play it can still win many games.

i grant you that tomb kings are not a strong all rounder like WoC, but they again used right are pretty dirty.

Khalida star deletes a unit a turn and warsphinx spam is horrible to fight

Came in to say Tomb Kings, forgot Beastmen existed (hahaha). Beastmen, Bretonnia, and Wood Elves are all stuck in crap tier right now. A very good Bretonnian general can beat a mediocre general leading a middle tier army and maybe even a terrible general leading a good army, but against anyone with a brain and a top tier army, good night sweet prince. I don't think Wood Elves can do anything other than annoy the piss out of people.

Thanks for the info and advice, guys!

 mixer86 wrote:
A solid Bretonian general doesn't cover up the issues the book has due to its age.

As others have said a wood elf player with the right list and knowledge of how to play it can still win many games.

i grant you that tomb kings are not a strong all rounder like WoC, but they again used right are pretty dirty.

Khalida star deletes a unit a turn and warsphinx spam is horrible to fight

I don't think anyone will disagree, but being able to compete unfortunately doesn't mean they aren't weakest - it just means there's a decent amount of fairness between books. As I say, mass monsters is nasty but loses to most war machine heavy armies and wood elves are undeniably weaker than their brethren. It's at least a bit better than 40k's state of affairs.

I don't think TK are in the bottom. They belong in the middle. WE, Beasts, and skaven are in the bottom. IMO.

Tk do struggle vs empire, dwarves, but even with their cannons, TK have the ability to put pressure on their cannons first turn. Horse archers, skullapults, and a 6 dice casket quickly helps keep the monsters alive. Archer hordes are overrated, but having around 40-50 shots presmiting, quickly allows TK to clear chaff and overcome the inability to march.

Skaven just feels so underwhelming. 4 years ago so scary, now I love seeing skaven, easy match up.

Wow ... I don't know who are your Skaven players, but they clearly do something wrong ...
I play them in different settings, when I play in "hard-mode" with them, it's rare to find an army that would be really challenging for my rats (and TK clearly isn't challenging at all, once the casket has been removed by Gutter Runners, it's game over)

The Gutter Runners typically don't get into the casket as My Hierotitan kinda hangs back against armies that have a lot of reserves and is a crafty rear guard.(Shems and a Tstomp do well. Plus desert wind to cover a lot of ground.) Or the super flexible tomb scorpion.

But maybe they do, I've not had a problem with them except at small point games.

A bad Skaven army doesn't have a hope in hell against most anybody, but a GOOD skaven army is truly a frightening sight to behold. Turn 1-2 they spend deleting your units off the table with their warmachines, then 3-4 is the same except you get to kill slaves while they do it. HPAs are mean as gak if they make it into close combat as well.

As for Tomb Kings, it really depends on the list. It's a truly frustrating army to play, and requires an impeccable understanding of the rules and the synergies within the book. If you run a crap TK list, or try to play it like a Warriors army, you will lose and lose horrible. The TK forums are inundated by new TK players decrying how hopeless their army is for exactly this reason.

Also I don't understand why people think they're hard-countered by VC. I outrange them utterly, and death spells wreak havoc on them. And if you're running a light council? Yeah...have fun with that.

As for the rest, I'll reiterate that Brets are firmly mid-tier. They're extremely mobile, and a good general can use that to crack open most armies by applying pressure exactly where they need to. However a charged lance is a dead lance, and once the Bret plan is in motion it's pretty hard to recover if things start going south.

Beastmen are a tricky army as well. Sadly they just really lack the tools necessary to be a solid all-comers army. That said, a herdstone list can be truly offensive in terms of its magic output, and the hitback gorebull can walk through entire units on his own. It's just a shame the book doesn't have a rare section.



My final analysis would be Beastmen and Wood Elves at the bottom, with Brets and TK a step above.

 DarkWind wrote:

 namiel wrote:
We have used allies as a house rule. It works well and is not game breaking at all. We just said it must make sense, fall along the alignment chart, and it has to be a separate block of points that is no more then a 1/3 of the total points. I'm sure it can be used to break the game but for pick up games or very large team battles it is fun. We used the same principals of the undead/demon allies from storm of magic for the guidelines.

Sounds interesting I may have to give this a try. How did you determine who can ally with who? Did you use the BRB's multiplayer rules?

yes

I usually laugh when I see people putting TK in the bottom category. One of my friends can't GET a game with his Tomb Kings, because everyone is sick of losing to them. He beat a friend turn one with them. Set up for a rematch and the game was over turn three. As far as I know, the only game he lost with them was the top table at an Ard Boyz tournament right after they came out. Yes, he's a great player, but when everyone in the group agrees that TK are busted the way he runs them (and I helped build the damn list, I know plenty well how dirty they are), I see a lot of people who are incredibly wrong when they say TK suck.
Worst armies definitely include wood elves and Beastmen, not sure what the third would be. Probably Brettonia, although I've heard some good stories on here with them.