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.

I'm simply looking for the most powerful army currently in fantasy.

I'm not a new player looking for easy wins, I'm simply looking to see if any of the recent books have shifted the meta. I like to ask this every few army books just to see what the community thinks.

This can be based on your own opinion but you could think about the following:

1) most competitive army
2) what army has a large amount of cost efficient units/magic items/spells
3) army wide abilities
4) tournament results
5) what army do you struggle against

Thank you, and feel free to discuss.


Previous Poll:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/544382.page

1-5

Wood Elves.

Another one of these…

Answer hasn't changed, there is no 'most powerful army'.

OK then. If not game wise, then how about fluff wise? Which faction could, conceivably, draw together the most powerful army?

Empire. So good, so balanced, so much variety.

mrfantastical wrote:
I'm simply looking for the most powerful army currently in fantasy.

I'm not a new player looking for easy wins, I'm simply looking to see if any of the recent books have shifted the meta. I like to ask this every few army books just to see what the community thinks.

This can be based on your own opinion but you could think about the following:

1) most competitive army
2) what army has a large amount of cost efficient units/magic items/spells
3) army wide abilities
4) tournament results
5) what army do you struggle against

Thank you, and feel free to discuss.

1) High Elf Everqueen 'Light Coven' list. So many synergies and they get a rather disgusting +8 to-cast their augments meaning you can bubble effect very easily. Single turn double Banishment is possible, coupled alongside the already fearsome elf shooting phase. And for laughs she can take a single High Magic spell in order to help boost her innate unit-wide ward save.

2) High Elves.
Everqueen, Teclis, Alith Anar are among the stronger/most insane special characters of the updated books. Prince, Arch Mage, Loremaster and even the Anointed are all serviceable & competitive choices for Lords. Seahelm is an interesting BSB thanks to his re-form.
Core has Reavers, Silverhelms, Archers.
Special has White Lions, Dragon Princes and the game's single best point-for-value unit in the Phoenix Guard. (they can even stop enemy deathstars in their tracks thanks to that 4++, which is easily boosted to 3++ if you want)
Rare had Bolters, Eagles, Frost Turkey & Sisters all seeing equal play in competitive lists.

And even their supposed 'lackluster' choices are still pretty decent.

3) Dark Elves.
ASF is godly this edition and easily the ultimate special rule anyone can get their mitts on. Murderous Prowess is amazing - re-rolls to-wound? Yes please!

4) WoC/DoC.
Chariot spam w/'unkillable' Lord/Hero builds + double Skullcrushers + triple Chimera is filthy. Only thing that will keep it in check is Blood & Glory and double Banishment Light Covens.

Beasts of Nurgle are simply broken for their cost... Eternal Beatstick Kipper is pretty evil, while Cacophonic is the game's most heinously unfair spell. Multiple 10-15 strong Horrors in Core is rather scary if you game the Lore of Tzeentch properly.
Add in double Khannons, Fury chaff, Plaguedrones & the Soul Grinder to taste.
Or go Nurgle Wall w/regen BSB leading a large block of Plaguies, but beware P.Sun which will laugh at this build...

A properly built HE Light Coven gunline is simply not nice to face... Alarielle w/BotWD WL's + Phoenix Guard w/Razor Banner, Reavers & Archers for core, max Bolters, Sisters to remove regen. It's boring as feth to fight against and hard to actually kill anything meaningful beyond the chaff.

5) High Elves... because I play non-cheesed out Daemons and the local HE players are a bunch of dicks who love to slap down Alarielle Light Coven lists, which is even less fun to face than 'Durp Knights' were in 5th ed 40k!



Though let's give a special mention to Daemons for winning the categories for:
1) Most game-breaking army special rule = Reign of Comedy table
(I'm seriously fed-up with my saves getting nuked every damn game, and my LoC copping it to this stupid thing...)

2) Most game-breaking Special Character = Epidemius the Tallyman
(if you thought Beasts were stupid at T5, enjoy them when they're T6 & re-roll all failed ward saves! )

3) Most game-breaking Magic Item = The Portalglyph
(let's not even begin to list the abuses here, it's really that bad...)

4) Most game-breaking magic spell = Cacophonic Choir (shared w/WoC, but we get the insanely more abusive lore attribute!)
(lol! 12" area-effect of auto 2D6 hits/wound on 4+/no armour save AND any unit taking a single wound gets ASL & Random Movement D6 until the caster's next turn... oh, and every single wound caused generates a brand new Fiend on a roll of a 6!!!)

 Aben Zin wrote:
OK then. If not game wise, then how about fluff wise? Which faction could, conceivably, draw together the most powerful army?

Quite a few factions can draw together powerful armies, and have done so in the fluff. Vampire Counts, for example, have risen multiple times. The most recent of which was a single (albeit powerful) Count, with a family court of other counts, raising an army capable of laying low the Empire. And were only defeated via underhanded trickery (stealing Vlads cheat ring). Now one of Vlads descendants is doing it again. A lot of factions have done similar things - Warriors of Chaos have done the same several times, recently with Archaon (who lost from getting bonked on the head by Grimgor Ironhide because GW didn't want them to win) and again with Tamurkhan.

So there's lots of armies out there that can build lists with great synergy, that are each very powerful.

...but if you're talking about which army book is the most powerful, then it's Warriors of Chaos hands down. Everything in that list is so fething good that you don't even NEED synergy to make it work. You just take a bunch of balls-insane units and charge them at the enemy.

I mean...just look at how many AMAZING units are in that book that people don't even TAKE. When it's odd to see a person fielding blocks of fething Chaos Warriors, because chariots are just plain a better option, then you know something is wrong.

Other lists are powerful, but no book is as strong or as broken as WoC.

 Aben Zin wrote:
OK then. If not game wise, then how about fluff wise? Which faction could, conceivably, draw together the most powerful army?

Numerous answers for numerous reasons, but in all honesty something that is probably more worthwhile discussing.

Skaven and OnGs simply due to numbers. Unlikely to ever be able to overcome inherent animosity/backstabbing to form a meaningful alliance however.
Vampire counts due to the ability to replenish their numbers. Far too reliant on a single figure who's willpower keeps the army together. Kill them and the rest if the army begins to falter.
Chaos in general. Capable of destroying the world but the fickle old chaos gods love a good LOL so they manage to run out if luck and find ways to lose just as they seem in the brink of victory.

One word. Wood elves. (uh, sorry that was two..)

For me its a tie between High Elfs and Chaos Dwarfs really, but note that this is just for my personal experience with the group I normaly roll dice and play the game with, it either boils down to death by arrows and heaps and heaps of elfish arrows or being reduced to pulp by shot and ball by the Chaos Dwarfs

The army which just tabled you is a popular candidate.

hopefully the army i just started painting, heh.

Interesting. Last poll Skaven ran away with being the best army... So far now Skaven aren't as much if a threat.

I have no arguments for the top 3 so far:. However I personally feel High Elves posses better options to deal with all armies.
1) WoC
2) Dark Elves
3) High Elves

I see a lot of votes going to High Elves, but I really don't think it's the case. Yes, they are very good, but not the most powerful army. A few reasons for that: Optimum High Elf lists, the one's you'll see the hardcore tournament players taking most of the time, is indeed the Alarielle Lionstar. From a tournament point of view, this is rather predictable, and requires you to take a very expensive unit that can be chaffed all game. The "fearsome" High Elf shooting phase 626 talks about is also not going to happen in a list like this. For a HE magic phase to be fearsome, you need a Lvl4 Shadow Mage, something you won't be taking if you have Alarielle. Light Coven is not really that nasty, even double S5 or S6 banishment is not going to put a meaningful hole in some of the largest Skaven or Goblin units, and, furthermore, you lack any other means to support your list, since many of Light's other spells are next to useless on HE. Furthermore, you're HEAVILY dependent on actually rolling Banishment and, finally, you're investing a ton in characters and a single unit. Against armies like OnG and Skaven, this build gets chaffed all game, whilst the other units are picked up. These armies' access to hordes, cheap chaff and powerful war machines, is bad news for HE.

DoC, another popular choice, are in a similar boat. They have a few extremely powerful builds, but notice those words "a few". This leads them to be predictable.

Ogres also have a strong claim, thanks to their relative variety and great units of many types and items, but their weakness to Initiative-test-or-die spells and the omnipotent cannons, mean, although still a huge threat, they drop down the "all-powerful" rankings

My vote would go to either Dark Elves or Warriors, though Dwarves may potentially be able to contest that - too early to see atm. Both armies have straight-up powerful and cost-efficient units (not to mention some absolutely fantastic ones), a powerful presence in most or all phases of the game as well as a much wider variety of equally powerful builds. For the purpose of this one vote only poll, my vote goes to Warriors, since they're not quite so death-star orientated and so, with thanks to Warhounds too, win the chaff-war much more easily.

 The Shadow wrote:
I see a lot of votes going to High Elves, but I really don't think it's the case. Yes, they are very good, but not the most powerful army. A few reasons for that: Optimum High Elf lists, the one's you'll see the hardcore tournament players taking most of the time, is indeed the Alarielle Lionstar. From a tournament point of view, this is rather predictable, and requires you to take a very expensive unit that can be chaffed all game. The "fearsome" High Elf shooting phase 626 talks about is also not going to happen in a list like this. For a HE magic phase to be fearsome, you need a Lvl4 Shadow Mage, something you won't be taking if you have Alarielle. Light Coven is not really that nasty, even double S5 or S6 banishment is not going to put a meaningful hole in some of the largest Skaven or Goblin units, and, furthermore, you lack any other means to support your list, since many of Light's other spells are next to useless on HE. Furthermore, you're HEAVILY dependent on actually rolling Banishment and, finally, you're investing a ton in characters and a single unit. Against armies like OnG and Skaven, this build gets chaffed all game, whilst the other units are picked up. These armies' access to hordes, cheap chaff and powerful war machines, is bad news for HE.

A proper optimised Alarielle Lightstar list would be based around;

Everqueenie
Loremaster
BSB w/Banner of Averlord
2x Lv1's w/Scroll + Forbidden Rod
18-21 Caucasian Lions with 'I-win' Banner

You don't need any more Lions than that honestly, as most of what will really splatter them tends to be magical in nature. And if you can't get to a war machine as a HE player by turn 2, then you're doing it wrong in all honesty.
Add min core spread between Reavers, Archers and perhaps a small 6-lance of Slivers. Spend the rest of your pts to flavour between Bolters, PG w/Razorbanner (again, any more than 25 max is overkill), solo Eagles, Sisters, Forstie...

S7 Banishment is enough to murder most threats. S8 is again leaning too much towards overkill and the pts from that extra wizard are better spent on the min Core tax or a Bolter.
Everqueenie rolls 3 spells on Light + 1 High for the ward save boost. (can even give the Loremaster the Ring of Fury for added lols) The other wizards are simply there to try and use-up the useless spells like Net and Light of Battle. Otherwise default to the sig spell and single dice Shem's for annoyance value/chaff cleaning)

You have enough bows to clear chaff, strip a rank before combat, remove the last annoying wound or two from a monster/chariot, etc... Bolters are the main hitters, so save those regular bows for after the 12-24 bolt barrage.

Light magic makes the army near impossible to fight in combat thanks to easy bubble castings of Pha's & Speed or Light. Enjoy fighting those WS10/I10, -1 to-hit elves...



The reason High Elves don't roflstomp tournaments is because that unlike WoC/DoC who can just blindly push forwards with their optimised lists and table people, High Elves can't, or else they typically end up losing just enough to miss out on the 20-0 scoring. (as you typically do sacrifice your chaff and protecting Bolters typically isn't worth the aggravation)

What High Elves do better than everyone else though is play king maker in tournaments.

The most powerful army is the one you choose! Haha

This is a tough one, honestly. High Elves, Dark Elves and Warriors of Chaos would fit my top three, methinks. As to which one is first....I don't really have an answer. All three are incredibly strong in each phase of the game, with some being stronger in some than others. I guess I can split them up into categories?

Movement - Dark Elves
Yes, Warriors have the cheapest chaff of the three with Warhounds, but Dark Elves have the best chaff clearers which is just as important as quantity of chaff. Dark Riders and Warlocks are easily the two best Fast Cavalry units in the game and will beat down any chaff unit that gets in their way, whether it be a Great Eagle or a Sabretusk. Warlocks are harder hitting and have a Magic Missile for clearing out Ethereal chaff, where Dark Riders have proper shooting.

Magic - High Elves
No question that High Elves win this one IMO. Alarielle/Teclis are the two best wizard special characters in any 8th Edition book, with the former being the best special character bar none in 8th Edition books. Unparalleled magic versatility, ridiculous buffs to magic casting, arguably the best Arcane Item in the game (Book of Hoeth), etc. The Light Coven is definitely a thing.

Shooting - High Elves
Dark Elves have Special Bolt Throwers instead of Rare Bolt Throwers and Repeater Crossbows instead of (Long)Bows, but High Elves shoot in extra ranks and have more shooting-related buffs/want shooting related buffs without compromising on magic lore. I give the nod to High Elves because you are far more likely to see Light in a High Elf list than for Dark Elves, especially with the crazy +8 they get when fielding Alarielle + the Banner of Averlorn.

Combat - Warriors of Chaos
The basic Chaos Warrior is the best fighting Core infantry in the game, and he doesn't even make it in most tournament lists because of Chariot spam. Unkillable characters, flying Chimeras, the dreaded unbreakable Daemon Prince, etc.

I think that would be pretty fair, no?