What are the top tier fantasy armies?

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**The Shadow**

thedarkavenger wrote:

As I've been trying to explain this ENTIRE time, power =/= variety. Sure they go hand in hand, but neither depends on each other. Like when Ogres first came out, they shot to the top because of mournfang. You can have a top tier book carried by the weight of one unit and one unit alone.

Well then I've been misunderstanding as well.

All sorted here?

In all seriousness, and on a different topic, what tier are people placing the new Dwarves in? I've yet to see them in action, so I can't really comment, but the book looks really strong on paper.

**Acardia**

I've played against the new dwarfs a few times. I'd list them in the high middle range.

**thedarkavenger**

The Shadow wrote:
thedarkavenger wrote:

As I've been trying to explain this ENTIRE time, power =/= variety. Sure they go hand in hand, but neither depends on each other. Like when Ogres first came out, they shot to the top because of mournfang. You can have a top tier book carried by the weight of one unit and one unit alone.

Well then I've been misunderstanding as well.

All sorted here?

In all seriousness, and on a different topic, what tier are people placing the new Dwarves in? I've yet to see them in action, so I can't really comment, but the book looks really strong on paper.

Agreed. Let bygones be bygones.

New Dwarves are pretty much the same as the old ones with a few shiny sprinkles on top. In the current meta, they'd rank quite high, as they have the ability to demolish the main offenders.

**ElfHound**

Aipoch wrote:
The reason tier systems work well in 40k and poorly in fantasy is because of each games innate mechanics.

40k is a game of easy decisions and hard counters. Fantasy is a game of difficult decisions and balanced counters.

Current 40k is far and away shooting. The top tier lists bring the biggest and baddest guns they can, on the toughest platforms, that deny the most saves. And they can do this, and they form a hard counter to a large portion of all other units. Examples include common combinations of AP3, ignores cover, with either large blasts, lots of accurate shooting, and great range. It takes little to no effort to pick a target, roll your dice, and watch models leave the table.

Fantasy has some similar opportunities, but they tend to come in issolated match-ups or as last-resort efforts, and they are not without their drawbacks or risks. The most common example is using unit-ending spells with many power dice when no dispel scrolls are present.

To that end, the reason a tier system isn't the same in fantasy is a game mechanic issue. You cannot just bring a netlist to the field and win. Deployment must be correct. Movement must be correct. Deciding when to and not to charge, who to charge, and with what, must be correct.

Fantasy is largely a game of combo's, whereby a seasoned veteran can easily see a game unfold from the deployment phase, but a rookie will be wondering who is going to engage who when.

The only tier system present isn't the kind that states "this army has a better chance against the lower tier armies", but instead helps indicate the level of balance and overall usefulness of ALL units, items, abilities, and other factors that a particular army can bring to bear on the battlefield. This factors in such things as unit costs, special abilities, unique army builds or mechanics, and other such things. The skill a general must posses to reliably defeat opponents on a regular basis is also present.

-Top Tier-

These armies have little to no issues with their entire range of units. They can be fielded in a number of different ways effectively, and rarely face something they are not prepared to handle or are incapable of dealing with.

Dark Elves
High Elves
Warriors of Chaos
The Empire
Vampire Counts
Ogre Kingdoms

-Mid-Tier-

These armies have a slight to moderate issue with some aspect of the game, and can find themselves in a tight spot because of it. They can be fielded in several ways, but typically a couple general builds stand out far above the others, and certain units are auto-include simply by how the army functions or how undercosted\over-effective they are. There are times where they will face something they cannot handle or are ill prepared to deal with, but this rarely happens.

Dwarfs
Daemons of Chaos
Lizardmen
Skaven
Orcs and Goblins

-Bottom Tier-

These armies typically require a seasoned general to function correctly. Many units in their respective army books are rarely fielded from being far too overcosted\under effective, or just ineffective all together. Very few viable builds exist, and the ones that do take a high amount of skill to be effective. Army builds will depend on special rules and abilities unique to the army. There are many occasions where the army will face something they cannot handle or are ill-prepared to deal with. These armies are not recommended for new players.

Beastmen
Bretonnia
Tomb Kings
Wood Elves

To wrap it all up, the tier system in fantasy can be better understood as a difficulty setting. There are normal, hard, and extreme difficulties when commanding your army to victory, representing the top tier, mid tier, and bottom tier armies, respectively.

I would put lizardmen at the top tier, skaven top tier and vampire counts mode tier, anyway that's just my opinion

**alex87**

ElfHound wrote:
Hi Dakka,
I have never played Warhammer Fantasy or 40K before and after looking at forums and the GW site I have decided I would like to play either High Elves or Dark Elves. Which are better on the tabletop? Any replies will be greatly appreciated

ElfHound wrote:
I would put lizardmen at the top tier, skaven top tier and vampire counts mode tier, anyway that's just my opinion

.... lol?

**Aipoch**

alex87 wrote:
ElfHound wrote:
Hi Dakka,
I have never played Warhammer Fantasy or 40K before and after looking at forums and the GW site I have decided I would like to play either High Elves or Dark Elves. Which are better on the tabletop? Any replies will be greatly appreciated

ElfHound wrote:
I would put lizardmen at the top tier, skaven top tier and vampire counts mode tier, anyway that's just my opinion

.... lol?

And there-in lies the issue. Everyone has different opinions, and those opinions are based on different things. Some of us think that the more wins an army has, the higher tier it is. Others of us are more concerned with the factors that cause an army to win more. The reason for this is because generalship is a big factor. As an example, I placed Bretonnia in the bottom tier in my original setup; I am not changing that fact. I, personally, play a rather sizeable Bretonnia army, and after 50+ games with them, recall only two losing matches; one was against old Dwarfs, and one was against new High Elves. Ogres, Daemons, Skaven, etc....all were beaten, some horribly crushed. So why did I not list Bretonnia as a top tier army, when they clearly perform as one?

It is an isolated incident, and number of wins in and of itself does not automatically place an army in the top tier, in my opinion. The armies who tend to win the most do so for a reason, and the number one reason, in my opinion, is generalship. If you remove generalship as a factor, all you are left with is what the army book can and cannot do well, what are its faults and shortcomings, what are its strengths and deadly combo's, etc. I could have just as easily said my Vampire Counts are bottom tier, because I rarely win with them, but again that is an isolated setting.

So in determining what tier an army is, I can definitely agree it's important to look at which armies you see win the most. From there, it is important to see why they win, and base your facts on that.

Back to the analogy of betting on horses...your prized stallion that always wins will have odds that are so marginal a payout it wouldn't even be worth the effort to sign the paperwork. However, if a new horse were to enter the race, and you (being the skilled horse aficionado that you are) noticed the same traits, same strengths, same breeding, same everything in this new horse, and THEIR payout was 1,000:1...I would consider anyone a fool not to place their money on that horse. Consider that when determining a tier for fantasy armies, and it becomes clear that those armies which win the most do set the standards for what makes a strong, top tier army. In so doing, the armies which win the most typically end up in the top tier position, but not just because they win.

**DukeRustfield**

We generally don't need to evaluate new horses from a blank slate because we already have data coming in from this wide internet almost immediately. And there is no situation where their payout is 1000:1. You're always looking at past performance.

Not only that, but you're going to have to step out of your pure logic and weigh everything. If you notice in a horse 95% of the same characteristics of a championship horse...except it's missing a leg, you could still mathematically deduce that is a championship horse and you should bet your life savings on it winning. You're making a judgement call that the 5% it's missing is less significant than what is the same.

So you're back to making arbitrary lists of what you think is top, middle, sorta middle, bottom, not-bottom. And you're doing it based on your gut. And that's fun to do, but out of the 23984 times I've seen this question asked and answered, I don't think any two lists have agreed. Which tells you they aren't that valuable other than for entertainment purposes.

**Sigvatr**

Just dropping this in, it's the biggest army ranking database I am currently aware of. Based on tournament wins, these are the army rankings for the last few months in all registered European tournaments:

1. Vampire Counts
2. Demons of Chaos
3. Dark Elves
3. Empire
4. Warriors of Chaos
4. High Elves
5. Lizardmen
5. Chaos Dwarfs
6. Wood Elves
7. Ogre Kingdoms
7. Skaven
7. Goblins and Orcs
8. Beastmen
8. Dwarfs
9. Bretonnia
9. Khemri

In 40k, you could now clearly say which army is better than the other. You can't in WHFB. 40k is all about codex strength whereas winning and losing in WHFB is far more influenced by individual skill.

**DukeRustfield**

I would love to see the # participated vs. wins.

Because guys like Bretonnia will never get high because they simply don't have anywhere near the participations. I.e., if an army competes 1/10th as much as another, it has to win 10 times as much just to be on equal footing, if you're only counting wins.

You have to look at win %.

**riburn3**

Acardia wrote:
I've played against the new dwarfs a few times. I'd list them in the high middle range.

Agreed. Amazing war machines with the best accuracy in game and heavily armored units that can survive a beatdown and give it back in return. Probably the best core troops in the game after WoC or Ogres, and at I2, everyone in the army should be running around with a GW. Only tough part is going up against dwellers/purple sun wizards hellbent on miscast blowing up your army, but that's an issue for half the armies.

**Sigvatr**

My pleasure

Armee-wide rankings in the last 6 months + # of participations, where #1 has the index 100.00:

Army - Index - # of participations

1. Empire - 100.00 - 330
2. Vampire Counts - 94.28 - 314
3. Demons of Chaos - 93.88 - 283
4. Dark Elves - 92.31 - 507
5. Warriors of Chaos - 90.93 - 501
6. Chaos Dwarfs - 90.09 - 95
7. High Elves - 87.78 - 451
8. Skaven - 86.09 - 208
9. Ogre Kingdoms - 81.87 - 232
10. Wood Elves - 81.81 - 161
11. Lizardmen - 80.62 - 253
12. Bretonnia - 79.72 - 135
13. Goblins & Orcs - 78.39 - 309

**DukeRustfield**

Not sure I understand that. What you want is wins DIVIDED BY number of times played by that army. "Index" doesn't make any sense.

Going by what is listed above, WoC and DE suck butt, Chaos Dwarfs are by far the most successful.

It's a simple formula:
If Bretonnia played 5 times and won 3, they have a 3/5 or 60% ratio. If WoC played 15 times and won 8, they have a 8/15 or 53% ratio. That way you can account for less times played by less popular races (like chaos dwarfs/brets/we).

**Sigvatr**

You cannot apply this thinking to WHFB as there are too many influencing factors compared to other everyday topics, especially given the game's history.

If an army is very popular but mainly played by bad players and thus settles at the lower end of the scale, does that mean the army is bad? If interpreting the data in a naive way, it would, thus you would get incoherent results.

Another problem is low power level but high player level - Wood Elves e.g. are very low in power terms thus most players suck with them. There are extremely good veterans, however, and those still take WE to victory.

That is the exact same reason for why a mere W/L cannot be applied to WHFB at all. A W/L on an army level can only be measured if you can precisely measure the power level. You can't. WHFB is much more reliant on individual skill than other and similar systems. I can certainly say that a mediocre player won't have the slightest chance vs. a seasoned vet despite using a tournament winning list.

What you *can* do is measuring teams by W/L. That is completely possible and feasible. And may I mention that Germany is leading right now

A W/L system also works, to a limited extent, in 40k as 40k is extremely codex-focused and an army with an inherent high power level (Tau) will easily triumph over a considerably weaker army (SoB / BA). Running a Seerstar takes little skill and the lack of formations etc. contributes to 40k making it possible to give a verdict on an army's power level.

WHFB doesn't have tiers that are as easily defined as other games, e.g. 40k. There are tiers and there certainly are different power levels among all armies, but your individual influence on a game's result make it impossible to accurately measure an army's power level based on results alone.

**alex87**

Sigvatr wrote:
A W/L on an army level can only be measured if you can precisely measure the power level. You can't.

This is absolutely true. Win/Loss ratio or simply looking at the number of wins a particular book has in relation to others is an extremely short sighted method. You'd have to standardize the relative power levels across the board and use W/L ratio in relation to this for this to be a meaningful statistic. But I'd be skeptical as to whether there is an accurate way to do this given the extraordinary number of factors that have an effect on a books strength.

**Purifier**

alex87 wrote:
Sigvatr wrote:
A W/L on an army level can only be measured if you can precisely measure the power level. You can't.

This is absolutely true. Win/Loss ratio or simply looking at the number of wins a particular book has in relation to others is an extremely short sighted method. You'd have to standardize the relative power levels across the board and use W/L ratio in relation to this for this to be a meaningful statistic. But I'd be skeptical as to whether there is an accurate way to do this given the extraordinary number of factors that have an effect on a books strength.

But it's still a statistic and the only one we are likely to get. And with a pool large enough, we can assume that the mean player of any given army is roughly the same skill.
Of course there could be an army only picked by men with an IQ under 65 or one that Stephen Hawking and his friends are the only mediators of, but it's highly unlikely.

A win/loss percentage is the closest to a tier system we are going to get, so it's clearly better than people's opinions where they drag a tier list out at random.

**Sigvatr**

True.

...if you want to use such an understanding. I like the idea of a "difficulty approach" suggested in this thread.

One very important thing to note: keep in mind that these statistics stem from competitive WHFB, which differs quite significantally from casual WHFB due to special rules and restrictions put on magic, armies and alike.