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Hi there,

I'm a 40k Tau player and I've been looking for a bit of a change from my neat, rank and file, shooty army. I've been considering starting another 40k army however someone suggested trying a fantasy.

I know very little about fantasy. I was watching a game in my local GW today and it reminded me of the Total War series on the computer with blocks of infantry moving around with cavalry and siege equipment etc. Am I right to assume this? Cause I am a huge fan of Total War.

If it is anything like total war, when I play that I enjoy cavalry armies, using cavalry archers to whittle my opponent down from range before striking hard with heavy cavalry on the flanks.

If anyone could maybe suggest armies and give me a brief run down of the game I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks!

Well it is somewhat fantasy so you will have sword, spears, bows and arrows.
You do have cavalry and flanks are important.
Bretonnia are an old book but they will give you cavalry and archers.
Empire also give you plenty of cavalry options to where you can run a full cavalry and bowman army.
As for a run down you are best off searching the web to find out although I'm sure people will answer specific questions.

Once you go fantasy you can go back I'm telling you lol I have a few 40k armies and play occasionally but its such a different game. 40k is so much shooting and a lot faster (which is nice when short on time)

If you like cavalry then brettonia got them lol I'd go empire tho much more versatility and cavalry isn't the best.
Might I suggest joining the scurrying verminous hordes that are Skaven? :p

What about Dark Elves or Wood Elves? The Dark Riders and Wild Riders caught my attention. What are your thoughts on them???

Also if i was to start fantasy what would you get? In 40k 2 troops and a HQ is a recommended starting point, is there something similar in fantasy?

Fantasy works on percentages.

We have Lords, Heroes, Core, Special & Rare choices.

Lords Heroes & Core can compose up to 25% of your force.
Special an compose up to 50%
Core must compose 25% of your force AT MINIMUM.

Usually to start the battalion boxes aren't bad depending on who you play, but research who you want to play & look up some builds as armies like Dark Elves can run multiple builds with vastly different units.

One of the main difference I've found is you charge before movement which makes a huge difference to me.

The main differences I've found other than that is that shooting and armour saves are based on being modified instead of being absolutes and you can take wards (invuls) as well as armour.

You said you liked cavalry which sounds like a Brettonia thing to me and I'd recommend getting a Lord and Core to start as a minimum as these are similar to HQ and Troops.

Also for cavalry what do you want?

Do you want a heavy cavalry force of knights weith lances & armor, or do you want a light cavalry raiding force that can maneuver & avoid your opponent while harassing them with light fire & engage only when you want to?

As it happens I've been playing me some RTW, as the British faction. What this mainly entails for me is circling round the enemy with chariot archers and pouring into them before finishing them off with a devastating charge from all directions at once. And as I played it occurred to me that that is exactly how one can play a Wood Elf army.

Core glade riders can run rings around the foe before a combined Wild Rider charge finishes them off...

 Aben Zin wrote:
As it happens I've been playing me some RTW, as the British faction. What this mainly entails for me is circling round the enemy with chariot archers and pouring into them before finishing them off with a devastating charge from all directions at once. And as I played it occurred to me that that is exactly how one can play a Wood Elf army.

Core glade riders can run rings around the foe before a combined Wild Rider charge finishes them off...

That's exactly the kind of thing I had in mind. From their appearance, like you said, glade riders and wild riders could be good for this, what about dark riders and cold one knights because they also took my interest?

You can also check out Vampire Counts. They have Blood Knights, Black Knights and my buddies favorite Hexwraiths.
The Blood Knights are absolute beatsticks, frenzy, a cool can't shoot me banner and a 2+ armor save.
Black Knights are cheaper scaled back Blood Knights but you can take more of them.
Hexwraiths... Ohh how I loath you. Ethereal, they are intangible and move through everything l, terrain and units. When they move through units they damage them. They also can only be hit by magic weapons.
The downside is the large infantry blocks of skeletons and zombies. The Skeletons are decent for what they cost however the zombies are utter junk.

I can't recommend starting VC unless youre absolutely sure you want an undead army. You won't learn the game properly & you will have a harder time transitioning to any other army aside maybe TK or daemons.

They ignore psychology, rez models, have no shooting, rely on magic & need their general to march or even exist.

Dark riders & Cold ones can do it. The issue is cold ones are a bit slow with movement 7. That's not slow mind you just compared to M9 on the others. High elves do combined better than Dark elves as they have reavers, sivler helms and dragon princes.

Also cold ones suffer from stupid so that may backfire on you so while doable it's not the best choice. It's say for an all cav list High elves can do it best between their 3 cav choices and their chariots.

No one mentioned Chaos yet? Plenty of cav options;

*Warning: large pics inbound!*



And that's without all the daemonic and monster flavours. The only thing is that Warriors of Chaos have no archers (just a Chaos Dwarf cannon!), so it's not so much shooting as charging around the board and smashing stuff in the face.

Taffy, you have come to the right place. 40k has nothing on fantasy especially to a Total War fan. I used to play 40k until I saw fantasy. Now 40k is so boring.

Most armies have some sort of cavalry division but as said before, wood elves, dark elves, empire, bretonnia, chaos and the new undead legions can all have majority cavalry armies. I recommend reading their fluff and looking to see if you like the models to decide which army to start with.

This is an exciting time for you! Enjoy

They're very different systems.

40k is a "Rock, Paper Scissors" game (Tankbustas beat Imperial Knight, Knight beats Terminators, Terminators beat Tankbustas).
Fantasy is a much more Tactical game. It is won or lost in the Movement phase (even a mediocre unit can beat an Elite with a rear charge).

It's a nice change of pace from 40k, and a big Empire Cavalry charge is just sweet

Taffy17 wrote:
Hi there,

I'm a 40k Tau player and I've been looking for a bit of a change from my neat, rank and file, shooty army. I've been considering starting another 40k army however someone suggested trying a fantasy.

I know very little about fantasy. I was watching a game in my local GW today and it reminded me of the Total War series on the computer with blocks of infantry moving around with cavalry and siege equipment etc. Am I right to assume this? Cause I am a huge fan of Total War.

If it is anything like total war, when I play that I enjoy cavalry armies, using cavalry archers to whittle my opponent down from range before striking hard with heavy cavalry on the flanks.

If anyone could maybe suggest armies and give me a brief run down of the game I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks!

Total war series infact took the consept and ruling of warhammer fantasy thats why its so closely resembled.

Armys i would say are based on flavor as you put it you are a tau player the most similar play style would be the dwarfs they may not have a magic phase but they are rather balanced well with there runes but in all they are a gunline focus army and mind you a very cool looking one.

There are armys that are the same as 40k

Necrons > Tomb kings or Vampire counts as now both armys can be played as one due to nagash
Impiral gaurd > Empire your typical we protect the empire army
Space marine > Bretonnia there more of a elite army of knights that ride horseis
Eldar > High elves or Wood elves
Dark Eldar > Dark elves
Orcs > Orcs and Goblins
Tyranids > Skaven because they relie on huge hordes rather then elites
Daemons > Daemons
Chaos space marine > Warriors of Chaos
Tau > Dwarfs

Thats really all i can think that have similaritys there are some that dont show this and that is
Ogre Kingdoms
Lizardmen
Beastmen

my personal advice would be pick what looks good because fantasy has a more balanced fill compared to 40k

Thanks for all the responses. I actually like the overall aesthetic of beastmen however I hear they're an exception to your "more balanced" theory.

I don't really want to take up another army like Tau, sitting back and shooting all game can get boring no matter how effective it is.

The ones that most interest me at the moment are the Wood Elves, their eternal warriors and wildwood riders and rangers look awesome, and the Skaven just cause their really different and have lots of really cool looking lords and heroes.

I think this is kinda peeling away from the whole cavalry idea but I'd much rather have an army which looks awesome than trying to shoe horn in a particular style.

Another thought:

High elves have some good cavalry... reavers as light horse archers, dragon princes as something heavier hitting. It's also relatively cheap to buy some of your core units, if you look at the isle of blood set.

sullaz wrote:
Another thought:

High elves have some good cavalry... reavers as light horse archers, dragon princes as something heavier hitting. It's also relatively cheap to buy some of your core units, if you look at the isle of blood set.

I'm not really a fan of High Elves, too many big pointy, fancy hats.

I've posted a suggested starting list for some Wood Elves in the army list section and any advise on that would be appreciated

Vampire counts are an overall strong army and have one of the better cavalry units with black knights and blood knights, and you can raise back the black knights from the grave, pardon the pun, super easy.

Taffy17 wrote:
Thanks for all the responses. I actually like the overall aesthetic of beastmen however I hear they're an exception to your "more balanced" theory.

I don't really want to take up another army like Tau, sitting back and shooting all game can get boring no matter how effective it is.

The ones that most interest me at the moment are the Wood Elves, their eternal warriors and wildwood riders and rangers look awesome, and the Skaven just cause their really different and have lots of really cool looking lords and heroes.

I think this is kinda peeling away from the whole cavalry idea but I'd much rather have an army which looks awesome than trying to shoe horn in a particular style.

Wood elves are again on the harder side to learn. They aren't terrible though and have some nice models etc.

Skaven is really fun to play (I am bias because that's the only army I have at a little over 4000 points) but they have lots of fun toys to use. They still have an old book and there are a few things in the book that are sub optimal (night runners, rat ogres, plagueclaw catapult) I mean most of the units are good and usable and it is all a fun army to play. I do wish there was some form of cavalry but it doesn't fit into the army.
Be warned that it is extremely hordey...meaning you need a ton of models. Usually 1 model for every 10 points is what people say (although I don't follow that always) to get a good cheap(ish) start on skaven pick up 2 skaven halves of island of blood. That gives you a decent start for clanrats/slaves and some lords, heroes and some rat ogres to play around with. Then pick up a warplightning cannon, hellpit and then some plague monks or stormvermin...then your set

I have been tempted to start another army that has some cavalry and even bought the Vampire Counts book but Skaven are just my passion for mini war gaming at the moment haha

Thanks!

I've decided I'm gonna go with Wood Elves. If anyone's interested I've got a list on the army lists page.

Here's a Link...
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/616751.page