Specialist Arms Forum
Warmaster => [WM] Warmaster Fantasy Discussion => Topic started by: Niv on March 10, 2011, 10:49:36 AM
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Im new to Warmaster and have been looking at the different races to start collecting and gaming, I have played warhammer before and many other games systems as well as board games. One think thats pretty apparent is that all armies have there ups and downs so to say.
Are the armies quite balanced in warmaster or is there one that is an avoid fighting at all cost because you will just die and equally I wouldn't spend money on those because there well just weak.
Im quite attracted to Araby, love the theme and the miniatures plus some nice possibilities of use of colour.
Any advice appreciated :)
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With Warmaster it is more the player and game-setup (terrain etc) which will be a determinant. Some armies do better against some others, but in general you should be able to use whatever takes your fancy.
With a LOT of armies it will be availability of (usable) mini's more then anything else that will define what is playable.
Where are you located ??
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Im located in the UK, England, East Anglia.
I should imagine I am probably quite fortunate as there will be a number of companies I can access from here.
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and several potential opponents.....
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Im the Club leader of a Wargames Club called Aftermath, website attached to my profile, please feel free to have a browse :)
We are in the process of being GCN Registered but I must add we are an 18+ club.
We run a number of successful tournaments throughout the year, who knows maybe a Warmaster one in the future, Im not the only member of the club who plays warmaster or who is now showing interest, im sure you might see a few more of them join the forum looking for noob advice like me :D.
So as far as an Army goes, how would you rate Araby and lizardmen, both of whom I am quite interested in. When I used to play Warhammer I had a Bretonnian army, not sure how they play on Warmaster but I found them abit one trick pony in warhammer, no offence Bretonnian fans, it was probably my game style :)
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Lizardmen are good. A bit tricky however- their knights are so expensive, you have to be careful.
Generally HE and undead are considered to be very good armies.
Any army can be feasible; generalship and dice matter more then army composition... although a bad list can put you at a disadvantage (all infantry empire)
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Dwarves and Skaven are considered by many to be tricky armies to command well as they are hampered by a lack of cavalry so you may wish to avoid these when starting out. Araby are similar to Empire, a good all rounder....
Orcs and Goblins are also tricky because of their low command value.
I agree that High Elves are considered the 'Space Marines' of the game - powerful and good all rounders.
If it were me, I'd stick with Araby though - the figures are gorgeous!
Dave
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All has been said really.
Araby have some of the best models in the game, with a couple of quirky units.
Lizardmen are a solid army once you get your head around their command structure, I have had mixed success with them 50/50.
High Elves are a great starter army due to being good at everything :)
A good way to decide is to use counters that are available here:
http://sites.google.com/site/wmplaytest/work-in-progress-1/publications
But as is usually stated it depends upon your play style, if you prefer horde then undead (both types), empire, skaven and one build of chaos works well where as elite armies then dwarves, high elves, dark elves and another build of chaos will do.
Then there are the trial armies ;)
I have a couple of unpainted large armies (high elf and empire) that I need to unload to pay the bills so PM me if you are interested or want a break down of units.
Cheers
Mick
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Yes i have to admit Araby do look very nice, how do they play? strengths , weaknesses?
Sent you a pm azrael
Also thank you for the Warmuster link, very helpful , thank you :)
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As you asked....here we go.....
ARABY
You can field a lot of Cavalry like Knights, Desert Riders and Camel Riders.
You have standard foot troops like Speerman and Bowmen
You have flying Carpets which can add massive firepower at certaion points of the battlefield but which are also a weak unit when being attacked.
You have Elephants which can dish out alot of attacks but which can also "stampede" and kill your own units if you are not taking care of that... I rarely use them in games till 2000 pts as the cost benefit ration is better with oter units till this point value.
Finally .....Araby has a uniqe Magic system.....which makes it sometimes really difficult to decide which spell to use as all of them can give you an advantage.
The trick is the right combination of all of them and to use their unit specific abilities to your advantage.
But for me the most convincing argument is that the models for Araby army are the most beautiful ones for the Warmaster range.
LIZZARDMEN
Simply said an Elite Army. Heavy hitting units that ignore command penalties for dense terrain. In the hands of a skilled player very hard to beat. They have a uique command system as "cold bloode" units onl can get a command within 20cm range but to compensate this the "divind guidance" rule gives them also some real advantage when commanding.
I own them both and played them a lot....despites of other armies. ;)
Frankly said ...in Warmaster each army can beat each army.....if you are skilled enough to use the army specifities to your advantage + having the right portion of luck (as usual when playing a game wher dice are needed)
Regards
Claus
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Are the armies quite balanced in warmaster
I'm similar to you, i also came from a warhammer background (started with 2nd ed) I find the warmaster armies much more balanced than warhammer. I had quite a few games with warhammer where i knew who'd win after deployment, never had a game like that in warmaster.
You won't get power creep either, they'll remain the same.
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Thank you for all the comments , really helped.
Its nice to know its not like Warhammer in the sense that someone can blow a magic horn and half ya army disappear or your confronted with a cheesy player with a list created from the pits of hell that just puts you off having any kind of fun.
Strategy is what im after!
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I have played against some very cheesy armies in tournaments :(
So it can still be a pain.
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Tournament style play brings out the worst in some people, but an event organiser can easily "fix" this by making sure that
- there is plenty terrain on the tables and they have challenging layouts
- mixing pitched battles with scenario driven ones
- or have some objective driven ones
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I'll certainly remember that if we ever put a tournament on.
is 2000 points usual tournament army? are there many held in UK ?
I have decided im going to collect an Araby force of 2000 points, does anyone know of any lists I could look at to get some of idea as to how others game it, what troops choices are good and those not to bother with.
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It seems Claus is the expert in this topic ;) maybe he could help
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You can also build it up to incorporate one or both of the alt trial lists ;)
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some have suggested using label bases to try out the army before buying the actual models
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Never played araby; but they look interesting.
Basic empire style troops with some elites, more horsearcher types, and monsters.
I would think classic empire combined arms would work well- concentrate on a mix of cheap infantry for break point and fixing the enemy frontally, while your knights work the flanks.
The 4+ spells look quite good- particularly mirage.
The danger is the same as any list with elite units- the temptation is to take an unfocused approach and load up on cool toys - elephants, the missle armed cav, guard infantry. By all means paint up a few... and try them out. But be aware that each elephant unit is almost two knights, and each guard unit is almost two infantry units. The question is can you use the elephants and guards such they are worth the smaller breakpoint, and worth two of the cheaper units. Sheer mass does matter (wounds and saves).
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I think ill print out the tokens and play games using these until i discover my style of play without splashing out on stuff first!
Thanks all for the advice.
I'll let you know how i get on :)
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Hi
A 2.000 pts ARABY army list could look like this.
1 General
2 Heroes
1 Wizzard + Djinn
1 Wizzard
6 Units Spearmen
5 Units Archers
6 Units Knights
2 Units Desert Riders
2 Units Flying Carpets
Breakpoint 11 army
Tactics.
Make it difficult for your opponent to give succesfully commands meaning to casts the 4+ Mirage spell and the 4+ Sandstorm spell.
Shoot at hem from long range.
With your Cavalry (Knights) you can charge any opponent in the front ...you only need to win by 1 ....because you put 1 unit flying carpets in his back ;)
Or you charge with Knights in the front and use the Desert riders to charge the edge of same unit.
At important charges you also have the option to cast "Curse of the Djinn" once with 6+ and once with 5+ as you have a Djinn which causes in additional terror.
Alternatively you can goe the more Magic way....use 1 unit Spearmen less allowing to used the "Ring of Magic" and to use "Wand of Power" allowing to cast your spells at higher succes rate.
Alternatively you can also go the way of skipping 2 units of Knights and 1 unit of desert Rider and take instead 3 units of "Camle Riders"
The Camel Rider don´t get any penalty for bein aout of 20cm command range but you allways can command with -1 meaning that a command value of 9 will need an 8 to be succesfull. This can be and advantage as well as a disadvantage. It can midlead you to situations where 3 units with point value 300 are opperating far away from your central army keeping them highly vulnerable for charges and countercharges.
Elephants and Sultans Guard I don´t recommend to use as you have cheaper units that keep your brekpoint high and giving you more tactical flexibility but nevertheless I own them also and use them in games with 2500 points and more.
Magic Carpets are the most flexible unit for this army and I never leave house without 2 of them as the cna do 6 shooting attacks at 15cm rang (you easily kill war engines with them) you can use them to charge Cavalry or chariot units in the edge (you have pretty good chance to kill this units ...but don´t do this with Chaos knights) and you can use them to put it in the back of your oponent unit being charged by you.
....these are only a few possibilities and variants how to play them and you can be assured that there are a lot of other variants how you could set up and ARABY army.
If you can come to Karlsruhe this comming wekend you could see how the ply as I will field a 2.000 pts ARABY army on the battlefiel od honor.
Cheers
Claus
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That of course is the lame approach for an araby list. :P :D
If there are no elefants (or even camels) in the army then its not an araby army, might as well be disguised Bretonians or Imperials.
Support the large creatures in WM, they need your love too! :D
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Thank you cluas for the very helpful insight.
I wish I could come to the event but am unable to at this time, maybe if there was something in uk at some point I might be able to nip along.
Like most armies it's knowing the units, there strength and weakness and what they are god against and not.
I'm sure I'll discover in time but your advice has given me a head start so thank you.
Surprised the Bret army does not have Pegasus knights, I found them the best unit when I used them in war hammer.
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They do in the trial/fan list ;)
And they have been pretty well playtested too :D
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@Guthwine
That´s why you play Dwarfs ...."support the large creatures" like Dwarfs are :P :P
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They do in the trial/fan list ;)
And they have been pretty well playtested too :D
And they are tournament approved too.
You might want to have a look at the bottom of the page: http://sites.google.com/site/wmplaytest/work-in-progress-1/publications
@Arabian Elephants: As I come to think about them - they are more fitting to India than to Araby, aren't they? So Claus might be right about leaving them home ;)
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@Claus: Use the elephants, I want the extra attack for my slayers. :D
@Spiritus: There is no India in WHF. :P
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Do they have a range of Pegasus knights, gw don't do any do they ?
I think because a lot of people look at Hannibal and alexander they see Greek type warriors fighting Persians with there hordes of elephants. So of course this means the whole of Africa had elephants at a whim.
Not very fitting with Arabia nope. Chariots on the other hand were and I don't see those on the araby list? He'll now I'm looking at things to historically and this is now putting me of them, gesh!
Maybe a dogs of war army focused around the Persians.
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Only the hero.
But you can make them very easily yourself, if you have a bit of modelling experience.
I have done a few in the past :)
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I think because a lot of people look at Hannibal and alexander they see Greek type warriors fighting Persians with there hordes of elephants. So of course this means the whole of Africa had elephants at a whim.
Not very fitting with Arabia nope.
I really think the WM Araby list is more based on watching Disney's Aladdin and various old Sinbad films rather than any historical basis. At least that's what it looks like to me.
Cheers, Martyn
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you can use the araby list to represent Inde if you want
instead of flying carpet and camels substitute something else,
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Skip the Elephants and Flying Carpets and then you get a ARABY army with historical background......that´s quite easy to do.
Cheers
Claus
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I think because a lot of people look at Hannibal and alexander they see Greek type warriors fighting Persians with there hordes of elephants. So of course this means the whole of Africa had elephants at a whim.
Not very fitting with Arabia nope.
I really think the WM Araby list is more based on watching Disney's Aladdin and various old Sinbad films rather than any historical basis. At least that's what it looks like to me.
That's my take. If you want arabic historicals, there's no lack of companies willing to sell you in-scale, well-sculpted minis. What makes Araby so cool is that they do the same things that Bretonnia does for England: create a mythic, larger-than-life version of a culture. The high fantasy of Araby is pretty cool.