How Would You Rank the WM Fantasy Armies in Terms of Power?

[Stormwind]

If you had to make a list of which armies are most or least powerful - or most forgiving for a beginner, for example - how would you list them?

I'm slowly assembling what I hope to be a larger High Elf army - but I played my very first game of WM the other day as Chaos vs. Kislev.

Even forgetting my terror advantages from Spawn and Dragon, several magic items and other advantages - I wiped out half his army, seemed pretty powerful.  My Chaos Knights with Banner of Shielding were sickening - shook off dozens of steppe archer hits.  So it got me wondering - if I make a Dwarf army - is it going to be annihilated in a larger battle due to no cavalry at all?  Are my High Elves going to be rubbish compared with a Skaven horde?

Just a bit of hand wranging now that I've actually played a game. =-P

(I don't own a Chaos army it was a friend at the gaming club who has several WM armies that I have spurred him on to turn from lead mountain into proper painted minis.  he's recovering from heart surgery so it's what's been keeping his hands busy!)

[jchaos79]

Great! If you take some shots you could show us your armies (even if they are metal bare) in the battle games subforum!

All list are pretty even, and all list are possible to be beaten (except it seems Claus Daemon army). Depends of the flawns and strong points of the army.

It is hard to make a list of more succesful army. I was interested in that matter so I made a little work of stadistic. Check this out

http://sg.tacticalwargames.net/forum/index.php?topic=315.0

I did not update the list but telling you by heart my last stadistic (in mid 2011) the more dangerous armies with a 65-70% of success are:

Dwarves, lizardman, high elves and dark elves.

[David Wasilewski]

I agree that it is the player that determines victory (dice rolls permitting!) most of the time.

However, I do think High Elves, Bretts, Demons and Lizardmen are really tough armies to beat.
Dwarves are actually one of the weaker armies in my experience, unless you play with a lot of terrain.

I think the scenario and the terrain is important when trying to work out 'rankings' in this way.
If it is just a "head to head smash" on "planet tablecloth" then cavalry heavy armies will win most often.

Dave

[Stormwind]

OK so - more woods and hills is best to force cavalry to use commands to split up and change formation then?

Noted.

[frogbear]

Also to hide from cav and chariots

[Guthwine]

In my experience dwarves are mediocre and can be built to draw quite alot thanks to the slayers and single base machines. The quality of the dwarves often really depends on how lucky you are with your command 10 rolls. Sometimes you can dance around your enemy and sometimes you just have to stand and take a beating.

Otherwise its hard to play against maxed out cavalry lists even with decent terrain, the key to winning is being on the charge and with enough terrain, weak enemy units will also be defended and against the horses its just one round of combat no matter what you do. Thats why I like to use at least 4 units of handgunners, they are relatively cheap and  the -1 to the save usually helps thinnig out the ranks of cavalry.

Generally speaking Id say the top 5 armies are Lizardmen, Demons, Araby, High Elves and Dark Elves.

[Lex]

OK so - more woods and hills is best to force cavalry to use commands to split up and change formation then?

Noted.

Actualy,  more linear obstacles is the way to go.....

And a tarrain footprint of AT LEAST 30% of table, but 50% is better

[calmacil]

Generally speaking Id say the top 5 armies are Lizardmen, Demons, Araby, High Elves and Dark Elves.

I've never played against two of those (LM and Ara) But i'd agree with that list.

The rankings of armies aren't as apparent as they are in WHFB. You can win with any WM army

[Stormwind]

OK, interesting.  Is the Dwarf "Younger Holds" list an attempt to make the Dwarf list a bit more interesting?

I noticed it in the army builder app.

[Haranin]

Dwarves are one of the best armies out there. They just play completely differently then point and click knight armies... that and people get distracted by elvish things like shooting.

Ask the Dover NH group how "weak" my dwarves are. I'll axe you nicely to take that elvish propaganda back! 

I'd assert HE and TK are two of the best.

Player skill matters most, with number distribution second on leadership checks. A really good general doesn't plan to pull off statistically unlikely charges... but is ready to take advantage of the same.

Leadership 10 covers alot more faults then leadership 9. Larger the game, the more the hero's leadership matters... general can't be everywhere at once.

[spiritusXmachina]

Well, that's a complicated one. And it's 3 questions to be precise.
First of all I am a bit reluctant to name the best WM armies as someone could be tempted to just buy those to have a winning army. But I'll still try to answer.

Armies for newbies:
Chaos (as it is cheap to buy and it allows some mistakes)
High Elves (same reasons)

Tougher Armies to play against:
Skaven (as there still are some troubles according some rules (Screaming Bell, Gutter Runners) and not balanced pointswise
Daemons (as the Daemon army I mostly met is Claus's one  and the army has no weak points imo - in skilled hands)
Lizardmen (special commanding rules and good troops for a good point prize - mostly)
High Elves (high quality troops and cavalry with Command 10 as super bonus)

Difficult armies to play:
Undead (no initiative and restricted number of characters - but a very good army in skilled hands)
Dwarfs (no cavalry - but Command 10 bonus - and can still be a tournament winner if played by a good player with a fitting tactic)
Kislev (Restricted possibilities troopswise - Warwagon very much pins the tactics down - but I had a player at a EuroGT in my team who won every single game with them - in a defending scenario)

So as said before at Warmaster it's not the instrument - it's the player (and the dice a bit)!

Greetings,
Gerald

[Guthwine]

Command 10 is not a bonus for dwarves, because you can never charge with an order without -1 for enemy. Its more of a compensation for the short legs.

I think that the dice play the main role (instead of a bit), skill and tactics and can help you but at the end since you cant do anything when a command roll is failed (unlike in Epic for example) its more like 60% dice rolls and 40% Skill/Tactic/Listmaking.

[Stormwind]

Thanks for your answers!

Forgive me - I'm not trying to find "The best army at winning", rather, I've bought several 1000 points worth of High elves, and I found myself looking at the models and feeling my anxiety rise in the sense of "oh lord did I buy those too compulsively?" and then I thought "That was stupid maybe I should have tried getting 1000 points of 5 different armies for variety instead."

So just trying to get a feel for things. = )

[spiritusXmachina]

I think that the dice play the main role (instead of a bit), skill and tactics and can help you but at the end since you cant do anything when a command roll is failed (unlike in Epic for example) its more like 60% dice rolls and 40% Skill/Tactic/Listmaking.

I disagree. Most of the times dice are not soo decisive, i.e. in the first two turns while most of the times armies still "dance around" to find their place, or when considering attacks where bad luck in one round is often compensated by another good luck turn (or a counter-attack in the next round).
Of course there always is this one point in the battle when the enemy is within reach and you just don't get the 8 you'd need and the two 7s before did not work either. Sure - but good players often even find a way around that too.

Or how else would you explain that some players are always a good bet when it comes to winning a game and others are not?
Imo it's the right army in the right hands mainly!

[Dave]

High Elves are an army for newbies and those looking for an easy button? Why didn't anyone tell me!?! I'm melting my army down for lead weights...

Given their exceptional command and easy access to lots of good cav I'd say that yes, the elves are pretty nasty and good for beginners to boot. Plus they're a small army and are very pretty, which makes doing an army easier. Despite what the locals may say the latter two reasons are why I choose to do the elves, not the former two. Honest, guys...

... what?

Anyway, we combat the nastiness a couple of ways in our local group:

The first being that we don't take a lot of cav. This depends on your local group a lot but if something is shown to be tough to beat after multiple games then why keep on taking it? I can understand the desire to win but frankly I'd rather ensure that I have people to throw dice with rather than repeatedly take an ultra competitive army. Just don't see the fun in it.

The second is lots of terrain. Breaking up charge lanes and giving infantry lots of places to hide really scales down the heavy cav army's power. Of course this also has the affect of boosting the relative power of heavy infantry armies (chaos/dwarves) but what are you doing to do?