Starting A New Army For 8th Informational Guide

(Note : Mods, if there are any problems with this post, please remove it as you see fit, I do not wish to step on any toes in any way)

(If interested in participating in this project, just post a reply or send me a private message and I'll add you to the rapidly growing list, thanks in advance for helping your fellow gamers!)

Starting a new army for 8th - A multi-forum informational guide for Warhammer players past, present, and future

Hello all, I come to you today asking for your insights on your army. Currently, a project is underway to create a comprehensive guide for each Warhammer Fantasy army in 8th edition. This project is being developed as a way to get new players interested in Fantasy, to help players wanting to start a new army, and to provide opinions and insights on the new world of Fantasy with the advent of 8th edition. This project is meant as an interesting and fun way for Warhammer Fantasy players to express how they feel about their armies while also providing useful opinions to fellow wargamers.

While the main composition will be posted on another wargaming forum, I will happily compile specific army reviews for each and every forum that can be reviewed by mods and updated by trusted forum members or moderators. This way, every army specific forum will have informational reviews for new members to their forums, while also providing a continual thread that can be used as new army books are released and players discuss how they find updated units both new and old.

While the true scope of this project is still unknown, I fully expect it to be quite grand in scale as more and more people become interested and forum members brainstorm on what to include in their analysis.

This project is absolutely open to everyone and I will go through the process of recording the statistical data that is submitted by every user. With that said, the primary goal of this project is to summarize your army of choice, the units within it, and how you would personally go about building your army.

1. Army Introduction

A. Just a general introduction to you and your army. Nothing to fancy, just state your army, how long you been playing, general wargaming experience, etc.

B. Army Critique : You can note what you like/dislike in your army, the general strengths/weaknesses of the army, comparison in power to other armies, what makes the army unique, why you started collecting this army, and so forth. I'm not asking for people to write a novel here, but feel free to write your critique however you see fit. Heck, I even support people roleplaying if they want to do that.

C. Army Lists : At this point, you could list popular army list compositions, playstyles, and what not. Do not feel pressured to submit your own army list, unless you want to.

2. Unit Review

A. This is the meat and potatoes of the project and will generally involve giving a thoughtful review of each unit from your army book. For this review I will ask players to use a scale of 1-10, with scores of 1 representing low reviews and scores of 10 representing excellent units. Half points may also be used depending on the preference of the reviewer. This review will be generally aimed at how often a unit is used, the strengths/weaknesses of the unit, and the overall usefulness of the unit in 8th. Again, I am not asking for people to write a novel for each unit, but to just a give brief review for each unit, however, I will not put a limit on how much you wish to write about each unit as I know there are very passionate gamers out there who want to examine every angle of each unit. Further, I would also recommend players discuss popular equipment choices with each unit they review as we all know hand weapon and shield units perform vastly different roles than great weapon units

To judge a unit in 8th is of course subjective and by no means is there a "wrong" answer, opinions of course will differ. To account for this, only extreme outlier scores will be removed from the overall analysis unless an in depth reason is given. For example, in a review of Chaos Warriors : person A scores 9, person B scores 9.5, person C scores 9 and person D scores 2.5 it would be justified to remove the outlier score of person D unless a very detailed and thorough reason is given on why that score was given, simply saying marauders are better than warriors would not justify the low score.

I know this section can be rather daunting with some army books, specifically Orcs and Goblins, as there are a wide variety of units and writing an in depth review may be difficult. Also, it is entirely plausible some gamers may not just have experience using every unit in their army books. Therefore, I am perfectly fine accepting reviews of specific units people have experience using, this is suppose to be fun and informative, not stressful, write what you feel passionate about and if you don't get to every single unit, so what, smile.gif


3. New Player Startup

A. This is a unique section to this project which will be primarily aimed at helping individuals new to Fantasy with starting your army of choice. To begin with, you could list how you would go about starting to collect your army. This could be suggesting buying the army book, the battalion (or why not to buy the battalion in some cases), certain box sets, or even the new Island of Blood starter set in the case of Skaven and High Elf reviewers. Than you could expand on what essential buys a player might want to invest in once they get started, usually units that are typically found in most army lists, such as Slaan for Lizardmen.

B. The "Cheapest Method" section : Just for fun (and for the financially restricted) you could suggest the cheapest method to assembling a 2,000 point army list. This can deal with bargain shopping, simple conversions, small numbered armies, and so forth. This section is entirely optional, but could be useful for those who are looking to start a new army "on the cheap"

I'll add a little something!!

1A: Warriors of Chaos. I have recently bought a bunch of WoC stuff, i'll try to give my noobish and largely un-tested advice.

B: The WoC's main strengths are close combat and magic. This is because the army has easily available core troops who are absolute monsters in combat, and the many good magic items and Marks of Chaos available to the Chaos Sorcerers and Sorcerer Lords. I really like the different options available, for example if you theme your army around a specific god you can give all your troops the mark of that god, making them hit harder, last longer or be completely fearless. I started collectiong WoC because i loved the models and the image of the warriors pushing south, bloodthirsty and completely badass. I feel like a little kid imagining my army crushing the enemy in combat and grinding their corpses unde oropn-shod feet!

C: A build wich seems popular is a mainly infantry army with blocks of 20 or so Chaoswarriors and 25+ Marauders. Supported by whatever you like really. Monsters, chariots, cavalry...speaking of cavalry, a fast-moving and hard-hitting force is very cool as well, and it was the build mostly seen in 7th edition. a Few units of Knights, a few of Marauder Horsemen, some monsters, monstrous infantry and a chariot or two makes for a lot of hittyness, but at the cost of rankbonuses and static combat resulotion.

2: Here's a quick review of the basics of the WoC army:

Chaos Lord: Extremely good in combat! LD9 is nice, and the 100p of magic equipment makes for some NASTY combos with all great magic items available from the BRB and the Armybook. He is sort of pricey though, i generally end up on 370p for a fully decked out lord. When you do this you won't be able to afford a Sorcerer lord however, so consider what you prefer. Some gifts of the gods enchance his killyness even furhter, the breathweapon is cool! 9/10

Sorcerer Lord: A. Ma. Zing! A true magical powerhouse with a lot of great options, this guy is worth every point you spend on him! Can choose between lores of Fire, Shadow, Heavens and Death, all good lores. If he has a mark of Chaos he chooses his spells from the lore of that god, and they are quite good. Can fight a bit too. 10/10

Deamonprince: Very expensive, but flexible. If you use him i suggest you make him a Wizard (Unless he has mark of Khorne.) and let him be a supporting unit in combat. He can't take any magic items though, wich is a bummer. The 100p available for gifts of the gods are nice though. A bit pricey maybe, ending up on at about 450-500p. 6/10

Chaos Sorcerer: Great low-level wizards who are ARMOURED! Lores of Fire, Death and the three god-specific ones are all good choices. Pretty cheap too. 9/10

Exalted Hero: a Combat character on par with a warboss, you can't go far wrong. Great as a BSB. They are so verstile, they can fly around on discs or charge into combat on the steed of your choice. Or just support your infantryblocks. 910

Chaos Warriors: Your staple awesome combatunit. Tough and durable, and able to lay down the pain as well! 2str4 attacks as standard, without any extr weapons and marks! Go for HW+S and Mark of Tzeentch and you have yourself a 3+/5++ save block, extremely durable! Or with Halberds and Mark of Khorne, and you dish out 3 Str5 attacks per model! That's just two of the possibilities. 9/10

Marauders: ceap and fighty,these guys are very good. Ws4 and I4 is nice on a 4p model. Shields an MoT gives you a 5+ ward save, combined with steadfast these guys won't be going anywhere. Or with GW/Flails and Mark of Khorne you have 2 str5 attacks! Great for hordes. Very vulnerable to missile fire though. 8/10

Warhounds: your cheap screen and sacrificial unit. 6p a piece. what more can i say? Run 'em up at enemy Warmachines and they might distract them for a while. Not a necessary or awesome unit, but handy now and then if used tactically. 6/10

Marauder Horsemen: Fast cav who can be made fighty? Cool. Not very expensive base cost, but when you add stuff onto them they get expensive... 5/10, or better depending on the situation.

Chosen: Basically up-powered Chaos Warriors. They do the smae thing, but slightly better. 9/10

Forsaken: Skirmishers with random attacks? Awesome. They are'nt very popular though, probably because of their somewhat poor armoursave. i think i would love to use them, but i havn't yet. Extremely good damage potential. 5/10, but i think they can perform like 9's.

Chariot: A chariot. Good amroursave, killy steeds and crew. A nice unit. 7/10

Ogres: Mounstrous infantry are great, a unit of 6 with MoK and Greatweapons+ Chaos Armour and FC is 380p. 22 str6 attacks and 3 stomps? 10dead Statetroops or so a turn...? Yes please! (On avarage of course) Not as durable as trolls though... 7/10

Dragon ogres: Pretty good i reckon, quite expensive so i'd rather have trolls or ogres but still a viable choice, since they have higher WS, M, and S than ogres. 6/10

Trolls: As In O&G, regeneration is great. However, Chaos Trolls mutate as they regrow their bodies, making them even more killy or durable! 7/10

Knights: Yum yummie yum, very killy and a 1+ AS is awesome. Some nifty combos to be made. Your main hammer cavalry unit. 8/10

Spawn: I don't see the point to be honest, though they are cool, running around all doomed and all. Unbreakable is cool, but odds are they will die without doing anything. 3/10

Warshrine: Gives nice buffs to your army, 4+ ward with MoT is cool!Decent in combat, as support for an infantryblock. It's main objective is buffing your infantry. 6/10

Hellcannon: Very good, a template weapon is always good. Can fight too. 9/10

Shaggoth: Expensive now when they can't break ranks. 5/10

Giant: Like in the O&G book, but can take marks. Quite good and funny. 7/10


...I really can't write more now...hope this helps!

Theo

Thanks for your reply, I'll add your post to the general collective.

Sorry about the bad detail towards the end, i was getting tired...

Theo

This post has been edited by theorox on Sep 12 2010, 07:10 AM

Is it okay if I add my army introductions here?

If so, here it goes.

Ogre Kingdoms

1A. I had thought about starting an Ogre army for looong before I really started the army. I had read the Ogre forum and every chunk of fluff piece I found about them... I got my army from Maelstrom in last November. At the moment I have a 3000 points army of Ogres, fully painted (I even got a painting award in one tourney ). I've had very good gaming experience with my Ogres, I have played ~ 20 games with Ogres and ~ 15 of them had been won! The army's fluff is cool, the nice models are easy to paint and it's pretty fast army to play (very good, as my other armies are greenskins and undead).

1B. I'll list the pros and cons about the army here.

Pros:
- pretty unique army, with great, convertable models
- the army is very cheap to buy
- the Ogre units are very fast, tough and killy
- Ogres got huge boost in 8th edition... Stomps, ranks of three, attacks from two ranks...

Cons:
- big models, some people dislike painting them (but I don't )
- the gaming style might get boring if you play many games with Ogres in a row (I recommend this army as your second army)
- lack of shooting and armor saves

1C. In 2400 points army people normally have a Tyrant, a Slaughtermaster, a BSB, a couple of Bull units and a unit of Ironguts. Some Gnoblars and Gorgers are played too, and some people like to have an another wizard, a Slavegiant and/or a couple of Scraplaunchers.

2. The units. Here's something about the units.

Tyrant. 10/10
Must choice for games of 2000+ points. Pretty tough and strong killer, people like to arm him either in a killy way (Thundermace or Tenderiser) or in a ninja way (Glittering Scales and Fencer's Blades). I prefer the killy way with the Thundermace.

Slaughtermaster. 10/10
Must choice always when you have a Tyrant (and you should have him in every 2000+ points game IMO). +4 to cast and to dispel is just so cool, and the buffs are very important for Ogres. Usually people give him Talisman of Preservation and possibly a Halfling Cookbook (soo good).

Bruiser. 10/10
He must be the general of your army if you don't have a Tyrant, otherwise he makes as a good battle standard bearer. That's why he should be used in every game! Usually people give him a banner (Rune Maw, Banner of Eternal Flame or Dragonhide are all good), but sometimes they equip him in a supportive and defensive way. BSB is must for armies which have Mawseeker big names here and there.

Butcher. 8/10
Good support caster, though not an absolute choice. People take him usually just for carrying a Dispel Scroll and possibly other cheap magic items (Ironcurse Icon for an example), but he makes well if you do not roll well on your Slaughtermaster and he can't cast anything else at this turn.

Hunter. 3/10
He's not very good choice, because he's a loner. And because he's a loner, he'll get shot by a cannonball in a no time so I don't recommend him. Good choice? No. Cool choice? You bet. Some people might have some success with him in bigger games (possibly team games) when opponents have other, more important things to focus on, but he's pretty easy to kill anyway.

Bulls. 10/10
Bulls are good basic units. People like to use units of 6-9 Bulls with bellower and banner (champions are over-expensive extra attacks), depending heavily about the size of the game. In 2400 points I like to use two units of 9 Bulls. About the other equipment, well, it's about taste after all. Some people (like me) like to leave armors and ironfists at home and go with naked unit, but some people like them, especially if they know they are going to face Strength 3 opponents. Additional club is not an awesome choice, either go with armor and ironfist or go by naked. Bulls in a horde is a pretty good investigation, but it's about your own play style... Two fighty units or one very fighty?

Ironguts. 9/10
These guys are good too. One unit of 6-8 works well in 2400 points, I don't recommend taking more Irongut units because they tend to be very expensive, and so will be a horde of these guys. Just like Bulls, a bellower and a standard are good choices, champion isn't too good if you are not going to use a deathstar. As the unit can take a magical banner, it's absolutely worth of taking. Banner of Eternal Flame or Rune Maw are the most famous choices (I like both of them, but prefer Rune Maw).

Gnoblar Fighters. 9/10
Gnoblar Fighters are good because a couple of reasons. They are cheap and they are cute. That's it. I recommend taking as much Gnoblar units as you can, as they are so cheap and flexible. Gnoblars are used either in units of 20 or 50 (40 is played with ETC-comps). Units of 20 are taken because of Rune Maw. Rune Maw should be in every Ogre list, so having a good bunch of Gnoblars where to redirect the spells is always a good idea. The unit of 50 is just for tarpitting enemy. The unit goes in 5x10 formation and tries to hold a dangerous enemy unit as long as possible. In the unit of 50 a groinbiter might be useful but not when you have just a sacrificial unit. Don't try to use Gnoblars as a meat wall for Ogres against shooting, as Gnoblars don't give cover at all and they just slow down the Ogre unit behind them because of the M4 and the possibility to start bickering.

Gnoblar Trappers. 8/10
One unit of 8 is a very good choice. This doesn't cost even 50 points, and they can do all kinds of nice stuff. For an example, they can try march blocking enemy, baiting frenzied scary units, holding war machines and annoying opponent. 8 is a good size because it's not too expensive, and hey, the unit is going to die anyway, it doesn't need to be too expensive.

Yhetees. 2/10
The worst unit of the whole Ogre army book: Yhetees. Yes, they have -1 to hit and a bigger movement and strength value, but they are very expensive compared to things theycan do... Scale terrain is not so important because everyone can go in forests. I'd go with more Bulls, Yhetees are very expensive Ogres. I hope they'll get better in the next book.

Leadbelchers. 4/10
An another unit from Ogre book which is not a very good one... In a price of two Leadbelchers you get three Bulls. The cannons are very dangerous for the Leadbelchers but they hardly want to hit opponent. I don't recommend these guys, but if you still want to use them, take them in units of 2. On the first turn they march towards the opponent, next turn they shoot them and on a third turn do a support charge. A bellower is good as always.

Scraplauncher. 8/10
These are pretty useful things. A large pie plate on opponent's horde hurts bad, especially if you have multiple of them. Always when you take Scraplaunchers, I recommend taking two or three, one is just waste of points.

Slavegiant. 7/10
I wouldn't take him... He's very easily killed, expensive thing with no fighting potential unless you roll Jump Up & Down. But when you do, it's awesome. Giants can draw out enemy shooting out of your Bulls and Ironguts too. Some people have some good success with him, so it's always worth of trying him.

Gorger. 10/10
These guys are good ones. They are awesome when taking out enemy war machines and holding up Strength 3 units. I like to use two of them in 2400 points but they are useful in smaller games too.

Maneaters. 8/10
I've never used them, but I have heard some people have some success with them. They have use units of one(!) Maneater. The plan is here; take one Maneater and one almost unkillable Tyrant. The Tyrant joins the Maneater and they move in a train formation (Tyrant at the front rank). The Maneater cannot be hit and the Tyrant is almost unkillable. Maneater and the Tyrant hack 'n' slash enemies well, and even when they lose the combat, they are ItP and Stubborn with possible BSB re-rolls. Maneaters like to have great weapons and heavy armor.

As you can see, you need a help of the Ogre army book to understand all the things I explained, but at least now you know some basics of the army.

3A. When starting Ogres, I recommend the Army book and the Battalion set; they make as an awesome starting packet! After buying these a set of Bulls and maybe Ironguts are good choices. Characters then... A Tyrant, a BSB and a Slaughtermaster/Butcher are all good choices. After this you should get some Gorgers and other special units you like.

3B. If you want to get your army fast and cheaply, I give you some good information here. First of all I recommend you to search for cheap places where to get models. I recommend either EBay or Maelstrom Games (I got my models from there), you can get cheap armies from there. Some of your characters can easily be converted from Bulls/Ironguts, and a Maneater with some conversions works as a good Tyrant. Gorgers can be converted too (the models are pretty expensive ). Gnoblars which come in Battalion/Ogre sets can be used as normal Gnoblar Fighters, and Trappers are easily converted from normal Gnoblars. For an example, I'll list here what I bought to get my 2400 points army.

- an Army Book
- a Battalion
- a set of Bulls
- a set of Ironguts
- a Maneater

It's 180€ (or 155£) from GW, or 126€ (or 109£) from Maelstrom Games. After scratch-building one Bull and building a couple of unit filler for my Gnoblars, I got a Tyrant, a Slaughtermaster, a Butcher, a BSB, 18 Bulls, 8 Ironguts, 55 Gnoblar Fighters, 8 Trappers and two Gorgers. That's 2400 points. But this means you should like converting, but if you do, then there's no problem.

Finally I want to leave here a link to my army blog in Ogre Stronghold. By reading the forum you can learn A LOT, believe me. But anyway, here's the link to my army blog if you are interested, and thanks for reading. My Ogre blog

- Cheers, Skarsnik.

Hi there, not sure on your time-frame for this but OnG has a new book in March. So anything written now will probably be outdated in 2 months time.

This post has been edited by Craze_b0i on Jan 26 2011, 12:31 AM

But I wrote about Ogres... The new O&G book changes the game meta a bit but I don't think it causes anything critical (unless I've missed something...).

- Cheers, Skarsnik.

This post has been edited by Skarsnik, the lord on Jan 26 2011, 10:57 AM

I suspect Craze_b0i was talking to Halelel, but there will always be a new army book for someone about to come out, so there's no point waiting!

Yeh my comment was more at the OP.

Nothing wrong with doing it now and collecting on other races, just saying he might want to hold fire on OnG submissions. By all accounts we are in for big big changes.

im posting to get my 200th post before tommorow yes!

I'm giving you a verbal warning that this is poor form. Spamming for the sake of it will get you warned and if you keep doing it, banned from the site. Please read the forum rules.

This post has been edited by Draig on Feb 9 2011, 12:33 PM