Pros and Cons of my available armies

[Brother Glacius]

I'm having indecision paralysis so I figured I'd post up my thoughts on what I have available and see if any of the comments can sway me one way or the other.

Core Armies:

Tomb Kings: I used to own a big TK army and sold/traded it away. So now I'm starting new. I have the new starter set on the way and a few units from End Times that I added to my VC. I have lots of STLs to print additional units as well. One of the reasons I love the TK is because of the traditional army aspect of them. They have rank and file troops, archers, warmachines, cavalry, chariots....and then a smattering of really interesting constructs. To me, they are a stunning concept and visual army. I'm a bit worried about the inconsistency of the model styles as I mix 3d prints with GW....plus, I have to do 3D prints as I won't have enough actual GW models to round out a 2K army. This army should also be fairly amazing to paint.

Orcs and Goblins: I'd probably go with a night goblin army for this. I've got a ton of night goblins that I think would be a real fun army to play...probably not too competitive, but would give me pure license to play like a sneaky git the whole time and pull every dirty trick I could think of because as soon as those gobbos get stuck in, everything will fall apart. Probably the biggest pain would be getting the right movement trays for these guys because I'd have to get creative with unit sizes I think. I've done some test painting of NGs in the past, but nothing lately so I'm even excited to see how speedpaints will work with these models. Also in the pro column would be all official GW models.

Wood Elves: This is actually my first warhammer army. I even have a good amount of really old metals painted. I've tried to collect newer models as the editions went by, but never got back into playing these guys. I did bring them out for maybe the last Club Challenge though and did decent with them. So I've got newer models I could use, or try to work with my older metals (which I have extras in blister still in order to expand on some units). That being said, the paint jobs are also fairly old and not very good.

Dwarfs: Now this army I actually brought to a GT but there are definitely new units I would need to paint up as well as do additional shading and highlighting on the existing models. I ran out of time originally and never finished them These guys have some solid rules and would just be a brick of an army to play. Dwarves have been my favorite for a while and I think they got good rules with Old World. The downside is that the play style for them is a bit limited due to slow speeds and knowing that charge wise, I'm always going to be on the receiving end. Probably my #1 army for the good guys though.

High Elves: This is one of the last armies I collected during 8th edition. I think they were part of the starter set and thus there were lots of cheap plastics to be had. They also had a cool new dragon rider model and elf wise, they are a bit like the TK in that they are a true army. They have their rank and file units, cavalry, skirmishers and warmachines. Like most of my armies, purely unpainted so will be a big painting chore to get them ready. No problem to field 2K points with the models I own.

Empire: This was the last army I collected after GW discontinued fantasy battle. I was lucky enough to get a great deal on pretty much a full army, assembled, and unpainted. I grabbed a few extra units here and there to round them out. I've never actually played them, not even once though. This is also the signature army though for fantasy battle. So many options, so many directions you can go with them....a great army spoiled for choice.

Legacy Armies:

Vampire Counts: my absolute favorite army of all time. I actually sold off quite a bit of the painted stuff I had for this because they had released so many great new models for it with 7th and 8th edition. So what I have now is a large unpainted army. The fact that it is legacy stings a bit and I wasn't too happy how some of the units ended up. That being said, they are my number one army for fantasy.

Dark Elves: Again, I snagged these guys during End Times because I've always liked the dark elves. It was actually the second time I collected the army as well, so I have most of the new plastic units that were put out at the end. This is another solid rank and file army with more monsters than high elves. Great models, good variety, and pretty much solid play. I think they edge out high elves for overall coolness factor, but these guys are legacy vs core and I've yet to really look at their list much. Another army I have lots of options with.

My very first thought was to go with TK because I was getting the stuff right out of the gate and already will have an army book for them as well. Nothing like official material to help keep an interest going. But then there was my favorite army VC sitting right there, dying to made table ready once again (pun intended). And then as I start reading the army lists, the night goblins jumped out as a fun option, and then the dwarves seem so tough and capable....and I got stuck in the "but what about..." cycle.

I need something that sticks with me so that I'm not changing my mind in two weeks and going off in another direction. As you can see, I'm absolutely great at collecting armies, not so great in getting them table ready. The Ordo Club Challenge, Rogue Trader Tournaments and Grand Tournaments are how I got the painted armies I do have. I think I need a good goal, and I think a good one might be to get at least 1500pts done for each of my armies.  That would be enough points to have fun, casual games with them, and not too far off in case the need every came to do larger force.

[Matt Israel]

Since it seems your basically going to have to hammer away at each army.  I agree night goblins(and orcs) look really fun to play, if I had some I would have done them.  If this helps Orcs and goblin stuff will be out by spring I have heard, along with the Dwarf stuff and both armies Journals. In the end this did not help I am sure.  Whatever you do get 1 army up and running that gives you time to work on the army that grabs your heart.

 

I had same issue, I have 2 painted armies ready to go.

Nurgle Deamon - painted and ready.  I have 2 units I can add to them.

Dwarf Slaver - Painted and ready, Hoping its in the dwarf journal for rules. So that's idle.

Dwarf - Would require printing and painting. So that's for later.

Khrone Deamon - Needs to be put together and painted so also later.

Chaos Warrior - Put together and primed, needs paint.

Beastman - 50% painted but pretty much ready to go.

Tomb Kings- Bought them when GW first released them. Was about 50% done, but I have all the units I need to play.  And the fact I never finished them always bothered me. So I cracked them out of storage and started painting them. This will be my army I play the most, I always liked them forever and will cost the least to get going.  In the last 2 weeks (through the ice storm) I have 5 finished units- 70 models at 95% finished(basing stuff and touch up's).

It was tough for me I really wanted to finish up the Beastmen, But in the end the TK's got me, Beastmen will get love by summer.

[Duckman]

I remember playing a match against Brother G at Ordo one year.  I had my Warriors and he had his Woodies.

I find that since I downsized when I moved overseas I am in the liberated position of being able to consider any army.  That said, my tastes seem to run counter to yours (Bro G) in that I like the heavier, more reliable troops...  Warriors and Dwarves and such from 6th, 7th and 8th.  That said, I have not seen how those actually play yet and I wonder how armor and AP will affect things now...  While it looks the same on paper I am not sure quite what 3+ AS means now.  (AP looks more common but in part that is because it is all called out now and none of it is hidden in being S4+).

I'm also putting together demo games for my FLGS to try and create (or identify existing) players to make it worth getting an army together.  In the process of doing so I took a deeper look at Bretonnians (we never had a real Bret player up in NE Seattle when I was playing) and they look surprisingly tempting.  Again,  no experience on the tabletop but they felt really comfortable on paper.

I have not tried to wrap my head around all the other lists yet but I have looked at Dwarves, High Elves and Daemons and not found the same warm fuzzies that I feel for blocks of armor and knights.

[Duckman]

On 1/29/2024 at 12:37 AM, Brother Glacius said:

I'm having indecision paralysis so I figured I'd post up my thoughts on what I have available and see if any of the comments can sway me one way or the other.

...

I spent a lot of time last night looking at 1000-point lists for the demo matches I am putting on at my FLGS (which are getting a fabulous response, btw).  I spent some time looking at Wood Elves specifically and my take is this...

They are going to be a solid army but I felt they lacked a solid synergy or ethos...  Their strength is shooting with high Ld and I and very good mobility.  As a result, the elves are all lightly armored with really solid statlines.  Some regen, some wards...  The Treemen and Treekin are on the weak side for Monsters and Monstrous Infantry and didn't feel like they really had any flavor to their special rules  They're not bad and along with Dryads and Wardancers give you some for melee but that's clearly not the strong (or flavorful) part of this list.  The only stuff in the rare section is the Treemen, the Waystalkers (scouting skirmishers) and Great Eagles so this list has a lot of flexibility in how it is built (up to 50% of your list in Deepwood Scouts, Wildwood Rangers, Wardancers, Sisters of the Thorn, Wild Riders and Warhawk Riders which means melee, ranged, skirmishers, light cav or monstrous inf...  Very flexible...).  Your ability to vary how you want the list to play will be almost completely dependent on your models...  I don't see these units flexing into different roles well...  If I think about shooty, melee hammer, melee anvil, caster, etc. only the Wardancers can really fill different roles based on unit composition.

Overall, this is definitely a functional list but it feels like it's strength is standing back and avoiding casualties while withering the enemy with range.  If it wants to play to a different style its unit selection dwindles quickly.  At least that is my impression on paper.

[Brother Glacius]

Yeah, I remember one game I played with them vs a dwarf player. At the end, he had his one unit left with his main characters and I had it completely surrounded. Now the smart thing would have been to keep my units out of his charge arc and win the game easily on the rest of his army that I had wiped out, but as that wasn't much fun, I charged in with everything and lost enough stuff to make the game a tie. I stand by it though. But yeah, elves in melee just aren't great. I have been going through my models and I appear to have mostly archers and spearmen, with plenty of dryads, wardancers and some glade riders. I've also got enough old treemen to use as treekin (along with fenbeasts) and one newer treeman model. They do have rangers which have two handed weapons which could be a good punch unit, but they have no lasting ability at all. Yeah, it will be a nice puzzle to figure out if I go that route. I also apparently repainted and touched them up quite a bit so much so that I was actually shocked with how much I liked the paint job. It was an interesting day. I think I'm just going to have to go army by army and see what reaction I have to them in my hands.