Hey guys. I was thinking of starting a 2nd army and i wanted to ask the experts. Just give me your opinions and ideas.

The Shadow Hunter

Well... what are you playing now then? (also I don´t think asking between VC and WE is entirely fair on a site like this :wink: )

with what Nelyafinwe said is true. Your asking people who collect wood efls and think they are great.

BUT i shall be impartial. I wont vote until you can tell us more about you and your opponents.

1st off we need to know hpow you play (whats your first army?) whats the kind of way you play? (magic, big units small units, mix, huge characters, theme etc).

It all plays down to what YOU prefer. Why take my advice to collect wood elfs say when you really have you heart set on vampire counts.

Heres the jist of it:

Wood elfs:
Manuevable force that depends on fast hard hitters to charge in with support from each other. Each unit compensates and helps others with their roles in battle.
Expensive army points wise cheapest being 12.
Lots of elite units but few expendable units.
Ok defensive magic but somewhat lacks a magical punch.
Very good mix of high T and AS units with high M and low T units. Being forest spirirts and wood elfs.
Lots of themes (seasons).
Lovely models. (subject to opinion).
Some good magic items but not really a huge advantage.

Vampire Counts (i may be wrong with parts here so don't take my word for it):
A force that depends on hordes. Lots of skeles and zombies to hold up units with unbreakable rule while the elites (grave guard black knights etc) flank them to finish off. Lots of physcology and fear causers. Fear can win games! Has lots of rank and file troops with help from flyers (bats) and other high M troops (dire wolves).
Lots of magic. But that because in one way they depend on it.
Strong characters.
No shooting unless you take dogs of war. (or you take magic as a form of shooting).
Unbreakable is a double bladed sword. It has the crumble rule to make it good but not really good.
Ok models but nothing to write home about (again subjecty to opinion).
Lots of cool items.
(NOTE THEY ARE GETTING A COMPLETE RENEWAL IN THE NEAR FUTURE (after high elfs))

Thats what i can think of at the moment to try and help wit the decision. Basically i've tried to make the armies basic pros and cons.

It all comes down to playing style. Say you play dwarfs and want a change. Then if that i would probably say wood elfs as they are totally different. If say you collect chaos maybe you want vampire counst as you want to outnumber the enemy for once. Its up to you. If you tell us more about yourself then we maybe ably to help better.

Hope i'm useful! :biggrin:

SDETT

The current models of VC are pretty bad in most cases yes, BUT VC probably have the best conversion opportunities of all the races...

Thx for the posts so far, i decided to go to a WE site because im steering towards WE.

I Used to play Lizardmen and used little to none cavalry and just used brute force and I almost always played with slann. My battleplan was always get there and rip them apart in one fowl sweep. I was looking for a new army with a little more speed and some more shooting considering i only had terradons and skinks.

Hope that helps. Also what color schemes do you guys use and could you post links if you have pictures

Well seeing as how this is a Wood Elf site, I think you can guess who will win the poll.

But even trying to be impartial (dwarfs are still my 1st love), the Vampires are being re-do in the not too distant future and most of the current range is pretty dated. So even if you were going to start a vamps forec I'd advise waiting till the new book comes out.
Though it does seem to keep getting put back.


For colour schemes, many people theme their army on a season so light greens and and maybe some brighter colours for spring darker greens a browns for summer, reds, oranges and brown for autumn and greys, white and maybe some dark brown for Winter

You can also theme the bases depending on the colour scheme too.

All the natural colours can get a little dull, so I like to choose 1 brighter colour and add bits of it throughout my army to tie them together, maybe in the spites or the lining of a cloak or a bit of decoration.

Actually I know someone who plays WC and you can use something called slyvilian levy (I can't spell it), and they can be spearmen, archers crossbowmen. You can use Bretonnian or empire men for this, as they don't have any proper models for this, but may do in the future.

Good on you for choosing Woodies, as for colour scemes, try this bit of Games workshop for some different types of colour scemes Glade Guard Showcase If you want to do a seasonal colour sceme, try White Dwarf No. 309 I think, it has a painting guide on how to get better colour scemes, paint hair, skin, wood, and a bit more like Tatoos...

Here are a few things to think about when deciding between wood elves and vampire counts ShadowHunter. Firstly do you prefer good (shall we say neutral) races that being wood elves or an evil race being vampire counts. That was a huge factor for me when deciding my first army - I actually collected a wraith and 20 skeletons before deciding to go wood elves (this was around 4 years ago). (lol)

The thing that turned me off of vampire counts was the fact skeletons blowed in combat - don't get me wrong, they are great in NUMBERS but that just didn't work for me. Another important factor was the painting issue. Being a noob to warhammer and painting I couldn't get the skeletons to look right. Also who can be bothered painting that many models - I had enough trouble getting through 19 dryads and a branchwraith!

Just my opinion on the matter, I voted wood elves.

~ Lindsay ~

Same here; I also toyed with starting Vampire counts (and painted a Lahmian vampire up which I use as a random model...such as a hostage in a game of mordheim, which was then shot by my own shadow warriors who were trying to shoot that skaven standing next to her.... we won't go into that any further. Very convoluted game that).

It seems like the Asrai will fit quite well (even putting preferances aside). You've been using an army that relies on magic and combat, and VC will be just the same. The Asrai should be a nice change. The speed and shooting you want will be found here, as opposed to the VC where marching is restricted and shooting is next to non-existant.

Servant of Isha.

Vampire Counts have a lot of nice looking models we compared to Wood Elves at least and they are easier to use than Wood Elves though the latter is cheaper. There are a lot more VC players in my area that WE so that has to say somthing about them.

In the end just go on impulse thats how most people choose an army.

Well thx for your responses, ive decided to go WE just because they are more unlike my lizardmen and are cheaper money wise

This is the von Carstein special list from the Storm of Chaos very interseting really. You can also get the Lustrian zombie pirates with cannons, handguns and BS 0 :blink:

Most of them speak sense. The renewal will be in spring 2008, perhaps even a bit later. At the moment, the VC sculptors are having problems with the sculpts. :p

Unbreakable is good. It provides the most reliable troops to the known Warhammer universe, and fear rocks.

Magic Items: most of them are really not worth their points. Only a certain few, ahem Rod of Flaming Death, Book of Arkhan and Flayed Hauberk (you undoubtly will see one of these in an army list). But in return each Bloodline gets 6 unique Bloodline Powers. For most Bloodlines they are quite good, but the Lahmian ones are bad.

Hordes are not necessary, but nevertheless useful for beginners. Dire Wolves provide good flanking (they negate ranks too as Fast Cavalry, M9), and Ghouls are good for screening and assaulting. Add Ethereals to the mix, and the elite: Grave Guard and Black Knights. Some speculate that Black Knights are the best Heavy Cavalry in the game.

That's the Army of Sylvania. It's unofficial and needs permission of the opponent. ;)

Yeah and there's an Army of the Cairns list too (featuring Heinrich Kemmler battling it out against dem Woodies :p )

For unofficial army lists, look here: Zombie Pirates
Army of Sylvania

The Army of the Cairns is not online I think. It's just featured in a UK WD some time back.

I hope you all learned some things, I think Shadow Hunter has made his choice already. :)