I’d say it would be more like this: Humans: Tomb Kings >> Bretonnia >>> Warriors of Chaos >>>>>> Empire >>> Vampire Counts Elves: High Elves = Wood Elves >>>> Dark Elves Dwarfs: Dwarfs = Chaos Dwarfs Daemons: Tzeentch > Khorne >>> Slaanesh > Nurgle Beastmen: Skaven > Fimir > Beasts of Chaos Goblinoids: Night Goblins >>>> Forest Goblins >> Gnoblars > Regular Goblins Orcs: Black Orcs > Regular Orcs > Savage Orcs Lizardmen: Saurus > Kroxigors > Skinks I think that’s it - of course I’ve only listed everything that exists as an army now or used to within Warhammer canon - any more suggestions would be welcome (Note that we agree on a few things: Tomb Kings are Da Best human race Wood Elves and Tzeentch are awesome Nurgle and Vampire Counts suck)
What does everyone have against Vampire Counts? Sure the Vampires themselves are a bit cheesy, but the other models look pretty cool. Is that a lore thing?
My personal grudge against them is because GW displayed blatant favouritism towards them over some far more interesting factions like Tomb Kings. Between them, the Empire, Dark Elves and Warriors of Chaos most proper armies didn’t get much of a look-in. It was always ‘Oh, let’s release some more stuff for Vampire Counts/Empire/Dark Elves/Warriors of Chaos, the community won’t mind’. In fact they used 3 months for excessive releases for Vampire Counts, Warriors of Chaos and Dark Elves either before or after their army book was released (August 2011, November 2012 and October 2013) that could have been used to update the 3 factions that never got 8th Edition army books.
Ah, ok, thanks! That's understandable. So it isn't really about the army itself, more about GW overdoing the favouritism.
That and also personally I’ve never been into Gothic Horror much - although of course this opinion varies a lot more between people - which most likely fuels the annoyance at the favouritism even more because I can’t understand why they chose those armies for favouritism, or why those armies became popular enough to fuel the favouritism, if that makes sense.
I love watching Steve play Warhammer. He is always so enthusiastic about it. Thanks for not making me present that argument
For the most part I believe Beastmen are a mutation of humanoids. However, evolution is the process of one species mutating into new ones. So perhaps they have become their own. They do seem to breed on their own. And Ghorgon and Cygor are certainly far from humans.
Vampire Counts - people like undead. Vampires and zombies are far more popular in the general public than Egyptian undead. Empire - they are the classic "good" guy struggling to survive the Warhammer world. As humans, a lot of people will identify with a human race and will want to field them. Empire is based on England and Bretonnia on France, the game was created and produced in England. Taken together, they form the ideal "perspective" through which the story is told. I think it makes perfect sense. Dark Elves - Snooty Elves vs. Niche Elves vs. Bikini Clad crazy warrior Elves. . More seriously, DE have an extremely diverse model range that is going to draw a lot of people in. Wood Elves also look really cool, but have always been considered to by the girly army of the three. High Elves feel very "samey" and boring. Mind you, High Elves always received updates across editions as well. Warriors of Chaos - your apex bad guy of the game. If Empire are your classic "good" guys of the game, then WoC forms the ideal counterpoint to them. The Chaos gods form an interesting backdrop and give the army a huge amount of diversity in terms of aesthetics and theme. Beastmen have never really been that popular...why play a smelly beast when you can be an armour clad near invincible Chaos Lord? Daemons have nothing at stake, when destroyed they just come back. The mortals of chaos form a tragic story, a pact made for easy power with a terrible and often unforeseen cost. We're all tempted by evil and I think that makes WoC a very identifiable and natural selection.
Agreed. They are very fun battle reports to watch. Definitely not skilled, technical or tactical reports but lots of enthusiasm and fun. After miniwargaming dropped WFB reports, it's nice to see they are keeping it alive on their side channel. Now if only they could get the rules right
Hmmm, I always interpreted the Empire like the Holy Roman Empire. Mostly because of the old Merogoths and Menogoths. I just assumed they were Ostrgoths and Goths of Gaul and that Sigmar was Warhammer's Charlemagne. Bretonnian's deffinetly have that Arthurian mythos working in their background, but I still assumed they were drawn from the Northern Coastal Kingdoms of Francia.
What what? I'm English and there are no place names ending in 'heim' or 'burg' over here... Agreed here - the Empire are clearly Germans. The closest to Warhammer Britain would be Albion, either still inhabited by the Ancient Britons or the Picts, depending upon whether you believe Chaos degenerated the original Celtic peoples of Albion into Pictish savages or not, and frankly I would much rather see the former: a, exist in Warhammer over the latter and b, be the main good guy faction. Considering that the Empire is still divided into petty, squabbling city states, there isn't really that much advancement if you ask me societywise, even if their tech is much more advanced. Surprised by that - considering Dark Elves have the half-naked female cult. I'd say the Phoenixes and Skycutters help to change that opinion in the eyes of most. You've got to admit they're beautiful models. In any case, I like my High Elves - the shining heroic defenders of the world that the Empire can only hope to be The thing is, though, there were quite a few additions of Warriors of Chaos that were particularly out-of-place and should have gone into Beastmen, i.e. Dragon Ogres, Shaggoths, Chaos Trolls and Throgg - they're all smelly beasts yet they were put into WoC. Why? GW Bias? At least one thing they've done right in AoS is put Dragon Ogres into Beastmen to give them some Monstrous Cavalry - they were sorely needing it.
Gee, I wonder which gender that would appeal to? Sounds like a less extreme version of what’s happening in AoS except with a bit more variety in what gets released repeatedly and a bit less overall perhaps. Personally with the SCE, like them or hate them I see them as similar to how you describe Empire. Cool-looking models (at least if you’re new to the hobby), relatable backstory, overall good guys and easy to paint and play with - perfect for enticing people to play. It would be preferable if it wasn’t taken to such an extreme - sounds like there was a bit of a better balance in WHFB - but from GW’s perspective it was probably a very canny business decision.
Precisely. A half-naked female cult is largely more appealing to men than it is to women. Hence more men would collect and field DE. Most women I've met tended to favour the Wood Elves. The Phoenixes are nice models, though I'd still put them below the big monsters of most other races. For instance, I see your Phoenix and I raise you a Sphinx or Troglodon! The Skycutters just look silly in my opinion. Not really. The Empire is the "every man" who stands up bravely to fight evil. Individually each citizen is nothing special, but together they are truly formidable. The High Elves are too snooty. They are one of my least favourites. Simple. Like most armies, WoC needed a compliment of monsters and monstrous beasts. This is not unique to them, nearly all armies have something similar (dwarfs being the exception), at least to one degree or another. Plus it makes complete sense that a mortal army from the chaos wastes would recruit some beasties to unleash some carnage. As for the beastmen, it's simply that no one very few people care about them (or bought them or played them, etc.). And yes, there is some GW bias, no surprise there. But at least it is nothing like to the level of Space/Sig Marines.
In some sense yes, they fill that role, just on a more exaggerated level. Empire is a bit more relatable, because they are pretty much how each of us would be if we were dropped into the Warhammer world. I think AoS needs something akin to WFB's Empire, the ordinary person trying to survive in an extraordinary world. I do wonder how I would have felt about them if I hadn't been over-saturated with Space Marines for the last two decades. In another universe where they weren't merely ripoffs of Space Marines (and instead were an original inclusion), could I have tolerated them or even, god forbid, liked them?