Starting Warhammer Fantasy- Vampire Counts or Lizardmen?

[Fable Wright]

I was planning on starting Warhammer Fantasy, and I was having trouble deciding what race to play as, so I decided to ask the online community. What are the pros/cons of each race? What races are more powerful against which other races (e.g. is lizardman usually going to win against a vampire counts army)? What is the best general strategy for a race? (I need to know what to play, so the general stats in every race would help that decision without the discussion turning to one of personal preference.)

[Winterwind]

I believe you want this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=113149). :smallwink:

[Erloas]

Its probably best to post your question in the Fantasy thread
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=113149&page=38

However, you're going to need a more directed question to get much help. There are simply too many armies to go through to give pros and cons to each and how they fair against other races. Especially when you've probably ruled out half of them on looks alone.

Are you mostly looking at casual gaming, or tournaments, how WAAC is the group you are going to be playing with?

What are you looking for in an army, lots of magic, lots of shooting, lots of models, really powerful individuals, lots of speed?

[Closet_Skeleton]

With the edition changing in a few months, any advice would be pretty useless in the long term.

[Gruffard]

All and all, I recommend that you go to your local hobby/game shop and ask for a demo game, most people like the idea of new players and if they have the minis they would demo there armies for you. Even if you like the idea on paper or in theory you might be surprised when you play them in how they don't work exactly like you think they should.

Do you have any expirience in any other war games? like 40k, Hordes, Warmachine or the like?

[Fable Wright]

No, I don't. This would be my first time playing.

[Gruffard]

Take this with a grain of salt, since I do not play either army, only played against them.

Lizardmen are harder to break then most armies because of their cold bloodness. Your really have to win combat by large amounts to chance breaking them. There cheaper mage (skink priest) is so-so, but the Lord level one is scary, one of the scariest mages in the game. And in 8th edition magic looks like it will have more of an effect. They have both of elite and cheap style units. And every loves to hates their giant Stagathon with a siege weapon on it (think the giant elephants in the Return to the King's big battle)

Vampires, I have less expierence with. They big mechanic is that almost all there units cause fear, which is annoying but seems to be less big in 8th edition. They also have cheap units (zombies) and expensive scary units (Blood Knights), and there Vampires can be both wizards and good melee units which is interesting. Vamps have a few units that can be near unkillable without the right weapons in your army. The "ghost"units for example

Overall, Vampires are often considerred the more powerful army, but Lizardmen are almost a rock to many of the Vamp's Scissor army.

But again I find your local hobby shop and ask peeps that use each of those armies, and see if you can demo theirs.

[Aedilred]

I would recommend choosing the army that you like the look and idea of better. By the time you've purchased and painted a couple of hundred figures, you're going to be pretty sick of an army if it's not something you find inherently attractive.

If you like them both equally, I'd go with the one that'll be cheaper to collect. This will probably be Lizardmen; you'd need fewer models- and VCs to an extent require you to have spare ones too.

I'm not much of a fan of the modern VCs or Lizardmen in terms of appearance at least, and haven't played tabletop for a while, so I can't really advise with regard to the gameplay side of theings, I'm afraid.

[Gruffard]

Yes on the above about the painting and building something you like. Basically every army has a block of guys you need to paint and unless you like the look it will be a pain (Hate my Men@arms)

[Winterwind]

I posted an answer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8783487&postcount=1121) to the original question of this thread (an overview of all armies, not just the Vampire Counts and Lizardmen) in the proper WHFB thread.

[Fable Wright]

... 0.0 that is amazing... Thank you! :smallbiggrin:

[Winterwind]

I hope you find it of any use. :smallredface: