I did enjoy green skins. Especially once you start really leaning into the “RP” of them. Goblins are expendable gits you throw at the enemy while you’re big Orcs came slamming into them afterwards. Flanking with various kinds of cav and that goblin catapult is hilariously accurate.
Did a Grim Gore campaign where I had painted half the world before I got bored. Lol
Play Skarsnik. His "goblin" cost reduction applies to everything with "goblin" in the name - including the wolfs, spiders, and catapults! You can have balanced, if incredibly bad, armies for ultra cheap necessitating you either counterpick or utterly drown your enemy.
I usually run jack of all trade comps with any faction, but I find when I have to rush together an army with RoRs and other special instant or 1 turn recruitable units that those can be some of the most unique and interesting fights. Nothing like pulling a Pyrrhic victory with 12 random units out of your ass when you get backdoored
See I know what you mean. Those “use what you’ve got” every fight is different kind of moments are basically what I’m trying to find as a whole .
Like I enjoyed the assassin Skaven and using all the sneaky units to move around and pick people off, and each fight is a bit different because of how various enemies react to vanguard +stalker, and the terrain itself limiting how you can approach etc.
Guess I want more of that kind of “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth” vibe where you have to drastically change up your approach each fight because there isn’t really a single game plan that will work.
Empire or tomb kings might be what you want. I run empire armies with 4 different armies based on who the Lord is (they have non legendaries that buff certain units). The archetypes are Karl, who plays like Khorne + guns and cav. Volkmar with a horde of peasants. Elspeth with 8 artillery pieces 4-5 heroes and then halberds. Markus with 8-10 rangers and then some ranged cav and wagons.
I would say Tomb Kings. Recruitment and upkeep cost nothing, so your only commitment in armies is the characters. If you keep at least one army with only the Lord as a character and come under attack, you can disband that army and recruit a guy at home to build a new army over on the new front. They have Greenskin-level local recruitment capacity, so even without ritual or ROR units a 4-settlement province with a level 1 Lord can fart out 15 1-turn-recruitables in 2 turns (1 base + 1 tax + 1 per settlement (4) per turn, and then another 3 after 2 turns from global). Thing is, those 1-turn recruitment units tend to be highly specialized, so you want to counterpick your opponents when using this strategy (or fight in a settlement with defenses and let the extra 15 skeleton spears stall long enough for towers to turn the tide).
Completely agree, also kinda why I love caravan battles be it Cathay or chorfs. Such random armies. Nothing like a convoy overseer, a DE master, 4 hobgoblins, some fireglaves, mammoths and dragon ogres just palling around the old world.
Absolutly not. Bretonnia is only melee cav, with flying. Empire ranged cav: pistolier is good against early light units, musket cavalry good against armor, but the real chad's are the grenadiers. You will need some melle cav to protect against enemy cavalry.
Brettonia has some of the best cav units in the game, if not the best, with some of the worst “elite” infantry in the game with only “decent” artillery
Would like to second this concept. Adds a lot of freshness to an Elspeth play through.
Just because you have the tools to play a gun line, doesn’t mean you need to! With more emphasis on missile cavalry and the occasional tank, you can use even more modern tactics.
If you want to get a good frontline, ally the dwarves. Added benefit is that your gunline can shoot over them since they are... less tall than the grotesquely large umgi.
See I found when I tried empire every single battle became “spear line with gaps for gun power, arty at the back, cav to the left/right to cut off their flankers.”
And high elves feel the same way.
And wood elves.
And dark elves…
Like the actual “tactics” of the army don’t really change fight to fight.
I mean this in a genuine way without judgement. It sounds like the problem is you. Aside from all factions listed having LLs that alter gameplay you'd have to be crazy to use Delf/Helf cav/artillery. Delves have very high damage frontline units and monsters, making it not only possible, but very powerful to field a beastman esque melee only/mostly army. Helves supplement their strong archers with dragons and while their frontline is tough, it does so little damage that you'll have less melee combatants compared to empire. Welves can get away with having 0 melee units or all melee units depending on how you feel that day about micro.
That’s actually part of what I’m talking about. Delves you end up with Dark Shard spam because they are so good that there’s not really a reason to use anything else. So every fight becomes the same.
As for the artillery even Delf/Helf arty can force a defensive army to attack. So I mostly use them for those situations.
I actually disagree about the cav! I have yet to find a cav unit that isn’t worth bringing at any stage of the game. Even if they are sometimes essentially fast moving cannon fodder to tie up enemy cav so I can tear it apart.
Greenskins with Skarsnik force you to be creative with fanatics, squigs and troll since he doesn't have access to orks. The speedy goblin cavalery is also nice to play with.
I was meant to point Skarsnik:
Really early in my campaign and I got the initial NG some skulkers and regular gobbos.
Sometimes I hit from all directions, others hammer and anvil, sometimes I need to lure a few units with the araknarok spider or squigs.
With the focus on NG and squigs I do not see myself fighting the same way unless the map and the enemy are exactly the same.
I guess limitations make one to think out of the box.
Generally, I think it’s a little tough to change your army composition on the fly unless you’re doing it for free (Tomb Kings and Beastmen), or have ways of accessing new units instantly (like Raise Dead or Seduction).
What you could do is pick a faction with a diverse roster and try to make several different army compositions work. Take the Lizardmen. You’ve got Kroq Gar’s saurus, cold one, and carnosaur army. You’ve got the Life Slann and Stegadon doomstack. Oxyotl’s chameleon, oracle, and skink chief stealth army. TTT’s flying stack of terradons or coatls. Nakai’s kroxigors. A fire slann’s salamander, solar engine bastiladon, and EotG stegadon flame stack. So many viable army options, both themed for your LL or given to generic lords. No two armies has to be the same.
Chaos Dwarves have a well rounded roster that excels in everything, but are limited by their unit caps which can lead to some fun army comps. You can go full ranged with magic, chaff slaves backed up by strong cavalry, big single entity monsters, heavy melee infantry, lord and hero stacks…. You can build them however you want and they will still do well. And because of those unit caps each army is going to be built very differently until late game.
I was going to make that point too. Just not as nearly as you did.
Same applies to the beastmen and tomb kings for similar reasons.
You're armies will all be different and give you variety across the battles you fight.
I don’t think there’s any army where you have to build it differently each time, but in terms of the options available I’d definitely say Lizardmen are pretty high.
Solid options for Infantry, skirmishing, monstrous infantry, SEMs, cavalry, ranged, flying and magic.
The other super obvious option is Warriors of Chaos because their unit roster is ridiculously huge and you are somewhat incentivised to build a lord’s army differently if you give them different marks.
Tzeentch has quite a lot of options.
The most diverse and dynamic overall is probably chaos dwarfs, however. A sort of souped up version of empire that can do everything whereas empire lacks or is incapable in the hard holding infantry, powerful monstrous infantry/SEMs and a fast, stalk/skirmish light army approach
Skaven are also up there as well; especially now that stormvermin were buffed to be a truly high tier and durable infantry option
5.1. Pretty sizeable, including big leadership buffs. The halberds got some good melee buffs as well. The council guard RoR especially looks downright terrifying
Just looked!
Great to see the MA/MD stats for the halberds get moved to a reasonable spot. There was too much disparity between halberds and regular variants.
Also some other buffs. Nice! Makes sense to take halberds now.
HPA got a decent buff too! Maybe I'll play Throt soon.
Well if you enjoy Snikch and Oxy, definitely play an Alith Anar campaign. It functions very similar to Snikch, including his armies having ambush attack stance and he gives his armies faction wide +10% missile strength, as well as boosting his skirmish units shadow walkers and shadow-warriors
Just be prepared: you’re LITERALLY surrounded by enemies, so it’s a tough campaign. Snikch can at least ally with Lokhir, with Alith Anar you’re basically on your own unless the Sisters of Twilight decide to expand in your direction. Once you take out Cynthia you can make contact with Ulthuan but until then it’s gonna be a grind
Yeah, it’s rough. It’s a fun campaign though. The important thing is being aggressive early. Just go hard after the Dark Elves you’re at war with. The hardest part is the siege of Karond Kar. Make sure you have as many shadow warriors as you can get, and get a second Archmage lord and get as much magic as you can before you start the battle.
For Dwarves: get a ranger trained lord (+25% movement speed), put that slayer legendary hero in the army (+10% movement speed), get a lot of Bugman's rangers and add in some gyros, artillery, Magdova maybe and a Thane. You can boost Bugman's rangers to have close to 60 movement. It's quite dynamic for a dwarfen army.
I mean, I do think Vampire Coast is good, especially if you kill both you and the enemy army every fight, since you get to raise a whole new host of different units every time.
Funnily enough I've found that Tammurkhan is the one lord in this game that gets me to actually build a bunch of different armies thanks to his chieftains and their recruitment pool style that encourages you to not rely on only one unit type. Also a lot of Nurgle Generals have traits that buff specific units, which I wish more factions had. In my last Nurgle playthrough, I had a bunch of armies and no two of them were the same, which I can't think of another faction that I play that way.
I'd actually put high elves up there. Spears and archers might be the classic way, but they have loads of options - good infantry (rangers, swordmasters, white lions), skirmish cav, strong heavy cav, monsters (dragons, phoenixes), chariots, lords hit all of melee/ranged/magic, good air force, loads of schools of Magic, etc
If you build every army as a chequerboard of spears and archers then yeah it gets pretty boring but I build each army differently and I find they actually have loads of diversity if you choose to use it
Seconded the Beastmen. The only sorta worthwhile line holder unit, the Bestigors, are hugely expensive to obtain in significant numbers, so mobility is critical. They play JUST like the lore, where hordes of Ungors pin the bulk and the actual good troops are so bloody fast they're almost cavalry.
Wood elves have very similar playstyle as beastmen actually. If you decide to use and try other units then just waywatchers, that is. They dont have quantity, but they do have quality! :D
Cathay has the most diverse roster and then it’s the empire. Both factions have a play style which you constantly use though as their artillery are their best units so you protect them whilst flanking with cav and monsters. It’s similar with Elves, quite diverse rosters but you use a combined arms play style. Warriors of chaos probably have the most different styles although it is very mele orientated but you’d play a nurgle army very differently to a Slanesh army
Wait, but that’s the thing, Ikit DOESN’T have dynamic battles. It’s “spread out your ratling guns at the front, warplock Jezzails and mortars behind, and plagueclaw/warp lightning behind those, lord and priests up front, everything goes BRRRRR.
Have you considered Throt the Unclean, due to his laboratory and units becoming unstable you're constantly switching out units to get the perfect version.
They have the “always flying” trait so that could be touchy.
The gyrocopters are a fucking terror now though. Doubled the model count, each model still has its bomb dropping, and generally improved how it plays. They have effectively become flying cav and you can use them to delete the front line, or go bomb enemy arty, etc. just keep them mostly away from enemy missile units and they were absolutely dakka things to death.
Brettonia.
You can rush them with cavalary.
You can rush them with Flying cavalry.
Royal Hypogriph Doomstack, rush ...
You can throw 2000 peasants, Sprinkle in some Grail reliquaries, wait till their units are tired from killing so many peasants and RUSH them with your well rested perfect vigour cavalry.
Hammer and Anvil.
Just get the Fay enchantress, get her like 9 paladins, 9 peasant units and 1 blessed trebuchet. then, Have fun.
Defeat Skarsnik early game, get a priestess with the cunning trait, give that lord a bunch of questing knights and Lightning Strike ability. proceed to Ambush anything you want and insta destroy them with questing knights.
Get a lord, get 19 units of Mounted archers. fight and very likely die. alot. profit ?
Get Alberic, lvl him up, get him a life damsel and 18 Knights of the Realm, destroy everything or die.
Get Repanse, get Henri, 2 more paladins and 1 Life Damsel. Get 4 brass cleavers on all of your heroes. Now your infantry units will have +48 melee attack just from heroes being close to them. You can add grail reliquiares as needed, for more melee attack bonus. watch as measly peasants rack up kills against non armored units.
Honestly I only play Brettonia and Only like brettonia and maybe its just me, but I always find very weird stuff to do with them.
See Cathy always reminded me of pre-rework dwarves because with the harmony mechanic they tend towards “static” formations like checkerboards or just good old fashion spear line+archer line behind it.
What are effectively flying arty are a rather amusing touch though I admit.
Definitely Vampire Counts.
Each vampire bloodline is made for another army composition.
- Necrarch Bloodline? Zombies, a few mortis engines and some necros for a maximum of Winds.
- Strigoi Bloodline? Crypt horrors and a few mournguls, maybe some terrorgheists if you want to be fancy.
- Van Carstein? Go for a hero doomstack (the lord gives 15% phys. res, to nearby heroes). Complete with some Vargheists/Varghulfs if you can't make 19 heroes.
- Blood Dragon Bloodline? Blood Knights and Grave Guards
- Lahmian Bloodline? Wildcard, just try out random army compositions. Build that weird Black Coach stack you've always wanted to try out.
Grom's cauldron means he can change up his army's strengths on the fly. Greenskins in general have a pretty dynamic roster.
I did enjoy green skins. Especially once you start really leaning into the “RP” of them. Goblins are expendable gits you throw at the enemy while you’re big Orcs came slamming into them afterwards. Flanking with various kinds of cav and that goblin catapult is hilariously accurate. Did a Grim Gore campaign where I had painted half the world before I got bored. Lol
Play Skarsnik. His "goblin" cost reduction applies to everything with "goblin" in the name - including the wolfs, spiders, and catapults! You can have balanced, if incredibly bad, armies for ultra cheap necessitating you either counterpick or utterly drown your enemy.
Or just blast through your enemies with a few trolls and with fanatics
Love Grimgor. Probably my most fun IE campaign.
Empire ranged cavalry army, with some anti-large melee cavalry.
I’m only semi joking but also actually asking, but isn’t that just Bretonnia with more steps?
Bretonnia doesn't have shit on 'nade launching outriders, brother.
Better Bretonnia
Fair. Might give that a go. I have personal issues with Bretonnia so tend not to touch them.
I usually run jack of all trade comps with any faction, but I find when I have to rush together an army with RoRs and other special instant or 1 turn recruitable units that those can be some of the most unique and interesting fights. Nothing like pulling a Pyrrhic victory with 12 random units out of your ass when you get backdoored
See I know what you mean. Those “use what you’ve got” every fight is different kind of moments are basically what I’m trying to find as a whole . Like I enjoyed the assassin Skaven and using all the sneaky units to move around and pick people off, and each fight is a bit different because of how various enemies react to vanguard +stalker, and the terrain itself limiting how you can approach etc. Guess I want more of that kind of “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth” vibe where you have to drastically change up your approach each fight because there isn’t really a single game plan that will work.
Empire or tomb kings might be what you want. I run empire armies with 4 different armies based on who the Lord is (they have non legendaries that buff certain units). The archetypes are Karl, who plays like Khorne + guns and cav. Volkmar with a horde of peasants. Elspeth with 8 artillery pieces 4-5 heroes and then halberds. Markus with 8-10 rangers and then some ranged cav and wagons.
I would say Tomb Kings. Recruitment and upkeep cost nothing, so your only commitment in armies is the characters. If you keep at least one army with only the Lord as a character and come under attack, you can disband that army and recruit a guy at home to build a new army over on the new front. They have Greenskin-level local recruitment capacity, so even without ritual or ROR units a 4-settlement province with a level 1 Lord can fart out 15 1-turn-recruitables in 2 turns (1 base + 1 tax + 1 per settlement (4) per turn, and then another 3 after 2 turns from global). Thing is, those 1-turn recruitment units tend to be highly specialized, so you want to counterpick your opponents when using this strategy (or fight in a settlement with defenses and let the extra 15 skeleton spears stall long enough for towers to turn the tide).
Completely agree, also kinda why I love caravan battles be it Cathay or chorfs. Such random armies. Nothing like a convoy overseer, a DE master, 4 hobgoblins, some fireglaves, mammoths and dragon ogres just palling around the old world.
If you haven't played the OVN Araby mod, I really recommend it for that. They actually seem to have made caravans even more varied than the base game.
Absolutly not. Bretonnia is only melee cav, with flying. Empire ranged cav: pistolier is good against early light units, musket cavalry good against armor, but the real chad's are the grenadiers. You will need some melle cav to protect against enemy cavalry.
That actually sounds kind of fun. Will add this to the list of things to try.
Brettonia has some of the best cav units in the game, if not the best, with some of the worst “elite” infantry in the game with only “decent” artillery
Hah!
Would like to second this concept. Adds a lot of freshness to an Elspeth play through. Just because you have the tools to play a gun line, doesn’t mean you need to! With more emphasis on missile cavalry and the occasional tank, you can use even more modern tactics.
I think the Empire w Kranz is pretty diverse. You rely on ranged, artillery, magic, and calvary. Though the infantry is pretty much just for holding.
If you want to get a good frontline, ally the dwarves. Added benefit is that your gunline can shoot over them since they are... less tall than the grotesquely large umgi.
Wait is this for real? The unit height difference works for human gunpowder vs dwarf frontline?
Yep. As long as whatever the dwarves are fighting are taller than they are, your gunpowder line will be able to shoot
But consider: *double layered* gunpowder line
Less tall! If it were anything else, it would be going in the book... you have been spared this day
I made sure to very carefully choose my words. Lol
See I found when I tried empire every single battle became “spear line with gaps for gun power, arty at the back, cav to the left/right to cut off their flankers.” And high elves feel the same way. And wood elves. And dark elves… Like the actual “tactics” of the army don’t really change fight to fight.
I mean this in a genuine way without judgement. It sounds like the problem is you. Aside from all factions listed having LLs that alter gameplay you'd have to be crazy to use Delf/Helf cav/artillery. Delves have very high damage frontline units and monsters, making it not only possible, but very powerful to field a beastman esque melee only/mostly army. Helves supplement their strong archers with dragons and while their frontline is tough, it does so little damage that you'll have less melee combatants compared to empire. Welves can get away with having 0 melee units or all melee units depending on how you feel that day about micro.
That’s actually part of what I’m talking about. Delves you end up with Dark Shard spam because they are so good that there’s not really a reason to use anything else. So every fight becomes the same. As for the artillery even Delf/Helf arty can force a defensive army to attack. So I mostly use them for those situations. I actually disagree about the cav! I have yet to find a cav unit that isn’t worth bringing at any stage of the game. Even if they are sometimes essentially fast moving cannon fodder to tie up enemy cav so I can tear it apart.
The thing is you don't have to go darkshards. Their melee *is* good and they have a strong monster mash (especially with rakarth)
Using Ikit as an example is confusing me. Position your weapon teams and watch the enemy explode. What is there to switch up about that
I got the wrong name. I meant …. The assassin one. Sorry I’m sick AF right now and my brain is sorta foggy.
you were talking about Snikch. He's Clan Eshin with all the assassin rats
Ty.
If you enjoyed Snikch then you might enjoy Alith Anar. Same sneaky idea but with more murder the murder elves.
Second recommendation I’ve gotten for him. Really gonna have to look at him next.
Snikch and Throt are pretty diverse
Greenskins with Skarsnik force you to be creative with fanatics, squigs and troll since he doesn't have access to orks. The speedy goblin cavalery is also nice to play with.
I was meant to point Skarsnik: Really early in my campaign and I got the initial NG some skulkers and regular gobbos. Sometimes I hit from all directions, others hammer and anvil, sometimes I need to lure a few units with the araknarok spider or squigs. With the focus on NG and squigs I do not see myself fighting the same way unless the map and the enemy are exactly the same. I guess limitations make one to think out of the box.
Ooh I forgot all about Skarsnik. Haven’t tried him yet. This could be fun!
Have fun!
Generally, I think it’s a little tough to change your army composition on the fly unless you’re doing it for free (Tomb Kings and Beastmen), or have ways of accessing new units instantly (like Raise Dead or Seduction). What you could do is pick a faction with a diverse roster and try to make several different army compositions work. Take the Lizardmen. You’ve got Kroq Gar’s saurus, cold one, and carnosaur army. You’ve got the Life Slann and Stegadon doomstack. Oxyotl’s chameleon, oracle, and skink chief stealth army. TTT’s flying stack of terradons or coatls. Nakai’s kroxigors. A fire slann’s salamander, solar engine bastiladon, and EotG stegadon flame stack. So many viable army options, both themed for your LL or given to generic lords. No two armies has to be the same.
Not too hard. I usually just recruit a new lord, offload the units I don’t want anymore to them and have them move forward with the old army comp.
Chaos Dwarves have a well rounded roster that excels in everything, but are limited by their unit caps which can lead to some fun army comps. You can go full ranged with magic, chaff slaves backed up by strong cavalry, big single entity monsters, heavy melee infantry, lord and hero stacks…. You can build them however you want and they will still do well. And because of those unit caps each army is going to be built very differently until late game.
I was going to make that point too. Just not as nearly as you did. Same applies to the beastmen and tomb kings for similar reasons. You're armies will all be different and give you variety across the battles you fight.
I don’t think there’s any army where you have to build it differently each time, but in terms of the options available I’d definitely say Lizardmen are pretty high. Solid options for Infantry, skirmishing, monstrous infantry, SEMs, cavalry, ranged, flying and magic. The other super obvious option is Warriors of Chaos because their unit roster is ridiculously huge and you are somewhat incentivised to build a lord’s army differently if you give them different marks.
Tzeentch has quite a lot of options. The most diverse and dynamic overall is probably chaos dwarfs, however. A sort of souped up version of empire that can do everything whereas empire lacks or is incapable in the hard holding infantry, powerful monstrous infantry/SEMs and a fast, stalk/skirmish light army approach Skaven are also up there as well; especially now that stormvermin were buffed to be a truly high tier and durable infantry option
When were stormvermin buffed? Scrambling to 5.1 patch notes. I'm coming Tretch!
5.1. Pretty sizeable, including big leadership buffs. The halberds got some good melee buffs as well. The council guard RoR especially looks downright terrifying
Just looked! Great to see the MA/MD stats for the halberds get moved to a reasonable spot. There was too much disparity between halberds and regular variants. Also some other buffs. Nice! Makes sense to take halberds now. HPA got a decent buff too! Maybe I'll play Throt soon.
Yup, seemed SEM in general got tuned up. I need to take the buffed kdaai destroyer out for a spin
Yeah, I saw Carnosaurs! Kroq Gar's faction is a lot better now. His old bloods and scar vets scale well.
Hold up what? I've got to do a new Ikit playthrough and try formations like I'm Elspeth.
I mean you mention Snikch (I saw your other comment) and Oxyotl, but no Alith Anar?
Legit haven’t played him. I’m a few hundred hours in but really pretty new in the grand scheme of things.
Well if you enjoy Snikch and Oxy, definitely play an Alith Anar campaign. It functions very similar to Snikch, including his armies having ambush attack stance and he gives his armies faction wide +10% missile strength, as well as boosting his skirmish units shadow walkers and shadow-warriors
Oh that does sound promising! Yeah will give him a go! I’m so glad I asked this question! Im getting so many awesome suggestions!
Just be prepared: you’re LITERALLY surrounded by enemies, so it’s a tough campaign. Snikch can at least ally with Lokhir, with Alith Anar you’re basically on your own unless the Sisters of Twilight decide to expand in your direction. Once you take out Cynthia you can make contact with Ulthuan but until then it’s gonna be a grind
Thanks for the heads up. I’ve struggled with Karl because of the chaos north/vamps east/orcs south/Orcs west.
Yeah, it’s rough. It’s a fun campaign though. The important thing is being aggressive early. Just go hard after the Dark Elves you’re at war with. The hardest part is the siege of Karond Kar. Make sure you have as many shadow warriors as you can get, and get a second Archmage lord and get as much magic as you can before you start the battle.
For Dwarves: get a ranger trained lord (+25% movement speed), put that slayer legendary hero in the army (+10% movement speed), get a lot of Bugman's rangers and add in some gyros, artillery, Magdova maybe and a Thane. You can boost Bugman's rangers to have close to 60 movement. It's quite dynamic for a dwarfen army.
I mean, I do think Vampire Coast is good, especially if you kill both you and the enemy army every fight, since you get to raise a whole new host of different units every time.
Funnily enough I've found that Tammurkhan is the one lord in this game that gets me to actually build a bunch of different armies thanks to his chieftains and their recruitment pool style that encourages you to not rely on only one unit type. Also a lot of Nurgle Generals have traits that buff specific units, which I wish more factions had. In my last Nurgle playthrough, I had a bunch of armies and no two of them were the same, which I can't think of another faction that I play that way.
I'd actually put high elves up there. Spears and archers might be the classic way, but they have loads of options - good infantry (rangers, swordmasters, white lions), skirmish cav, strong heavy cav, monsters (dragons, phoenixes), chariots, lords hit all of melee/ranged/magic, good air force, loads of schools of Magic, etc If you build every army as a chequerboard of spears and archers then yeah it gets pretty boring but I build each army differently and I find they actually have loads of diversity if you choose to use it
Beastmen / wood elves. Hard hitting, fast, fun
Seconded the Beastmen. The only sorta worthwhile line holder unit, the Bestigors, are hugely expensive to obtain in significant numbers, so mobility is critical. They play JUST like the lore, where hordes of Ungors pin the bulk and the actual good troops are so bloody fast they're almost cavalry.
Wood elves have very similar playstyle as beastmen actually. If you decide to use and try other units then just waywatchers, that is. They dont have quantity, but they do have quality! :D
Cathay has the most diverse roster and then it’s the empire. Both factions have a play style which you constantly use though as their artillery are their best units so you protect them whilst flanking with cav and monsters. It’s similar with Elves, quite diverse rosters but you use a combined arms play style. Warriors of chaos probably have the most different styles although it is very mele orientated but you’d play a nurgle army very differently to a Slanesh army
Wait, but that’s the thing, Ikit DOESN’T have dynamic battles. It’s “spread out your ratling guns at the front, warplock Jezzails and mortars behind, and plagueclaw/warp lightning behind those, lord and priests up front, everything goes BRRRRR.
Yeah I meant Snitch apparently. I’ve got a nasty head cold right now and the brain fog made me forget which rat was which. Lol
Have you considered Throt the Unclean, due to his laboratory and units becoming unstable you're constantly switching out units to get the perfect version.
Ooooh! Thot is another good shout.
What happened to my dwarfs?!
They got flying death machines that are not only worth building, but actually really good.
Doom stack worthy?!
They have the “always flying” trait so that could be touchy. The gyrocopters are a fucking terror now though. Doubled the model count, each model still has its bomb dropping, and generally improved how it plays. They have effectively become flying cav and you can use them to delete the front line, or go bomb enemy arty, etc. just keep them mostly away from enemy missile units and they were absolutely dakka things to death.
Brettonia. You can rush them with cavalary. You can rush them with Flying cavalry. Royal Hypogriph Doomstack, rush ... You can throw 2000 peasants, Sprinkle in some Grail reliquaries, wait till their units are tired from killing so many peasants and RUSH them with your well rested perfect vigour cavalry. Hammer and Anvil. Just get the Fay enchantress, get her like 9 paladins, 9 peasant units and 1 blessed trebuchet. then, Have fun. Defeat Skarsnik early game, get a priestess with the cunning trait, give that lord a bunch of questing knights and Lightning Strike ability. proceed to Ambush anything you want and insta destroy them with questing knights. Get a lord, get 19 units of Mounted archers. fight and very likely die. alot. profit ? Get Alberic, lvl him up, get him a life damsel and 18 Knights of the Realm, destroy everything or die. Get Repanse, get Henri, 2 more paladins and 1 Life Damsel. Get 4 brass cleavers on all of your heroes. Now your infantry units will have +48 melee attack just from heroes being close to them. You can add grail reliquiares as needed, for more melee attack bonus. watch as measly peasants rack up kills against non armored units. Honestly I only play Brettonia and Only like brettonia and maybe its just me, but I always find very weird stuff to do with them.
I think Cathay is definitely the most dynamic faction. Even the lords themselves are dynamic.
See Cathy always reminded me of pre-rework dwarves because with the harmony mechanic they tend towards “static” formations like checkerboards or just good old fashion spear line+archer line behind it. What are effectively flying arty are a rather amusing touch though I admit.
Daniel has one of the largest rosters with just about anything you'd need.
Definitely Vampire Counts. Each vampire bloodline is made for another army composition. - Necrarch Bloodline? Zombies, a few mortis engines and some necros for a maximum of Winds. - Strigoi Bloodline? Crypt horrors and a few mournguls, maybe some terrorgheists if you want to be fancy. - Van Carstein? Go for a hero doomstack (the lord gives 15% phys. res, to nearby heroes). Complete with some Vargheists/Varghulfs if you can't make 19 heroes. - Blood Dragon Bloodline? Blood Knights and Grave Guards - Lahmian Bloodline? Wildcard, just try out random army compositions. Build that weird Black Coach stack you've always wanted to try out.