‘Warhammer: The Old World’- The Five Best Armies In The Game
Do you want to beat face and take names in Warhammer: The Old World? Well these are the best armies to do that with.
Warhammer: The Old World has been out for almost nine months, and we’ve gotten a lot of games in. Around the world, people have been playing in both casual games and a growing number of large events. It’s been just stellar to see the game grow and expand. We’ve also started to see a meta, or multiple metas (metii?) evolve. Several months ago, I went and ranked the various factions, breaking them up in the core and legacy factions. However a lot has changed since then. We’ve gotten more FAQs and AJs and seen a lot more events, and I’ve been to more myself. So today I want to go back and look at what I think are the top five armies in the game, combining all the lists out there.
Now this particular ranking is going to be partially based on numbers, and partially on my general feelings on the lists and how they’ve been doing at events. I think there are some very strong lists that for reasons, either they are new or comp, haven’t shown up a lot yet. In addition, a challenge we face is that competitively, there are really two metas, the comped and the un-comped meta. The un-comped meta is events playing with army lists straight out of the rule book. The comped (composition) meta are events that impose some additional rules to how you can build armies. The most common of these being variations on the rule of three, which limits you to taking no more than three of the same unit. I’ve tried to account for this, but I’m sure there will be debate.
5. Daemons Of Chaos
Daemons have always been an odd army and aren’t the most popular. Because of this I think they’ve flown under the radar a bit. They also have a lot of stuff in their book that is pretty trash. However, they do have one build that is very very powerful.
When I talk about Daemons being good I mainly mean Tzeentch are good. In an un-comped format you can build an absolutely demonic list with them. It mostly comes down to them being able to spam just a ton of magic. Not only are their characters able to be powerful casters, but they have core units capable of casting. On top of that, Flamers, already a powerful unit, can upgrade their champions to be a lvl 3 caster. That means you can spend 100% of your points on units that can cast if you want. Most of these units can also shoot.
All this combined lets you put out just a crazy amount of casting and firepower and back it up with a few decent combat units as well. Add in having lots of skirmishers and all being unbreakable and its an army that is a real problem for a lot of people. In comped events, the list gets taken down a few pegs with limits on how much they can spam wizards, but unless the event has specific rules limiting casting, it’s still a lot. I think in an un-comped event, there is a strong argument for them being the #1 army, but it comped events that comes down.
4. Wood Elves
Woof Elves are a decent army but a bit hard to play. Their playstyle is certainly not for everyone. They have some great glass cannon offence units, amazing shooting, and a lot of good avoidance units. They’ve also got what I think is one of the better dragons in the game, especially for fighting other dragons (thanks to the annoyance of nettling’s). However they’ve also got plenty of downsides that tend to keep them at a decent but not amazing army.
One unit, in particular, stands out in the army however. This is the Sisters of the Thorn, a unit I’ve talked about before. Once again, we have a unit that can spam magic causing an issue. You see each Sisters unit get to pick a spell they can cast as a bound spell. Add in a couple of wizards and you can normally spam the same spell 8 times.
A lot of lists are using this to throw out up to 8 pillars of fire. Because of how mobile Wood Elves are they can generally stay out of dispel range of the enemy and just let the pillars go through their army without a whole ton of interaction. In a comped format, this gets taken down a lot as they are heavily restricted in how many they can take. In a fully un-comped event I’d likely move them up a few spots, but heavy comp could take them off the list entirely (likely to be replaced by Chaos Warriors).
3. Vampire Counts
Vampire Counts have a lot going for them these days. Being undead lets you ignore a ton of rules. Having the option to bring models back is totally amazing of course. They’ve a lot of really strong options and I doubt people are surprised to see them on the list. Right now, the peak of VC lists are scream lists. These are built around spamming Wailing Dirges ( Banshees, Mortis Engines and Terrorgihsts get these). These force the enemy to take a LD test at -2, losing a number of wound equal to what they fail by.
A magic heavy VC also has a number of ways to lower enemy LD. Tying the enemy up with cheap chaff, and then hitting them with 5-6 screams and some LD de-buffs can see powerful units, even dragons, just vanish. Comp does tend to hurt scream lists by limiting how many you can take and there are some counter-plays (some armies have access to banners that remove LD de-buffs, which is great vs this list). So while strong, they aren’t the top of the list. I did score them a bit higher because I think they have other good builds as well.
2. Mortuary Cult
Tomb Kings in general are a strong army and you could put them up here on their own (maybe behind VC). However I think the most powerful build out of Tomb Kings as a whole has got to be Mortuary Cult. This is an army built around constructs and casting. It’s got all the benefits of being undead and also tends to have a ton of options to bring stuff back. However, it’s magic is what really takes it over the top.
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Set up correctly, pretty much every wizard you have will be casting with a +4 when wanted, on top of their levels. This means a lvl 4 wizard is getting +8 to their casting roll (they can get it up to +12, but that seems overkill). This is… pretty insane actually. Most of the time, outside of a miscast, they can’t fail to cast and most enemies are likely needing double sixes to dispel.
You are basically getting off all the spells you want and can use that to wreak enemy armies. Combine that with the Casket, which aside from boosting casting is like a more powerful VC scream. Its attack can annihilate whole units and even large monsters. You’ll want to nerf enemy LD first, but with spells that almost can’t fail that easily. It’s a super powerful combo and kind of an issue. Comp does hurt it a bit, but it’s really only comp that targets wizards, pretty rare, that takes it down.
1. Bretonnian Exiles
Like Tomb Kings, Bretonnains are a really strong army and could make the list on their own, however I’ve gone with what I think is the best version of Brets. This is what I took to win NOVA and it has a ton going for it. By now we likely all know about how powerful Pegasus Knights are (and that they likely need some kind of nerf). They are in the running for the best non-character unit in the game. Exiles give them the option to vanguard (with a banner) and don’t give up the chance to go first. This makes them pretty insane and while it can be a risky tactic a lot of armies simply can’t deal with having an 800 pt combat unit charge them on turn one.
Exiles also get access to a ton of lores that normal Brets don’t, (frenzy and hated on first turn charging Peg knights), though they lose out on lvl 4s. Cannons and other tricky units are great as well. They have a few of the best magic items in the game; the Frontier Axe is amazing.
While it’s harder for them to get the Lady’s Blessing they still can gain it, and I think having all the important units in the your army be Stubborn and Veteran is just an amazing boon. This is a really great list and it goes beyond just Pegasus Knights (though they are a large part). What’s more it has proven mostly immune to comp restrictions. It’s one of the few lists I think actually get’s better in a comped event, making it very powerful. You can read more about in my NOVA articles, but I’m putting it up here as number one. I’m not biased at all – I promise.
Let us know which armies you think are the best, down in the comments!
