‘Warhammer: The Old World’- The Five Worst Armies
We’ve talked about the best, now take a look at the armies that are struggling the most in Warhammer: The Old World.
While the meta of The Old World is a constantly evolving beast, with new releases shaking it up, there have been some strong trends over the past year of the game. With these we have been able to get some accurate sense of which armies are good and which are… well bad. Now I’ve looked at the best armies before. That’s always useful to know. But it can also be equally useful to know which armies are doing the worst, are at the bottom of the pack. This is useful not just for choosing what army to play, or avoid playing. It can also give us an idea of which armies might need to be fixed. So today lets take a look at the worst armies.
I’m also just going to look at the Grand Armies for this. All of these, well pretty much all, can win games. Most have a build that is successful. Those that have them tend to see better results from an Army of Infamy. But overall they struggle. A lot of these are legacy armies, and that might be intended. Certainly they won’t get a fix anytime soon. But it’s not true of all of them. So let’s dig in.
5. Empire of Man
The Empire is a classic and core part of Fantasy/The Old World. It’s also just straight up one of the worst lists around. Of the core armies it’s traditionally had the lowest win rate. While it has a lot of options, sadly most of those aren’t great. It has some of the worst most overcosted infantry in the game. A lot of its warmachines are lackluster. It’s characters are mostly bland and/or weak. It lacks special rules and has few actually good units.
If I had written this a few weeks ago it would be even lower on the list. However they did just get their new Arcane Journal. While I don’t think this fixed them or made them very competitive, it was an improvement. They are better than they were a little while ago and I don’t think the Journal has been out long enough to reflect in the stats, so I am cautiously moving them up a bit.
4. Dwarfs
Dwarfs actually fall into a lot of the same traps as Empire does. They have a lot of not very good infantry, cheaper, but more expensive then Empire. They have a lot of warmachines that are pretty mid. Dwarfs do have better characters and some decent infantry. They’ve got a few very nice shooting units. But their weaknesses as always are a lack of magic and being really really slow. While the magic isn’t as big in ToW as it was in some WFB editions, the speed issue is very real. Dwarfs have had their AJ out for a while and still trend towards the bottom of the pack. Their Armies of Infamy do tend to fare better, but the Grand Army really struggles.
3. Ogre Kingdoms
With Ogres we are moving into the realm of Legends. Ogre’s are just one of those armies that feels fairly lackluster and struggles a lot. They do have some pretty strong units and can hit pretty hard, but just don’t really work well in ToW. The army lacks the speed to compete with a lot of the best armies. They are costly and not very durable. They really struggle vs dragons and flying enemies. Statistically they are actually normally the worst of the Grand Armies, but I actually rate them a bit higher. They do have some decent things in their army and people have had some success with them. They still aren’t good, but they have a little going for them.
2. Lizardmen
Oh boy, what to say about Lizardmen. This is an army that’s just very sad. Pretty much everything that should be good in them is, just, not. The Slann, supposedly the best wizard around, are not amazing units. While they can be pretty good and interesting casters, as a whole they aren’t good. Saurus are bad infantry. Their big monsters are all subpar. Nothing in the army hits as hard as it should. They don’t have interesting rules and are very very bland. There are a couple decent units here, Skinks for one can be decent. A bunch of monsters can causes issues for some lists. It’s thin gruel, but it is there.
1. Skaven
Lastly I’ve got the give Skaven the worst spot on the list. This is an army that has been just terrible, and bland to boot. I think they really struggle to put together any kind of winning list and have just about nothing going for them. While numbers-wise they’ve done a little better than some of the other armies on this lists, the difference is very slim and I just think their book is worse. This is an army with no cav and very few monsters in a game dominated by those things.
They have no really interesting units or rules. The lack of good mounts makes their characters the worst in the game. They just aren’t a good army in any way. Sure Gutter Runners are kind of annoying and Grey Seers are an OK caster, but not in anyway that really stands out, compared to what others can do. Meanwhile the rest of the list is rat infested garbage.
Let us know which armies you think are the worst, down in the comments!
