8th Ed. Newbie alert!

[Relentless]

Hey guys

Recently had the urge to jump into 8th. Never played fantasy, but played heresy for 4 years... so where to begin!?

Found a small fantasy crew here so have some players and want to build a 2.5k/3k list from scratch and take a 1.5k from this to start learning.

What is the best way to start??

Thanks guys!

 

[livewaaaaagh]

Hey Relentless! Welcome to the forum and so great that you picked up 8th - the best edition (IMO, of course!)

The two main items you need for 8th edition are Saurus Warriors and Skinks. From there, every list will vary. But if we're starting from 0, those are the two units I feel you need.

At 1.5k, the inclusion of a Slann is debatable. Some might say it's a must, others maybe not to so much. At 2k+, it's a must, to me.

So, back to where to start:

Option 1:
The Start Collecting box comes with 12 Saurus, a Carno/Trglodon/ and 8 Cold Ones. For example, you could sytatrt there, then add a skink priest, 1 box of skinks and 1 box of saurus. You'll end up with 32 Saurus, a Carno/Troglodon, 8 Cold Ones, 24 Skinks and a priest. You could even grab one of the 8 Cold Ones and "make him" a Scar Vet and you'll have a pretty good starting force.

Option 2:
Purpose-buy. At 2k, you'll likely start fielding Temple Guard with Slann, Saurus Warriors and/or Skinks, and big guys (Stegadon, Bastilodon, etc). So you buy that from the get-go. It's just more expensive because you'll need 2 boxes of Temple Guard, 1-2 of Saurus Warriors, 1 of Skinks ( at least), slann, stegadon. Each one of those is $50+, so it gets expensive.

Does this help?

 

[Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl]

What is the best way to start??

First of all, welcome! Great to see not just a fantasy player but a new fantasy player join us!

As for the best way to start, depends upon how competitive your mates are and what armies they’re starting. I’m a fan of more thematic army builds, so any advice I give you may not be the best for a super-competitive game.

 

[Relentless]

Hey guys, thanks for the posts! Great help

So I don't think the guys that play are competitive, more for fun, so that's good

My thoughts on where I would like to go based on things are read and cool models are as follows:

Slann
not sure on other heroes

Block of temple for slann (30?)

2x Block of Saurus with spears (25-30?)

a few units of skink skirmishers (blockers)

some cold ones (flanks - though heard not a great unit)

salamanders (for anti-horde)

Terradons (anti-war machine)

2-3 big dino's (ancient steg, bastiladon)

Obvs I have no idea how to kit them out either as not sure what stuff does yet!

 

[livewaaaaagh]

For 2k+, the core of the army you posted above is rather correct. Please note: not knowing your budget, I'll provide general direction only:

There are variations of core troops (some people play a skink cloud, consisting of only skink skirmishers), others play a combination of Saurus Warriors and Skinks. For starting out, I would recommend this route.
This means 1 box of Skinks, and likely 2 boxes of Surus Warriors.

A Slann is 100% for sure.
Many bunker a Slann in a Temple Guard unit. A box comes with 15. You could convert some of the Saurus Warriors into Temple Guards if you want to save money. If not get 2 boxes.

Start with 1 Stegadon and 1Bastilodon. You can magnetize parts of the stegadon to be able to switch from Gaint Bow to Blow Pipes (Baby steg, to ancient steg).

1-2 Salamanders

I also recommend Chameleon Skinks or Terradons for War Machine hunting.

 

[Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl]

Concerning a Slann, I play more thematic and less competitive games without a Slann because I don't have one (mostly because the model just looks so boring and monopose) and I do pretty well most of the time, but a Slann would be especially useful if you're up against armies that are notoriously magic-heavy (Elves of all kinds, Tomb Kings and Chaos come to mind). If you do want to use one, Temple Guard are a must at keeping him alive if you don't want to take the Ethereal upgrade.

I don't see why so many people use lots of Skinks in their armies myself - their weapons have a rubbish range and as a result they are at heavy risk of being charged, and with their pretty poor morale of 6, the odds are 50:50 when trying to rally them if they flee as a charge reaction (although keeping the general close by will help mitigate this). Their only good points are that their attacks are poisoned (making them decent anti-monster troops if you can get them close enough) and that they're cheap enough to take as chaff. Certainly if you want a cohort, make sure to have Kroxigors in there as well so that they actually do something if you have to hold when being charged.

As many here will tell you, Saurus Cavalry are good against chaff on their own with their 2+ armour save, but so much better if you have an Oldblood or Scar Veteran on Cold One in the unit too, especially if you give him a killer magic weapon - the Cav essentially become the bus with which to transport the unit-wrecking powers of the character.

Stegadons are a nice unit choice - regular ones can help to whittle down chaff with bolt throwers and Ancients can carry a Skink character around with them and boost your magic as far as I can remember.

If you want a Bastiladon, 100% go with Solar Engine unless you have at least twenty Jungle Swarm bases - the Solar Engine gives your units an initiative bonus and can potentially kill anything up to 4 Ogres in a single shot (you have to be lucky to get such an amazing result though).

I would also say if you want a badass Saurus character as your general and you're not against Dwarfs or Empire then by all means take a Carnosaur (he's especially nice in the flank against monstrous infantry as he can absolutely ruin any monster or monstrous infantry unit providing he gets chance to attack), although while I love Carnosaurs, most here don't because GW had the damn cheek to power up some other armies' monsters to become better than the Carnosaur). Note that in a 1500 point list you'd only be able to barely fit in either a Slann or Oldblood on Carnosaur into your Lords slot, if you want to shell out on a lord, so maybe you'd want a less powerful leader in 1500 (I'd say Oldblood on Cold One or foot would be best choice as he'd boost the Saurus unit he joins by a huge amount).