Advise on starting purchases.

[RiedDogg]

Some of my friends have begun the process of twisting my rubber arm and getting me into Warhammer Fantasy. Since I thought I would go into this with my eyes open, I have a few questions for those of you who already play the game.

I'm not too worried about the rules, I'll simply learn as I go, what I am worried about is choosing a force that will be fun to play.
I'm looking to start at the 500 pt level (if that's even a playable level?) since that seems to be how much a can afford over the next 3 months. I'm looking at either Beasts of Chaos or Warriors of Chaos, which leads me to my next question. Are the Chaos forces playable together in a similar fashion to how the old Hordes of Chaos (in any way, shape or form) or are they now completely separate armies never to be mixed and matched.

The next question goes like this, I've chosen out some boxes to buy and am just wondering if I'm setting my self up for failure and disgust or if I'll have fun using them as a starting point to expand out from.

For Warriors of Chaos - 2 boxes Warriors of Chaos, 1 box Knights of Chaos and one Chaos Sorceror.
For Beasts of Chaos - 2 Boxes Beastmen Regiment, 1 Tuskgor Chariot, 1 Bray-shaman and one Beastlord w/ Great Weapon.

From what I can tell these will round out around 500 points each, cover the core units and give me a leader. My question is whether or not I'll have fun with them and if I eventually bought both, could I use them together.

Or you can make fun of me for being a weakwilled sap whose friends push him around.

[Jadin]

*snicker*

Currently, Chaos is being split into 3 factions. They are NOT interchangeable.

The purchases look okay for starting lists.

[pszito]

Yeah, it's my humble opinion that 1,000 points is really the good first benchmark, tho 500 can be done it's very limiting. Especially for certain armies (namely mine; Ogres) it can be very difficult to get into full swing with the game. But for a learning game, it might serve quite well. Besides, the higher point value you go in Fantasy, the bigger & badder heroes you get!

As far as army selection goes, i would definately recommend looking through the website (as slow and laggy as it is now) and check out the look of the models, the flavor of their backstory (as fantasy is far more mapped out than 40K), and imagine what you will derive the most enjoyment out of doing regularly to your opponents! lol I don't think i'll ever get tired of stomping over my enemies in a full on bull charge with great weapons! Or firing a gnoblar out of the scrap-launcher instead of the intended slew of pointy things! Or having a giant start jumping up and down on the little squishy things beneath it and not ever stop because he's having too much fun! Or... or... or.... yeah. You get the idea. Find your desired flavor then your fun factor will endlessly outweigh the 'dear me, another game' notion!

[RiedDogg]

I've gone through those steps and arrived at the two armies listed above, the problem I'm now facing is whether or not I'm shooting myself in the foot with those selections since one has a new army book coming out in November and the other seems to be slated for renewal in 2009.

I'm also looking for confirmation that what I've listed above is a valid and interesting start to those armies.

[Jadin]

Beastmen, 2010. Warriors, a 'get you by list' can be downloaded off the GW website and was in one of the recent White Dwarfs to show where GW plans on taking the army. I really expect more magic items and special characters in the final book, and maybe some additional rules to balance your loss of daemons and beasts.

[EmperorsWrath]

Start w/ Chaos humans. You simply cannot go wrong if you paint up Warriors, Knights and a Sorceror, no matter what the next iteration of Chaos looks like it will absolutely still have those choices.

[RiedDogg]

Warriors it is. I bought the Beast of Chaos book and found that outside of the Beastmen themselves, there's little of interest to me there anyway. So I'll wait to October/November and see if they come out with some kind of Army deal when they bring out the new Army book.

Should give me enough time to get my backlog of Privateer and Comfy Chair models up to snuff.