Please help me choose my next army (2 choices and a long preamble)

[Rob Godin]

Hi Everyone!
This may be a bit of a long post but please stay with me – I’d really appreciate it.

Long story short – Englishman, playing fantasy then 40k for many many years. Decide to work abroad teaching. Takes two armies with him. Jump-assault heavy Flesh Tearers and shooty Necrons. Both at 1500pts. Starts teaching in East Ukraine. Teaches native friends to play 40k. Starts building a troop-heavy Daemon army. Builds a gaming table.
Civil War happens. (not in the fun, tabletop way. The real, mess your pants kinda real)
I’m now a refugee near Kiev. My armies (as well as most of my belongings and my pet chinchilla) are all still in East Ukraine.
I’ve started my own English school here. I’m making twice what I made before. The end of the month will be my first paycheck since May.

I NEED 40k. I need to paint something! I need an army sitting on a shelf. It is a way to relax and unwind in a way I can’t get elsewhere.

So at the end of the month I plan to start a new army. I could buy more daemons in hope of adding them to my existing units, but without the same paints I had before (gathered from 15+ gaming years) they will look different. Also, I cannot guarantee I will ever get my old armies back. My apartment has not been seriously damaged by the war….yet. SO – better to start a whole new army.

I’ve been thinking all week about the kind of army I want to build. I’ve narrowed it down to two options.

A Iyanden based Wraith army involving a Wraithknight warlord (basic loadout), 2 spiritseers, 4 units of wraithguard (normal guns) and 3 wraithlords (all with brightlances and flamers). 1500pts
OR
A zombie CSM army involving lots of fortifications. Typhus, 5 Nurgle termies, 60zombies (30,15+15), 2 Nurgle spawn, a Martyr defence line, Martyr Emplacement, Martyr Bunker, Firestorm Redoubt (Anti-air lazcannons) and 4 vengeance batteries, all with battle cannons. 1499pts.
Both are battleforged. Both are different styles to anything I have used before.

So – my questions are for you

Which do you think will be -
The stronger list?
The most tactically interesting/challenging to play?
The most interesting/challenging to paint?
The most fun to play?
The most interesting FOR AN OPPONENT to play against?

Thanks for reading all the way to the bottom, and I look forward to hearing your ideas!

[kharne690]

Game play wise I think the wraith army would be superior. I find that armies that are static movement wise tend to get dull fast. Both would be fun to play against but again against an army with heavy fortifications your opponent might get bored playing "storm the castle" over and over. Just my $.02

[Blood Shadow]

Dude...I feel for you, can't imagine how tough that would be.

As for the Army, I'd say go with what you want to paint the most...the Zombies sound cool....but that's quite a lot of grey green models.

[vonDietdrich]

The only thing that really jumps out at me is that both armies are really slow because you don't have any transports or vehicles. 20 wraithguard (I'm assuming you mean units of 5) will take /forever/ to get up the table on their own. I know because I play a similar list.

It might be worth it to run one of the Wraithguard 5-man groups with d-scythes for variety. AP 2 Distort flamers are really good and will give you more tactical options against pretty much everyone. I don't think two spiritseers are strictly necessary, either. You might want to consider dropping one of the wraithlords and one of the spiritseers for two wave serpents. They'll give you way more options mobility-wise, and it's much better than being trapped by your deployment.

The other big issue with the Wraith list is that, as you've written it, it's incredibly short ranged and has almost no shooting options outside 12". Six brightlance shots and two wraithcannon shots isn't going to really cut it at 1500 points, especially considering that the entire army is slogging.

As far as the Wraithknight.. if you're running that many Wraithguard with cannons already, you might want to load him out with a suncannon/scatterlaser instead. It's a bit more expensive, but it'll give you more varied shooting options and three twin-linked pie plates per turn pulls a lot more weight against the majority of lists.

You might also want to consider brightlance/scatter laser on the wraithlords, and giving them glaives. 5 points for S9 and the masterwork reroll is a steal, plus they look cool. The scatter lasers fulfill an important function in beefing out number of shots while still remaining threatening against AV up to 12 (not to mention twin linking the lances). If your wraithlords are forced to shoot infantry or light vehicles, the scatter laser does work, and it makes the lance much more likely to hit too.

CSM's not really my thing, but you've got a similar problem. The huge fortification list (aside from sounding like a pain to transport and setup) will lose objective-based games horribly. Aside from the terminators, your list will pretty much be bowling pins for shooting armies to knock over. If you only play for kill points, it could work, but it's a one trick pony. Fortifications don't shoot nearly as well as their equivalent points worth of shooting options, and if the board has a lot of terrain you could be in serious trouble. Generally, I've found the rule with things like fortifications, superheavies, flyers etc to be that one is fine, two makes you That Guy, and three gets frustrating to play against very quickly.

As far as horde-based lists like zombies go, you need to have something scary behind them. 60 zombies will evaporate pretty quickly against most shooting-heavy armies (which, in 7th edition, is almost all of them). If they're not screening some serious firepower, they're just going to evaporate to no effect and then you'll be left with five terminators and some walls.

EDIT
As to the other points: Wraiths are great to paint. Horde-armies are usually (for me) just a matter of priming them all white and then using ink washes to get them all the correct color scheme. It's more monotonous to paint than enjoyable.

The Wraith army will be rough for people to play against. It has some of the best heavy weapons in the game (wraithcannons/brightlances), but Dark Eldar poison will absolutely shred it. Other armies will have to double up on heavy weapons if they want to have a hope at cracking it.. or just run away from it and play for objectives. Normally, you'd solve an army like that by swarming them in close combat with a horde to tie them up. That's still a viable solution to beat it, as all of the fantastic Wraith guns won't matter if they're being used to blow away termagants or cultists.
Flyers will still be a threat to it, and your limited numbers means that all your casualties will really hurt. If you wind up playing a close-quarters scenario against an infantry-heavy opponent, you'll have problems.

The CSM army seems a lot easier to play against, at least for me. Drop pods will have a pretty easy time of it. The terminators and Typhus will be annoying, but the problem with them is that they have no punch to back them up. Only fortifications and sixty zombies means you won't be able to support them, so (again) objective-based scenarios will be torture for them. On defense, yeah they're pretty good and you could probably stall someone out beyond the five or six turns that the game will last, but that's basically their only strategy. You know exactly what they're going to do every time they're put on the table, and that's kinda boring.

[kharne690]

I 2nd the wave serpents and D-scyths. 3 serpents are mandatory in my wraith army .

[Rob Godin]

Thanks everyone for the input!

Both of these armies are very different to armies I have had in the past (intentionally). I started in 4th with Rhino-rush Sisters. I did Nids, evolving from a balanced list into a sporeheavy drop-pod-esque army. I then went to raider-spam Dark Eldar.

I don't want to repeat those previous armies - hence why none of these have transports. I've also found I don't enjoy painting vehicles as much as I like infantry. However, I have painted some buildings and enjoyed them in the past.

I agree that both armies are 1-trick ponies. Hopefully one day I will get my other armies back, and I won't be so predictable an opponent.

Wraith ideas - It needs 2 spiritseers because I'm using 2 detachments, and I want the primaris power to give battle focus to the army. Hopefully that will help with movement problems. The wraithlords allhave flamers, so hopefully that would help a little against hoards.

Zombie ideas - I completely agree that I will become "that guy" with the fortifications. And yes, I will have a huge amount of problems capturing objectives from their side. But those zombies on the defence line should be almost impossible to shift with shooting - 4+ cover followed by 5+FNP. So they will need to come closer to me. Those big battle cannons are putting out 4x S8 AP3 Large blasts a turn (admittedly shooting the nearest unit). Typhus and his termies could DS towards the back of their line.

Finally, I'd just say that the good thing about being a refugee near Kiev is...Kiev! There is a big gaming club in the city, so I would have a lot more variety on who I play against. I don't think people will get bored of either army very quickly.

[Da Gargoyle]

Your fortification cover for zombies will amount to naught if your opponent is the Eldar WS squadron loaded with D-Scythe totin' WG's and a squad or two of Wraith Blades. I am sure shooty Tau and IG (can't get out of the habit), will cause you all sorts of pain with ignores cover also. You always need a secondary delivery system at least. It splits the other guys fire, can be used late to threaten, contest or claim objectives and can tie up something threatening the main force. By the way, what do zombies do if they sit behind a wall, would not your opponent just ignore them?

[Rob Godin]

Sorry to resurrect the dead post - but I just wanted to share a quick update.
I bought a couple of wraithguard to tide me over. I've really enjoyed painting them, especially the challenge of yellow!

At the end of last week some friends who are still in the warzone managed to send me my winter clothes...and my 40k stuff! A couple of necron warriors seem to have gone missing in the move but the other 100ish models made it fine! And all my paints and brushes! They even packed my dice for me!
It is so great to have my hobby at my fingertips once again. Sadly the chinchilla is still in the warzone, but I have a cunning plan...

Anyway, thanks for all the support you guys gave me / continue to give. I'll try and post a photo or two tomorrow

[Porkchop Express]

I love playing against zombies. They are up there with Orks and Dark Eldar in the fun opponents list. However, I'm not sure how they would work as a defensive, castling force. As a slow horde, zombies are great fun to play against, particularly once they make it to combat. But when they hide behind a wall they lose all appeal imo. Seriously consider a zombie horde, and a nice city table, with plenty of zombie friendly cover to go with them.

I would say the wraith army would be the more enjoyable force for you to play as, simply because Zombies should be an agressive army. Although in every other category, bar the against category (both don't look nice to play against), I would say Zombies.