What is Warhammer: Quick n’ Dirty? It’s a guide meant to give you an idea about how an army plays, feels, and acts on the table top. It’s a guide to help new players 1) pick a starting army and 2) identify opposing armies and how to play against them in a condensed and easily readable form. I cannot handle this task alone and if I did the information would be too biased anyway. If you have any experience with an army listed or unlisted, please share any comments or advice and I will add them to the relevant armies. This is a work in progress that will never see completion as the game is constantly changing, so I will attempt to update it frequently. Below is the format:

Army Name

Racial Advantage - This is where the unique racial advantages inherent to every army are listed. This racial advantage defines how an army operates on the table top and usually applicable to all models in the army.

Pros:
+ The things the army does well
+ Unique things the army brings that others do not

Cons:
- Things the army does poorly
- Unique disadvantages this army has that others do not

Play [Army Name] if you like:
+ Positive player experiences
+ Army specialities

Don't play [Army Name] if you like:
- Army deficiencies

Bretonnia

Racial Advantage – Lance Formation. Allows Bretonnia to run its powerful knights in ranks of 3 instead of 5 and allows the flanks of those knight units to attack on the charge. Can also hide a mounted wizard in the middle of one of these lances.
Racial Advantage – Blessing of the Lady. Allows Bretonnia to sacrifice going first in order to gain a 6+ ward save on every knight that turns into a 5+ ward save against attacks strength 5 or greater.

Pros:
+ Extremely mobile
+ Core Heavy cavalry
+ Cheap peasant hordes
+ Strong warmachine
+ Blessing makes knights some of the strongest in the game
+ Powerful charge

Cons:
- Expensive Heavy Cavalry
- Reliant on the charge
- Access to only 3 Lore’s of Magic
- Low leadership on Peasants
- Low toughness
- Out of date army book
- No heavy infantry
- Only 3 Lore’s of Magic

Play Bretonnia if you like:
+ Heavy Cavalry and Knights
+ Devastating charges
+ A mobile army
+ Making armor/ward saves
+ An army that feels straight out of the Middle Ages

Don’t play Bretonnia if you like:
- A new and powerful army book
- Prolonged combats
- Heavy infantry
- Access to a lot of Lore’s of Magic

High Elves

Racial Advantage – Speed of Asuryan. This rule is slightly different than Always Strikes First as it essentially allows Swordmasters and White Lions to ignore Always Strikes Last on their great weapons and get re-rolls to hit if they have a higher initiative than their target. Crippling strong rule.

Pros:
+ Fast in combat
+ Good at hitting targets first
+ Good at putting out wounds
+ Elite Special choices allow for flexibility
+ Access to the basic 8 Lore’s of Magic and their own Lore
+ Strong magic items
+ Dragons and lots of special characters

Cons:
- Toughness 3 across the board
- Low armor
- Often reliant on magic
- Magic items are powerful, but expensive
- Pay for their racial ability upfront with expensive models

Play High Elves if you like:
+ Re-Rolling lots of dice
+ Killing your enemy before he kills you
+ A strong magic phase
+ Elite troops

Don’t play High Elves if you like:
- Cheap troops
- Tough models
- Strong shooting
- Warmachines

Wood Elves

Racial Advantage – Asrai Archery. Wood Elves do not suffer the normal -1 penalty for moving and shooting. Very important for a skirmishing army.
Racial Advantage – Forest Walkers. Wood Elves all have Forest Strider. Pretty self explanatory.
Racial Advantage – Woodland Ambush. Wood Elves may deploy a free 6” forest in Pitched Battles after table sides have been rolled for. Not that impactful of a special ability, but since Skirmishers have Stubborn in a forest it can prove useful.

Pros:
+ EXTREMELY mobile force
+ Fast and shooty elves
+ Tough and killy tree spirits
+ Glade Guard Longbows have strength 4 in short range
+ Elite troops
+ Only army with a ranged Killing Blow
+ Skirmishers

Cons:
- Toughness 3 on all elves
- Expensive tree spirits and elves
- Only one elf close combat unit capable of fighting in ranks
- Only one tree spirit unit capable of fighting in ranks
- Outdated army book
- Universally regarded as the weakest army in the game
- Bows are the weakest form of ranged weaponry in the game

Play Wood Elves if you like:
+ Shooting lots of arrows
+ A challenging army
+ Lots of movement
+ Never facing your opponent head on
+ A very fluffy army

Don’t play Wood Elves if you like:
- Heavy cavalry
- Ranked infantry
- Hordes
- Cheap models
- Access to a lot of Lore’s of Magic
- A new and powerful army book

Reserved for Daemons of Chaos

Reserved for Warriors of Chaos

Reserved for Beastmen

Reserved for Lizardmen

Reserved for Empire

Reserved for Dark Elves

Reserved for Ogre Kingdoms

Vampire Counts

Racial Advantage – Undead. Every creature in the army of a vampire count general causes fear, assuming they do not cause terror. In addition, all units are unbreakable and unstable.
Racial Advantage – The Lore of Vampires. While not a racial advantage per se, this unique lore is the key to keeping the whole army together. While other lores of magic may allow for the recovery of wounds or models, none does so as effectively as the Lore of Vampires.

Pros:
+ An army very flexible in its composition, allowing for balanced or specialized forces, as well as fluffy lists which are still reasonably effective.
+ Powerful, flexible characters that can be built to either become combat monsters or good spellcasters, or both.
+ Cheap hordes of unbreakable skeletons and zombies, perfect for holding up other infantry designed to negate steadfast, supported by tough elite units with relatively easy access to killing blow.
+ Easily capable of replacing troops and healing wounds in characters or monsters.
+ (Relatively) easy access to ethereal troops
+ Access to both cheap and weak and strong and expensive fliers.
+ A host of units designed to support the rest of the army, like the Mortis Engine or the Corpse Cart.
+ Interesting unique units, such as the Hexwraiths, Terrorgheists and Black Coaches.
+ Many special characters, most decent and one or two very effective ones.

Cons:
- No access to standard shooting, including a lack of warmachines.
- Heavily dependent upon the magic phase to replace casualties, especially ones suffered by single, important models during the enemy's shooting phase.
- Heavily dependent on the general and characters: if he dies the army starts to crumble, not to mention that a nearby caster is required to replace losses, as mentioned above.
- Limited choice of flanking units, since with a few notable exceptions units cannot march if too far away from the general.
- Unless at higher-point games, high-level casting is limited to 3 lores of magic, although level 1-2 casters can have access to most lores. The Lore of Vampires is somewhat limited in offensive potential.
- Very vulnerable to elite units capable of destroying the undead host via combat resolution. Especially true for lone characters and the army's own elite units.
- Lack of great magic items, although there are a few solid ones.
- Somewhat lacking core units.
- Fear is mostly irrelevant in the 8th edition unless the enemy BSB is assassinated, or in the case of flanking units.

Play Vampire Counts if you like:
+ Powerful characters.
+ An undying horde that will never run away and is exceedingly hard to kill to the last man.
+ Many choices and special rules.
+ Lots of choices in army composition.

Don’t play Vampire Counts if you like:
- Warmachines and Shooting.
- Units working alone without support.
- An army with little or no magic.
- An army composed solely of elite units.

Reserved for Tomb Kings

Reserved for Skaven

Reserved for Dwarves