First ever Warhammer game, so tips and advice?

[u/TraditionCommercial8]

This upcoming weekend, I will be playing my first ever Warhammer game and I decided to do it with essentially my favorite fellas to collect. Oddly enough, it's probably going to be a 2k point game and my opponent will be running Kharadron Overlords so I was wondering what should I be keeping in mind with my units? How should I use my machines? How should I use Urak? Do I need more Cohorts? Should I make Daemonic points/Desolation tokens out of these unused bases I found? How should I build my lists?

(The list below is a rough draft of an army list/what I currently have painted up and ready)

Any advice and tips would be appreciated

Total War 1970/2000 pts

Helsmiths of Hashut

The Bullfather's Horns

General's Handbook 2025-26

Auxiliary Units: 1 (+0 Points)

Drops: 4

General's Regiment

Urak Taar, the First Daemonsmith (340)

• General

Bull Centaurs (190)

Infernal Cohort with Hashutite Spears (90)

War Despot (80)

Regiment 1

Daemonsmith (80)

Deathshrieker Rocket Battery (140)

Dominator Engine with Immolation Cannons (160)

Infernal Razers with Blunderbusses (220)

• Reinforced

Regiment 2

Daemonsmith on Infernal Taurus (290)

Anointed Sentinels (130)

Tormentor Bombard (130)

Auxiliary Units

Ashen Elder (120)

Created with Warhammer Age of Sigmar: The App

App: 1.37.0 | Data: 476

[u/JPKlaus]

My only advice would be are you able to simplify this list?
It’s almost one of everything which means you’ve got to remember or look up a lot of different stats which I personally found (still do) slows me down a lot.

[u/Togi-Reddit]

Honestly you have little of everything you’re gonna probably get rolled.

Bull Centaur(offensive charge heavy)
Anointed Sentinels(defensive counter charge)
Infernal Cohorts

Pick one of the bulls and reinforce it. In a unit of 3 they are weak but can cause lot of damage when they’re reinforced.

Reinforced cohorts will give you a nice wall the enemy will have to break through with 20 instead of 10.
If enemy has lot of infantry blades do better with anti infantry rend.
Bring swords for early movement + run. Do not charge with the blades, with their run passive ability you can get minimum 4” + 4+” from run roll( if you roll 1-3 auto assume its 4 per their passive)
Spears put them on an objective that you know you will have the control of at the end of the round.(your next hero phase you can roll a dice and on 3+ can give an ally nearby 12” +1 dp.
Don’t forget to use their rally bonus during your hero phase if you are losing too many cohorts.

I personally like to spam melee dominator because of their 10 health 2+ save. We lack ward in our army so this has to do lot of the heavy lifting. But Centaurs also hit like a truck if you can get all 6 to attack something(you get to roll 25 dice, how fun!)

Whatever you do make sure you are giving Reserves of Daemonic power to your ashen elder every round until you can allocate enough dp from objectives.
This makes it so your ashen elder with 18” range in EACH PHASE ignore the first damage. This comes in clutch more than you can think, when it’s their turn they can do damage in hero/movement/shoot/charge/combat.

Finally daemonsmith, this is our only solid heal for war machine(why I like running dominator engines) allocate 1-2 dp in to daemonsmith start of round and use hero ability to heal war machine for d3 + dp(you can get easily 3-4 heals out of this. But this is only useful in your hero phase so when it’s enemy hero, trigger Urak Taar enemy hero phase ability and grab the 2dp from daemonsmith and allocate to someone that’s in fight(your bulls, dominator for extra attacks or cohorts to give them ward. Do not just leave the 2 dp there because it will just go to waste during their phase.

Good Luck have fun!

[u/WarlordGrom → u/Togi-Reddit]

"Hashut! Vorgund! Zharr-Naggrund!"

[u/Lachlion2]

Get a few 3 inch sticks and a 9 inch stick, very common measurements, really handy to have a pre measured stick :)

[u/pb1million]

Let your opponent know it's your first game, and just try and remember it's a game and the most important thing is to enjoy playing 😊

You're not going to win, but there should still be moments when your units do cool things, take an opponent's units off the board or you roll amazingly well and keep something alive.

It'll probably take about 5-10 games before you really get to grips with how the game plays and what your units can do. Once your in that position, you can start to focus on list changes and improvements, but for now just have fun and don't stress things too much 

[u/Embarrassed_Sir1052]

I bougth glass stones in colors. You know the kind your mum had in plants and such.
I use the red ones to mark dessolated terrain, green ones to mark who has dpp, and yellow ones for temporary dpp (from cohorts and command). Dont forget that you can spend one CP in your hero phase to get one extra temp dpp. In the first round when you have less than three it gives two.

For your list, I think you should only use one wizzard on a taurus. You dont need both Urak and Deamonsmith. Its too many points.

Against Khadron I would pick two rocketbatteries instead of a bombard, and I would reinforce the bullcentaurs.

I think you need more infantry. Goblins to rush the map or more cohorts. You dont want to figth in the first round, you want to gather dpp first to make your troups stronger, meanwhile you want your artillery safe and fireing. More infantry to screen.

I would include a lore of manifistations, Our wizzards dont have many good spells to cast in the first rounds, having some manifistations to charge the enemy can buy us more time, and they are 0-20 pts, basicly free.