Give me a faction tier list

[Is it okay if I touch you?]

I'm nearing 50 hours in this game in only the Mercenaries. Their abilities seem fairly limited compared to the buff/magic-heaviness of other factions, but it could also either be me being trash or an anti-player bias.

Tier or order the factions in most to least powerful, in your experience PLAYING them, not fighting the computer.

[Paranoia]

It has been a while when I last played without Mods, but generally speaking, from highest to lowest:

1: Witch Hunters
2: Mercenaries
3: Sisters
4: Cult
5: Undead
6: Skaven

Mind, all of these are within a margin of error with each other, so good execution beats an uphill battle any day of the week. This is mainly looking at tournament results, the Destruction side is just very undependable.

[Is it okay if I touch you?]

Can you elaborate what makes the top ones good and the bottoms ♥♥♥♥♥♥?

[Paranoia]

Originally posted by Sweaterboy Cutie:

Can you elaborate what makes the top ones good and the bottoms ♥♥♥♥♥♥?

Not ♥♥♥♥♥♥. As said, within spitting distance.
The top ones tend to have more options, or, in case of Sisters, just very decent options.

[GreyHuntr]

The Order factions are less reliant on synergy to be effective. They have the most straightforward and obvious roles for each unit to fill, and offer a lot of versatility. Destruction factions can be very strong in the right hands, but require more planning and knowledge of the rules. They tend to value offense over defense and rely on RNG heavy
magic.

[leonardonabreu]

This tier list seems true for the full ranked warband (can´t judge much, only got to high ranks in undead, mercenaries and sisters so far). But on the early game, I'd rank them on my experience by "easiest time".

1) Sisters - straightfoward durable Melee with a pinch of magic that supports the Melee
2) Undead - mostly immune to all alone, induces terror, good mobility leader to reach theatened units quickly and give support
3) Mercenaries - jack-of-all trades, good defense that can hold the line and damage with counterattacks and/or with high placed ranged
4) Witch Hunters - didn't play as much with them, the few skirmishes played the leader does not start as strong as the ones above, and ends up having to retreat to avoid KO
5) Cult - squishy glass cannons, have to plan ambushes with superior numbers, which hamper your resource gathering capability in the early game
6) Skaven - squishy with high mobility, but on the early game that does not help much, you can surround 3-1 some other character, but if they pass their all alone test they can still put the hurt in one of yours

By the end game the Undead loses punch because the terror/fear does not trigger as frequently and other factions with high leadership can resist all alone often, reducing the value of the immunity. Sisters complemented with more offensive spells in late game remain strong, maybe not top spot but very good. Mercs are good because of flexibility, you can mix melee and ranged and spell support in a very balanced group. So far I only completed storyline missions for Undead, have 1 more for SIsters and 2 more for Mercs to go. As I said, did not advance much with Hunters, Cult or Skaven (not past rank 5 band or done any storyline missions in neither).

[CatGrenade]

More or less agree with paranoia. There are a couple asterisks worth mentioning. Cult is very high potential relative to the other destruction bands, but also the most work to realize their potential. You'll need some combination of luck, patience, or adaptability as a player to see them through to their dominance. I have rage quit them more than once and it wasn't from failure... Also tend to lean into the offensive side of things. Widely agreed to have the hardest story missions overall too. Their impressive can be absurdly powerful if everything goes to plan on the strategic level.

Undead get a fair boost in many matchups in the opening days, but then become fairly rigid to realize their potential. They do have the ultimate noob safety net strategy in a wall of buffed zombies with necro and poison wind globadier support. Just turtle, poison, and heal tank your way through anything with minimal thought or risk. It is truly the easiest PvE strategy in the game. The ultimate in training wheels. 5th place feels fair and yet possibly the best starting point for someone struggling or feeling cheated by RNG. Their decent early game makes getting to that minimal level a bit more forgiving too.

The destruction bands are all on the weaker side, but as a general note I feel they can be quite easy for PvE if one is willing to play it safe and run a defensive loadout overall with globadier spam. Their healing is easily accessed and outright game breaking outside PvP. Its just dull and limiting. Good way to become comfortable. Its probably best to rank them without considering that beyond the undead as they do it atypically well, and it otherwise homongenizes gameplay.

TLDR: Cult strategic level RNG can cause swings in progression difficulty and their story isn't good for a first run or two through really. I'd only rank them 4th for those who are already experienced.

Undead have the ultimate easy mode cheese the AI tactic that almost anyone can manage while mostly neutering RNG. Its downright silly. Takes horrificly bad scenarios to threaten that tactic. #1 noob strat ahoy.

[kingts]

I happen to think they are all fun and great. We need more. Orcs, Elves, That Monkey Clan...he he

[Bloodscape]

Playing sisters and undead to PVP level (everything unlocked, takes super long) and skaven almost there, I can say that sisters are very solid against AI. Going for healing first with matriarch/2 purifires gives great odds of keeping your investments (heroes) from unrecoverable injuries. A maiden of sigmar or 2 sister superiors are supported by the melee/healers. The smuggler is also fantastic in this band with the DPS she can get.

Undead henchmen suck unless you want 2 necromancers to play with the zombies but it takes a long time to get going and the necroes are generally weaker as heroes. I elected to use ghouls until I got warpguards unlocked. 3 vampires (thralls) with 2 PWG and 5 warpguard runners is challenging and fun where the strength of the warband lies in movement of your fighters protecting hugely spread out runners from being ganked. PWG can either heal your fighters or range DPS to free them up faster for something else (across the board even). Working your 3 fighters against the 10 opponents is totally doable with the high movement this warband has. Fire any runners that get amok, they are as good as dead sooner or later anyway if they cant disengage.

Skaven are weird to play but they have wild strategies between poison, ranged, crit and movement strategies. Then there is the Rat Ogre that can command its own strategy and the Sorcerer who loves the leader role and has more options than an assassin adept. They can use PWG so anything against the AI is pretty much guaranteed.

Merc or Possessed I am saving for a deadly challenge. Between non-healing in the Merc warband having to use reserve space to keep up with injuries and the randomness of the Possessed mutations, those two would be the most fun for a deadly challenge IMO.

I am actually leaning toward Merc atm since the warrior henchmen can get decent melee resist, top chance to hit, decent chance to crit and strike 3 times a turn with adrenaline rush. Add to that the support of crit heroes and the wolf priests special skill "crush the weak" makes a great crit band. Every time a crit happens, everyone gets +10 melee resist (in effect) and stunned opponents add +20 to crit to help everyone get even more melee resist off the poor soul. I think I actually might start that deadly challenge now.

[nameless crap]

In my opinion:

1. Undead - terror is busted, necromancers have godlike spells to destroy enemies and buff allies, especially zombies
2. Skaven - 8 movement is busted, charge, ambush and gather wyrdstone better than everyone else, they only pay for this by having lower leadership early game which is easily remedied later
3. Mercenaries - best ranged units, the best versatility for their units in terms of weapon choice, good caster
4. Witch Hunters - some units immune to fear, all alone etc with good versatility much like mercenaries, good caster
5. Sisters of Sigmar - low versatility, dependent on spells to cause ranged damage but strong and tough melee, amazing casters
6. Cult of the Possessed - dependent on luck via mutations, terrible versatility but can have unprecedented potential, has no non-leader caster