I'm just starting up W&W and was wondering if any grizzled veterans had some tips on what my party composistion should be, and what roles I should strive to ascend to?

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"I am death come for thee. Surrender and thy passage shall be...swifter"

"Kneel before the cow god!"

Your party composition is a complicated question. How you compose your party is very much dependent on your playing style: whether you are more into hack and slash, or prefer to kill the monsters smiting them with powerful magic. If you still want suggestions on party composition and classes, try one of the walkthroughs. They usually provide suggestions!

Good Luck!
//Jazzid

I would suggest:

1 dwarven warrior.
1 human warrior.
1 whiskah thief.
1 pixie mage.
2 omphaaz clerics.

After all advancements:

1 dwarven ninja.
1 human samurai.
1 whiskah assasin.
1 pixie warlock.
1 omphaaz monk.
1 omphaaz paladin.

(I left out the Zenmaster and Valkyrie because you don't get them early.)

It shouldn´t matter what classes you take, but choose the race according to the eliteclasses you plan to take on later, that way you already are halfway there where your minimum attributes for the new class should be (ninja being the highest AFAIK).
Everything else is pure personal preference!
Even though I started with 2 Warriors, 1 Rogue , 1 Priest and 2 Mages, some prefer starting with 3 Warriors and change one later to Barbarian!
Recommendations:
I) Build a starter party and experiment a little with them, if you like them, keep ´em , if not reset adventures and try some other party members.
II) Most Roles are atainable from the start, except Samurai, Ninja and Bard, that´s something you can only attain after hitting Ishad´Na.
III) Couple of threads here revolve around this, just use the search feature on "character", "classes", and so on!
Good Luck and Godspeed!