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Yeah, I know, it's another "what army should I get?" thread. I'll try to make this as painless as possible.

I'm considering starting a new army, and I'm looking for a few things in specific:

- An army that doesn't have so damn many models as my foot horde guard army. If I'm going to do a second army, it's going to take less than 20 minutes before the game to unpack and 30 minutes to put away. Note that this does NOT meant that I'm looking for an army that has the fewest possible models, just one that's not so intensive as a 5-points-apiece horde.

- An army that's underrated. Note that I didn't say an army that's not competitive. This army wouldn't be for the explicit purpose of playing the best list possible and winning the most games possible, but that still doesn't mean I'm looking for a crappy army. What I'm looking for is something that people seem to chronically under rate. For example, I've cut my course over the past several years of guard playing with playing close-combat oriented Imperial Guard armies. They're competitive, even though I've gotten no end of incredulous stares for taking "the shooty army" into assault.

Examples of this I'm thinking are blue marines, who can't be as bad as all the SW and BA fanboys say, or CSM, which I already KNOW is better than most people give them credit. So long as the principles are sound, I'd like to think that any such army would be competitive (even CC guard), and feel a slight draw to prove it.

- An army that's "fun". Yeah, this is totally subjective, I know. What I'm going to define fun as is an army that actually moves around a bit, and can have epic (even if not always successful) close combats. I am NOT a sit-and-shoot style 40k player. Bold, dynamic and utterly extravagant.

I'm also going to include something about the models here as well. Part of the fun is going to include taking dynamic, close-up pictures. Having an army that looks awesome wouldn't hurt. Neither would a silly or outrageous theme (for example, having a marine army lead by chapter master "Blingus Maximus" commanding an all-gold-colored marine army, or an all-phallus slaanesh army). Bonus points if it inspires shame to have lost at my hands.

So, in short, I'm looking for something that looks and feels bombastic, has relatively few models (as in roughly 70 or less in 1500 points), and, even if it takes me a couple of tries, I can say "Yeah, I totally win with X, it's better than people give it credit". Examples that I've been thinking of so far include a dreadnought or drop pod vanilla SM army, or a gifts of chaos themed CSM army, or bugzilla (if you can even do that anymore), or perhaps some type of a bike army (jet or otherwise).

Have at it!

Any SM variant would have very few models. . . the fewest models of course would be a Dark Angel Deathwing Termanator Army, and i think Grey Knights has a rule that allows Termies to be taken as troops like DAs.

Given your lack of love for stagnation, Dark Templars wouldnt be too back. Have a buddy that LOVES his army, its simple, effective, and pure assault. 3 Vindacators, backed with Rhinos filled with Templars.

Nidzilla is intresting, but i like a balance between horde and huge in my bug army (I also focus HEAVILY on Deepstrike/outflank units like Genestealers and Trygons) so YMMV

Black Templars man

Cool models, fun rules and a play style thats "Pick a point in your enemy's army and run 60 marines at it"

THey are also HILLARIOUS to play against a shooty army, and have several rules/perks and such for assault based players to have fun with


Turn one:
Black Templars deploy in a cluster:censored . they begin to take the long walk towards a necron gunline.
necron starts shooting, kills a few, forcing BT player to make the "Are we pissed? Yeah, we're pissed" roll, which moves his entire army foward.

Turn two:
BT player assaults, necron player cries

I would like to see an all-khorne CSM army. The use of CSM as all CC would be interesting, also a nice break from the Lash/Whip DPs that run amok. Also a Thousand Sons army would be interesting as well. It kind of depends, are you looking for an army that is a different playstyle than you IG? Specifically more Shooty oriented, or CC still?

Also Tau is quite underrated, I would love to see them made useful...

Everybody who plays Chaos plays Nurgle/Khorne; so go with Tzneetch/Slanesh(not a Slanesh DP)

Use the Tzneetch Mark on Termies(yay 4+ invul) and CC Noise marines(Yay I5 PWs)

Alternatively: Red Corsairs; that way you can mix Chaos models with Loyalist models and field either huron/vulcan and Play with either the 'nilla or Chaos dex.

Tau and eldar come to mind.

You could also run a double warboss ork setup for nobs/mega nobs as troops, or double big mek for two deff dreads and then just add 9 killa kans and a mob of boys for the big meks (with shokk attack guns or KFF please~)

MadMaverick76 wrote:I would like to see an all-khorne CSM army. The use of CSM as all CC would be interesting, also a nice break from the Lash/Whip DPs that run amok. Also a Thousand Sons army would be interesting as well. It kind of depends, are you looking for an army that is a different playstyle than you IG? Specifically more Shooty oriented, or CC still?

That's not particularly important, especially since, in the chaos codex, they can do either well.

MadMaverick76 wrote:Also Tau is quite underrated, I would love to see them made useful...

I agree that tau is underrated, but it sort of falls out of the bounds of what I'm looking for. I'm not necessarily looking for the same play style as guard, but whatever army, I'm not looking for a sit-and-shoot playstyle, which is basically what tau is.

Underrated? Yes. A challenge to make awesome? Yes. Fun? Well...

if you want an underrated, low model count army that is still relatively powerful, I'd say go with either Ravenwing or Death Guard.

Given that you seem to have experience in Chaos (I distinctly remember a heated argument with you where you made several good points about chaos) and that you like converting, I say go with Deathguard as the prime choice. Converting PMs is something I love and I think you'll enjoy too, plus the average PM is good in combat and range, and have considerable staying power.

Ravenwing's good too, offers a fair amount of conversion opportunities and gives you the only unit truely unique to the DA army: the Master of Ravenwing. They also have an extremely low model count and can still be competitive depending on what you give them. A mix of Ravenwing and Deathwing is also possible, and would make the best out of their effects.

So, with regard to chaos-based lists, I've started up this thread here for where I'm sort of thinking.

I agree, chaos has the best models in general, and the conversion opportunities for nurgle is staggering. My only problem is that every time I see nurgle units, the pain job only seems to seriously detract from the quality of the conversion work...

Plus, I don't know how I'd do it listwise.

As for ravenwing, something about them just bugs me. I think I'd rather do vanilla marines with a bike captain, but I don't have a space marines codex, or really know anything about how that would work.

Isn't there a rumor about a necron overhaul in the works? could be worth waiting for. Im not sure. way gw works could be forever in the works.

Ravenwing has overcosted Bikes that literally has to function with Deathwing, otherwise your paying 10 extra points per bike for literally no reason. Their Teleport homers are designed to work with DSing units but Ravenwing in of itself doesnt have any. It's only their master, who flies around on a landspeeder with twin linked weapons and armor of a land raider, or a jetbike with a plasma cannon, that actually makes them a smidge different than a standard Vanilla Marine army with a Bike Captain. Space Marine Bike armies require at least 11 bike models, which may get a little expensive. everything else is basically standard marine build.

I'll post the Plague Marine stuff over in your other thread.

Cool.

Also, does anyone know of some bike battle reports? I swear I've only seen like two, one of which was a massacre of a tau force by Sanctjud (maybe it was him), and the other was a necron player leading a white scars player around by the nose.

I'm not looking for THE most competitive army, but it should at least be able to beat necron...

Plus, I'm having a hard time seeing how such an army could possibly be a good idea. Like, the math is kind of shakey, and I'd like to see how certain bling-heavy lists play out successfully so I can see what is actually going on with them.

It sounds a lot like you'd like Eldar. They have everything you're looking for. I've seen 10 Howling Banshees charge and butcher a squad of Chaos Marines. I've also seen them charge a squad of tactical Marines, fail to cause a single wound, take one wound and run off the table. Glorious yet occasionally ineffective assaults are where it's at.

Eldar have incredible mobility, with lots of bikes available and ridiculously durable tanks. You'd get all the cool minis you'd want too, since they have some of the best figures GW has ever put out, and even some of their models from 1993 still look great.

Also, with the color schemes and designs that a lot of Eldar have, "bombastic" is probably the best word you could use for them. I love Marines and play multiple flavors of them, but from what I can read, Eldar would be right up your alley. They're also underrepresented, and a bit underrated since not everybody thinks they can make many competitive builds anymore.

Part of it could be me wanting to game vicariously through you since I love reading your battle reports, but I do think Eldar sound like a good match.

If it wasn't for the fact that you don't want a horde army, a Black Templar Tide would've been awesome to see. Although now that I think about it, 3 blobs of 20 guys would clock in at 855 points with upgrades, just add some long range shooting. Add the cost of the Emperor's Champion and any long-range fire support you want to add and you'll be at around 70 models for 1500, which was your limit. As someone else said in a thread (can't remember who, props to this unknown dakkanaut), there's not much more satisfying than seeing a bunch of scouts get shot and having their masters use their "Are we pissed? YES WE ARE!" roll to run up to an enemy and smash their faces in next turn.

I have to agree with the Black Templar suggestion they are a lot of fun to play with. Thier psycopathic nature (the are we pissed off roll, having to charge if possible thanks to a certain vow ) does make them a tad unpedictable and somewhat unreliable when holding objectives but on the charge they can be absolute monsters provided you've done things right and not taken too many bolters.

For Example a 10 man Crusader squad with a melta (you need the anti tank) and a power fist with the rest using BP + CCWs. Will on the charge be throwing out 26 normal attacks and 3 fist attacks. An army full of squads like this is a lot of fun to throw at things.

If you want a low model BT army it's really quite simple a Marshall (for army wide LD 10), the EC and as many 10 man Crusader squads as you can afford in LRCs. Of course you'll need to equip the squads for anti tank just incase certain special rules result in squads charging Rhinos etc.

If you feel you need a bit more shooting look to the sword bretheren terminators which can take two heavy weapons in a 5 man squad and the tank hunters USR. Or Dreads which can be just as nasty. My personal favourite setup is a Ven Dread with Twin Las, Missile Launcher and tank hunters.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:If it wasn't for the fact that you don't want a horde army, a Black Templar Tide would've been awesome to see. Although now that I think about it, 3 blobs of 20 guys would clock in at 855 points with upgrades, just add some long range shooting. Add the cost of the Emperor's Champion and any long-range fire support you want to add and you'll be at around 70 models for 1500, which was your limit. As someone else said in a thread (can't remember who, props to this unknown dakkanaut), there's not much more satisfying than seeing a bunch of scouts get shot and having their masters use their "Are we pissed? YES WE ARE!" roll to run up to an enemy and smash their faces in next turn.

Mech templars are just as fun, because they "get pissed" while running amok in their lines in the second turn.

Whatever your list looks like the boys in black make you play like a templar, you just want to gun it at the scariest part of your enemy's battleline.

Nick Ellingworth wrote:
For Example a 10 man Crusader squad with a melta (you need the anti tank) and a power fist with the rest using BP + CCWs. Will on the charge be throwing out 26 normal attacks and 3 fist attacks.

2 fist attacks, BTs have 1 attack base.

EmilCrane wrote:

AlmightyWalrus wrote:If it wasn't for the fact that you don't want a horde army, a Black Templar Tide would've been awesome to see. Although now that I think about it, 3 blobs of 20 guys would clock in at 855 points with upgrades, just add some long range shooting. Add the cost of the Emperor's Champion and any long-range fire support you want to add and you'll be at around 70 models for 1500, which was your limit. As someone else said in a thread (can't remember who, props to this unknown dakkanaut), there's not much more satisfying than seeing a bunch of scouts get shot and having their masters use their "Are we pissed? YES WE ARE!" roll to run up to an enemy and smash their faces in next turn.

Mech templars are just as fun, because they "get pissed" while running amok in their lines in the second turn.

Whatever your list looks like the boys in black make you play like a templar, you just want to gun it at the scariest part of your enemy's battleline.

Yeah, mech templars are kinda fun too, but there's not as many people playing Black Tides, because "an all foot slogging army SUCKS, because the interwebz said so!"
As the point of this second army was to take lists that people avoid playing because they THINK it's bad, I'd say a Black Tide fits better.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Nick Ellingworth wrote:
For Example a 10 man Crusader squad with a melta (you need the anti tank) and a power fist with the rest using BP + CCWs. Will on the charge be throwing out 26 normal attacks and 3 fist attacks.

2 fist attacks, BTs have 1 attack base

Whoops, thought I'd caught all my inevitable typos.

I'd second the ideas of Eldar and Dark Eldar;

Dark Eldar although they aren't typically under-rated, should not play anything like Guard, have some amazing models and should reward a skilled general (yourself). I'm sure you already know about Dark Eldar however, so I wont go into too much detail!

SRM has also done a good job of describing Eldar, although they're typically less inclined towards Close Combat. But are typically much more under-rated than their brethren.


I'd also recommend Tyranids. They were the first thing that popped into my mind when I read the original topic and I'd argue Bugzilla to still be competitive.
Tyranids and Carnifex's in particularly are often-under rated and the only 'common' Tyranid list revolves around [Hive Guard, Tervigons, Trygons] IMHO.

They definitely have the potential for you to do some great conversions, as you have with your Guard and can afford a variety of play-styles, but typically close-combat orientated.

Genestealers (Ymgarl too), Hormies and the various MC's would accommodate for your preference for close combat and close combat in style, whilst I personally be Tyranids to be a competitive, if balanced and somewhat under-rated Codex. I'd recommend Nids or either Eldar personally.

Grey Knights are also something worth considering IMHO, whilst Codex Space Marines are under-rated, but typically avoid CC.

Well, I've definitely got the black templar vibe here. I agree that footslogging power armor hordes are drastically underrated, and so this idea definitely does have a certain appeal. I guess I'd have to see a black tide in action to get the proper feel for their reckless abandon. I've only played against BT once, and that was a hell of a thing, and that was with drop pods. Can they still do that now?

As for eldar, a 2x jetbike guardian, 2x autarch, 2x shining spears army is also highly tempting. Ludicrous speed, with the option of going all-off and then showing up EN MASSE turn 2 or 3. My only real concern is how it would do against mech armies.

Templars are on the short list of armies that I'd branch out into after Guard. Also on that list are Eldar and SM bikers. Problem with Eldar bikers is I'm a lazy modeller (there is no biker warlock model so every squad leader is a conversion) and it's less clear what the strengths are supposed to be. I understand that's less of a problem for you.

Man, all this talk about angry Black Templars streaming across the board to smash things is getting me all excited to build one. I haven't even finished my Space Wolves army yet though and have only been playing since the beginning of the year.

How about Sisters of Battle? There is a lower model count than guard, but not as low as say Deathwing. Has some decent mobility and good shooting or assault options.

You could give Daemons a whirl. Assault-y, good looking models, severely under-rated and demand a solid tactical nuance to be played properly. The 'all deep strike, all the time' is also a huge departure from your IG so yeah....I'd go with Daemons.

L. Wrex

Daemons aren't a bad idea at all. Definitely completely different to guard. From what I've seen, in the hands of a decent player absolutely deadly.

Panopticon wrote:How about Sisters of Battle?

I'm not going to lie, I've come back to the idea of witch hunters on more than one occasion.

Competitively, they seem extremely boss. Huge squads of cheap power armor that have faith points that do some VERY nice things. The only problem for now, is that I'm not looking for another horde army, and a sister's power armor horde, much more so than either type of space marine, is actually a horde.

Lycaeus Wrex wrote:You could give Daemons a whirl. Assault-y, good looking models, severely under-rated and demand a solid tactical nuance to be played properly.

Nick Ellingworth wrote:Daemons aren't a bad idea at all. Definitely completely different to guard. From what I've seen, in the hands of a decent player absolutely deadly.

Hmm...

I need more information on a CD army. I don't have access to the codex at the moment. Do they get to assault out of deepstrike?

If they did they would be stupidly broken! No, they cannot, which makes using them much more of a challenge. You have to pick your spots, judge distances, accomodate for scatter, use 'run' moves to get to cover and STILL drop close enough to ensure you can get a charge off in turn 2.

I'm probably not the best person to speak to about competitive Daemons (I live in 3rd Ed. and the Chaos Gods holding hands and playing nice really riles me, hence why I run mono-Khorne) but I know yermom has had a lot of success with them. I'd recommend hitting up his Battle Report threads and having a read.

L. Wrex

Basically except for Tzeentch units and the Heavy Support section, everything in your army will literally sit there for a whole turn before you get to do anything (they can run, but that's about it, since most non-tzeentch daemons have no ranged attack).