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Name says it all, I'm helping my dad decide which 40k army to pick, but instead of deciding he just said he wants the most versatile army. So what would be the most versatile army?

Depends what you mean.

Eldar, pretty much nothing you can take is bad. Look at their units, pick what you like, they'll be good.

Space Marines are hugely customizable with Chapter Tactics and are therefore the quintessential beginner army. Unfortunately some choices you can make are way better than others, but there are a TON of choices.

Orks are versatile in that they're a mix of shooting and assault and you have ultimate modeling freedom which is incredibly fun. But not nearly in the competitive neighborhood of the other two.

SM is pretty versitile, and eldar is pretty much good with any playstyle, other than using banshees.

He wants it to where the each person can do almost everything, basically if one person dies another can fill his place with ease. Something along those lines

Quite probably Space Marines. They allow both a standard, as well as very custom approach to your tactics do to the both relatively unique units in each category, each of which will fill their destined role very well. You just choose which roles you want to play around. They also benefit from being capable in most formats you chose to play them as, making them a forgiving army when experimenting with versatility amd personal flavor. Lastly, thr models also benefit from being fairly simplistic in design, allowing any variaity of personal perference in color to look good, and they allow a varying level of detail along as well.
All in all, Space Marines tends to be one of the easiest starting armies as the can be used in parcticlly any way you wish, and have the capability to be played strongly in many levels of variance.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kharne the Befriender wrote:
He wants it to where the each person can do almost everything, basically if one person dies another can fill his place with ease. Something along those lines

That is pretty much the definition of Space Marine Tactical Squads and what they do

There are so many ways you can play Space Marines that I'd definitely agree. Orks, too, can be built in different ways, and they're a lot of fun to customize and scratchbuild (I recently learned that acetone melts plastic details the hard way on a BW, so I just cobbled together some spare parts of a trukk and made it look decent), but they don't have the "jack of all trades" route that space marines do. Space Marines are a good way to go, since they have decent things in all areas. They're like Mario in Nintendo sports games.

OK, I'll let him know and see if he has any other preferences but I think this will work for him, thanks for the help

You want to have him look at either Eldar or Space Marines. Eldar are hands down one of the best armies in the game, and even their more "mediocre" options (i.e. Guardians and Banshees) are pretty dang strong, and can do a lot in a list. And Marines are pretty much the poster boys for versatility imo. Shooting? They can do it? Assault? They can do it, not as well as shooting, but they have some good CC units. And with Chapter Tactics a wide variety of play styles are possible. Iron Hands are great for mech armies, Ultramarines CT are good for generalist armies, and Raven Guard/White Scars are pretty good for mobile armies.

He's decided to go with the iron warriors legion, I know thats HH so itll be a iron warrior themed SM army, we both agree that the siege and artillery is good

Forgeworld's renegades and heretics list has an ungodly options list, allowing for several very different playstyles from assault horde, to artillery barrage, mechanised infantry, armored battalions, etc.

Necrons also might be a good choice, especially since the guy who fell down might get back up.

Tell him to buy eldar with 5 wraith knights 6 scat bikers, what ever the warhost formation to take 12 wraith knights is.

Chaos marines cam be quite flexible well my Slaanesh list is anyway

Champion of Slaanesh wrote:
Chaos marines cam be quite flexible well my Slaanesh list is anyway

CSM can be flexible with the Obliterator guns, teriminator combi guns, autocannons, Chosen Squad, double plasma/melta gun tactical squad, havoc squads, predators, etc....

However I just can never recommend C S M to a newbie unless he is buying it from me.

Eldar. Good at everything. Best at everything. /thread

 Filch wrote:

Champion of Slaanesh wrote:
Chaos marines cam be quite flexible well my Slaanesh list is anyway

CSM can be flexible with the Obliterator guns, teriminator combi guns, autocannons, Chosen Squad, double plasma/melta gun tactical squad, havoc squads, predators, etc....

However I just can never recommend C S M to a newbie unless he is buying it from me.

My CSM and noise marines get brought a additional ccws too just in case they get charged as with I5 they have a good chance of actually beating off most non dedicated cc units.

I'm going to make 4x 1000 pt lists of
SM, Renegades, CSM, and Eldar just basics, no upgrades so he can pick . Any suggestions or must takes? Ill be using the codex detachments
I.e. demicompany,war host ,etc.

Necrons are the most "versatile" army in the sense that they can do everything at least above average. They have strong shooting units, strong assualt units, strong fast units, strong monstrous creatures and strong vehicles.

You can run them horde infantry with warrior blobs, or MSU with Wraithwing, etc. It's also one of the most durable armies in the game, with offensive capabilities on par with most other factions.

Well for csm it depends if your going mono god or undivided. However the Hell Cult imho is always worth taking

Renegades is a problem to make a "random list" for.
Each of the 8 or so devotions plays different. And each of the chaos covenants (one per God plus godless) has acssess to slightly different things.
It's really several armies in one list.

A simple classic build though, is a nurgle zombie artillery spam.
Take varks renegades purge detachment, fix a minimal renegade command squad with nurgle covenant and ordinance tyrant devotion. 6 pairs of earthshaker artillery carriage on elites as your main firepower and 4 mobs of 20 zombies as your tarpit.
This clocks in 985 points, so a bit left to upgrade your command squad.
Net value, 80 zombies, 12 earthshakers, 48 cannon crew and the command team. Orks and nids envy this spam.

Marines or eldar (with or without chaos/darkness), after that it really should be up to aesthetic, fluff and/or play style.
It is much easier to get into the game if you are invested to your army at a deeper level.

Speaking of loving your army : my Tzeentch daemons are quite versatile tactically, the can summon in lesser daemons or physcic powers (i.e. heralds) as needed during the game and because the "gear" are powers and deamonic rewards I can choose to run things a little differently each game, but with the same list. Also; they play multiple game systems.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Necrons are the most "versatile" army in the sense that they can do everything at least above average. They have strong shooting units, strong assualt units, strong fast units, strong monstrous creatures and strong vehicles.

You can run them horde infantry with warrior blobs, or MSU with Wraithwing, etc. It's also one of the most durable armies in the game, with offensive capabilities on par with most other factions.

I already have a necron army.

For space marines om doing a demicompany/1st company
I do need a little advice for what to take for chaos/eldar though

Kharne the Befriender wrote:
Name says it all, I'm helping my dad decide which 40k army to pick, but instead of deciding he just said he wants the most versatile army. So what would be the most versatile army?

Currently I'd have to say Eldar. Space marines are pretty flexible as well.