Thank goodness for kill team, because I've been going back and forth on which army to get into, my top picks are Grey Knights and Ad Mech, however I've heard both are very bad competitively. I don't plan on attending a huge tournament or anything, however i don't like losing all the time either. either viable options for just casual in store tournaments without being tabled every time?

This is not a helpful place to ask that question.

 plark wrote:
Thank goodness for kill team, because I've been going back and forth on which army to get into, my top picks are Grey Knights and Ad Mech, however I've heard both are very bad competitively. I don't plan on attending a huge tournament or anything, however i don't like losing all the time either. either viable options for just casual in store tournaments without being tabled every time?

I personally hate playing lower tier teams, even if you have a great strategy and roll well, you can lose to incompetent players, because of army choice

It always depends on who you're playing against and what the meta is in your area.

Sometimes you can take a super casual army and absolutely curb stomp someone who has no idea what they're doing.

Sometimes you can take a super casual army and get absolutely destroyed by turn two by someone who is very much into tournaments and has a tournament army.

Both have happened to me.

It's very hard sometimes to get a good group of like minded people together.

I know how to play, but I also don't like to take tournament lists, or take the game very seriously. Consequently I operate in a middle ground where I take fluffy lists that can work on a semi competitive level. That kind of leaves me open to being curb stomped by competitive players and destroying non competitive players. It's actually kind of frustrating.

I feel like generally most armies are playable on a semi-competitive level and you will have a reasonable chance of enjoying the game as long as you don't expect too much out of your army or the game its self which is actually pretty terrible rules wise.

It's only when you reach tournament level where every small decision can mean the difference between winning and losing does it really matter. I used to be in the tournament circuit as a Fantasy player because it was the best and tightest rules GW has ever produced. Now that it's basically push models forward and roll dice, I have no time to take it seriously since it's obvious that GW doesn't either.

One other way of looking at it is if you're a new player how well would you expect to do at tournaments anyway? I mean that's not completely fair, as there certain armies that are good while being straighforward, and I guess that would be ideal.

I just don't see worrying about it too much unless highly competitive play is the only reason you're getting into Warhammer.

If you're worried about being competitive have you considered allying in another faction with the ones you prefer? Like maybe Astra Militarum with Grey Knights or Imperial Knights with Adeptus Mechanicus?

What are the current lower tier armies?
I play pure GSC w/o Imperial Guard. Wondering if I'm really that poor at playing or if I can blame it on my army

Think of it this way... You're only exposure to 40k is through video games and media. You played a lotmof Eternal Crusade, Space Marines, etc... so you really want to buy Orks. You go to the store and are offered two options. The Dark Imperium set that comes wih the rules and a pretty good amount of points worth of troops that are on a medium level of competitiveness (with a bit of skill you will win half your casual games) or the Oek starter set. You suuuuuper want to buy Orks so you get the set thinking "hey, GW is not so bad... £50 for an army". You also buy the rule book as well.... and the index... soon you're like "erm... this is getting more expensive. At least I got it all now". You read all the rules, the index and finally figure out how to play the game. "Huh... so I don't even have a hq with my set?" You go into the store the next day for a hq and find out they only sell one HQ in plastic (it's the one nobody really wants unless you pay £40 for the mega one) and the rest you have to order in. You do a bit of research and find out there is another plastic hq online he's just a named character with nobz that's now just a standard warboss. You grab him and have now spent £82 (on the right site thisnwould be two starter sets) on models.... you now have somewhere arou d 600 points. You find someone playing at that level and.... you get wrecked. You look through their codex and find that your 10 nobz and warboss are playing more for their range weapons than the marine pkayer is (despite BS 5) and your deff dread is also a little over priced... you do more research and jow find out if you want an even casual army that you might win at you need to dump another £100-200 on just maybe 1 or 2 units. And you'll only have a small chance of winning compared to the two teams you could have got with dark imperium. You sell out your orks on ebay... buy dark imperium... sell the half you don't want and use all that money to buy a pretty solid 1-2k point death guard army.

 privateer4hire wrote:
What are the current lower tier armies?
I play pure GSC w/o Imperial Guard. Wondering if I'm really that poor at playing or if I can blame it on my army

you DO lack a codex. so thats definatly a disadvantage right there

A couple of things to consider:

1) Any 40K army is an expensive proposition with hundreds of hours spent building/painting...so, my normal response would be "choose what you like". You'll never paint an army if you don't like the models.

2) If you're genuinely interested in tournaments, you're selecting a somewhat narrow slice of 40K and are wilfully choosing to play more competitive than casual or narrative. The last thing you want to do is spend hundreds or thousands of dollars and TONS of time painting and building an army if you end up getting trounced constantly.

So, in short...good luck?

My Advice;

1) Start with the Army you like the models and go from there. They may not be the army you stick with, but you will enjoy learning to play and painting more if you do.

2) Your local meta will be it's own thing. You can gain information from the overall meta, but that doesn't mean much if no one plays the top armies in your local scene.

3) Never chase the meta. It's going to change. What sucks now, could be really powerful in the future.

4) Theoryhammer is a hammer. It is great in a vacuum, but falls short when you consider all of the variables aren't nails.

5) A lot of people on this forum are full of gak. They have agendas that don't involve helping you have fun with your army.

 Crimson Devil wrote:


4) Theoryhammer is a hammer. It is great in a vacuum, but falls short when you consider all of the variables aren't nails.

this can't be emphisised eneugh, As a good example of this, Agressors are often considered to be pretty lack luster, all told, by the mathhammer types here. But there's a 3 page thread here https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/760932.page that asks if they're brokenly good. Because the player in question is an Ork player that happens to run a list that agressors can ahrd counter.

AdMech is fine, and some portions of the army have even proven to be competitive. You can definitely play that army in casual settings and perform well, even without cawlbots (the chicken walkers can be surprisingly effective).

 privateer4hire wrote:
What are the current lower tier armies?
I play pure GSC w/o Imperial Guard. Wondering if I'm really that poor at playing or if I can blame it on my army

genestelers is an index army atm so no your not playing bad, all index armys are horrible.
in general you can say there is a bottom tier codex that only serves as food for the big fish(grey knight) and then below them, you have index armys.

get out
get out
GET OUT BEFORE THIS HOBY CONSUMES YOU!!!

The best thing you can possibly do is pick an army you like and make it work the best you possibly can. You'll have middling success at best at tournaments but you won't mind failures as much and you'll exalt successes more because you enjoy what you're playing. The chances of you ever getting a decent placing at a large event are incredibly small anyway, don't spend too much time worrying about it.

As for local metas, literally all you have to do is build your army in a way that makes logical sense(still using units and strategies you like). Despite(or perhaps because of) all the pontificating done on forums like these, the vast majority of players play terrible lists with limited mastery. Know how your army works, pick a strategy that makes sense, and no matter what codex you're playing you'll likely end up winning like 70% of your games regardless. I still haven't lost a non-tournament game so far this edition.

Don't forget that online people complain a LOT more than the compliment. In fact some people only ever complain online

So you can get a very amplified amount of noise on complaints regarding factions and balance, some of which is fact, some is opinion, some is bad players playing badly, some is just flat out bonkers and there's one or two trolls that stir things up every so often.

Heck sometimes an army is continually ranked low by everyone until someone takes it to a big competitive events and wins and suddenly everyone is talking about how overpowered they are .



I'd agree, go with what you like! You are going to spend hours with the models cleaning them up, assembling and painting them before they even hit the table. So get those that you like.
Asides which if you're new chances are you're not all that sure how you want to even play so gameplay structure and mechanics can be harder to make a solid choice on. So go on visuals, get your feet wet and play some games.


At present GW is balancing the game more than ever before, its actually a fantastic time to get on board and play whichever faction you want (in the past you could wait YEARS to get a rules update and could even miss whole editions of the game).

Any army can work in a store meta, you can win a game just with hot dice and in my experience store players are hobbyists first that generally means they don't have the super spammy top performing lists.

I would pick an army based solely on aesthetics and lore, personally. I know people who have selected armies because of their performance on the tabletop though.

You're going to ingest a lot of time into the hobby, painting, assembling etc. I'd make sure I liked what I was spending all this time with.

Despite the grumbles on here, 40k is as balanced as its ever been and even the lowest tier armies can compete, particularly when they can soup to remove weaknesses.

Lower tier armies are fine, it's the top tier codices that are not fun to play against.

ERJAK wrote:
....and no matter what codex you're playing you'll likely end up winning like 70% of your games regardless. I still haven't lost a non-tournament game so far this edition.

realy does depend on what codex your playing. i wonder if those gk players are winning 70 to 100% of their casual games.

i work with a index, and that is pretty much guaranteed 90% loss ratio for me, will have to see how it changes whenever my codex comes out.

if you get into admek it could help if you also get a little into imperial knights since both those armies can easily blend well with each other as far as style (even if you not into the big kights you can do those new smaller helverins which wont stand out too much right next to duncrawlers).

since the admek codex is already out the next hope you have for balances is in the chapter aproved and that is coming out sometime at the end of the year (its a yearly thing) and maybe the slightly more common faqs (though faqs do little as far as point changes).

but i agree with others on this thread, get into an army that you love the look of and the lore, because at the end of the day if and when your codex is crap and your getting beaten even in friendly pickup games then all youll have to keep you sane is enjoying the lore and the models (i highly suggest getting into conversions as much as possible because they really do give you that personal touch with your army).

ERJAK wrote:
The best thing you can possibly do is pick an army you like and make it work the best you possibly can. You'll have middling success at best at tournaments but you won't mind failures as much and you'll exalt successes more because you enjoy what you're playing. The chances of you ever getting a decent placing at a large event are incredibly small anyway, don't spend too much time worrying about it.

As for local metas, literally all you have to do is build your army in a way that makes logical sense(still using units and strategies you like). Despite(or perhaps because of) all the pontificating done on forums like these, the vast majority of players play terrible lists with limited mastery. Know how your army works, pick a strategy that makes sense, and no matter what codex you're playing you'll likely end up winning like 70% of your games regardless. I still haven't lost a non-tournament game so far this edition.

This.

To the OP...

Ad Mech are available in Kill Team and the Forgebane box sets. Splitting them up and trading/selling off the non Ad Mech portions will allow you to get in to the hobby/army fairly cheap. They have a Codex which allows you to access all the non index portions of the game and though they aren't a top tier army. They don't hinder you from enjoying yourself with a reasonable expectation of winning some games in a setting where a new player should expect to win in the first place.

Gray Knights aren't as easy to buy in to for 40k. They lack presence in any of the various big box GW kits right now but a squad of PA Gray Knights is all you need to play them in Kill Team. Of course they might be easy to pick up second hand if they really are as bad in the upper competitive levels as the stories say.

Building an army you are actually interested in is the first big step in seeing that army through to a fully built and painted army. You'll enjoy playing it a lot more because you like it, win or lose. A lot of players struggle simply because they are chasing a winning army vs playing their favorite army. Being a 40k player isn't like parenting. Having a favorite actually helps you get better at it. (40k not parenting) Familiarity with an army can't be math hammered and having an actual like for and interest in an army only helps with that.

 lolman1c wrote:
Think of it this way... You're only exposure to 40k is through video games and media. You played a lotmof Eternal Crusade, Space Marines, etc... so you really want to buy Orks. You go to the store and are offered two options. The Dark Imperium set that comes wih the rules and a pretty good amount of points worth of troops that are on a medium level of competitiveness (with a bit of skill you will win half your casual games) or the Oek starter set. You suuuuuper want to buy Orks so you get the set thinking "hey, GW is not so bad... £50 for an army". You also buy the rule book as well.... and the index... soon you're like "erm... this is getting more expensive. At least I got it all now". You read all the rules, the index and finally figure out how to play the game. "Huh... so I don't even have a hq with my set?" You go into the store the next day for a hq and find out they only sell one HQ in plastic (it's the one nobody really wants unless you pay £40 for the mega one) and the rest you have to order in. You do a bit of research and find out there is another plastic hq online he's just a named character with nobz that's now just a standard warboss. You grab him and have now spent £82 (on the right site thisnwould be two starter sets) on models.... you now have somewhere arou d 600 points. You find someone playing at that level and.... you get wrecked. You look through their codex and find that your 10 nobz and warboss are playing more for their range weapons than the marine pkayer is (despite BS 5) and your deff dread is also a little over priced... you do more research and jow find out if you want an even casual army that you might win at you need to dump another £100-200 on just maybe 1 or 2 units. And you'll only have a small chance of winning compared to the two teams you could have got with dark imperium. You sell out your orks on ebay... buy dark imperium... sell the half you don't want and use all that money to buy a pretty solid 1-2k point death guard army.

This would be the munchkin approach to the hobby and it is not recommended. Even if your Ork units are overcosted, you can talk before the game with your opponent to give you some slack. I collected all armies apart from Adeptus Mechaniscus, Tau & Necrons and never sold anything. But I am also more of a painter than a player. My advice would be to avoid cutthroat players and spent time instead with reasonable people so that you don´t waste your time. If everybody around you has a different mindset then, you are out of luck. In that case you could just paint your minis and don´t play or look for another hobby .

Admech can do very well in comp try and find some of Joshua Deaths lists but to give the basics what you want is stygies electro priests dragoons and some of those new drill things from FW then add in mandatory imperial soup guard/knights/blood angels/custodes to taste

 Strg Alt wrote:

 lolman1c wrote:
Think of it this way... You're only exposure to 40k is through video games and media. You played a lotmof Eternal Crusade, Space Marines, etc... so you really want to buy Orks. You go to the store and are offered two options. The Dark Imperium set that comes wih the rules and a pretty good amount of points worth of troops that are on a medium level of competitiveness (with a bit of skill you will win half your casual games) or the Oek starter set. You suuuuuper want to buy Orks so you get the set thinking "hey, GW is not so bad... £50 for an army". You also buy the rule book as well.... and the index... soon you're like "erm... this is getting more expensive. At least I got it all now". You read all the rules, the index and finally figure out how to play the game. "Huh... so I don't even have a hq with my set?" You go into the store the next day for a hq and find out they only sell one HQ in plastic (it's the one nobody really wants unless you pay £40 for the mega one) and the rest you have to order in. You do a bit of research and find out there is another plastic hq online he's just a named character with nobz that's now just a standard warboss. You grab him and have now spent £82 (on the right site thisnwould be two starter sets) on models.... you now have somewhere arou d 600 points. You find someone playing at that level and.... you get wrecked. You look through their codex and find that your 10 nobz and warboss are playing more for their range weapons than the marine pkayer is (despite BS 5) and your deff dread is also a little over priced... you do more research and jow find out if you want an even casual army that you might win at you need to dump another £100-200 on just maybe 1 or 2 units. And you'll only have a small chance of winning compared to the two teams you could have got with dark imperium. You sell out your orks on ebay... buy dark imperium... sell the half you don't want and use all that money to buy a pretty solid 1-2k point death guard army.

This would be the munchkin approach to the hobby and it is not recommended. Even if your Ork units are overcosted, you can talk before the game with your opponent to give you some slack. I collected all armies apart from Adeptus Mechaniscus, Tau & Necrons and never sold anything. But I am also more of a painter than a player. My advice would be to avoid cutthroat players and spent time instead with reasonable people so that you don´t waste your time. If everybody around you has a different mindset then, you are out of luck. In that case you could just paint your minis and don´t play or look for another hobby .

From someone that has over 7000 points of orks and recently started a death guard army, I have to tell you that lolman's view is spot on. To win with anything but boring tactics and lists, you would need a 150%-200% handicap, and I assure you, most pick-up players won't give that to you.

When starting orks, especially with the units GW suggest to new players, you just have to accept that you are going to lose more than 80% of your games. You will not stand a chance against people who have just unpacked their double DI Marines or Death Guard and are playing their third game or so. You will get stomped flat by any half of the forgebane box. And may the emperor have mercy on your soul if someone bought the renegade box and is fielding two knights - there is literally nothing you can do against them.

The few units you can field as orks without losing the game the moment lists are exchanged are expensive and require you to paint a ton of models.
Few people starting the game realize what it means to paint three units of boyz, the basic troops you need to field a battalion. Most players playing other armies don't even own that many models.
On top of that you have the hefty price tag of 180€ for just a single unit of KMK, a unit all but mandatory if you plan on wining any games at all. And don't give me the "convert or scratchbuild" BS - other armies don't require you to acquire skills in modeling either.

I was faced with the decision of either buying a single 210 point unit to make my army somewhat competitive in a very tame environment, or just start a 2000 point death guard army for the same cost. Guess why my battlewagon avatar is Green/Purple now.

If the OP really, really wants to start orks, there is only one advice to give: Wait for the codex in September, wait one month for the dust to settle and then check back if orks are in a better place. If they are not, maybe look for another army of your liking.

I have played a bottom tier army for long time. The game is no fun if your models don't do what they are supposed to do in the fluff, but are just target practice for your opponent.

Sqauwky wrote:
Admech can do very well in comp try and find some of Joshua Deaths lists but to give the basics what you want is stygies electro priests dragoons and some of those new drill things from FW then add in mandatory imperial soup guard/knights/blood angels/custodes to taste

I'm sorry did you just suggest a new player who says he won't go to tournaments should start buying up Josh Deaths list with £75 a pop forge world specialist models?

Anyway...

Imo for a "store meta" where yoj play locals who arent all runnign tourney lists you would ideally want about a 60/40 win loss rate. It's nice to win more than you lose, but if you win them all people will get sick of playing you. Unless every match is a super close win of course.

Buy the thing you think is coolest.

The only "trap" in 40k is units that are un-fun... For me that's really slow things that dont do much damage like space marine tactical squads. They are kind of boring to use. Dudebros that can zoom around and shoot stuff quite well are way more fun.

For me. Some people like static gunlines.

 Jidmah wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:

 lolman1c wrote:
Think of it this way... You're only exposure to 40k is through video games and media. You played a lotmof Eternal Crusade, Space Marines, etc... so you really want to buy Orks. You go to the store and are offered two options. The Dark Imperium set that comes wih the rules and a pretty good amount of points worth of troops that are on a medium level of competitiveness (with a bit of skill you will win half your casual games) or the Oek starter set. You suuuuuper want to buy Orks so you get the set thinking "hey, GW is not so bad... £50 for an army". You also buy the rule book as well.... and the index... soon you're like "erm... this is getting more expensive. At least I got it all now". You read all the rules, the index and finally figure out how to play the game. "Huh... so I don't even have a hq with my set?" You go into the store the next day for a hq and find out they only sell one HQ in plastic (it's the one nobody really wants unless you pay £40 for the mega one) and the rest you have to order in. You do a bit of research and find out there is another plastic hq online he's just a named character with nobz that's now just a standard warboss. You grab him and have now spent £82 (on the right site thisnwould be two starter sets) on models.... you now have somewhere arou d 600 points. You find someone playing at that level and.... you get wrecked. You look through their codex and find that your 10 nobz and warboss are playing more for their range weapons than the marine pkayer is (despite BS 5) and your deff dread is also a little over priced... you do more research and jow find out if you want an even casual army that you might win at you need to dump another £100-200 on just maybe 1 or 2 units. And you'll only have a small chance of winning compared to the two teams you could have got with dark imperium. You sell out your orks on ebay... buy dark imperium... sell the half you don't want and use all that money to buy a pretty solid 1-2k point death guard army.

This would be the munchkin approach to the hobby and it is not recommended. Even if your Ork units are overcosted, you can talk before the game with your opponent to give you some slack. I collected all armies apart from Adeptus Mechaniscus, Tau & Necrons and never sold anything. But I am also more of a painter than a player. My advice would be to avoid cutthroat players and spent time instead with reasonable people so that you don´t waste your time. If everybody around you has a different mindset then, you are out of luck. In that case you could just paint your minis and don´t play or look for another hobby .

From someone that has over 7000 points of orks and recently started a death guard army, I have to tell you that lolman's view is spot on. To win with anything but boring tactics and lists, you would need a 150%-200% handicap, and I assure you, most pick-up players won't give that to you.

When starting orks, especially with the units GW suggest to new players, you just have to accept that you are going to lose more than 80% of your games. You will not stand a chance against people who have just unpacked their double DI Marines or Death Guard and are playing their third game or so. You will get stomped flat by any half of the forgebane box. And may the emperor have mercy on your soul if someone bought the renegade box and is fielding two knights - there is literally nothing you can do against them.

The few units you can field as orks without losing the game the moment lists are exchanged are expensive and require you to paint a ton of models.
Few people starting the game realize what it means to paint three units of boyz, the basic troops you need to field a battalion. Most players playing other armies don't even own that many models.
On top of that you have the hefty price tag of 180€ for just a single unit of KMK, a unit all but mandatory if you plan on wining any games at all. And don't give me the "convert or scratchbuild" BS - other armies don't require you to acquire skills in modeling either.

I was faced with the decision of either buying a single 210 point unit to make my army somewhat competitive in a very tame environment, or just start a 2000 point death guard army for the same cost. Guess why my battlewagon avatar is Green/Purple now.

If the OP really, really wants to start orks, there is only one advice to give: Wait for the codex in September, wait one month for the dust to settle and then check back if orks are in a better place. If they are not, maybe look for another army of your liking.

I have played a bottom tier army for long time. The game is no fun if your models don't do what they are supposed to do in the fluff, but are just target practice for your opponent.

Read my post again. I never told you to to do conversions or scratch-build stuff. Also you mentioned pick-up games. Don´t do pick-up games with strangers. Organize games with your buddies or acquaintances. Idk, I never have problems like a lot of people seem to have on this forum.

And I have a final recommendation to make:
Delete the words viable and competitive from your way of thinking. You are playing just a game after all.

 Strg Alt wrote:
And I have a final recommendation to make:
Delete the words viable and competitive from your way of thinking. You are playing just a game after all.

This is the one recommendation every new player should ignore. In a game as badly balanced as WH40k is, buying the wrong units will ruin the entire fun in the game and the new player will leave before he even understood what happened.

You said yourself that you don't care much about the game and prefer modeling and painting. I'd say you are unqualified to give advice on how find good games. How is someone supposed to find a group that enjoys the same game the same way he does before even starting the game?
Don't you think he needs to find out what kind of game he enjoys before doing that?

WH40k is game about cool models doing cool things. Playing a bottom tier army will mean your cool models won't be doing cool things, but you will just be removing them from the table with little or no effect on the game.
Not even the most hardcore beer&prezel gamers are having fun that way.

The Pendulum swings hard and fast( Well maybe just hard) in Warhammer. A power player today will be tomorrow's punching bag.

every army has a hard matchup, but I don't feel like there's an army that's so rough and unplayable that new players won't be able to play. Just remember to play the objectives and have fun.

From the point of view of a bottom tier player (I play GK), I can truly say playing a specific army hundreds of times will make you a better player regardless of winning or losing. You will find that as long as you make less mistakes than your opponent, and make better decisions than your opponent, you can turn a loss into a draw, and a draw into a win.

However, if disappointment is something you actively avoid, then avoid playing this game. But if disappointment doesn’t register, if the challenge of being a better you is your goal, you will be happy with your army choices as you grow into the hobby.

SJ

 Jidmah wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:
And I have a final recommendation to make:
Delete the words viable and competitive from your way of thinking. You are playing just a game after all.

This is the one recommendation every new player should ignore. In a game as badly balanced as WH40k is, buying the wrong units will ruin the entire fun in the game and the new player will leave before he even understood what happened.

You said yourself that you don't care much about the game and prefer modeling and painting. I'd say you are unqualified to give advice on how find good games. How is someone supposed to find a group that enjoys the same game the same way he does before even starting the game?
Don't you think he needs to find out what kind of game he enjoys before doing that?

WH40k is game about cool models doing cool things. Playing a bottom tier army will mean your cool models won't be doing cool things, but you will just be removing them from the table with little or no effect on the game.
Not even the most hardcore beer&prezel gamers are having fun that way.

40K isn´t suited for competitive gameplay. Even a blind man can see that fact. Noobs shouldn´t memorize broken netlists but learn to socialize properly. Then you will have good matches and less people will come to this board to bitch and moan. I am also pretty confident that I could have a good game with my Bad Moonz in 8th with one of my acquaintances at my FLGS.

Its probably the best edition in a long time in terms of faction balance. Yes GK are bottom tier but Ad Mech are solidly middle. Fine except versus top tier tournament stuff.

Your coming at this from a supper casual winning and loosing doesn't matter, and people will take units that suck and give people 200 points plus extra models to balance the game.
A lot of people play matched play with the hope of a vlose game without needing handycaps.

Also playing a worse army also punishes a new players worse than a competitive army even in a non competitive setting as one mistake can quickly turn the game into a blowout. While a more competitive army can stand a mistake or two and still keep it a close game

Ice_can wrote:
Your coming at this from a supper casual winning and loosing doesn't matter, and people will take units that suck and give people 200 points plus extra models to balance the game.
A lot of people play matched play with the hope of a vlose game without needing handycaps.

Also playing a worse army also punishes a new players worse than a competitive army even in a non competitive setting as one mistake can quickly turn the game into a blowout. While a more competitive army can stand a mistake or two and still keep it a close game

People have to learn that tabletop wargaming is not about a stupid win/lose ratio. You´ll have to assemble the models, paint them and build your own terrain. To own a beautiful painted force is a reward of itself. Do you really think that I would even think for just one second of selling my army that took me months to paint because some writers at GW can´t produce a proper codex for one edition? Of course not.

Another vocabulary which needs to be addressed is balance. Every fourth thread of dakka is about lack of balance. Well, there was never balance in 40K and there will never be. Why? Because it is impossible to implement with all the different units in the game. And another reason is that the designers simply don´t care. So what do you do? It´s pretty easy actually. Your opponent and yourself have to finetune their list in order to have a good game. Choice of the scenario and placement of terrain also matters. Jesus Chrysler, if you are playing on planet bowling ball with this atrocious plastic terrain that won´t affect LOS that GW tries to peddle to us in a very aggressive way then guess what happens? Guy who goes second will be vaporized. What a surprise! And on some occasion the result of a defeat is simply that you lack experience. So git gud!

Just to add to the background radiation that is this thread:

Most opinions regarding army strength can be largely looked at as being based around high level tournament play (NTC, ETC, LVO, ect). Basically if you're not playing in a meta that encourages very specific lists to handle non-GW missions (as many tournaments use), terrain rules, and points systems you can move away from basing your opinion on codex strength on the internet.

That said, even if we no longer consider Grey Knights bottom tier because of this, we can recognize that Marine based armies, especially Marine based armies who don't have a cheap troop choice option like Scouts or Cultists, are going to be an uphill battle at the moment. That's not to say winning is impossible, but be warned that a pure Grey Knights army will face an uphill battle in almost every game, even when playing against anything with the Daemon keyword. Basically Grey Knights are the hard mode of Marine armies right now. One could even make a Dark Souls comparison if they were feeling so cheeky.

I haven't heard as many complaints about Ad Mech, but in general I have heard that the 2017 codexes that came out immediately after 8th dropped have aged poorly. I'm guessing its because they were written first, likely in a batch, since they have some similar traits and stratagem options, only for the later books to inevitably be better by nature of being later releases that are built around a tighter understanding of the game that wasn't available when writing the first books. So they're going to be in the mid to lower mid tier if you're to consider them based on tiers. Regardless though, even in the most casual settings they'll be doing better than Grey Knights.

That said, regardless of what army you start with, you're going to lose games when you begin. Some of it will be tactical error, some of it will be forgotten rules, some of it will be not knowing how to best use units, and some of it will be target priority based. This isn't a reason to be discouraged, but rather to understand that losing is part of the early hobby and it's important to accept that so you can take a step back and look at why you lost. Don't blame your dice (unless you literally only rolled 1s all game) but look at what you did wrong and what you can do better. If you have a good opponent ask them their opinion too, or ask if you can swap armies and see how they play your list.

Regardless of losing or not though you should be looking at making the army "your dudes". Pick something that captures your imagination and inspires you. You might lose a lot (especially with Grey Knights), but putting a painted army on the table and having it be something that interests you will make every game more enjoyable than running around with the flavor of the month (that is unless that sort of game style is appealing to you as some people enjoy that sort of thing).

That aside, you can easily pick up one army for Kill Team (or both) and then do the other as your actual army. Flip a coin if you can't decide which to try first and paint them up to get a feel for them. Painting units is a great way to get a feel for how much you'll really want to bother with painting a full army of something and Kill Team gives you a great excuse to paint up a box of guys without committing to a full army so you can get a feel for the options and how to paint them.

Neutron lasers are terrifying and help keep the admech relevant. The robots don't suck, either.

Martel732 wrote:
Neutron lasers are terrifying and help keep the admech relevant. The robots don't suck, either.

Everyone's always doing the Icarus array. Not sure what you're talking about with the Neutron Laser.

 Strg Alt wrote:

Ice_can wrote:
Your coming at this from a supper casual winning and loosing doesn't matter, and people will take units that suck and give people 200 points plus extra models to balance the game.
A lot of people play matched play with the hope of a vlose game without needing handycaps.

Also playing a worse army also punishes a new players worse than a competitive army even in a non competitive setting as one mistake can quickly turn the game into a blowout. While a more competitive army can stand a mistake or two and still keep it a close game

People have to learn that tabletop wargaming is not about a stupid win/lose ratio. You´ll have to assemble the models, paint them and build your own terrain. To own a beautiful painted force is a reward of itself. Do you really think that I would even think for just one second of selling my army that took me months to paint because some writers at GW can´t produce a proper codex for one edition? Of course not.

For you, perhaps. Others are are focused just as much, if not more, on the experience of using that army to play games, not just the mere possession of their toys.

Another vocabulary which needs to be addressed is balance. Every fourth thread of dakka is about lack of balance. Well, there was never balance in 40K and there will never be. Why? Because it is impossible to implement with all the different units in the game. And another reason is that the designers simply don´t care. So what do you do? It´s pretty easy actually. Your opponent and yourself have to finetune their list in order to have a good game. Choice of the scenario and placement of terrain also matters. Jesus Chrysler, if you are playing on planet bowling ball with this atrocious plastic terrain that won´t affect LOS that GW tries to peddle to us in a very aggressive way then guess what happens? Guy who goes second will be vaporized. What a surprise! And on some occasion the result of a defeat is simply that you lack experience. So git gud!

This is not true. 40k could be balanced with roughly the same amount of diversity as now, but the rules team would need to implement a deeper core to allow all of these different armies and units to be different, and be balanced. The fact of the matter is that with so few levers available to the team to make things unique, and balanced, the game will either not be balanced, or it will be balanced at the cost of being much more homogenous and bland.

OP, yes, sadly GW has decided that 40k should be a game where picking a lower-tier army as a newcomer can be a frustrating experience. If you really like GK or Admech, I would suggest going with them anyway, because you will be spending time assembling and painting them, and the balance of 40k has been known to shift- what's good right now may in 6 months when a new coex/supplement/unit/edition comes out move to mid-tier or even lower.

BrianDavion wrote:

 privateer4hire wrote:
What are the current lower tier armies?
I play pure GSC w/o Imperial Guard. Wondering if I'm really that poor at playing or if I can blame it on my army

you DO lack a codex. so thats definatly a disadvantage right there

my army has a codex and the expiriance is of the same kind. Unless someone is a masochist I would strongly disadvise starting GKs.

Fine except versus top tier tournament stuff.

How does a non top tier list look like that GK beat regularly?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Strg Alt wrote:
Jesus Chrysler, if you are playing on planet bowling ball with this atrocious plastic terrain that won´t affect LOS that GW tries to peddle to us in a very aggressive way then guess what happens? Guy who goes second will be vaporized. What a surprise! And on some occasion the result of a defeat is simply that you lack experience. So git gud!

Ok, lets say you one does happen to play in an area where the terrain is super dense. Shoting armies don't really exist unless they are super fast or fly. In such an enviroment fast moving and fly melee units would wreck GK face. Flyers too. The terrain blocking LoS, combined with the deep strike nerfs would actually work against the GK players army.

 Iur_tae_mont wrote:
The Pendulum swings hard and fast( Well maybe just hard) in Warhammer. A power player today will be tomorrow's punching bag.

every army has a hard matchup, but I don't feel like there's an army that's so rough and unplayable that new players won't be able to play. Just remember to play the objectives and have fun.

CWE are strong throughout most editions if not all.

 Strg Alt wrote:

Ice_can wrote:
Your coming at this from a supper casual winning and loosing doesn't matter, and people will take units that suck and give people 200 points plus extra models to balance the game.
A lot of people play matched play with the hope of a vlose game without needing handycaps.

Also playing a worse army also punishes a new players worse than a competitive army even in a non competitive setting as one mistake can quickly turn the game into a blowout. While a more competitive army can stand a mistake or two and still keep it a close game

People have to learn that tabletop wargaming is not about a stupid win/lose ratio. You´ll have to assemble the models, paint them and build your own terrain. To own a beautiful painted force is a reward of itself. Do you really think that I would even think for just one second of selling my army that took me months to paint because some writers at GW can´t produce a proper codex for one edition? Of course not.

People like you have to learn that WH40k is a game first and foremost. A game that is played against another player with the goal of winning. It's literally nothing but a more complex variant of chess.
There is zero fun in playing a game of chess when you realize that all your miniatures are pawns, while the opponent has the regular setup.

Another vocabulary which needs to be addressed is balance. Every fourth thread of dakka is about lack of balance. Well, there was never balance in 40K and there will never be. Why? Because it is impossible to implement with all the different units in the game.

This has been proven to be wrong, stop repeating that urban myth.
Other games, which are much, much more complex than WH40k have done it. Lots of games like StarCraft, LoL, DotA, MtG, WoW, CS and more have archived a sufficiently balanced state through constant iteration. Most of those have vastly more variables to balance since they are not turn-based games with as little a 5 turns. Heck, most direct competitors in the tabletop branch are considered to be more balanced than WH40k.

And another reason is that the designers simply don´t care.

They have actively stated they do care dozens of times over the last year. This is an objectively wrong statement.

So what do you do? It´s pretty easy actually. Your opponent and yourself have to finetune their list in order to have a good game.

And on some occasion the result of a defeat is simply that you lack experience. So git gud!

Awesome advice
1) Find opponents that lose on purpose because playing competitive is for scrubs
2) Play competitive

Choice of the scenario and placement of terrain also matters. Jesus Chrysler, if you are playing on planet bowling ball with this atrocious plastic terrain that won´t affect LOS that GW tries to peddle to us in a very aggressive way then guess what happens? Guy who goes second will be vaporized. What a surprise!

Oh, look, it's the "LOS blocking terrain will solve everything!" argument again.
Sufficient LOS blocking terrain will make games more interesting, but it will not make an army made of crap units great. Worst case, the LOS blocking terrain will favor the well balanced army on the other side more than your army because the few units that can do anything at all are now even weaker. Karol above me gave plenty of examples why this is the case.

Table wrote:

 Iur_tae_mont wrote:
The Pendulum swings hard and fast( Well maybe just hard) in Warhammer. A power player today will be tomorrow's punching bag.

every army has a hard matchup, but I don't feel like there's an army that's so rough and unplayable that new players won't be able to play. Just remember to play the objectives and have fun.

CWE are strong throughout most editions if not all.

Index CWE were definitely on the meh side of competition.

Even now the CWE codex isn't actually good, they are in a 7h edition tyranid situation. They have one army trait a couple of combos and a couple of busted units that hold the codex together, but the general level of the codex is average at best. In 8th edition where OP stuff actually gets nerfed, that is not a situation where you want your codex to be, you are a couple of nerfs away from being put on the shelf.

Spoletta wrote:

Table wrote:

 Iur_tae_mont wrote:
The Pendulum swings hard and fast( Well maybe just hard) in Warhammer. A power player today will be tomorrow's punching bag.

every army has a hard matchup, but I don't feel like there's an army that's so rough and unplayable that new players won't be able to play. Just remember to play the objectives and have fun.

CWE are strong throughout most editions if not all.

Index CWE were definitely on the meh side of competition.

Even now the CWE codex isn't actually good, they are in a 7h edition tyranid situation. They have one army trait a couple of combos and a couple of busted units that hold the codex together, but the general level of the codex is average at best. In 8th edition where OP stuff actually gets nerfed, that is not a situation where you want your codex to be, you are a couple of nerfs away from being put on the shelf.

Wow. A codex with that many synergies, stratagems and abilities to ignore many basic rules and concepts of the game, nice flexibility and the potential to do lots of mortal wounds, that can be souped with one of the best codices is just a few nerfs away from being put on the shelf?

Which armies are not a couple of nerfs away from being put on the shelf? IG, DE, CWE and Custodes? What if one of the minor nerfs what that soup doesn't work anymore? Will nobody play 40k anymore?

Grey Knights are in a terrible place they struggle even against index armies. If you first experience was with them yo would probably quit and never play again.

Trollbert wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Table wrote:

 Iur_tae_mont wrote:
The Pendulum swings hard and fast( Well maybe just hard) in Warhammer. A power player today will be tomorrow's punching bag.

every army has a hard matchup, but I don't feel like there's an army that's so rough and unplayable that new players won't be able to play. Just remember to play the objectives and have fun.

CWE are strong throughout most editions if not all.

Index CWE were definitely on the meh side of competition.

Even now the CWE codex isn't actually good, they are in a 7h edition tyranid situation. They have one army trait a couple of combos and a couple of busted units that hold the codex together, but the general level of the codex is average at best. In 8th edition where OP stuff actually gets nerfed, that is not a situation where you want your codex to be, you are a couple of nerfs away from being put on the shelf.

Wow. A codex with that many synergies, stratagems and abilities to ignore many basic rules and concepts of the game, nice flexibility and the potential to do lots of mortal wounds, that can be souped with one of the best codices is just a few nerfs away from being put on the shelf?

Which armies are not a couple of nerfs away from being put on the shelf? IG, DE, CWE and Custodes? What if one of the minor nerfs what that soup doesn't work anymore? Will nobody play 40k anymore?

Aeldari soups are a different thing entirely, it's like saying that GK are fine because they can ally with guard.

If you nerf the Alaitoc trait and shining spears, pure CWE lists will no longer be competitive.

 plark wrote:
Thank goodness for kill team, because I've been going back and forth on which army to get into, my top picks are Grey Knights and Ad Mech, however I've heard both are very bad competitively. I don't plan on attending a huge tournament or anything, however i don't like losing all the time either. either viable options for just casual in store tournaments without being tabled every time?

If you're not going into tournaments, competitive meta probably won't be relevant to you, except on occasion when some win at all costs guy shows up for casual play.

Winning and losing games outside those circumstances is usually more about rock/paper/scissors logic, deployment, and keeping an eye on the mission objectives. Since the tournament crowd doesn't make many errors on those fronts, list building efficiency is critical for them.

Admech are in an okay place, are visually interesting and highly varied, though they don't have a ton of choices when it comes to HQ, but they can bring Imperial Knights!

Grey Knights are regarded as having a weak codex, so if you go with them I'd recommend a no frills approach - lots of standard troops units and the better stuff you can borrow from Space Marines, like Assault Cannon Razorbacks.

Well from the Ork perspective it is rather terrible to be a new ork player right now, especially if you are just getting into the hobby. Nothing sets up a roadblock to play like price and right now Orkz have to be one of the most expensive armies to buy new and try to play at the 1500-2000pt level. Worse, for the beginner, unless they REALLY enjoy repetitive tasks they won't like painting 120-150 infantry models. Then in the actual game play aspect, its hordes or nothing so you have to really enjoy a single play style at the moment otherwise you won't win any games.

If you don’t like playing with lots of models, Orks may have been a poor choice. That’s kind of their thing.

meleti wrote:
If you don’t like playing with lots of models, Orks may have been a poor choice. That’s kind of their thing.

Orks really benefit from the lack of templates since you can now stack them on movement trays to move them about the board (you'll have to pile in off of the tray, but that's a sacrifice worth making if you're trying to speed up Green Tide play) so it can mitigate how hard it is to play with them.

That said, I will always remain of the opinion that Orks might be the best starter army. You have lots of bodies so you learn to accept casualties easier, bad paint jobs don't stand out as much and generally their mid-tier level of competitiveness makes them a solid starter army that can win games but usually doesn't get caught up in netlist power builds so much, which discourages jumping on the next best build.

Of course the downside is how much painting you'll need to do, but if you prime white or grey you can do most of it with washes and glazes instead of regular painting, so that's a perk too.

 Strg Alt wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:
And I have a final recommendation to make:
Delete the words viable and competitive from your way of thinking. You are playing just a game after all.

This is the one recommendation every new player should ignore. In a game as badly balanced as WH40k is, buying the wrong units will ruin the entire fun in the game and the new player will leave before he even understood what happened.

You said yourself that you don't care much about the game and prefer modeling and painting. I'd say you are unqualified to give advice on how find good games. How is someone supposed to find a group that enjoys the same game the same way he does before even starting the game?
Don't you think he needs to find out what kind of game he enjoys before doing that?

WH40k is game about cool models doing cool things. Playing a bottom tier army will mean your cool models won't be doing cool things, but you will just be removing them from the table with little or no effect on the game.
Not even the most hardcore beer&prezel gamers are having fun that way.

40K isn´t suited for competitive gameplay. Even a blind man can see that fact. Noobs shouldn´t memorize broken netlists but learn to socialize properly. Then you will have good matches and less people will come to this board to bitch and moan. I am also pretty confident that I could have a good game with my Bad Moonz in 8th with one of my acquaintances at my FLGS.

Not taking competitive units and burying your head in sand, is not going to make your opponents list non-competitive as a result. It just means you WONT have a fair game. I agree that there is far too many scrubs, scrubbing on about balance that they don't understand, and this category is particularly rife with it of all the places I see 40k discussed. But I think it's not putting ENOUGH thought into the units they're taking and how to play them well that causes this, not putting TOO MUCH. I could see how over thinking things could be an issue, but time and time again we see that that a lot of people don't even UNDERSTAND the aspects of the game they criticise as unfair. Going out and getting mopped with your eyes closed isn't going to help this, IMHO.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
That being said, there is something to say for blindly copying netlists or the internet group think in anything, without properly understanding how are why it's good, and not being willing or capable of filling in that knowledge as you play. Then of course, coming back to Dakka to bitch that your army is too weak to compete, your consistently tournament placing army is "completely unviable and cannot compete", your tournament DOMINATING army is "not even that strong people are overrating it", etc. It seems like its more popular than ever to blame the game before recognising mistakes. These people will not get better.

Spoletta wrote:

Trollbert wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Table wrote:

 Iur_tae_mont wrote:
The Pendulum swings hard and fast( Well maybe just hard) in Warhammer. A power player today will be tomorrow's punching bag.

every army has a hard matchup, but I don't feel like there's an army that's so rough and unplayable that new players won't be able to play. Just remember to play the objectives and have fun.

CWE are strong throughout most editions if not all.

Index CWE were definitely on the meh side of competition.

Even now the CWE codex isn't actually good, they are in a 7h edition tyranid situation. They have one army trait a couple of combos and a couple of busted units that hold the codex together, but the general level of the codex is average at best. In 8th edition where OP stuff actually gets nerfed, that is not a situation where you want your codex to be, you are a couple of nerfs away from being put on the shelf.

Wow. A codex with that many synergies, stratagems and abilities to ignore many basic rules and concepts of the game, nice flexibility and the potential to do lots of mortal wounds, that can be souped with one of the best codices is just a few nerfs away from being put on the shelf?

Which armies are not a couple of nerfs away from being put on the shelf? IG, DE, CWE and Custodes? What if one of the minor nerfs what that soup doesn't work anymore? Will nobody play 40k anymore?

Aeldari soups are a different thing entirely, it's like saying that GK are fine because they can ally with guard.

If you nerf the Alaitoc trait and shining spears, pure CWE lists will no longer be competitive.

Sure, soup is entirely different, but if you talk about competitive, then souping is what you have to defeat.
So if soup/allies didn't exist i.e. if all units you field had to be from the same book, what would be the tier list then?

I'm sure Eldar, Dark Eldar and IG would be top tier.
Most of the codices with <15 units and Grey Knights would be bottom tier.
The rest should be mid tier (not sure about Tyranids and Tau though).

Alaitoc would probably not be that broken if Wave Serpents and Flyers didn't get it and if Psi and Stratagems didn't have several boosts for defense. I mean, Eldar are supposed to be rather fragile, but imo, they are a really tough army, defensively.

100% with you on that, indeed my fix for Alaitoc would be applying it only to non FLY models, like the Jormungard trait. Would really make for some interesting infantry lists, ranger centric, without being the absolute must that is now.

I mean, the most common CWE detachment is an alaitoc air support detachment in an aeldari soup, i'm sure something can be done about that.

Plark, the only issue with a new player playing a low tier army is that they will have no idea if they're playing bad and can't learn from it. That is assuming they don't know it is a low tier army, in your case you do so you have expectation of a uphill battle you can get ready for it. The way to get ready for it in your case will simply be reading up on the meta strategy for these two factions. If you play just locally as well you can slightly tailor to the meta of your area.

Orks are in a bad place right now. I'll echo Jidmah and say "If 'Playing a good army' matters to you... Wait for the codex, and perhaps even a month after that."

 ClockworkZion wrote:

meleti wrote:
If you don’t like playing with lots of models, Orks may have been a poor choice. That’s kind of their thing.

Orks really benefit from the lack of templates since you can now stack them on movement trays to move them about the board (you'll have to pile in off of the tray, but that's a sacrifice worth making if you're trying to speed up Green Tide play) so it can mitigate how hard it is to play with them.

That said, I will always remain of the opinion that Orks might be the best starter army. You have lots of bodies so you learn to accept casualties easier, bad paint jobs don't stand out as much and generally their mid-tier level of competitiveness makes them a solid starter army that can win games but usually doesn't get caught up in netlist power builds so much, which discourages jumping on the next best build.

Of course the downside is how much painting you'll need to do, but if you prime white or grey you can do most of it with washes and glazes instead of regular painting, so that's a perk too.

Surprisingly the loss of templates hurt Orks the most of all armies. They were relying on shooting out mass templates to hit things (With wild scatter), now nothing of theirs hits at all.

SeanDrake wrote:
Grey Knights are in a terrible place they struggle even against index armies. If you first experience was with them yo would probably quit and never play again.

No they aren't. I'm sure your GM Baby Carriers or Crowe would knife through the majority of Ork lists.

It seems like a Rite of Passage in 40k to buy your starter army that is garbage, get a second army for a more competitive viewpoint, and end up with an Imperial army just from all the starter sets.

Thats how I ended up with Xenos, Chaos, and Loyal forces.

But this also lets you cycle playstyles and i personally enjoy the learning curve of a new army or list.

My Ork army has been shelved for several editions already, my Loyal bike lst was great in 7th, useless now, and my Chaos army that was terrible in 7th is actually good in 8th. Now im finally getting back into Orkz. I just finished painting up some metal Ork Kommando models for Killteam that I bought nearly 10 years ago.

Go with what looks the most appealing. Because they sit in a box/shelf/dresser more than anything.

 Eonfuzz wrote:
No they aren't. I'm sure your GM Baby Carriers or Crowe would knife through the majority of Ork lists.

I don't know how to tell you this but, I can't think of anybody putting Crowe into his all comers list. Crowe is not a whole lot better than a common strike squad member. He does have some special rules but they are so niche that they're almost unusable.

Yes.

I would honestly say that the only army you can't get fun mileage out of in a casual environment is Grey Knights. They are woeful and you need to be skilled in order to bring them to even casual tables. Admech pair very well with Imperial Knights, which are the new hotness.

Now, if you own a ton of models across multiple different Imperium factions, are well versed in the meta, know the armies you're facing, and can counter-build and play a ruleset that is conducive to them, Grey Knights can win games.

My general advice to new players is to avoid Grey Knights like the plague.

 Marmatag wrote:
I would honestly say that the only army you can't get fun mileage out of in a casual environment is Grey Knights. They are woeful and you need to be skilled in order to bring them to even casual tables. Admech pair very well with Imperial Knights, which are the new hotness.

Now, if you own a ton of models across multiple different Imperium factions, are well versed in the meta, know the armies you're facing, and can counter-build and play a ruleset that is conducive to them, Grey Knights can win games.

My general advice to new players is to avoid Grey Knights like the plague.

I disagree like this, I play pure GK in a casual setting and have good games and do fine. They definitely have their issues at the competetitive/tournament level but if your just playing against other people who are playing the models they like or fluffy lists it's ok.

 Eonfuzz wrote:
Orks are in a bad place right now. I'll echo Jidmah and say "If 'Playing a good army' matters to you... Wait for the codex, and perhaps even a month after that."

 ClockworkZion wrote:

meleti wrote:
If you don’t like playing with lots of models, Orks may have been a poor choice. That’s kind of their thing.

Orks really benefit from the lack of templates since you can now stack them on movement trays to move them about the board (you'll have to pile in off of the tray, but that's a sacrifice worth making if you're trying to speed up Green Tide play) so it can mitigate how hard it is to play with them.

That said, I will always remain of the opinion that Orks might be the best starter army. You have lots of bodies so you learn to accept casualties easier, bad paint jobs don't stand out as much and generally their mid-tier level of competitiveness makes them a solid starter army that can win games but usually doesn't get caught up in netlist power builds so much, which discourages jumping on the next best build.

Of course the downside is how much painting you'll need to do, but if you prime white or grey you can do most of it with washes and glazes instead of regular painting, so that's a perk too.

Surprisingly the loss of templates hurt Orks the most of all armies. They were relying on shooting out mass templates to hit things (With wild scatter), now nothing of theirs hits at all.

SeanDrake wrote:
Grey Knights are in a terrible place they struggle even against index armies. If you first experience was with them yo would probably quit and never play again.

No they aren't. I'm sure your GM Baby Carriers or Crowe would knife through the majority of Ork lists.

Okay, that's fair. If you're not playing a melee focused Ork army (Green Tide of Choppa Boys and other melee stuff), the army is likely going to struggle a lot due to most of the ranged stuff needing to get into 12" to have a shot at hitting.

Maybe their codex will fix them by letting them always hit on a roll of a 6 but we'll see.

When I was new, I started with SM. I'm glad I did. They're the baseline - everything in the game is defined by it's variation from them ("fast"/"slow" means faster/slower than SM, "elite"/"horde" is based on the relation to the Tac marine, and so-on).

SM have options for most playstyles, and list building doesn't pigeonhole the list as easily and quickly. This leads to being able to experiment and try more parts of the game sooner and easier.

Add to that that SM are the second-most-common top-dog over time (although they're not top tier now). By time you build and paint a whole army, the game is likely to be in a very different state. If a new player started building an army at the start of 8th - as in, not start a new army, I mean new to the game - would they necessarily have had a 2k point list before that army got reshuffled in meta position?

Orkz and GK are probably bad choices for new players, although not just because they're bad right now. Orkz are very 1-dimensional outside specialist builds. There are a lot of ways to play this game they just can't do. So, if you start with Orkz, you may never realize that you'd rather do a gunline, or using CC as a supportive element, or a combined arms style list. GK is probably also unwise, as they have only a couple options, and even if they were fine competitively, would still be very unfortiving. You get half the units most other lists get. And you would need to make use of every part of the unit, because of the points.

SM are second most common top dog. Not even close. This is more true recently, but earlier editions did actually happen. Your statement is more true foe space corgis.

Taking all of history into account, marines are a poor starter army imo.

Martel732 wrote:
SM are second most common top dog. Not even close. This is more true recently, but earlier editions did actually happen. Your statement is more true foe space corgis.

Taking all of history into account, marines are a poor starter army imo.

SM have historically been fine.

The faction continues to be well supported, cheap, easy to assemble, easy to paint, easy to play. All great features in a player's first army.

Is it "pick the best 3 Eldar units this edition and spam them"? No, but so what? You are starting to play, not aiming to win the LVO.

Tyel wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
SM are second most common top dog. Not even close. This is more true recently, but earlier editions did actually happen. Your statement is more true foe space corgis.

Taking all of history into account, marines are a poor starter army imo.

SM have historically been fine.

The faction continues to be well supported, cheap, easy to assemble, easy to paint, easy to play. All great features in a player's first army.

Is it "pick the best 3 Eldar units this edition and spam them"? No, but so what? You are starting to play, not aiming to win the LVO.

Yeah, good starter army doesnt mean "Is this a top 3-5 army this edition?", it means its easy to play, well supported and reasonably useable

Flamephoenix182 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
I would honestly say that the only army you can't get fun mileage out of in a casual environment is Grey Knights. They are woeful and you need to be skilled in order to bring them to even casual tables. Admech pair very well with Imperial Knights, which are the new hotness.

Now, if you own a ton of models across multiple different Imperium factions, are well versed in the meta, know the armies you're facing, and can counter-build and play a ruleset that is conducive to them, Grey Knights can win games.

My general advice to new players is to avoid Grey Knights like the plague.

I disagree like this, I play pure GK in a casual setting and have good games and do fine. They definitely have their issues at the competetitive/tournament level but if your just playing against other people who are playing the models they like or fluffy lists it's ok.

There is no contract that exists between two players that one must dumb their army down to make it a game for GK. And a fluffy Guard list will gak on GK effortlessly, for example.

For new players, it is a bad army.

Bharring wrote:
Orkz and GK are probably bad choices for new players, although not just because they're bad right now. Orkz are very 1-dimensional outside specialist builds. There are a lot of ways to play this game they just can't do. So, if you start with Orkz, you may never realize that you'd rather do a gunline, or using CC as a supportive element, or a combined arms style list.

The sad part is that Orks used to have all those variations as part of their army. In 5th you could field all sorts of armies, including gunlines, combined arms lists, walker lists, bike lists and more. Sixth edition kicked all those play-styles in the nuts by consequently nerfing CC, ork characters and ork anti-tank and 7th edition codex nerfed every unit involved in any of this into oblivion. The index gave ork quite a few nice things, but most play styles suffer from general 8th edition changes.

Orks used to have just as many play styles as vanilla marines had - Kirby-GW just fethed them up so bad that people like you don't even remember them being an all-round army (no offense).

Jid,
That's a very good point.

However, even if Orkz could do well if they built an army using Lootas, Flash Gitz, and Shoota Boys, using the right choices in each slot to MOAR DAKKA (which is certainly Orky), would it feel as "natural" to a new player to see his Orkz play that way? After he builds up a mob of Slugga Boyz, is he going to replace them with Shoota Boyz?

A new player probably doesn't have both types of Boyz. A new SM player has Tacs, which (in theory) can support either list.

I still think SM is better thematically for a new player. That said, a new player who is an Ork player would be better off starting Orkz. For the right player, I'd agree that starting Orkz is better. For most players, though, I think SM is the better starting army. There'll be exceptions, of course.

Martel732 wrote:
Taking all of history into account, marines are a poor starter army imo.

Can you explain your rationale for thinking this?

You are concerned enough to post here about it. Follow your heart.

 Marmatag wrote:

Flamephoenix182 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
I would honestly say that the only army you can't get fun mileage out of in a casual environment is Grey Knights. They are woeful and you need to be skilled in order to bring them to even casual tables. Admech pair very well with Imperial Knights, which are the new hotness.

Now, if you own a ton of models across multiple different Imperium factions, are well versed in the meta, know the armies you're facing, and can counter-build and play a ruleset that is conducive to them, Grey Knights can win games.

My general advice to new players is to avoid Grey Knights like the plague.

I disagree like this, I play pure GK in a casual setting and have good games and do fine. They definitely have their issues at the competetitive/tournament level but if your just playing against other people who are playing the models they like or fluffy lists it's ok.

There is no contract that exists between two players that one must dumb their army down to make it a game for GK. And a fluffy Guard list will gak on GK effortlessly, for example.

For new players, it is a bad army.

I would agree it's bad in the way that Elite armies are generally bad for new players, since hordes are traditionally much easier to play and more forgiving. I would also agree that if the OP wants to move into a more competitive meta then GK are not the way to start.
But I still maintain in casual play they are fine... I beat my buddy and his guard list sometimes, sometimes he beats me... it depends on your definition of casual... my group is 10 friends who basically only play each other, and use 40k as more of a "nerd poker" night. And we don't have any contract about list building, but at the lower end of the casual skill level, the games are won and lost a lot more on in game decisions like "oops I deployed my stormraven stupidly and it died" or "I made mistakes in target priority, or my mathhammer and I wasted that unit" rather than the differences in the armies relative power levels.

I'm guessing based on your posting history here your play group is very competitively minded and bring that playstyle into game in and out of the tournaments (which is fine since that is a great way to play, if you have like minded people who also enjoy the intense competition and I play that way as well for the non 40k minis games I own).

Horde armies are not more forgiving for new players.

The true horde armies - Tyranids, Orks - are in an awful place right now if you play them as horde. This idea that hordes are running the meta is false.

Elite armies are not suffering. Look at the lists doing well in the BAO, they are absolutely elite armies. The death guard army had under 20 models and it won the BAO. At the final table, it played Custodes + Guard, which probably had a net model count of about 50 guys, but the meat of the list is elite.

The problem with Grey Knights is they're a bad elite army.

Are you making the case that "because Grey Knights work for me, they must be fine?" Yes there are very contrived situations where Grey Knights can function, in the same way that any army can function. This is NOT indicative of balance, and is NOT generally applicable to new players. Are tigers harmless because they're in Asia and you are not?

 Marmatag wrote:
Horde armies are not more forgiving for new players.

The true horde armies - Tyranids, Orks - are in an awful place right now if you play them as horde. This idea that hordes are running the meta is false.

Elite armies are not suffering. Look at the lists doing well in the BAO, they are absolutely elite armies. The death guard army had under 20 models and it won the BAO. At the final table, it played Custodes + Guard, which probably had a net model count of about 50 guys, but the meat of the list is elite.

The problem with Grey Knights is they're a bad elite army.

Are you making the case that "because Grey Knights work for me, they must be fine?" Yes there are very contrived situations where Grey Knights can function, in the same way that any army can function. This is NOT indicative of balance, and is NOT generally applicable to new players. Are tigers harmless because they're in Asia and you are not?

Wow there is a lot to unpack there and you are putting a lot of words in my mouth.

1) hordes vs elite: I never commented even remotely on the competitive balance of hordes vs elites. what I said is if you are new, hordes are typically easier to play than elite armies. Since if you make a mistake and leave a unit out of position or vulnerable in an elite army you will lose a large part of your army. If you make the same mistake with a unit in a horde army you will only lose a small part of your army. Full stop, I have no comment on the viability of elite vs horde amongst experienced players.

2) I made it very clear in this thread and other posts threads that grey knights are not ok as they are when playing competitively... but there is a large difference between being competitive and being ok to play in a casual setting... I would never bring GK to a tournament as they are now, but playing a pick up game against casual players with fluffy lists... sure I play them all the time and they are fun, which is my personnel experience. in my casual meta... Which may or may not apply to the OPS meta, as both of us are not familiar with it.

 nurgle5 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Taking all of history into account, marines are a poor starter army imo.

Can you explain your rationale for thinking this?

It's always been easy to build a marine army that is completely non-functional against even average competition. Lots of choices, with the majority of them being bad, is actually the ILLUSION of choice, not true choice. The basal tactical marine has been largely ineffective every edition except the front half of 3rd. That's not a good starting place.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tyel wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
SM are second most common top dog. Not even close. This is more true recently, but earlier editions did actually happen. Your statement is more true foe space corgis.

Taking all of history into account, marines are a poor starter army imo.

SM have historically been fine.

The faction continues to be well supported, cheap, easy to assemble, easy to paint, easy to play. All great features in a player's first army.

Is it "pick the best 3 Eldar units this edition and spam them"? No, but so what? You are starting to play, not aiming to win the LVO.

Marines are NOT easy to play, imo. Nor easy to list build. Historically speaking.

Flamephoenix182 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Horde armies are not more forgiving for new players.

The true horde armies - Tyranids, Orks - are in an awful place right now if you play them as horde. This idea that hordes are running the meta is false.

Elite armies are not suffering. Look at the lists doing well in the BAO, they are absolutely elite armies. The death guard army had under 20 models and it won the BAO. At the final table, it played Custodes + Guard, which probably had a net model count of about 50 guys, but the meat of the list is elite.

The problem with Grey Knights is they're a bad elite army.

Are you making the case that "because Grey Knights work for me, they must be fine?" Yes there are very contrived situations where Grey Knights can function, in the same way that any army can function. This is NOT indicative of balance, and is NOT generally applicable to new players. Are tigers harmless because they're in Asia and you are not?

Wow there is a lot to unpack there and you are putting a lot of words in my mouth.

1) hordes vs elite: I never commented even remotely on the competitive balance of hordes vs elites. what I said is if you are new, hordes are typically easier to play than elite armies. Since if you make a mistake and leave a unit out of position or vulnerable in an elite army you will lose a large part of your army. If you make the same mistake with a unit in a horde army you will only lose a small part of your army. Full stop, I have no comment on the viability of elite vs horde amongst experienced players.

2) I made it very clear in this thread and other posts threads that grey knights are not ok as they are when playing competitively... but there is a large difference between being competitive and being ok to play in a casual setting... I would never bring GK to a tournament as they are now, but playing a pick up game against casual players with fluffy lists... sure I play them all the time and they are fun, which is my personnel experience. in my casual meta... Which may or may not apply to the OPS meta, as both of us are not familiar with it.

Ok - got it.

I think we might have differing ideas on what a horde army is. In a general sense, horde armies lack the tools to handle high toughness models, and come apart faster than elite models as they're far more difficult to hide and will drown in volume of fire. Horde armies in casual settings died the day that the Punisher Russ got Grinding Advance, and was buried when Custodes Bikes dropped with Hurricane Bolters on them.

In general the most forgiving armies will give you tools to handle a wider variety of threats you might encounter. This is why Space Marines are generally considered newbie friendly, because you can just put lascannons in your squads and suddenly you've got the tools to hit T8. Meanwhile, I can't put a Lascannon Hormagant in a squad of 30. You can upscale in quantity but not quality.

My problem is that "competitively" is tossed around a lot, but there's a pretty big scale of competitive play. There's top-table BAO and then there's the average RTT. These are not remotely the same. Necrons are an example that can do well at an RTT but won't do well at BAO. Tyranids are similar. Both are interesting fun armies to play that feel enjoyable at the table. Grey Knights struggle in all of these organized formats, and that's the real issue. You can't assume the meta or the format of play for any new player. What you can assume is that stores will have organized events as they draw in players, which means playing games with strangers, without the casual agreement.

The trap a lot of new players fall into is trying to catch up to playing 2000 points like the rest of the community as quickly as possible. Bad models are less of a problem at 800ish points, where you can try out a lower investment sized army and decide what aspects of it are worth buying more of to get to 2000.

8th makes this an even better plan, since even Grey Knights are okay if you limit how much you spend on them and ally the rest. They're still far from "optimal" but an optimized GK ally detachment is far from a total waste unless you're playing with an incredibly competitive crowd.

Apart from GK no, in a casual, fluffy enviroment for people who are starting everything is fine, really.

If you try to start with a subpar army in a place where people are super competitive.... eh, less so.

Generally speaking. Weaker armies are harder to play.

Honestly speaking no armies are really "hard to play". The less efficient your units rules are though the less bad luck you can get away with.

Bharring wrote:
Jid,
That's a very good point.

However, even if Orkz could do well if they built an army using Lootas, Flash Gitz, and Shoota Boys, using the right choices in each slot to MOAR DAKKA (which is certainly Orky), would it feel as "natural" to a new player to see his Orkz play that way? After he builds up a mob of Slugga Boyz, is he going to replace them with Shoota Boyz?

A new player probably doesn't have both types of Boyz. A new SM player has Tacs, which (in theory) can support either list.

I still think SM is better thematically for a new player. That said, a new player who is an Ork player would be better off starting Orkz. For the right player, I'd agree that starting Orkz is better. For most players, though, I think SM is the better starting army. There'll be exceptions, of course.

I would say that Orks have all the potential to be a solid starter army. In theory they have units for everything: shooting, melee, walkers, tanks, small infantry, large infantry, artillery etc... right now they just need all those units to be good.
Right now Orks have this "melee horde" stigma that keeps them people from seeing them as they truly are: a faction dedicated to war in its entirety. All playstyles should be valid for the most warmongering of races. This site is called "dakkadakka" for pete's sake!
I personally would love to start a bad moonz or freebootaz army based around flash gits, but I can't be bothered since melee horde is all orks are good at right now.

Besides, every meta needs Orkz. I honestly can only recall 1 game with Orkz on the table, friend or foe, that I did *not* enjoy (and that had nothing to do with the Orkz).

I think I need to retract my claim that Orkz aren't ideal for new players.

I still believe it works for new players only for certain new players. I wouldn't have lasted long in 40k if I started with Orkz, as they're just not my thing. But y'all make good points.

CapRichard wrote:
Apart from GK no, in a casual, fluffy enviroment for people who are starting everything is fine, really.

If you try to start with a subpar army in a place where people are super competitive.... eh, less so.

Untrue, Necrons are provably worse than GK currently.

There's no way to "prove" any army is better than any other. Theoretically any army can beat any other army regardless of skill just through dice rolls. On a practical level this isn't really true but the possibility is there.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
There's no way to "prove" any army is better than any other. Theoretically any army can beat any other army regardless of skill just through dice rolls. On a practical level this isn't really true but the possibility is there.

You can check tournament stats since 8e came out. Necrons have consistently performed worse at placing in the TOP 3 at GT's and Majors. That is a pretty decent sample set, and a fair way to observe army strength in a competitive scene I think.

Suggestion to new players...

Play knights. Easy, forgiving, cheap (can field 2k for under 500$) and encourage small groups of allies as expansion forces.

Downside, you'll stomp all your friends who start with you and don't play knights and the meta has enough knights at the moment but as far as an easy to play/start army you could do a lot worse...

valdier wrote:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
There's no way to "prove" any army is better than any other. Theoretically any army can beat any other army regardless of skill just through dice rolls. On a practical level this isn't really true but the possibility is there.

You can check tournament stats since 8e came out. Necrons have consistently performed worse at placing in the TOP 3 at GT's and Majors. That is a pretty decent sample set, and a fair way to observe army strength in a competitive scene I think.

The problem is army popularity and perceived strength skews those numbers. It's not 40k but when I played WM in Mk2 Convergence of Cyriss was considered an extremely weak faction and it was unpopular... People thought it couldn't win. Then a player came in and won both the Masters and Iron gauntlet in the same weekend (basically the two biggest tournaments formats, at the biggest tournament the PP puts on each year)...It's pretty hard to attribute taking down 2 huge tournaments in the same weekend with all the best players in North America (and lots from overseas in attendance) with a "weak" faction to luck.

So how do we know it's not the same with some 40k faction? where they are just unpopular so people are not experimenting with them/practicing with them in enough volume to get to those top level tables.

valdier wrote:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
There's no way to "prove" any army is better than any other. Theoretically any army can beat any other army regardless of skill just through dice rolls. On a practical level this isn't really true but the possibility is there.

You can check tournament stats since 8e came out. Necrons have consistently performed worse at placing in the TOP 3 at GT's and Majors. That is a pretty decent sample set, and a fair way to observe army strength in a competitive scene I think.

Well if you're looking at top 3 they're the same right, i don't recall Grey Knights dropping into the top 3 in any significant event. At this point we should be looking at the 2018 season, because both GK and Necrons have a codex. The 2017 season, GK got the first codex, AND Custodes didn't exist. So they were inflated by being first to get a codex - this is a fact.

And if we're going by rankings in ITC land, the average of the top-3 Grey Knights players is 337, and the average of the top-3 Necrons is 408, with the top Necrons player being rated ahead of the top Grey Knights player.

Necrons > Grey Knights based on this.

Of course, Grey Knights are also based on soup. And if you soup in Imperial Knights/Imperium right now that's enough to inflate your RTT ratings. Bring enough GK to qualify as "GK" and boom, you're running Imperium Light. That is enough to do reasonably well in a 10-12 man event.

Flamephoenix182 wrote:

valdier wrote:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
There's no way to "prove" any army is better than any other. Theoretically any army can beat any other army regardless of skill just through dice rolls. On a practical level this isn't really true but the possibility is there.

You can check tournament stats since 8e came out. Necrons have consistently performed worse at placing in the TOP 3 at GT's and Majors. That is a pretty decent sample set, and a fair way to observe army strength in a competitive scene I think.

The problem is army popularity and perceived strength skews those numbers. It's not 40k but when I played WM in Mk2 Convergence of Cyriss was considered an extremely weak faction and it was unpopular... People thought it couldn't win. Then a player came in and won both the Masters and Iron gauntlet in the same weekend (basically the two biggest tournaments formats, at the biggest tournament the PP puts on each year)...It's pretty hard to attribute taking down 2 huge tournaments in the same weekend with all the best players in North America (and lots from overseas in attendance) with a "weak" faction to luck.

So how do we know it's not the same with some 40k faction? where they are just unpopular so people are not experimenting with them/practicing with them in enough volume to get to those top level tables.

Because the top level necron players are still playing, and they are placing terribly. They still play every tournament, they are still the top placing players for the faction, they just can't break into the top anything. That and there is only one competitive list for necrons, and it must always use the same units (Lords of War only basically).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Marmatag wrote:

valdier wrote:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
There's no way to "prove" any army is better than any other. Theoretically any army can beat any other army regardless of skill just through dice rolls. On a practical level this isn't really true but the possibility is there.

You can check tournament stats since 8e came out. Necrons have consistently performed worse at placing in the TOP 3 at GT's and Majors. That is a pretty decent sample set, and a fair way to observe army strength in a competitive scene I think.

Well if you're looking at top 3 they're the same right, i don't recall Grey Knights dropping into the top 3 in any significant event. At this point we should be looking at the 2018 season, because both GK and Necrons have a codex. The 2017 season, GK got the first codex, AND Custodes didn't exist. So they were inflated by being first to get a codex - this is a fact.

And if we're going by rankings in ITC land, the average of the top-3 Grey Knights players is 337, and the average of the top-3 Necrons is 408, with the top Necrons player being rated ahead of the top Grey Knights player.

Necrons > Grey Knights based on this.

Of course, Grey Knights are also based on soup. And if you soup in Imperial Knights/Imperium right now that's enough to inflate your RTT ratings. Bring enough GK to qualify as "GK" and boom, you're running Imperium Light. That is enough to do reasonably well in a 10-12 man event.

But that is 8e. Soup is part of it, so GK can soup, and score well, Necrons cannot. At BAO the top necron players were in the ranks for 51+ if I remember right. The play well, run competitive lists for "crons", and place terribly, consistently. There is no soup to help fix them.

Well, I've been excited to drag my Orkz out of retirement to the newly opened Game shop, only to see a Knight Castellan with flamer and harpoon, 2-3 Armigers, and triple Slamguinius Captains looking for a game. I quietly kept to myself. Instead I arranged a game for tomorrow against a Death Watch army of 2+to wound rerollable t-shirt stopping Xenos killers with Stratagems designed to neuter me.

I'm only 1/4 of the way through painting up 185 models (for my 1500 list) and I'm ALREADY discouraged from even finishing.

meleti wrote:
This is not a helpful place to ask that question.

Haha, this^

 ClockworkZion wrote:

meleti wrote:
If you don’t like playing with lots of models, Orks may have been a poor choice. That’s kind of their thing.

Orks really benefit from the lack of templates since you can now stack them on movement trays to move them about the board (you'll have to pile in off of the tray, but that's a sacrifice worth making if you're trying to speed up Green Tide play) so it can mitigate how hard it is to play with them.

That said, I will always remain of the opinion that Orks might be the best starter army. You have lots of bodies so you learn to accept casualties easier, bad paint jobs don't stand out as much and generally their mid-tier level of competitiveness makes them a solid starter army that can win games but usually doesn't get caught up in netlist power builds so much, which discourages jumping on the next best build.

Of course the downside is how much painting you'll need to do, but if you prime white or grey you can do most of it with washes and glazes instead of regular painting, so that's a perk too.

Orkz were crushed by the loss of templates, my only ranged option that isn't total trash is my KMK mek gunz, and ONLY if my opponent doesn't have -1 to hit, at -2 I will more often then not hurt myself instead of my enemy, and at $46 per model, mek gunz are just to expensive to spam for most Ork players who want a gun line army.

Prior to the template nerf I could field SAGz and a number of other blast weapons and have a decent chance of actually hitting my opponent, now I know shooting is basically just wasting time.

Orkz are probably the worst starter army right now. You have to invest a lot more money into models to get the minimum number needed to play. For a 500pt starting game I would say Orkz need at least 60 Boyz (360pts worth) and then you need the rest to be characters to keep the boyz from dying or running away, so lets say 3 characters and 60 boyz, thats 9 Boxes of minis to buy and paint before you can play.

Adding to that, if you don't play horde you almost automatically lose which means the new players will lose interest in the game because they keep losing all the time. Furthermore, if they bring a tide out against other armies they still don't really have a good chance because of the way the new codex's have increased power. Hell a Tau gunline can liquidate an entire 30 blob of boyz just in overwatch, let alone shooting naturally.

I would not say orkz are mid tier competitively, we have a single build that lets us be considered passable in the competitive scene, but its never done well in tournaments except when the player cheats by slow playing (London GT).

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
Well, I've been excited to drag my Orkz out of retirement to the newly opened Game shop, only to see a Knight Castellan with flamer and harpoon, 2-3 Armigers, and triple Slamguinius Captains looking for a game. I quietly kept to myself. Instead I arranged a game for tomorrow against a Death Watch army of 2+to wound rerollable t-shirt stopping Xenos killers with Stratagems designed to neuter me.

I'm only 1/4 of the way through painting up 185 models (for my 1500 list) and I'm ALREADY discouraged from even finishing.

Wait for the codex for boyz to get nerfed and killa kanz to be the new hotness.

Hey, a girl can dream...

edit: just for clarity I don't think boyz need to be nerfed, killa kans and deff dreads are just the only models in that army I really like.

Marmatag wrote:I would honestly say that the only army you can't get fun mileage out of in a casual environment is Grey Knights. They are woeful and you need to be skilled in order to bring them to even casual tables. Admech pair very well with Imperial Knights, which are the new hotness.

Now, if you own a ton of models across multiple different Imperium factions, are well versed in the meta, know the armies you're facing, and can counter-build and play a ruleset that is conducive to them, Grey Knights can win games.

My general advice to new players is to avoid Grey Knights like the plague.

Agreed. The numbers are just against you, even in casual settings.

Every other army in the game can be played to compete more or less in some manner.

Honestly, its worst when you are in a rock, paper, scissor match.

No. You can play - and enjoy - any army as a beginner - except Grey Knights - their models are horrible horrible horrible (prejudiced - me?).

In general however, expect to lose before you start to win - unless you have beginner's luck.

Some armies are easier to master than others. You can't jump from buying the starter box and first game straight to winning national tournaments. It takes effort and skill, so expect curbstomps, narrow defeats and major wins along the way.

Pick the models you like. Play friendly to get to know them then get more competitive if that floats your boat. Any army will do except grey knights. Their models are horrible.. wait.. did I say that already?

Bharring wrote:
Jid,
That's a very good point.

However, even if Orkz could do well if they built an army using Lootas, Flash Gitz, and Shoota Boys, using the right choices in each slot to MOAR DAKKA (which is certainly Orky), would it feel as "natural" to a new player to see his Orkz play that way? After he builds up a mob of Slugga Boyz, is he going to replace them with Shoota Boyz?

Shooting orks feel very natural. Near the end of 5th edition necrons could have combo that would basically half all your movement and kill your models whenever you moved.
I remember such a game, shooting a necron army off the table with dakkajets, lootas, koptaz and shoota boyz. I was tossing tons of dice, most of them missed but there was still enough left to chew through warriors, quantum shielded vehicles and a C'Tan.
All of those units cost more and do less damage today than they did in 5th, while almost every other unit in the game shoots more and costs less than in 5th.

A new player probably doesn't have both types of Boyz. A new SM player has Tacs, which (in theory) can support either list.

Shoota boyz and slugga boyz are from the same box. Unless you are buying AOBR orks from ebay, you will always have both lists.
Also note that space marines are no better in CC than orks are in shooting right now.

I still think SM is better thematically for a new player. That said, a new player who is an Ork player would be better off starting Orkz. For the right player, I'd agree that starting Orkz is better. For most players, though, I think SM is the better starting army. There'll be exceptions, of course.

The best place start for someone who has no clue what to do is primaris marines from DI. Every primaris unit has one job it does reasonably well, you have zero chances to pick inefficient options and you have a bunch of models that don't die easily to minimize the frustration of getting shot during your first game.

it doesn't get any simpler than that.

New players shouldn't really be expecting to win many games in the beginning anyway so you have to ask what the purpose of their first army is?

Space Marines, for example, are pretty good as a first army. They are cheap to buy, easy to paint, and have options for all phases of the game and multiple styles of play. They'll teach you the game quite well. In addition they can ally with any other Imperium army so if you want to go more competitive later you can still use those models. If you choose a homebrew chapter you don't even have to commit to any one specific Codex.

Slipspace wrote:
New players shouldn't really be expecting to win many games in the beginning anyway so you have to ask what the purpose of their first army is?

Space Marines, for example, are pretty good as a first army. They are cheap to buy, easy to paint, and have options for all phases of the game and multiple styles of play. They'll teach you the game quite well. In addition they can ally with any other Imperium army so if you want to go more competitive later you can still use those models. If you choose a homebrew chapter you don't even have to commit to any one specific Codex.

This is definitely a good point. If you are a new player on a budget choosing an army with the Imperium or Chaos Keyword is a good idea. That way when you inevitably choose the wrong faction (not a given but I don't think I have ever gotten into a minigame and ended up sticking with the first faction I chose...) Then it is easier to segway into a different faction without wasting your investment in your first faction

Arguably, since the Dark Imperium was brought up, if someone likes Grey Knights, the Exorcists chapter might be a good fit. Regular Marines who are made to fight daemons and also work closely with the Ordo Malleus.

Not much special in the way of unique options (though Silas could be a Primaris considering how huge he is in the fluff), but they can be run as any vanilla chapter on the table giving them more flexibility than the actual Grey Knights.

Flamephoenix182 wrote:

Slipspace wrote:
New players shouldn't really be expecting to win many games in the beginning anyway so you have to ask what the purpose of their first army is?

Space Marines, for example, are pretty good as a first army. They are cheap to buy, easy to paint, and have options for all phases of the game and multiple styles of play. They'll teach you the game quite well. In addition they can ally with any other Imperium army so if you want to go more competitive later you can still use those models. If you choose a homebrew chapter you don't even have to commit to any one specific Codex.

This is definitely a good point. If you are a new player on a budget choosing an army with the Imperium or Chaos Keyword is a good idea. That way when you inevitably choose the wrong faction (not a given but I don't think I have ever gotten into a minigame and ended up sticking with the first faction I chose...) Then it is easier to segway into a different faction without wasting your investment in your first faction

Well that goes on a player by player basis, i never switched my first faction in any minigame (tyranids, Seraphon and Everblight). I simply look at the minis, if i like those then i like the faction, if the faction is not competitive then that is just one more challenge.

In any case, defyning what is competitive and what is not is actually not that simple, and looking at top tables in big tournaments is the last thing you should do, that is a really bad source of informations. From there you can only see what is OP and what has a god matchup against that OP stuff. Being competitive has nothing to do with that.

The only real data you can gather for the competitiveness of a faction, is compliling the results from around 100 regular store tournnaments with at least 8 players, look for every entry of the faction being examined, and score 1 point for every time that faction manages to be in the top half of the ladder.
Then you get the total and divide by the total number of entries, a result of 0,5 means that the faction is perfectly balanced, the higher the value, the more OP it is.

This is the only way to assess how good a faction is, by determining if the average result of that faction tends to be in the top half or in the lower half of the final rankings.

You can use the scores from BCP for this, but be warned that you are getting only information for ITC events, so if your area doesn't play those, then ypu are looking at skewed results.

A could of different people have mentioned getting tourny results. Lots and lots of results. Where are you getting them? There must be a site I don't know about.

Headlss wrote:
A could of different people have mentioned getting tourny results. Lots and lots of results. Where are you getting them? There must be a site I don't know about.

Best coast pairings, Frontline's official website, BoK, etc.

The information is freely accessible.

For instance, Death Guard won the BAO by defeating Guard + Custodes.

Mono-Guard was very well represented in the top 10.

Orks, Necrons, Tyranids, Space Marines, etc, were not in the top 10.

 Marmatag wrote:
Mono-Guard was very well represented in the top 10.

Assuming you're talking about the BAO, can you show me the data for this assertion? There are a bunch of Astra Militarum lists in the top 10, but none of them are pure save possibly 2, but that's only because I can't find those two lists (Josh Rosenstein's and Mitchel Pellum's). None of the other lists in the top 10 are Mono-Guard, and I suspect they're not as well, but if you can find more data than I have could you send it to me?

Is there anywhere where you can see what lists people bring to tournaments? All I can find is what faction they have and their placing, but not the list itself. Seems like that would be readily available information since im sure its recorded by the tournament...

 plark wrote:
Thank goodness for kill team, because I've been going back and forth on which army to get into, my top picks are Grey Knights and Ad Mech, however I've heard both are very bad competitively. I don't plan on attending a huge tournament or anything, however i don't like losing all the time either. either viable options for just casual in store tournaments without being tabled every time?

Don't choose an army for its competitiveness, you'll get bored of the army you didn't choose based on your first thoughts and later you'll realise that a good player can win with crap army rules and you'll end up ditching your army and starting the two that you wanted in the first place. If you want to play a game just to win, you're better playing chess, you'll save a lot of money. The reason why we love 40k is because of the unique armies and character and the rich lore. Khorne berzerkers have always been gak since 3rd edition, but I always field them. Plus you only need to choose a super competitive army if you are doing tournaments, if you are playing at your local shop or club, you can quite easily win against most people with a low competitive army, not everyone is a serious player and plays every day. So you aren't going to lose every match unless you are extremely bad but sometime the dice will even then be on your side.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Billagio wrote:
Is there anywhere where you can see what lists people bring to tournaments? All I can find is what faction they have and their placing, but not the list itself. Seems like that would be readily available information since im sure its recorded by the tournament...

I would only look at other peoples lists as a reference, because you also need to take into account how that person plays. He might have a small but very powerful detachment but he could be looking to table his opponent rather than playing a points game. or if they are bringing a large detachment and command points he is probably looking to play safe and look at getting points. A lot of lists will be all-rounders expecting everything some lists are for a specific enemy etc. You have to be aware of all of that, when you are comparing lists.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Billagio wrote:
Is there anywhere where you can see what lists people bring to tournaments? All I can find is what faction they have and their placing, but not the list itself. Seems like that would be readily available information since im sure its recorded by the tournament...

I would only look at other peoples lists as a reference, because you also need to take into account how that person plays. He might have a small but very powerful detachment but he could be looking to table his opponent rather than playing a points game. or if they are bringing a large detachment and command points he is probably looking to play safe and look at getting points. A lot of lists will be all-rounders expecting everything some lists are for a specific enemy etc. You have to be aware of all of that, when you are comparing lists.

Agreed, but its still useful to see what people are bringing to get ideas. Knowing that an army is competitive and consistently places top 5 in tournaments is useless information unless you know what they brought and how they are played (aka what list they had)