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People of the grim darkness, I have a proposition for you.

I am a capable commander and once-powerful general and I wish to offer my services as a mercenary HQ to lead an army for one of your races. Been out of the war a spell but recent DE activity in my area is tempting me back to the fray. I'd like to invite you to advertise the benefits and detriments of your codices in a bid to earn my allegiance.

In other words, Im getting back into the hobby after a break and dont know what army to start. I played Orks a while back and although they eat faces I'm looking to field a smaller but equally efficient force this time. Just due to circumstances lugging around 120 models a game isn't practical anymore. To give you a bit more information here are my preferences;

-Not Eldar, DE, or Tau. Suffice to say "pew pew" doesn't sound as cool as "blam blam".
-Effective with lowish model count.
-Not bad in a fire fight.

I realise SM can fit the bill pretty well, but I haven't a clue about which chapter to play either, so specifics would be gravy.

So, everyone ready to share their knowledge? then its time to
Pimp, your, race!

As much as I'd love to point you in the direction of Necrons...I get the feeling at some point you may want to Win games. So here's some cool tid-bits about daemons!

If you need survivable troops, you've got Plaguebearers and Nurglings. CC monsters? Khorne Bloodletters have PW, and daemonettes have rending at I6. But let's say you need to stay abit back from the fray, Pink Horrors! 3 shots per model and at AP4. But the fun doesn't end there, the Soulgrinder is a monster at lower level games, having a front armor of 13 and ignoring 1's and 2's they can ruin anyone's day, and they're fleet!

As far as HQ's go many armies can have tough choices on which ones they want to take, daemons let you grab up to four to maximize the full potential of any of the gods, though it is limited to heralds. And to top off all of this, you can deepstrike in Everything! In fact, you must!!! The fun never ends

Hmm...Daemons, good suggestion on all points. Were you looking at my sig? haha.

Dont know much about them tbh but sounds like there's plenty to learn! Great descriptives there mate.

Thanks for that, keep em coming pimps!

Space Wolves are good all-rounders and are fairly competitive. My current project is actually a SW 13th company army, which provides me with jsut as much conversion possibilities as options (basically I can use anything in the codex besides vehicles list-wise, and I can use CSM bits in conversions due to them being 13th company). As long as you use the list to your tastes and not spam the flavour of the month units it should be all good.

Umm Grey Knight ... GUNS and BA in H2H ... really low model count

not to mention interesting

Ah, some SM data here, great stuff. BA were under the auspex for a while and made it to the shortlist due to their short range firepower proficiency, combining the best of both worlds of combat, and their colours work.

SW are borderline yay or nay, having good combat proficiency and all, its just their fluff that doesn't click with me. Great idea on the mix and matching, the customisation options are very open, and would let me dial out some of their fuzz. Good stuff.

I also agree on playing the obscure. Its far more fun, as Im sure you'd all agree, to win with an outside shot than always bank on the tried and true. Maybe a custom chapter is in order..

Further to your 13th legion take, how much of that is precedented? As in, is it generally acceptable to go SM and tweak the codex to match a custom theme?

So that's Daemons and a few SM's on the board, well represented by their respective funkalicious dudesans. Any other chapters of mention or particular weapons worth fielding an army to be wielding?

13th company is a Space Wolves company and had their own army list in the previous edition. It's not as much of a stretch as, say, playing your Ultramarines as Space Wolves (technically legal, but frowned upon). As for the army list tweeks, it's mostly self-imposed restrictions to remain fluffy. There's nothing really stopping you from breaking it.

Play Black templars man, not the most competitive, but really fun and enjoyable.

The Inquisition is a great race to play if you like fluff, roleplay and customisability.

They recently got a new codex too as well. Plus you can play pure Inquisition with no Grey Knights and still be competitive. The Inquisitorial Henchmen Warbands offers one of the most customisable and convertible armies out there.

Indeed, besides Crowe Purifier armies, Inquisitorial armies might be one of the more competitive ones due to Jokaero spam.

Black Templars, cool also. The simple colour scheme puts more emphasis on damage and detail which is a good crafting/painting challenge. Real world connections give plenty of material for theme-ifying.

Any tactical reason to take them you'd like to highlight? There aren't many rules in 40K for looking slick.

Apparently you can pile heaps of points into their vehicles but Im just going off hearsay.


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Mr Hyena wrote:The Inquisition is a great race to play if you like fluff, roleplay and customisability.

They recently got a new codex too as well. Plus you can play pure Inquisition with no Grey Knights and still be competitive. The Inquisitorial Henchmen Warbands offers one of the most customisable and convertible armies out there.

Inquisition? That's intriguing. Last time I played (ages) they weren't an army at all, but you're right their fluff is pretty hectic. Heh.

How do they go on the gunnage front? and excuse this as an "I been out of the world" question but do they have any link with SoB?

MechaEmperor7000 wrote:Indeed, besides Crowe Purifier armies, Inquisitorial armies might be one of the more competitive ones due to Jokaero spam.

I hope this isn't true... I don't want to go to a tournament and see an orangutan army... no, wait, yes I do.

Dicelowly wrote:Black Templars, cool also. The simple colour scheme puts more emphasis on damage and detail which is a good crafting/painting challenge. Real world connections give plenty of material for theme-ifying.

Any tactical reason to take them you'd like to highlight? There aren't many rules in 40K for looking slick.

All their vehicles can have PotMS, when you shoot them they RUN AT YOU, they can have army wide preferred enemy, the cheapest special close combat weapons in the game (10 pts for a PW, 15 for a PF), plenty of attacks, unlike other marine armies they don't suffer from elite army syndrome and die to one round of IG shooting.

Dicelowly wrote:Black Templars, cool also. The simple colour scheme puts more emphasis on damage and detail which is a good crafting/painting challenge. Real world connections give plenty of material for theme-ifying.

Any tactical reason to take them you'd like to highlight? There aren't many rules in 40K for looking slick.

Apparently you can pile heaps of points into their vehicles but Im just going off hearsay.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mr Hyena wrote:The Inquisition is a great race to play if you like fluff, roleplay and customisability.

They recently got a new codex too as well. Plus you can play pure Inquisition with no Grey Knights and still be competitive. The Inquisitorial Henchmen Warbands offers one of the most customisable and convertible armies out there.

Inquisition? That's intriguing. Last time I played (ages) they weren't an army at all, but you're right their fluff is pretty hectic. Heh.

How do they go on the gunnage front? and excuse this as an "I been out of the world" question but do they have any link with SoB?

It depends on how you look at it. If you want; say; an Ordo Xenos force, then you have access to the very-shooty Jokaero. These guys are really cheap mini-Obliterators, counting as having three weapons: Lascannon, Heavy Flamer and the last one I always forget...I think its something like a Plasma Cannon.

The henchmen are highly customiseable. A wide variety of equipment that can be given to them. Warrior Acolytes are pretty fun. Can tool them up as Adeptus Arbites, Sisters of Battle (though nerfed compared to the WH ones) or ISTs or more.

Pure Inquisition is pretty much built on the customisation of this one unit; but even then they have great support too from Assassins.

EmilCrane wrote:

Dicelowly wrote:Black Templars, cool also. The simple colour scheme puts more emphasis on damage and detail which is a good crafting/painting challenge. Real world connections give plenty of material for theme-ifying.

Any tactical reason to take them you'd like to highlight? There aren't many rules in 40K for looking slick.

All their vehicles can have PotMS, when you shoot them they RUN AT YOU, they can have army wide preferred enemy, the cheapest special close combat weapons in the game (10 pts for a PW, 15 for a PF), plenty of attacks, unlike other marine armies they don't suffer from elite army syndrome and die to one round of IG shooting.

Excellent, this is the kind of thing Im looking for; What makes said army awesome. Theme, stat, and comparison? A brew for you.

Anybody else wanna negotiate?

Dicelowly wrote:Black Templars, cool also. The simple colour scheme puts more emphasis on damage and detail which is a good crafting/painting challenge. Real world connections give plenty of material for theme-ifying.

Any tactical reason to take them you'd like to highlight? There aren't many rules in 40K for looking slick.

Apparently you can pile heaps of points into their vehicles but Im just going off hearsay.

Just sayin', while black and white might seem quite easy, it is a pain in the rear to get good-looking! As a Black Templars player who started by painting Black Templars, I find my guardsmen and my Grey Knights MUCH easier to paint than the Templars.

Tactically, believe it or not, the most competitive Black Templars lists are shooty lists. Terminators with CMLs and tank hunters, dirt-cheap land speeder typhoons and lasplas squads. The nice thing is, you don't have to try too hard to find counter-assault units, as assault terminators and even normal marines with CCWs and BPs are pretty good, especially when combined with Accept Any Challenge, No Matter the Odds, which gives you army-wide preferred enemy, except on scouts. Venerable tank hunter dreadnoughts are also an awesome unit, and great with TLLC/ML to provide even more ooomph to the list, albeit at the loss of an elite slot in which you could cram more terminators. Another awesome unit is assault terminators with LCs and furious charge. Mix in one or two TH/SS termies for anti-walker/MC/IC protection and for the 3++ and watch your terminators kill stuff. Again, this does eat an elite slot.

Another nice thing that the Black Templars can do better (arguably) than any other Codex is the all-pod list. Normally, when facing an all-pod list, your opponent will want to reserve everything, wait for half of your pods to strike on turn 1 and then come in from reserves and kill the half of your army that's on the board. With Black Templars, you roll for reserves for your Drop Pods as normal, meaning that the reserve approach is severely weakened. Again, a venerable tank hunter dreadnought with MM and HF in a drop pod can cause a lot of commotion, especially if he arrives alongside tank hunter assault cannon terminators, which are allowed to buy Drop Pods in the BT Codex.

Finally, one of the things I like about playing Black Templars is that we're not FotM, so there's not a whole lot of BT players out there! While we still suffer from the "oh, another marine player" generic comments, we don't have to stand people crying cheese at us all day!

Mr Hyena wrote:

Dicelowly wrote:Black Templars, cool also. The simple colour scheme puts more emphasis on damage and detail which is a good crafting/painting challenge. Real world connections give plenty of material for theme-ifying.

Any tactical reason to take them you'd like to highlight? There aren't many rules in 40K for looking slick.

Apparently you can pile heaps of points into their vehicles but Im just going off hearsay.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mr Hyena wrote:The Inquisition is a great race to play if you like fluff, roleplay and customisability.

They recently got a new codex too as well. Plus you can play pure Inquisition with no Grey Knights and still be competitive. The Inquisitorial Henchmen Warbands offers one of the most customisable and convertible armies out there.

Inquisition? That's intriguing. Last time I played (ages) they weren't an army at all, but you're right their fluff is pretty hectic. Heh.

How do they go on the gunnage front? and excuse this as an "I been out of the world" question but do they have any link with SoB?

It depends on how you look at it. If you want; say; an Ordo Xenos force, then you have access to the very-shooty Jokaero. These guys are really cheap mini-Obliterators, counting as having three weapons: Lascannon, Heavy Flamer and the last one I always forget...I think its something like a Plasma Cannon.

The henchmen are highly customiseable. A wide variety of equipment that can be given to them. Warrior Acolytes are pretty fun. Can tool them up as Adeptus Arbites, Sisters of Battle (though nerfed compared to the WH ones) or ISTs or more.

Pure Inquisition is pretty much built on the customisation of this one unit; but even then they have great support too from Assassins.

Sounds like a lot of variety in that vein. Swiss army monkeys? we maybe just found our squig substitute for this second coming!

Think I need to research these Inquisitors some.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Dicelowly wrote:Black Templars, cool also. The simple colour scheme puts more emphasis on damage and detail which is a good crafting/painting challenge. Real world connections give plenty of material for theme-ifying.

Any tactical reason to take them you'd like to highlight? There aren't many rules in 40K for looking slick.

Apparently you can pile heaps of points into their vehicles but Im just going off hearsay.

Just sayin', while black and white might seem quite easy, it is a pain in the rear to get good-looking! As a Black Templars player who started by painting Black Templars, I find my guardsmen and my Grey Knights MUCH easier to paint than the Templars.

I agreed with you actually. B&W may sound simple but as I say, its a challenge to pull off and look good.

Tactically, believe it or not, the most competitive Black Templars lists are shooty lists. Terminators with CMLs and tank hunters, dirt-cheap land speeder typhoons and lasplas squads. The nice thing is, you don't have to try too hard to find counter-assault units, as assault terminators and even normal marines with CCWs and BPs are pretty good, especially when combined with Accept Any Challenge, No Matter the Odds, which gives you army-wide preferred enemy, except on scouts. Venerable tank hunter dreadnoughts are also an awesome unit, and great with TLLC/ML to provide even more ooomph to the list, albeit at the loss of an elite slot in which you could cram more terminators. Another awesome unit is assault terminators with LCs and furious charge. Mix in one or two TH/SS termies for anti-walker/MC/IC protection and for the 3++ and watch your terminators kill stuff. Again, this does eat an elite slot.

Another nice thing that the Black Templars can do better (arguably) than any other Codex is the all-pod list. Normally, when facing an all-pod list, your opponent will want to reserve everything, wait for half of your pods to strike on turn 1 and then come in from reserves and kill the half of your army that's on the board. With Black Templars, you roll for reserves for your Drop Pods as normal, meaning that the reserve approach is severely weakened. Again, a venerable tank hunter dreadnought with MM and HF in a drop pod can cause a lot of commotion, especially if he arrives alongside tank hunter assault cannon terminators, which are allowed to buy Drop Pods in the BT Codex.

Good insight there, experience being the best teacher and vets the next best thing. Im starting to think SM's might be the way to go, however...

Finally, one of the things I like about playing Black Templars is that we're not FotM, so there's not a whole lot of BT players out there! While we still suffer from the "oh, another marine player" generic comments, we don't have to stand people crying cheese at us all day!

...as you say, SM do trip a universal flag among 40K gamers. I'd much rather play something with a unique take or at least one of the under represented chapters, but what can you do. Its no biggy once you get into the game. You could say the purpose of this whole topic was to give other races a chance in the "straight to marines" solution that many players take for whatever reason, and if so SM, then what banner under which to die.

So far Im thinking termies, tanks, and dreddies for their solidity, plus whatever perks one or another chapter can run in favour of them and supporting infantry. BT sound pretty good for that sort of thing, although paint jobs can be limiting on the hobby side. How are their CC options? I hear BA and SW lead the field there but again the complaining starts to stack up. Drop Pods are always another variable to weigh, but if you want to win without gambling, go to an atm.

Dont quit now rival bidders, the die aren't cast yet!

Despite my profie pic, I also have to champion the Black Templars (let's face it, the GREATEST chapter in the imperium!).

Walrus has pretty much covered the main points, but let me try to add more.

Templar Assault squads (due to having preferred enemy and 2 point (yes you read that right!) meltabombs per man) are frighteningly effective units.

Templars are also the only Loyalist marine army campeable of running HORDE! You can have 20 marines (10 initiates, 10 neophytes) in a squad as one troops choice. This means that if you literally feel like warping your ork horde friend's mind, you can put down over 100 models on the table in a 2000 point game. For marines, that's just evil! (looks damn impressive too!)

I didn't mean BA I meant BA as in GK

Btw did I mention you should play the GK's ...

Its really too bad you aren't interested in any Xenos factions. Everybody and their mother plays Space Marine armies. And you can bet there will be hundreds of GK players in the near future.

Eldar and Dark Eldar still have a lot of tricks. And its somewhat embarrassing for your opponent when his "elite" space marines have superior numbers, higher toughness, and higher armor, and he still loses- because you have superior speed. Dancing around an opponents fire power and gutting their army is very satisfying.

the Elves are also a great change of pace from over played MEQ. Marines would be more fun if more then half of 40K players didn't play them. For many, fighting or playing Xeno army is a breath of fresh air from the t4 3+ grind many players have grown accustomed to.

If you like the short range firefight, perhaps a Cantor Crimson Fists army. He allows you to take Sternguard vets. as troops, I believe.(codex not on hand at the moment)

Yopu can do no better than hiring the Marines touched by Chaos for all your combat needs! All the elite training and weaponry without any ethics that might hamper performance!

Need your targets shot at? We'll bring in spider-devil contraptions to rain ordnance death at 70'. Ultra-elite terminators terminators stomping all over your begonias? We'll run vindicators at them or rain giant orbs of plasma on them with our Oblits.

Or maybe you have tons of lesser mooks hogging your oxygen? Have no fear; our Noise Marines will pour volume of fire on them from medium distance and murder them with rock n'roll. We have the cheapest Land Raider to deliver crazed CC specialists on a budget!

Unlike the competiton, our termies are so good we are confident sending just three into the warp to materialize behind enemy lines will be enough to triple-melta a rear armor of triple-flame those pesky Lootas!

In addition, our commitment to your satisfaction is so complete we will field actual Princes (of the daemonic variety) to make sure your needs are met.

The first 20 callers get a special service pack including a visit by Ahriman to have 3 shots at turning the enemy HQ into a hideos, gooey Spawn! Extra fun on Asdrubael Vect, Castelan Creed, Marneus Calgar and the Space Pope!

Sounds like a lot of variety in that vein. Swiss army monkeys? we maybe just found our squig substitute for this second coming!

Think I need to research these Inquisitors some.

Unless you want to run a sister-heavy army; then you will be able to get everything you need in the Grey Knights codex. But if you want to run pure inquisition, with no grey knights you will need to take Inquisitor Lord Coteaz or a Counts-As for him; as he has the rule that turns the Elite choice Inquisitorial Henchmen Squad into troops (it will form your basic unit).

Theres three different kind of inquisitors in the codex; Xenos, Hereticus and Malleus. They have the same stats but different armoury.

How you'd want to mix-and-match the army is upto you. You could do no Inquisitors/Henchmen and have a full Terminator army if you wished as well.

Imperial guard infantry platoons, blobbed around a commissar or two are practically indestructible. They may not put up all that much damage up-front, but they will ALWAYS out-last whatever you throw at them. Behind your screaming waves of infantry lie a barrel of bling, from the skimmer that has 3 TL lascannons to the 5 plasma cannon deathtank to 75 point ultra-autocannon tanks that ignore SMF. If there's a problem, there's a guard solution.

Dicelowly wrote:

I realise SM can fit the bill pretty well, but I haven't a clue about which chapter to play either, so specifics would be gravy.

Doesn't matter which chapter you pick. Just go out and buy a ton of razorbacks and some troops and there is your SM army to fit any of the new codexes.

Well kick sixes and chuck sickies, thanks for the intel fellas, this is a lot of good data.

Ought to reiterate that Im looking to field a small model count force, and that eldar of either swing aren't an option. My main opponent plays DE, and not to start any debates, but suffice to say that Eldar play for the other team.

Thanks for answering my question liam0404. Name of guardians that one.

Also Sephyr, thanks mate, your contribution is particularly awesome. I wonder if CSM are deviant enough to avoid the usual attitude toward SM starters. Having come from Orks myself im sure the dis-uniform models would feel familiar.

Not to say Im against the Xenos, just that I've been there, and though it was cool playing horde Im going for something different now. Im sure its tactically harder to play a small elitist army than an all-encompassing mob and I'd like that challenge in my battles.

GK? Hear a payload about them on these forums, and not all of it kind. Think I'll stay out of that unless there's mighty compelling reasons to the contra.

So, CSM, Templars, and Inquisition are on the shortlist as of now. Daemons, while cool, are perhaps just a bit unreliable. GK are a bit popular, and the Crimson Fists? Could use a bit more on them if they have a good rep. Lol, call this the bitz box.

The bell tolls, any last bids? Longshots? Underdogs? Darkhorses? Speak for the voiceless and proclaim ownership over others with a superior recruitment pitch. Hit me!

I would like to second (Third? Fourth?) The Black Templars, as they are just badass. nuff said.

Ailaros wrote:Imperial guard infantry platoons, blobbed around a commissar or two are practically indestructible. They may not put up all that much damage up-front, but they will ALWAYS out-last whatever you throw at them.

Maybe not purifiers.....

Anyway, do you want to obliterate your opponent's army off the face of the earth on the first turn? With IG, you can! From D3 S10 Large Blast Barrage shots to 72" S8 AP3 Battle Cannons, you'll always have fun watching your opponent's face as you roll a "hit" on scatter die! Join the few many, the proud, the Imperial Guard!

Dicelowly wrote:How are their CC options? I hear BA and SW lead the field there but again the complaining starts to stack up. Drop Pods are always another variable to weigh, but if you want to win without gambling, go to an atm.

The Emperor's Champion, while suffering a bit from codex creep, is still massively effective in CC. We have the best lightning claw terminators and since our HQs still have access to adamantine mantles we can build a mini-Lysander (marshal+TH/SS+termie+adamantine, should clock in at 195 points). The Holy Orb of Antioch (AP3 wounds on 2+ grenade purchaseable by HQs, Techmarines and Command Squads) is really powerful against MEQs, as well as being the IMO most epic wargear ever. Another awesome thing is that if you run out of elite slots, you can buy one terminator command squad (more or less tactical terminators) for each HQ you have in terminator armour. In larger games, this allows us to have 5 squads of terminators each capable of firing 4 S9 (tank hunter) missiles every turn. I haven't personally tried assault squads, but I keep hearing more and more good things about them. Our problem is that we don't have too many ways of getting our elite CC units into melee apart from a land raider, which comes with a free "kill me!" sign. Hence why the most competitive builds are very shooty, and use the awesome CC units we have to counterattack the enemy.

Dicelowly wrote:Also Sephyr, thanks mate, your contribution is particularly awesome. I wonder if CSM are deviant enough to avoid the usual attitude toward SM starters. Having come from Orks myself im sure the dis-uniform models would feel familiar.

The average 1500 CSM army will have at least 3 different paint-modeling opportunities: one for your basic CSM, one for plague marines (and I've seen some amazing paint and greenstuff modeling done to make them look spiffy), and one for your CC specialists (usually berserkers, but could also be LC termies). So it's actually hard to get bored in that regard. The Daemon Prince is also neat as a monstrous creature, and the new plastic kits gives you tons of options to build/paint.

The Chaos battleforce comes with Possessed, who are seen as crappy now, but are fine models and great source for bits to pimp out your other squads. So give your plague champion a freakish, large claw for a Power Fist! Add wings and tentacles your your other champions to reflect how they are getting closer to daemonhood!