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Hi, I'm sure you will have seen many of these posts before "what army should I pick..." and believe me over many months I have seen enough to last a lifetime
However, while helping slightly, I still have not made up my decision on a 40k army to start with... I would really appreciate some ideas and suggestions please.
This is what I've narrowed it down to...

- I would like an "honourable" army fighting for their cause... (ie not the "bad guys" of 40k)

- Infantry only if possible... (armour is great and all but I don't really like them on the tabletop tbh) though bikes etc are ok....

- They must be fun to play (this is a major for obvious reasons....)

- Slightly more focussed on shooting... (not a fan of the overwatch and challenge rules in 6th)

- Bright, coloured paint job (something that will stand out and look cool, i'm not a seasoned painter...)

- NOT Dark Angels or Grey Knights (too many play them where I live and they seem to be the "easy" armies)

So there you have the basics of it... I would really like suggestions and any experiences you've had would be great...
At the moment my eyes are between Blood Angels and Orks

- Blood angels for their paint job and they looked fun to play in 5th. The only issue is that with the fluff I feel compelled to use assault squads.... If I could be convinced otherwise then they could be the ones......?
- Orks for their funness. They look a really fun army to play with their swarming... + they are relatively cheap of ebay and the like...

There it is.... My dilemma. I am getting desperate now as you can tell with me posting this What would you suggest please? I need as much help as I can get.

SALMANDERS!!!!!!!!!!

Honorable,a lot of infinity,(maybe a couple dreads, but not to many vehicles) nice, bright painting, AUSOME backstory, if you don't go with TH termies based army, you can have tons of shooting, not grey knights of dar angels.

And I love salamanders.

- I would like an "honourable" army fighting for their cause... (ie not the "bad guys" of 40k)

- Infantry only if possible... (armour is great and all but I don't really like them on the tabletop tbh) though bikes etc are ok....

- They must be fun to play (this is a major for obvious reasons....)

- Slightly more focussed on shooting... (not a fan of the overwatch and challenge rules in 6th)

- Bright, coloured paint job (something that will stand out and look cool, i'm not a seasoned painter...)

- NOT Dark Angels or Grey Knights (too many play them where I live and they seem to be the "easy" armies)

1) Warhammer 40k is an extremely grimdark fantasy setting where "good" is extremely relative. The Imperium, for instance, is a horrible fascistic dynasty that rules with an iron fist. They do things that would make the worst atrocities seen in our time seem like child's play. That said they are often considered "good guys" because their polar opposite (chaos) is somehow worse.

I feel as though Tau and Eldar fit this stipulation the best. They are highly idealistic and both have something that could be considered worth (entirely subjective of course) fighting for.

2) Infantry armies are on the up and up currently. Most armies, other than Dark Eldar, can field infantry based lists and still expect to do decently.

3) Fun for you is relative. I for instance love mobility and controlling the battlefield. I play Dark Eldar, am working on Tau, and love Eldar because this is how they roll. There are many different kinds of play-styles. You need to figure out what works for you.

4) Shooting is indeed the way to go in 6th. Most armies have viable shooting builds. The main exceptions being Daemons (to a greater extent) and Blood Angels (to a lesser extent)

5) Brightly colored? So definitely not I.G per se. Space Marines and Eldar tend to be the most flashy forces.

6) I would not label Dark Angels as an easy army. They take a bit of work. I have not encountered enough Grey Knights recently to speak on their behalf.

On Orks and Blood Angels:

Both of these forces are extremely assault heavy. Orks can do shooty, but (in my opinion) the true heart of an ork army is stabby. Blood Angels are very similiar, but to my knowledge their shooty builds are not as good. Orks have sheer volume of fire working in their favor.

Truthfully I think what you should play is totally on you. Although with everything you have listed I would suggest Eldar. Jetbikes, bright colors, infantry viable, something worth fighting for, shooting heavy but counter-assault capable, etc. They seem to fit your stipulations to a T.

Huh, you perfectly described Dark Angels, and then you explicitly ruled them out. A very close second to DA that would match your criteria are Grey Knights, but... oh...

If you're not interested in playing the armies that you actually want to play, then I'd go with a branch of vanilla marines, as they're shooty and brightly colored and interested in causes. Or, as you mention, orks, because they're fun to play, can be shooty, and can be done without vehicles. In a far, far distant 5th place, I'd go CSM, as they're the only actual good guys, and you can do neat stuff with painting, but it's kind of a stretch to call them a shooty army at heart.

Tau or Eldar.

I would recommend Tau over Orks for an "honorable army with reliable shooting". The Tau are viable for infantry only if you don't mind a few light mech suits.

Orks on the other hand, have "honor" only in the sense that they are not fighting to appease anyone other than themselves. For them, might makes right, and the biggest and strongest amongst them lead. Everyone else follows, but only until they are killed or they get big enough to challenge the boss. And while orks are great at all infantry, they are pretty lackluster in shooting. Wait, not in shooting, in HITTING what they shoot at.

My recommendation, if you decide to play orks, is to pick an aspect of Orkiness (template weapons, megablastas, shooty stuff, etc.) and just run into the mountains with it. Overdo it to the extreme. If you like shooting, take 6 units of shoota boyz with big shootas, lootas, flash gitz, deffkoptas with big shootas. Put as many gunz on the table as you can and buy a bucket full of dice. Half the battle with Orks can be won simply by demoralizing your opponent with the number of dice you get to roll.

Tau Farsight Enclave.

I'd say "the bad guys of 40k" would be a matter of perspective. If you're playing chaos then space marines would be the bad guys. Running demons would make inquisition based forces the bad guys. The list goes on. Based off of what you said I'd look into tau or eldar. Or look at as many codecies as you possibly can and then decide. Something you never thought of may hit you. When I started out I was immediately drawn to the space marines. I never bothered to look thru any other codecies until recently. I picked up a tyranid codex and now I'm considering selling off a big chunk of my marine stuff to fund a tyranid army. I think if you let others decide for you you'll be disappointed in the future.

Imperial guard gunline?

Tau seems to suit you, and they have Great AT on suits so not Armour.

- I would like an "honourable" army fighting for their cause... (ie not the "bad guys" of 40k)

Honourable army fighting for their cause? You can't get much closer to that than the Sisters of Battle. Their faith in their cause is so powerful it produces near-miraculous effects.

- Infantry only if possible... (armour is great and all but I don't really like them on the tabletop tbh) though bikes etc are ok....

Sisters don't need or use many tanks. They have APCs, but most of the time they're just fine walking. The only units to seriously use them are their scouting special weapon squads.

- They must be fun to play (this is a major for obvious reasons....)

This is seriously subjective, but the Sisters are the army I come back to every time I get bored of my Necrons, Tau or Elysians.

- Slightly more focussed on shooting... (not a fan of the overwatch and challenge rules in 6th)

Human statline means they're not great in combat (but not awful), but BS4 and bolters as their basic weapon make Sisters very good at shooting in the mid-to-short range bracket.

- Bright, coloured paint job (something that will stand out and look cool, i'm not a seasoned painter...)

You can get a good contrast with a simple colour scheme by choosing counterpoint colours for the Sisters' robes and armour. The default colour schemes include Argent Shroud (silver armour and white robes) and Bloody Rose (red armour and black robes with white lining), but by picking the right colours you can do an Order Minoris army that will really stand out.

- NOT Dark Angels or Grey Knights (too many play them where I live and they seem to be the "easy" armies)

Well, they're certainly not the 'easy option'. While Sisters are very competitive, especially at low points levels, they do require some finesse to use - they don't have any lolroflstomp units, but there's also only one actually bad unit in the entire book.

There's also the fact to consider that with a Sisters army, you will stand out from the crowd. Oh, and because of Games Workshop's recent policy as repeated by their Customer Service team - their codex is freely available on the internet.
At the moment my eyes are between Blood Angels and Orks

- Blood angels for their paint job and they looked fun to play in 5th. The only issue is that with the fluff I feel compelled to use assault squads.... If I could be convinced otherwise then they could be the ones......?
- Orks for their funness. They look a really fun army to play with their swarming... + they are relatively cheap of ebay and the like...

There it is.... My dilemma. I am getting desperate now as you can tell with me posting this What would you suggest please? I need as much help as I can get.

SoB are expensive.


Go IG gunline. Fun, shooty, all infantry and perhaps a defence line or two, and they're not evil or anything.

Hmm general consentus is Tau by the look of it so far...

If I remember correctly these were the first army I actually looked at (about 2 years ago!!).

Please keep the suggestions going they are invaluable and i'd like more reasoning before I narrow it down anymore.

So Far
Orks - cheap
Space Marines - have a tac box and assault box...
Tau - battleforce looks good.
looking at eldar atm....

 thenoobbomb wrote:
SoB are expensive.


Go IG gunline. Fun, shooty, all infantry and perhaps a defence line or two, and they're not evil or anything.

As we are speaking of expensive armies...

For a 1000 points list I just have thrown together using almost exclusively Platoons you would need about 3 battleforces and that would still not get you things like commissars and the needed special weapons.

Also he wants a simple, eye-catching paint scheme and camo is the exact opposite of eye-catching. Thats discarding Tau for me too, as bright schemes look ridiculously on them very fast imho.
I would say go for Eldar.

To be rather honest there aren't really good guys. Eldar are jerks that betray and use everybody, de are just torturers, tau have ominous EtherTalk and rumors of darkness within hidden, chaos is chaos, csm can represent renegades that aren't evil, a csm army could be fighting to end the empire hoping humanity might be better or see the horrid state it is in, tzeentch daemons might be obsessed with bringing up orphans to places of power or forming revolts for change soon followed by a daemon destroying it again, you could argue necrons wanting their life back is good, nids could be finishing off the horrid world, orks fight for their own pleasure, and the imperium is a grim dark mess that one second has Salamamders with onyx black faces with glowing red eyes that happen to be some of the most humanitarian humans in the imperium and commissars that save not kill guardsman followed by crazy marines and brutal commissars.

(Apologies if any errors late and on iPad). The armies you picked are somewhat assaults sided. Orks can go dakka with decent cc but are built for cc. Salamanders might be good or DIY salamander chapter. The only common machines are drop pods. Rest is melta, hammers, and flame throwers. Slightly ranged leaning on close quarters and still good in cc. Another is guardsman. Whilst not as mobile, I have a friend that makes a giant blob of guards that hammers into enemies with guns and then axes and fists with enough sergeants to counter challenges.

Tau are good although slightly immobile unless you take battle suits and stealth suits but this might feel too mech for you.

Eldar is a great army in terms of being difficult but rewarding, extremely mobile, close quarter shooting, their troops guns on a 6 rend infantry armor, and still have a few counter-assault models.

As a final mention... Although you showed dislike DA are honestly not easy armies. They are a relatively average codex and I've not frequently seen them competitive. But it is understandable if you dislike wanting to play the same army as all e
Se. Finally, colorful paint can go on any. Whilst it is more common on marines and eldar and I personally have no clue how to make vibrant necrons, even IG can be colorful )look up mordians)

My mind says go with Blood Angels... I have red paint, an Assault squad and for the past 3 months perfecting my on paper army.

Then I think about the assaulting I should be living up to and the 6th edition changes that I dislike put me off assaults.... then, I look at other armies creating my indecision...

I suppose my style of play would be advancing forwards, guns spitting knocking down enemy's left right and sideways until close enough to assault the few remaining...

I'm going to start off by saying that I highly recommend that you don't collect blood angels. Not because they're a bad army, but because you don't like vehicles or assault and those are the two things that make BA unique.

Based on you're list: I would initially narrow your choices down to: orks, eldar, tau, space marines, dark angels , and imperial guard.

You expressed interest in orks which makes it a good choice right off the bat. They can be shooty, they're fun, they can go without vehicles and are colorful. However, they are not an honorable faction with a cause that would make them seem heroic. I'd probably hold off on these guys and have them be your second army for when you feel a little more evil.

Eldar is the army that fits you probably the best. They're colorful, fun to play, honorable (sometimes), shooty, and can easily be infantry only. They got a brand new codex and should be tactically challenging.

Tau is another army that's colorful and good at shooting. I advise against them because they're probably the easiest army to play as right now and I believe you wanted to stay away from the "easy armies".

Space marines are the other choice it'd strongly recommend alongside eldar. Bright colors, good infantry and general shootiness.

Now I know you said "NOT dark angels". But I'm telling you from experience that they are NOT an easy army to play. (Neither is grey knights for that matter). They fit you're preferred tactics almost perfectly with an infantry and shooting focus, plus they can easily be seen as "good guys". However if you said there's an excess of DA players at your FLGS then play something else. They're not really that colorful anyway.

Finally the last army you should consider is an imperial guard infantry spam. They are the army that's easiest to relate to from a moral standpoint. They're good at shooting. You'll "swarm" the enemy which is what you liked about orks. It's going to be one of those "easy armies" since you won't be bringing the tank spam many players consider to be OP. they also have some very brightly colored regiments such as the Mordians or the Vostroyans.

Anyway, hope this helped. Hope you end up picking the army that's right for you

I get a Eldar feel from what you asked for.

They certainly fight for a cause, and are good and honourable.. by wh40k standarts..

They can put up some mean armies without vehicles.

I find themm fun but thats really something you have to find out for yourself.

On the shooty side

Bright, coloured paint job certainly describes themm well
Not seen as a easy army.

Hope that helps

Yes eldar do look good right now... what are the basic units for each army?

What about imperial fists? They look pretty good but do they have a fluff background of armour?

Eldar basic units are guardians and jet bikes

Imperial fists focus on siege warfare. I've seen people use a lot of vindicators when using them but they are a classic codex chapter I believe.

Ok thanks a race that hasn't been mentioned is necrons.....?

Their overall colour (silver) is ok if it was made to be shiny and then their weapons have the green bar....

Are they fun to play though? Do they have any notable quirks to then that could make the game fun and interesting?

Every army has its own unique traits and quirks.

Necrons: These guys are tough as nails. Quantum shielding on their vehicles gives them armor 13 until penetrated and reanimation protocols means that their already tough infantry can come back from all but the most grievous wounds on the roll of a 5+. Their play-style is summarized by "march into 24 range and out attrition the enemy". They also have Cryptek's for technology based shenanigans (such as causing or ignoring night-fight). Necrons were considered the "easy" army alongside Grey Knights until the release of Tau.

Eldar: The other side of the coin. Eldar are a bit fragile, but are the second most maneuverable army in the game. Between psychic powers, battle focus, and specialized aspect units they aim to control the board and constantly choose the location in which they engage the enemy.

Crimson Fists: They are Space Marines through and through. A decent generalist army that is ok at a lot of things but amazing at none. Also a new codex is likely to come out for them soon (so if you do want to start a Space Marine force it is probably a good idea to wait).

Tau: Often considered the current "easy" army. This is likely to change with the advent of the new Space Marine codex.

Mephiston33 wrote:
Yes eldar do look good right now... what are the basic units for each army?

What about imperial fists? They look pretty good but do they have a fluff background of armour?

Ironic as I was going to suggest Imperial Fist!
They match most of your criteria. Yes they can be run with lots of Vehicles, but one of my friends used to run them with only a Vindicator backing them up and I loved playing his army.

I always liked Angels Porphyr

 ironhammer2194 wrote:
You expressed interest in orks which makes it a good choice right off the bat. They can be shooty, they're fun, they can go without vehicles and are colorful. However, they are not an honorable faction with a cause that would make them seem heroic. I'd probably hold off on these guys and have them be your second army for when you feel a little more evil.

Orks might be the way to go.... They look really fun and it would be great to have a bucket of dice tbh I am quited drawn to them atm

Orks is probably my exception to the "good guy" army. Although I wouldn't exactly class them as bad guys either...
I don't have the time (probably) for a second army in the future, for 40k I have until the end of next year (to put things in perspective).

So orks would be one of the most fun armies to play...? What would be the suggested units for a shooting army?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Beatonator

I must have been typing my post as you uploaded yours.

Yes imperial fists do look good. I was thinking tactical squads (as I already have 2) and devastator squads. To have a kind of gun line army....?

That and/or orks...?

Tau seems like a good choice for you
They are the "least grim dark" race of 40k.
Plus there models are a lot different and there are multiple sub species to more suit your play style. Such as Kroot and vespid.

Besides you get a huge mech which can either fire 8 shots (when stationary) at 48" or a handheld artillery cannon perfect for eliminating expensive elite units or HQs

I'm surprised Space Wolves haven't been mentioned. Their Long Fangs can split fire, Rune Priests have a D6 Auto cannon psychic power, drop pod grey hunters, and they have counter attack.

Space wolf fluff might be what your looking for too. And they are bright coloured

I'd go with Tau, simply because they can be painted insanely, and they're pretty damn good right now.

EricBasser wrote:I'm surprised Space Wolves haven't been mentioned. Their Long Fangs can split fire, Rune Priests have a D6 Auto cannon psychic power, drop pod grey hunters, and they have counter attack.

DOOMONYOU wrote:Space wolf fluff might be what your looking for too. And they are bright coloured

I was going to suggest the wolves as well. An older Codex that still has bite and fulfills all the requirements you are looking for.

Flying Toaster wrote:

EricBasser wrote:I'm surprised Space Wolves haven't been mentioned. Their Long Fangs can split fire, Rune Priests have a D6 Auto cannon psychic power, drop pod grey hunters, and they have counter attack.

DOOMONYOU wrote:Space wolf fluff might be what your looking for too. And they are bright coloured

I was going to suggest the wolves as well. An older Codex that still has bite and fulfills all the requirements you are looking for.

I forgot to also mention they have a pretty good psyker defense with Runic Staves. And who doesn't love Marines riding giant wolves?