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My main armies wolves... And I want to start a secondary one.

It's driving me mad. I'm torn between orks, imperial guard, and Dark Eldar..

I love ork walkers... I love the ramshackle Big Mek style army. Loads of shootas, and I love the idea of that kinda army. The Gorkanaught to me is such an awesome model! and they have brilliant forgeworld models. Problem is, out of the 3, I feel I'd do worst with orks vs my friend (Tau), they're also very similar to my wolves I think? I don't know if that's a good point or bad point. Are they different enough to feel like a different army?

Imperial guard... I love the Huge tanks. I love the idea of fielding a Baneblade, or a shadowsword...along with the troops lining the field between said tanks. I'm not entirely clued up on how good guard are, but I've heard they still suffer. And they're obviously much much different to my wolves. I'm also a huge fan of diversity in a rule book. That I can pick whatever I want out of an army

With dark Eldar, my main draw is how unique the army is, along side the 'pirate theme' although they're probably the least most appealing. But they're still a factor.

How would you choose??

Whichever one gets me most excited to play with. That's mainly it. But there's the occasional old love; I'm currently building a Genestealer Cult, despite knowing I'll only ever get a handful of games in with them.

I'd say guard since you already have the Wolves. At least you can ally them together.

I pick an army that looks cool. I get the codex and see if I can see an army I could understand playing, as well as a thematic army I can get the feel of. (I've stayed away from Sisters because there is no subfaction or aspect of their fluff I love enough to want to play--I avoided Eldar for a long time because I couldn't figure out how to field them in a way I could grasp.)

I vote Dark Eldar, because the DE specific community is wonderful. If you pick up the army, head over to The Dark City website!

I play space marines.

Crimson fists.

Pedro Kantor.

Need I say more?

If you're not going for the cool factor, why even bother?

Imho, you sound most excited about Guard and Orks.

Go with whichever you think have the cooler models/fluff.

Ascetics/fluff first
followed closely by what i have or dont have.


They need to look good
not have a similar play style to what i have.


Crunch is not as important of a thing for me. but thats my personal preference.

The fact that you like the Gorkanaut makes me question both your aesthetic sense and your grasp of the tabletop game You already play an assaulty type army in the Space Yiffs, so I would consider a shooty army with the IG. As has already been said, you can also ally any Imperial force as Battle Brothers, so there's that, too.

 the_Armyman wrote:
The fact that you like the Gorkanaut makes me question both your aesthetic sense and your grasp of the tabletop game You already play an assaulty type army in the Space Yiffs, so I would consider a shooty army with the IG. As has already been said, you can also ally any Imperial force as Battle Brothers, so there's that, too.

Allying isn't something I'm interested in doing if in completely honest... And what's wrong with the Gorkanaught!?

This is my ork mech army



I'll be honest, it doesn't win any games, but it's huge fun to play, and everyone who has fought it really enjoyed the game. So if you are after similar from an army, I'd recommend giving it a go.

I pick new armies purely by the models and if I want them in my collection.

I have a fascination with the Military, modern and next generation technology to be specific. Hobbies involve games such as Ghost Recon and Rainbow six, (older ones) my perspective towards warfare involves concepts such as mobility, combined arms, realization of how lethal weapons are, from infantry weapons to missiles etc.

Now you add 'sci-fi', I find myself drawn to stories of conflicts between humanity and aliens, from high intensity conflicts depicted in games and films, to low intensity ones. Hard-sci fi is more appealing, but the hollywood sci-fi tend to be more enjoyable or have more content (video game and novel tie-ins. I notice that the hollywood sci-fi tends to be very unrealistic at times, but the battles remain lethal enough.

Now we add Warhammer 40,000. Horrific universe and setting, the human military force doesn't seem to hold true to the concepts I understand, they appear to be consistently outmatched, outgunned and outnumbered by their opponents and through sheer strength of numbers manage to hold off against their enemies. I struggle to associate with them, Space Marines appear to be more suitable, but lack the humanity and the nobility of them with the knightly order influences does not match my military interests.

I weigh up the factions in 40k, on paper, I find that Eldar or Tau are the better match for me. They have the technology, mobility and firepower that are a perfect match for the things I am interested in.

But every time I see the Aquila I think this Alien bull . And thus, I surrender myself to the Emperor and draw plans for my Regiment.

The lesson here, despite how things are in warhammer 40,000, stick to what you love and for my case, that's the poor bloody infantry of the Imperial Guard.

 JamesY wrote:
This is my ork mech army



I'll be honest, it doesn't win any games, but it's huge fun to play, and everyone who has fought it really enjoyed the game. So if you are after similar from an army, I'd recommend giving it a go.

I pick new armies purely by the models and if I want them in my collection.

Pretty much exactly how I'd want orks...

Plus Mek guns, shoota boys and Flash gitz!

Regarding guard... I love the idea of shooting a gak load of pie plates/ignores cover/str D mega tanks. Plus I think the order system is pretty cool

I first think about how the army looks and what way I would paint it. Does it have cool background and can I make my guys have a cool story that fits in it.

I'd then think about the cost and how much I need to spend. Money is the thing that always stops me from getting another army really.

Out of the ones you are thinking of, I would probably pick guard so that I can ally them in with my existing armies, that way I wouldn't necessarily have to spend as much

My tau have always struggled against IG's armor 14 wall, but i don't generally play cheesy lists. And you can play them as battle-brothers to your space marine variants, which can be fun later. thunder-wolves and basilisks.
However after reading your description, it sounds like you enjoy playing orks the most, so i'd go with them. You will lose to tau pretty much most the time, but a good friend will add more vespids/bad units until games can be closer to 50-50

 pumaman1 wrote:
My tau have always struggled against IG's armor 14 wall, but i don't generally play cheesy lists. And you can play them as battle-brothers to your space marine variants, which can be fun later. thunder-wolves and basilisks.
However after reading your description, it sounds like you enjoy playing orks the most, so i'd go with them. You will lose to tau pretty much most the time, but a good friend will add more vespids/bad units until games can be closer to 50-50

Orks are quite awesome but boy do they struggle against Tau. That being said I have found that Blitz Brigade is a very good "counter" to Tau because of that aforementioned difficulty Tau can have against AV14 walls. As the OP stated he likes tanks and Orks so you can't get closer to a tank army for the Orks than with Battlewagon Spam / Blitz Brigade (outside of Forgeworld).

Side note but I find crisis suits deep striking with meltas, ion, or even plasmas or burst cannons being able to get behind the IG tanks and rip apart their soft rear armor.

Oh agreed. deep striking suits can hurt rear armor, but they are instant killed by a battle cannon, and a guard blob can insulate the soft parts pretty well/force mishaps.

My first and primary army was 100% chosen by their color scheme:

Black Templars.

My second army was chosen because their fluff is metal as hell:

Orcs!

My third army was chosen after reading Ryns World:

Crimson Fists

My 4th army was chosen because I wanted an HH army and I already had 2 Sons of Dorn:

Imperial Fists


There you go!

When choosing a new army I ask the following questions. Do I like the fluff of that army? Will I actually want to paint the models for that army? Can I afford to start a new army? Do I like the rules for that army?

If you don't like the story there isn't much keeping you tied to that army. If you like the story you'll play the army no matter what. I play CSM and love their story despite their rules being rubbish, but I know eventually they'll get updated so I hold onto hope.....and my secondary army.

If you don't want to paint at least 2000pts of the army then there isn't much point in building them, unless you're ok with playing bare plastic/primed models, which is fine too. The aesthetics of the models really bring the faction to life on the table.

If you can't afford to start the army, maybe take a step back, save some, plan out what you want, and wait for deals.

Everyone wants to win or at least have a good time playing the game. Nothing is more frustrating than getting tabled every game because the rules for your army are ancient.

Dark Eldar are so fun to paint and build and they are so stylish. Easily the most stylish race out of any. Not to mention its just fun painting the bad guys to take a break from being a goodiee twoshoes. They are the only cool Eldar in my books. Although if Exodites ever get a release I might be interested.

Dark Eldar are my second favorite faction and I might have been maining them if it wasn't the fact that their rules were so garbage and I wanted an army that could be competitive if need be.

Edit
The Dark Eldar community is great. One thing they do have that's better than most of the other fan communities out there.

I picked Tau because they have this sleek and simple design style, they got giant robots, and I liked how they were based off of a more modern take on a 40k army and their auxiliaries. I also disdain melee combat I'm off the option its always best to walk softly and carry a big gun. They were also the best and good race of the 40k setting no matter what anyone tries to paint them they are easily the least evil. At the same time I like to feast on peoples tears when people play Tau against them or bitch about them. Might be some lingering DE bloodline in my family or something.

Well, Dark Eldar is a decent choice. Fast, hard hitting, decent fire power, but fragile.

My previous armies had a lot of psykers in them, and I was less than enthused to participate in the psychic phase. I wanted an army that would age well and allow me to more or less skip that hated phase which meant Tau or Necrons. I also once tried to get into fantasy with a Horde-ish Vampire Counts army and discovered that I had no real interest in building skeleton models that got crushed in my hands, so necrons were out.

On top of that, I enjoy the mecha slash power armor motif of Tau, so I elected to to FSE as well, and I currently have more than 30 magnetized suits. I don't use them all at once (no real big games around my parts), and I tend to do the same thing that I did with my Guard; play mobile lists.

A special note: unless you play tournaments, a win ratio of more than 50% means that you are likely going to have a shrinking playerbase to play against in your area.

Last last note: if you go Guard, consider getting Karamazov; dropping pie plates on your own troops in combat gives your opponent an excellent reason not to engage your guys too closely.

I still think Eldar Corsairs are the way to go for your pirate theme rules and theme wise and I'd convert DE infantry up as corsairs, they can use DE and Craftworld vehicles and they have a ton of character... if not then go with the Dark Kin... they look pretty sexy tbf :3

From a pure rules perspective the Dark Eldar are THE worst codex in the entire game. If you plan to actually play an army and want to win sometime look elsewhere.

If your okay never winning and just want to look cool its an army for you.

 Gamgee wrote:
From a pure rules perspective the Dark Eldar are THE worst codex in the entire game. If you plan to actually play an army and want to win sometime look elsewhere.

If your okay never winning and just want to look cool its an army for you.

They aren't quite that bad in comparison to everything else on the list... I mean Orks?...Imperial Guard (without allies)?... and I can safely tell you stand alone harlequins are the worst faction in the game

Tabletop tactics have a fairly tasty DE army that actually won the No Retreat tourney in Gibraltar which is pretty cool (definitely worth a watch on their YouTube channel if you're thinking of playing DE)
Plus I imagine against Tau, at the very least the poison will be a nice bonus against their MC units...

 Gamgee wrote:
From a pure rules perspective the Dark Eldar are THE worst codex in the entire game. If you plan to actually play an army and want to win sometime look elsewhere.

If your okay never winning and just want to look cool its an army for you.

I want to say CSM are worse than DE. A well played DE army can be decently strong and have the tools to make for an interesting game. CSM are just kinda there and then die without doing all that much. Perhaps I just haven't seen good CSM players play but every time ive seen them on the table I have been greatly disappointed in how they performed. The DE Haemonculus Covens seems quite strong in comparison to what CSM can bring

Edit:
@ Torus. Tau are a hard counter to Dark Eldar with all that interceptor, ignores cover, high volume of fire shooting, and long range that tears apart the paper thin cover save reliant defense of most DE vehicles and infantry. DE have the tools to kill MCs with their poison but trying to spam poison through 2+ armor and 5+ FNP of a Riptide isn't all that effective.

Now granted, while I don't actually play right now, I THINK of playing a couple of times every month or two, so here's how I think of deciding armies (still undecided though so take that FWIW ):

First, I look at the aesthetics of the models, because let's face it it's going to be really hard to collect and paint something that you don't like the look of. For example, I love how the Chaos and Marine ranges look. I like the sleek look of the Tau battlesuits. I don't at all like how Tyranids look, so even if they were the best army ever I couldn't bring myself to collect and paint them because I just don't like how they look.

Next, I look at he background/fluff, because what keeps me interested in 40k (and even AOS) despite the rules being what they are is because of the rich background. Now this part for me poses a HUGE problem, because I absolutely hate fluff-breaking conflicts, and as a result any army I consider is severely limited because it must have a reasonable and not immersion-breaking reason to fight against anyone else in the game, including the same faction. So by my calculations, for me this narrows it down to Chaos, Orks, Necrons (requires making custom dynasty), and Dark Eldar since everybody else can't fight themselves without it being hand-wavingly atrocious (e.g. "Training exercise" or "Who's the Heretic Today?" type of reasons which I find ridiculous).

Third, I look at how the army plays. I have zero desire to play any GW game in a competitive fashion (I play Warmachine for that), but I also don't want to be so severely hamstrung that I'm going to lose all the time, because from prior/current experience losing constantly just makes me want to not bother playing at all. I don't mind losing sometimes, but I'd rather feel that losing was because I was outplayed, not because I refuse to "give in" and cheese out an army that I wanted to be fluffy (e.g. if I'm not playing a Nurgle CSM force, I don't want to take Plague Marines, no matter how much better they might be, because it doesn't fit my fluff). As you can likely imagine, this can often be a problem

So to sum it up in order I choose based on: 1) Looks, 2) Background and 3) Playability in that order.

I'll give a concrete example: I really like Space Marines (various types). But I can't play them because of #2, since Marine vs. Marine conflicts are so lore-breakingly stupid in 99% of cases that it would basically kill the game for me unless by some miracle there's not a ton of Marine players at the shop, in which case I might take my chances and play something unorthodox like Wolves or make my own chapter. Chaos I like the look and love the background, but #3 is what usually puts the kibosh on that because they DO seem bad enough that I'd be hamstringing myself just by playing Chaos. Orks I really am not a big fan of looks-wise, I never was even back in 2nd edition when they were intelligent fungus (and looked like clowns), up through the Gorkamorka/3rd revamp to being brutally kunnin' and kunnin'ly brutal. Dark Eldar I've been entertained with since they came out in 3rd edition because I always liked Dark Elves in fantasy, especially the Corsairs so the whole "evil sadist pirates" is pretty cool, but gameplay-wise I don't think I would enjoy them. Necrons I like the look (and ease of painting since I'm lazy like that) but they seem bland. And this is usually where the thought of playing 40k comes to a standstill since I can't ever decide

HTH

@ VankrakenYeah, Tau counter DE incredibly hard... but then again they also counter Imperial Guard and Orks equally as bad between monstermashes and battlesuit bombs, it's just such a hard match up which is another reason I was pushing towards corsairs...

A combination of aesthetics, color scheme, fluff,and rules.

I chose Crimson Fists because I bought some Tactical Marines used off eBay, and they were pretty much just Bolter Marines. I liked the Crimson Fists color scheme (Dark blue versus the Ultramarine blue, not to mention I wasn't going to play Ultramarines since I figured everyone played them), so I painted them as that. Turns out, their special rules were right up my ally, since I was playing dudes with lots of bolt weapons. Now I have nearly 6000 pts of them.

Blood Angels were because I liked their blinged-up armor. Their fluff always interested me as well. Plus, I love Rhinos and Razorbacks and Jump Packs.

In the grim darkness of the far future where there is only war... Da Orks iz the only onez havin any fun.

I say Orkz for the following reasons:

95% of your models will not break when you transport them (unlike dark eldar, which feels like a bunch of toothpicks at times)

you can scratch build 50% of your army (100% of the vehicles)

no one will ever accuse you of power gaming at any level.

and because you can run Deff Dreads. DEFF DREADS. If you do not know why this is awesome then GET OUT.

You gotta go with what gets you most excited to play.

I generally like playing "Bad" guys in TTGs because then I never have to worry about why my guys are fighting your guys. I'm evil, I do what I want.

My first army was Necrons, then my friend sold me his Tau army at the start of 5th for a Song, and I played that for a while. Now I'm building Up Iron Warriors.