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I've been having a great time with a couple of the 40K starter sets over the last year or so (First Strike & Dark Vengeance) and now I am ready to begin my first 'real' army. I have spent a lot of time going over all of the army options, and I keep going back to wanting to try T'au. Is there any glaring reason NOT to go with my gut? I've always been into Mech, Cyberpunk, etc, and the T'au just have the coolest look IMO. I keep reading to 'pick an army you think looks cool', and I think they do and they'd be a blast to paint and build. I'd probably start with the Start Collecting Box and the accompanying Codex, but I am also curious about other options, and would love some advice about that as well.

The thing is, I have also thought about Space Marines, Chaos Space Marines, Space Wolves and Blood Angels, as I dig their lore and there is something to the classic 'Space Marine' aesthetic.

Can anyone shed some light on this? any constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated. And please, no 'Hurr durr... T'au sucks'. Not really looking for that kind of response! (I know they're not the most 'well-rounded', but yea...)

TLDR - I am looking for a good, 'well-rounded' first army now that I have completed a couple of box sets and am now somewhat familiar with the rules.

Thanks in advance!

Tau aren't the most "well-rounded" as they completely skip the Psyker Phase (no Psykers), and generally skip the Fight Phase, aside from Overwatch (they're decidedly subpar at CC). I believe Space Marines will give you more what you're looking for. But, as you read, find a Faction you love and just go with that. You'll be happier with a "specialist" army you like than a "well-rounded" army that you don't.

Well, Tau isn’t well rounded, they can’t compete in close combat, nor do they have any psykers; they rely heavily on shooting, deployment and some moving.

What’s the second coolest army you’d consider?

flandarz wrote:Tau aren't the most "well-rounded" as they completely skip the Psyker Phase (no Psykers), and generally skip the Fight Phase, aside from Overwatch (they're decidedly subpar at CC). I believe Space Marines will give you more what you're looking for. But, as you read, find a Faction you love and just go with that. You'll be happier with a "specialist" army you like than a "well-rounded" army that you don't.

Big Mac wrote:Well, Tau isn’t well rounded, they can’t compete in close combat, nor do they have any psykers; they rely heavily on shooting, deployment and some moving.

What’s the second coolest army you’d consider?

Thanks for the replies! I am aware that T'au isn't very well-rounded. I even mentioned that in my post!

I thought about Space Marines (seems like a good, simple first choice), Chaos Space Marines (look so cool), Blood Angels, Space Wolves (the SW Omnibus was the first 40K thing I ever read and loved it), just to name a few. I really dig how the Sisters of Battle look (heard there was a new set on the horizon). I'm a bit on the fence. I think any sort of SM looking army would be great and fun to paint, but I am just looking for some general advice. I'm not super competitive, and don't really care about picking the strongest army (I know things can shift over time), I just want to make sure I am spending my money wisely (or as wisely as I can plunking down hard-earned money for glorious sprues and paint!).

Looking forward to reading more advice!

Space marines are a good idea.... Space Wolves Blood Angels and ChaosMarinez are all hard to play. Space marines by contrast fan play many different styles depending on your supplement.

Space Marines are the most well rounded army.

If you don't want to continuously chasing the meta then go with the boys in blue. Being the poster boys they will always be good.

Other chapters (Blood Angels, Iron Hands, ect) might be the most competitive chapter one year then below average for the next three...

Some people will constantly update their armies to stay on point and some will say their blue guys are green guys (Nothing but the shame of it stopping them)

Well, wanting a well rounded force & wanting Tau are pretty opposite things.

As others have pointed out SM are the most well rounded. Pick something, or a few somethings, & a Marine (or CSM) force can be built to do it. And with your starter sets you've got a head start on a force.
Tau? Tau lack a psychic phase & are fairly poor in CC. Not that this is the end of the world, but you'll have to learn to play around those limitations.
Realize though that no matter what you pick - SM/Tau/CSM/etc - you're going to lose plenty of games early on.

But there's no overly compelling reason why you shouldn't go with the Tau if that's what's drawing your interest.
As you're going to spend considerable time buying/building/painting stuff, you might as well start with whatever you like best.

My suggestion, before diving too deep, is this.

Try playing with proxies first. You may find you simply don’t enjoy the play style.

If you like playing them, buy a kit of troops, build and paint.

I love playing as Orks, but I can’t stand painting them. They are completely NOT for me when it comes to painting. Anyone that paints a complete Ork army to the most basic of tabletop standards is a hero of hobbydom. Or a masochist. Either way, worth buddying up to.

Tau are an army I’d play in a heartbeat if my first true love wasn’t Guardsmen. C’est la vie. I also like the models and prefer a shootier army over a cc army.

The most well rounded army IMO is Knights... equally good at shooting and close combat. Plus, fielding giant robots is cool.

If you wanna play Tau though... go for it. They're a strong army, if a bit one dimensional.

I wouldn't exactly call an army with no Psykers and no troops "well-rounded", but to each their own, I suppose.

That said, picking any Imperial Faction is a pretty good choice for making a well-rounded army, because you can always soup your shore up your weaknesses.

 greatbigtree wrote:
I love playing as Orks, but I can’t stand painting them. They are completely NOT for me when it comes to painting. Anyone that paints a complete Ork army to the most basic of tabletop standards is a hero of hobbydom. Or a masochist. Either way, worth buddying up to.

Or it's taking me a bit over 10 years....
You have any idea how long it takes to paint an ork army at a few orks a month?
I'm probably going to miss my target of getting orkz on a table here in 2019.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Horst wrote:
The most well rounded army IMO is Knights... equally good at shooting and close combat. Plus, fielding giant robots is cool.

Well rounded, You & I use that term differently....

I wouldn't say csm are well rounded.
Most of the time 5-6 options are great and the rest of the book is heavily in the meh department.
That beeing said sm atm look fun.

Am not sure if starting an army so close to the FAQ and a new CA is the right thing to do. But both marines and tau, are very good or good armies right now, or at least fun to play with. Only GW knows what is going to happen to either in 2-3 months. SM do seem to be the safer option though.

SM are definately the most well rounded as they have a unit for everything.

Second to them, Chaos marines as they're pretty much the same these days with a few specialisations.

If you're not a marine guy however, my suggestion would be Tyranids. Tyranids are one of the most adaptable armies in the game with endless combinations you can take on many of your units. They are capable of some crazy levels of firepower, assault, movement and psychic. The downside being they are probably one of the most expensive armies to collect but thankfully Contrast paint made them much faster to get through.

Don't get me wrong - not really competitive these days - but that's because most competitive armies specialise in 1 or 2 really powerful things better than the rest.

Not Online!!! wrote:
I wouldn't say csm are well rounded.
Most of the time 5-6 options are great and the rest of the book is heavily in the meh department.
That beeing said sm atm look fun.

Doesn't that apply to pretty much every codex? Some even wish they had it that good...

Crispy78 wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
I wouldn't say csm are well rounded.
Most of the time 5-6 options are great and the rest of the book is heavily in the meh department.
That beeing said sm atm look fun.

Doesn't that apply to pretty much every codex? Some even wish they had it that good...

I play R&H, csm, IG, sometimes gsc.

Out off all of these the csm dex has the most issues internally unit wise.
And trait wise.

That is true. 5-9 options seems like a lot of good stuff. Am not sure if tyranids or necron have 5 good options in their books.

Karol wrote:
That is true. 5-9 options seems like a lot of good stuff. Am not sure if tyranids or necron have 5 good options in their books.

5-6 is generous.
It's more 3 dp, combiplas purge termites and Oblits.

Karol wrote:
That is true. 5-9 options seems like a lot of good stuff. Am not sure if tyranids or necron have 5 good options in their books.

Necrons: immortal, dda, death scythe, destroyers...ummmmm...well overlord to buff the immortals I guess. 50% boost isn't too bad. Tomb blades are playable.

Scarabs are pretty useful to give some screening ability.

But 9? If only!

Anyway with all the supplements if you are willing to get all the rules(lots of money on books though...) not much you can't do one way or another with codex:space marines. Swarm 200+ models is about only thing you lack as an option.

well with new codex they can re write a lot, and with a supplement or supplement with it, they can change even more. Maybe the psychic thingies are going to have stuff in them too. Still it is going to take a long time. even if they do 2 armies per every two months with 9+ armies someone maybe getting their stuff in almost 2 years from now. Who knows what the game is going to be then.

The biggest problem with playing space marines is opponents: Maybe 50% of your games will be marines vs marines.

Personally, I have found Tau to be much more interesting gameplay wise than I initially anticipated. I've always had the feeling that the persistent Tau stereotype often comes from the fact that players who like to play extremely safe, sit back at an extreme distance and shoot are very often directed towards Tau, and they purchase armies that contain nothing but models that can shoot the whole board from the deployment zone or that deep strike.

You could build a marine army in very much the same way, using nothing but scouts/infiltrators/intercessors as troops, buffball HQs, Devastators and Thunderfires and the like, but few people choose to because it's not what they want to get out of their marines. You can similarly build a fairly dynamic Tau army, that isn't just Riptides and Fire Warriors on foot.

Aren't tau armies mostly riptides , HQs for markers, a unit of broad sides, and bucket loads of drones?

Karol wrote:
Am not sure if starting an army so close to the FAQ and a new CA is the right thing to do.

I see you've succumbed to the Dakka group think of "Just wait until...."

Adopting this mentality leads to an endless loop where it's never a good time to start something. Because as at any given time you're only 2-3 months away at most from something else that might affect your chosen faction.
(unless you're a GK player - cause nothings going to change your situation save maybe a whole new edition. )
Right now it's the Autumn FAQ, Dec(?) it's CA2019, then whatever form Psychic Awakening takes, then you're anticipating the spring FAQ, etc etc etc. So what's the window? When do you start something?

the_scotsman wrote:
The biggest problem with playing space marines is opponents: Maybe 50% of your games will be marines vs marines..

It used to be like that but doesnt really have to be.
Played at a 36 player event a few days ago and there were 1 White Scars list, 1 Blood Angels (me), 1 Space Wolves(reserved player and not one of those that signed up in time) and an Imperium list(also reserve) that I think had like 500pts of marines. So 6500 out of 72 000pts were some forme of loyalist marines. If only including the original 42 players that had first signed up it was 4000 out of 84000pts . Not that much marines.

Almost a whole new generation of 8th edition players that dont have a space marine army in a closet somewhere. The 2 events prior I was the only marine player and I have heard multiple times from opponents "this is my first time playing against marines so I have no idea what they do" after I have casually said "Nothing special in my list so you should know what everything does" since I expected everyone was as familiar with marines as they used to be back when I played in 4th/5th.

I know a few players that are dusting of their marines after the latest codex but it is still far from 50% of the players mainly playing loyalist marines in one form or another.

Karol wrote:
Aren't tau armies mostly riptides , HQs for markers, a unit of broad sides, and bucket loads of drones?

That's what's currently competitive, sure. Give or take the broadsides and add in a couple Commanders/maybe a crisis suit unit in there somewhere.

I dunno, aren't all ork armies a 30-man deep striking unit of boyz, 90 gretchin and 18 mek gunz led by a souped-up shokka big mek?

Where do people get this crazy idea that they're some kind of melee horde faction??

With Tau, it just seems like the idea of what they are comes from the bulk of their players either wanting A) the safe, long range, stationary gunline army or B ) a Gundam all-battlesuit army, which since Broadsides Riptides and Stormsurges are all pretty longrange leads to another fairly long range setup.

two of their 3 basic troop choices want to be within 12" of the enemy. They have more non-battlesuit vehicle units than battlesuit units.

ccs wrote:

 greatbigtree wrote:
I love playing as Orks, but I can’t stand painting them. They are completely NOT for me when it comes to painting. Anyone that paints a complete Ork army to the most basic of tabletop standards is a hero of hobbydom. Or a masochist. Either way, worth buddying up to.

Or it's taking me a bit over 10 years....
You have any idea how long it takes to paint an ork army at a few orks a month?
I'm probably going to miss my target of getting orkz on a table here in 2019.

For me, I love painting Orks, if it weren't for the crazy price of GW kits requiring all the moneys to get a full Ork army I probably would have. That said, I just need to pick up Meganobs and I will have every Kill Team option. Other than my full armies, Orks are the biggest collection I have, and I think they are my 2nd largest Kill Team usable faction I have too. Only Chaos Space Marines beat them. I still have more Orks painted than CSM though.

I've painted a box of boyz for Kill Team... almost...

I don't like painting Guardsmen, but for the love of an uncaring universe Boyz have soooo many little gribbly details I just want to chuck my brush at the wall.

Someday (soon?) I'll have those Orks painted. It's a damned good thing they're fun to play.

Follow your gut. An army is a personal journey of money, time and effort. Your gut will carry you through. I have learned this through many miniature game systems. I have never been interested in Tau. So I don’t play them. You are somehow interested in Tau. Run with it.

Even if I hate Shield Drones.

Wow. Thank you all for taking the time to comment! I really appreciate it.

I've really been drawn to T'au, soaking up any info that I can find on them online, and have given serious thought to moving forward with them.

Having said that, I'm also thinking about going classic Space Marines for a first army. I mean, the SP suit is what caught my attention before I started down the rabbit hole that is 40K.

I've also really admired the way the Sisters of Battle look. Love the color scheme as well as their overall look. Just read Black and Red and enjoyed it as well, so there's that.

So I have a few additional questions if ya don't mind:

1. What factions would work with SOB?

2. If I did go SM, what would be a good start? I'm thinking the Codex and Start Collecting Box, but I wanted to ask before I plunked down the cash and spend a ton of time building and painting.

3. As far as Space Marines go, is it 'wrong' to want to paint them my favorite color, purple? How does that work in the grand scheme of things?

Thanks again for the replies, and please pardon the noobish questions. Really appreciate all of the thoughtful info within these replies.

Space Marines are a great start - fairly low model count and fairly easy to paint. Several of the box sets get you going.

Paint colour is up to you, which is cool. If you are really feeling purple, though, then you likely have the taint of chaos and should look at Emperors’ Children. Heretic - just saying. See you on the tabletop Traitor.