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I'm currently at an impass. I've come across several different armies that I really like, both in terms of fluff and play style. Each is distinctly different from the other, but I like each of them all the same. My question for you all is as follows:

GIVEN THE CHOICES ABOVE, WHAT ARMY WOULD YOU RECOMMEND THAT I START?

I know that it is more a matter of what an individual likes to play as opposed to what they want to crush their opponent with. However, here's my rationale for looking at each of these lists.

THOUSAND SONS - I currently play Black Templars and Imperial Guard, with the occasional stint into DH and AC, as I will talk about later. I'm in the mood for a non-Imperial army, but I don't really like the hordes of Tyranids or the daintiness of Space Elves. Chaos is a bit off the deep end with the Nurgle stuff, but after reading Ahriman's fluff, I decided that a Tzeentch army would be pretty awesome. It would be numerically small, just like all the other armies on the list, but it would be pretty powerful, I think. Having all those Sorcerors and AP3 Bolters running around alongside Obliterators would be fun to play with, but it would be S L O W.

ARMORED COMPANY - After fielding three Leman Russes in a single game last summer, I realized that the true strength of the Guard lies in the Imperials' Armored Might. Having just received a Baneblade last Christmas, I felt that starting an Armored Company based as a support unit for the Baneblade would be a really great opportunity both fluffwise and for gameplay. Granted, this army would probably not be allowed at many of the tournaments that are currently being held, but seeing as how I'm not much of a tournament-goer, and already own a Baneblade, 2 Russes (soon to be 2 more and a Vanquisher), 2 Hellhounds and 2 Sentinels, I figured it would be a good opportunity for me to save money in building a new army.

DEATHWING - So, I own about 50 Terminators. Granted, they're painted in BT colors (some of them, anyway), but I don't think that's a problem, so long as my opponent knows what they are ahead of time and that I have the Codex. This army would cost me about $40 to field, since all I'd have to do is go pick up a DA Codex, a Blister of Ezekiel (or whatever his name is), and maybe an Apothecary to convert parts onto to a Terminator. I think this would be an awesome army to field, even if the 5-man squads get annihilated with little to no problem, especially since it would allow me to field my Assault Terminators in the same squad as Storm Bolter and Assault Cannon-armed Terminators. Again, I'd save a lot of money and would be able to start right away.

LYSANDERWING - Again, I own all the models necessary to field this army (including the Scouts, though I'd probably want some shooty scouts instead of the beatdown versions I currently use with the Templars. My purchases would consist of Lysander, and that's it. I already own the SM Codex. My only fear of jumping on this list is that 5th Edition is rolling in quite soon, and with Deep Strike the main strength of Lysanderwing, I see a potential nerf coming on (especially if they keep those DS rules they had in the PDF, on top of the 5th Edition Space Marine Codex: Nerf that is supposed to come out in the fall, leaving me with a non-functional army). I have a Damocles Rhino too, so that would make this list even deadlier.

DAEMONHUNTERS - My brother plays DH, and although he's had limited success with them, I was thinking of fielding them more as an Imperial Guard Army with a sizeable Grey Knight unit attached to them. I already own a crapton of Guardsmen (though that's not many by some people's standards), and have been planning on purchasing some GK as allies for my Templars, so I thought it would be a good idea for me to add them in. Not high on my list, seeing as how DH are weaker than most and are supposedly getting a rewrite some time in the future, but I threw them on here nonetheless.

If you have other suggestions as to what army would be a good one to start, let me know. I want to field a list that will be fairly competitive (though not powergamer-broken by any means), but I also want to enjoy the army I play. If any of you would like to see the proposed lists I have for each army (they're all generalized, and have no set points values as of yet), I'll be happy to put them up.

Congrats if you made it this far. Thanks for your input.

CK

Most of those armies will be around for some time yet (or are already only semi-official). Lysanderwing, however, has a rather uncertain future. Ordinarily this would be a reason not to start it, but since you already have all the models but the man himself, I say you should do it now and enjoy it while you can. You'll still be able to do those TSons or whatever a year or more from now.

DH will disappoint you. It's guard with gay knights.
Deathwing pure is too gimped to be effective.
Lysanderwing is going bye bye (hellooo apocalypse!).
Armored company is already gone.
Thousand Sons is fine, but unless you plan on making your own conversions...you'll have a army looks like everyone elses TS army.

Anyway if I was you, I'd run a BT 2 HQ 3 Elite Terminator army. It's not like you can fit in a whole lot more than 25 terminators in 2000 points anyway, so you might as well use a decent list that won't go away anytime soon.

I'm gonna vote armored company, with the caveat that you are a guy that plays lots of apocalypse (the baneblade makes me think you are). I know you are a die0hard guardsman, and i think you'd get a lot of enjoyment out of fielding a whole tank company and a baneblade. I know because I have and it rules.

If you are looking to get a whole new legal 40k army going and don't want to do imperial, then you should go for chaos. i will say that approaching chaos from the cult specific gameplan is going to get you in trouble.

I'm all for a renegade chaos army that has a focus on tzeentch, but I would never say "make a 1k sons army" until the 1k sons codex is out. the only book out right now is undivided, and if you gimp yourself by enforcing random self-imposed limitations (nothing that 1k sons can't have for example) then you will end up frustrated. if the thought of painting anything other than blue and yellow on the army upsets you, then its best to wait until the 1k sons white dwarf comes out (please dont respond with "have you heard anything?" I'm just guessing how it will be presented)

I think they are all poor choices. I am going to have to agree with Stelek on the BT idea.

As much as I hate to say it, Shep is right. You should not start thousand sons until their codex comes out. Hopefully, that will be sooner rather than later. I know you are going to get the tanks for armord company anyway so that option is out. I know you love the idea of deathwing but I think keeping your terminators as Templars like stelek said and just going with a templar wing army would make then better, since you would still have zeal. Because of all this, maybe you should just wait for the thousand sons codex, or start a totaly different army.

I would look to some of the other armies so that you could have something to change up you day to day 40k game. Show up with another army all together that most people would not see coming from you.

Nids, Tau, Eldar,

Voted Other:

Da Orks, cuz WAAAAAGGGGHHHHH!

@tegeus-Cromis
I'm very seriously considering picking up Lysander and painting him all Templary for a Templarwing "counts as" army. Given that's my most cost-effective plan right now, I don't think I can go wrong with it.

@Stelek:
True about the DH. They're weak. I guess as a support force they're better off than an actual army.

I know DW got hit with the nerf bat, but was it really hit that hard? I know the 5-man Squad limit SUCKS, as well as the 1 heavy weapon limit, but still.

Lysanderwing may be on its way out, but I can start it for a cool 20 bucks. That's a pretty awesome price for the fielding of an entire army.

Armored Company may not be tournament legal anymore, but the list is still awesome. Maybe I'll do this as a side list. A small company of 6 supporting the Baneblade.

1K Sons will be waiting on their Legion-specific Codex. They're awesome, but I will probably end up waiting.

I field that list (2 HQ, 3 EL) quite frequently, to the chagrin of my opponents. Zeal + Chaplains + Terminator armor is nasty.

@Shep
I'm probably looking at DW or Lysanderwing "counts as." Armored Company will be fun, but more as a side deal rather than a full army list. Too much money per tank to field anything large.

@Darkness
The purpose is to decide what NEW army I could start, not just to affirm that there's no point in expanding.

@extrenm(54)
Agreed. As above, I'll probably be doing DW or TW (Templarwing).

@Tarval
I don't like Nids, I despise Eldar, and my brother already has a 2200 point Tau army. No dice on any. The Imperium has a large enough fold for me to wander in for many years to come.

CK

DW get termie squads in as troops, and get to deep strike half. Personally I think 1 or 7 termie squads is best, so you get the most bang for your buck.

They get to be troops, so in 5th edition that's good.

Sadly, they aren't very good troops because they don't get 2 weapons anymore.

I suggested in playtesting they get 2 of anything but asscannons, or 1 asscannon + 1 of anything else.

"Too complicated."

So, you have the crap that the DW are now, which are very slow fearless terminators that really suck in every which way possible like all marine terminators do.

They aren't twice as good as marines, since twice as many marines will kill half as many terminators and walk away ready to keep going.

When they get base toughness 5, they'll be exactly right.

Till then, they're junk. Sadly, the 5th edition rules are geared towards troops and I foresee alot of DW armies with 30 terminators. Can't kill anything, and while most armies really shouldn't have a problem killing them all to a man in 3 or 4 turns...you'll see alot of the nerfed codexes having a hell of a time with an army like that.

See, the 'crap' codexes were playtested against each other. So they looked fine in their own sandbox, but then the neighborhood bully (non nerfed) came to play and Jervis realized it was him or Gav.

Gav didn't.

Sorry, bit of a tear there.

Yes, DW really do suck that bad. You can't power everything up to the point you need 2 asscannons in a termie squad just to compete, then nerf the asscannons to 1 and expect everything to just 'work itself out'.

DH will have their place now that the new demon codex is going to be out soon. Although i have read through it and it looks pretty nasty.

Against other armies DH are not weak you are just weak at playing them

DH is one of the worst armies in the game, hate to tell ya.

Has been since release.

Thanks for the comments though!

tanks!

Yes stelek i know you dont like the DH but your not really telling me anything.

I dont think they are the worst, they are really hard to play and taking a pure DH army takes alot of skill and making almost no mistakes. But that doesnt make them the worst

Daemonhunters are, by and large, overcosted for what they do. They are almost always outnumbered at least two to one in any fight, and in larger games will be overwhelmed by the enemy's numbers.

They must be used like a scalpel. A brittle, ceramic scalpel. Too bad most armies carry that analogy on by being fairly rough-edged, making the cutting edge of such precision armies chip and shatter.

CK

DH are comparable to noise marines, only noise marines get access to raptors, bikes, predator tanks, vindicators, obliterators, cheap terminators and the lash.

Maybe if Psycannons had a secondary fire mode (say S9 AP4 Assault/ Heavy1) it would be a different story.

edit: and Havocs.

Speaking of havoc/ devastator squads, if you really like DH you can always take them as allies. Heck, you could even say your las/plas marine squads are DH neophytes or some such.

Bascically, DH try and create an entire army using only HQ, Elite and Troop. That doesn't cut it when you are up against other army's fast attack and heavy support.

You can run DH with IG support and do fine.

But given their cost and how few you'll actually run, it's almost always better to run IG with DH support.

That help?

I do not fear any DH army. Period.

I do fear IG with DH support. Always.

If I were to take DH as support units, what would you recommend taking? I'm assuming that it will be different depending on whether I field them with my IG or my BT. With Templars, I feel like I have enough close support, so I was thinking of taking two 8-man squads with nothing extra. The mobile Storm Bolter shots coupled with their excellent CC abilities would offset their relative slowness. Chuck them in with the two slogging 20-man squads I use, and I'll have a huge fearless blob of assaulty death.

Oh, and an Inquisitor (Lord, maybe) with mystics and anti-psyker stuff, since "Abhor the Witch" only does so much.

For Guard, using Deepstriking Terminators would be a nice pressure point of my opponent's to exploit, but at such a high points cost, I could field an Infantry Platoon, complete with Deep Striking 4-Melta Command Squad and two Lascannon Line Squads.

Maybe an Inq with Mystics again, some additional 8-man PAGK Squads, and an Assassin? I always loved the Eversor, and with a 12" charge range you can't beat his 95-point price tag.

CK

I'd run 2 basic squads with BT.

For Guard, it's really about do you want 4 guard or 1 DH.

Once you accept that 1 DH isn't better than 4 guard but you want them anyway, you can get somewhere.

I'd run the 2 DH squads but they aren't there for anything but light infantry fire and CC threat. Unlike everything else the guard has access to, seeing DH is a pita.

Termies cost way too much for DH to consider taking them.

Play a Flesh Tearer's army. Just because.

I'm biased, of course, but the reasons are many:

1. An excellent background

2. Death Company

3. Baal Predators

Who wouldn't want to play a doomed chapter gasping it's last breath, each marine in his own personal hell as he struggles to keep the Black Rage in check?

Come to the black and red side, we have rending!