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This is a thread aimed at people (mainly beginners) that want to build a army want to know what it can do in general, and what it can't do in general. My know how is limited and if others want to list more info or correct me, please do so (no flaming please).

Space Marines - Good all rounded force, can't go wrong with them. They are able to handle alot of suitations that dedicated role armies will get crushed. Many variant chapters let you focus on different aspects on force types.

Chaos Space Marines - I don't know exactly, someone able to fill in for me?

Chaos Demons - HTH army with strong invunable saves. Can teleport more than 1/2 of your army into the game on demand

Imperal Guard - Excellent numbers (both infanty and armor wise) and a large choice of armor variants. Poor in HTH and the basic man is armed with a "flashlight" weapon

Tau Empire - Extremely strong ranged weapons with great mobility tied with it. The only drawbacks are limited troop choices with poor durability and the majority of the army are extremely poor in HTH.

Orks - HTH swarm. Poor durability and shooting (some units are ok at shooting however) is easily compensated with amazing HTH charges and almost limitless customization.

Necons - Powerful force with the ability to regenerate in battle but hard to learn. Limited choice of unit types and poor mobility are the necons weakness.

Tiranids - A even more HTH based race than the orks. They are the mirror of the tau, while gaining extremely strong HTH with quite weak shooting.

Eldar - A army with a dedicated unit for everything, from shooting to hand to hand. With carful planning you can destroy almost anything while poor planning can break you within 3-4 turns.

Chaos Space Marines are fairly well balanced with a dash of assaulty goodness, thanks to the new codex and default wargear. These guys can do almost anything the loyalists can do, and even some things they can't... like getting shot at by our own dreads and fielding quite possibly the most versatile heavy weapons platform in the game... even if they ARE slow and purposeful...

Thanks Dronze for the CSM description.

And a note on orks: They're actually not too shabby as a balanced hoard. Granted, they seem like they're actually MADE for assault, but you can actually field them in a quite shooty list, and they'll do pretty well for themselves. They may not be accurate, but damn if they don't put up a huge wall of lead.

Tyranids have surprisingly good ranged Anti-Infantry with Dakkafexes and Tyrants. They have trouble knocking down vehicles though.

My nids out shoot my friends tau.
Nid shooting is short range, high volume, and made of pie

A very good thread for begginer players to read Superscope.

Here is what I would add.

Dark Eldar - ? any help (only army I really don't know)

Orks - can be a shooty army however inaccurate (but who needs accuracy when you can get 45+ shots from 1 squad?)

Nids - very shooty short ranged army if desired. Lots of reroll to hit and reroll to wound if done correctly

Are we staying away from other tips like which army's give up kill points (something newer players might not think about them)?

Well, Orks have more good, but Space Marines have more bad, so it's a bit of a toss-up.

Space Marines
Strengths: Generally solid at everything. Some of the best troop choices in the game. They can be built for most purposes, and are quite versatile.
Weaknesses: Usually small in number, and are usually outdone by dedicated assualt units.

Imperial Guard
Strengths: Lots of infantry, lots of tanks. Lots more infantry.
weaknesses: their standard weaponry does about as much damage as a flashlight.

Orks
Strengths: Capable of creating a massive volume of pretty much any form of offensive, be it CC or ranged. Capable of massive numbers, incredibly versatile, and plenty of unique units. Also some of the best fluff EVAR. Very overpowered as an army.
Weaknesses: What are these 'weaknesses' you speak of?

Chaos Space Marines
Strengths: Pretty much everything the Space Marines excell at, but with better assault capabilities. They also have some units which pack more versatility, and have some of the best troop choices in the game.
Weaknesses: They're likely to find themselves with even less numbers then Space Marines

Daemons of Chaos
Strengths: Very powerful troop choices, very unpredictable, and a totally unique form of deployment. Invulnerable saves that come standard. Overall, very powerful.
Weaknesses: Weak saves, each troop choice is very dedicated to a specific role.

Eldar
Strengths: Very versatile and fast army, with plenty of options and special abilities. Capable of hitting hard, fast, and with psychic powers that make them even more powerful. Units for every situation.
Weaknesses: Each unit is very specific, and requires synergy with the rest of the army to stand a chance. This can make them very ahrd to play with for beginners.

Dark Eldar
Strengths: Fast, kinky, and furious. Plenty of cool wargear and units.
Weaknesses: Rules are very old and outdated, many wargear removed. Models ugly as sin. Overall, lacking in defense. Very hard to play.

Tyranids
Strengths: Very versatile with plenty of upgrade and conversion options. Great in close combat and at anti-infantry shooting. CARNIFEX!
Weaknesses: No vehicles, have trouble taking vehicles out at range.

Tau
Strengths: Some of the best guns in the game, very mobile.
Weaknesses: What is this 'close combat' you speak of?

Necrons
Strengths: Very solid mid-range shooting, core units very durable, fairly cool teleportation and other abilities.
Weaknesses: Very limited codex with very little versatility, will get wrecked in close combat (not as badly as Tau though), outdated and impractical rules, despite having a durable core, the army is quite fragile because of 'phase out.' Oh, and the C'tan have some of the stupidest fluff in Warhammer history; and there's a LOT of stupid fluff.

Inquisition: Daemonhunters(Puritan)
Strengths: Some of the best basic guns in the game (comparable with the Tau), wickidly strong in close combat, basic infantry and elite infantry excell in all areas, our terminators eat their terminators for breakfast, option to use allies, great fluff, some of the very best models in the entire game.
Weaknesses: most units incredibly overpriced, very limited codex, easily overwhelmed by large numbers, very old codex meaning very outdated rules(there are one or two cases where this can be an advantage, however).


Inquisition: Daemonhunters(Radical)
Strengths: Option to use allies... um... more room for assassins?
Weaknesses: most units incredibly overpriced(less so then puritan), very limited codex (moreso then puritan), easily overwhelmed by large numbers, very old codex meaning very outdated rules(there are one or two cases where this can be an advantage, however).

Inquisition: Witchhunters
Strengths: Excellent mid-range shooting, fairly high number units with excellent armour, skills and weaponry, lots of mobility options option to take allies, access to crazy jumping tank killer lady waving around a chainsword.
Weaknesses: despite having great armour, units are overall still quite fragile, will get absolutely wrecked in close combat, having high model count while being all metal, which tends to make them very expensive financially.

Dark Eldar Pros
- Speed. Turn 1 assault anyone?
- Firepower. Dark Lances and Disintigrators
- Assault. HQ and Wyches

Dark Eldar Cons
- Fragile. Highest AV 11, all troops have 5+ save.
- Steep learning curve, unforgiving, you make one mistake and the game's over.
- Outdated codex. Least supported 40k army.

Fafnir, That is a excellent list you've made comrade. *Gives Fafnir a cookie* Thank you for taking the time to write it ^_^

Your right about Chaos Space Marines Dronze. Three words.... that F***ing defiler! (Three turns of anti-armor fire and it stood undamaged, while it ripped a bloody chunk out of my forces)

IF people use this for picking a army, i recommend a battleforce for starters, because they contain a good core force and at a alright price too (some places can stock it cheaper than the average price, look around. Also make sure your getting the latest one). You will also need a rulebook, some dice and a army codex.

If you pick either Space Marines or Orks you should pick up the Assault of black reach starter kit, which also comes with the rulebook, dice, templates and everything else you need for a good fight (execpt a larger army XD). It's pretty cheap the AoBR set to boot as well (like the battleforce, take a look around before buying it, you can save some coin if you do)

New People should also note the new IG codex is coming within a few months, so if your thinking IG you may want to lay off the idea til it's out, then you can get all the new toys and rulesets. However the rumors say that the new IG troop boxes only come with 1/2 the troops at 2/3 of the price. You may want to stock 1 or 2 boxes just in case to save coin.

Fafnir... here's some ork weakness

- The Average ork is poorly armored in the open.
- The Average Aiming skills of a ork is some of the worst in the game of 40K (Some units in the ork army DO use the thing called aiming)

Also, another Tau weakness ):

- Their special characters are pretty poor compared to other armies (Aun'va, master of the undying spirit, has to be one of the worst)

Superscope wrote:- The Average Aiming skills of a ork is some of the worst in the game of 40K (Some units in the ork army DO use the thing called aiming)

But when they make up for this by having multiple-shot weapons on super cheap troops, the low BS is not really a factor all. Also, on many of their units their shooting is twin-linked (buggies, bikes, death koptas) meaning they actually shoot better than BS3.

A well-made ork army can out-shoot Tau or Guard armies pretty easily, but they don't have the same anti-armor answers.

Ork weakness
- Suck in hth when charged.

Sternguard_rock wrote:Ork weakness
- Suck in hth when charged.

Which is not really a weakness, because almost any army sucks in HtH when charged, except space wolves.

LOL space wolves rock all the time.
I understand that anyarmy suck when charge well most but even if the unit the orks charged servived the first turn of combat ork lose there awesomeness.

Lets do some math shall we.

Lets pick a good representative assault unit: 200 points= 5 assault terminators with TH/SS

Two target units: 27 slugga boyz with PK nob.

10 space marine tactical squad with fist sarge.

Against the orks: 27 slugga boyz attack first with 81 attacks. 41 of those attacks hit, and roughly 13 of them wound, leaving us with two dead terminators and some change. The remaining three terminators attack at the same time as the nob, 9 attacks from the termies is 4.5 hits, and lets be nice and say 4 dead orks. The klaw nob kills another half of a terminator. The orks lose by one or two, and as the fight wears on will almost surely win.

Against the tactical squad they kill a fraction of a terminator at initiative 4, then the terminator squad pretty much squishes the whole damned tac squad (about 6-7 kills on average rolls), breaking the squad with on average no casualties.

Even when they are on the receiving end of a charge, orks are much more damaging and much more durable than almost any other troops choice.

but still............. I stand corrected.

Superscope wrote:- The Average ork is poorly armored in the open.
- The Average Aiming skills of a ork is some of the worst in the game of 40K (Some units in the ork army DO use the thing called aiming)

I play a shooty Ork Horde.

Big Meks with Kustom Force Fields grant just about every Ork in your force a 5+ cover save. Terrain and 18" assault 2 weapons will give about half of your Boyz a 4+ cover save, so the weak armor value is almost always completely irrelevant to a competent Ork player.

The "Aiming Skills" of an Ork are about the lowest you can have, at BS2. However, Ork guns are all relatively long ranged (18-36") with a relatively high number of shots (2-3 each). Ork guns are also priced cheaply relative to other codices. A Deffgun, for example, is an autocannon with D3 shots that costs 9 points after deducting the cost of the Boy.

Even though each of your shots is of relatively low quality, you get to shoot more, and often from further away.

Consider this scenario:

10 Tac Marines with Heavy Bolter (170 points)
or
21 Shootaboyz with Nob with Power Klaw (167 points)

Shooting at an MEQ squad 24" away the Marines average 1.44 kills (9 bolter shots and 3 HB shots) versus the Orks averaging 0 kills (out of range).

Shooting at an MEQ squad 18" away the Marines have the same average, 1.44 kills, but the Orks average 2.33 kills (42 shoota shots). At medium long range, Orks are much more effective ranged combatants than basic Marines.

Shooting at an MEQ squad 12" away the Marines average better, with 2.44 kills (18 bolter shots, 3 HB shots), but the Orks are barely behind with 2.38 kills.

And then once you get into assault combats, I mean, it's over. There's almost nothing that can take down 21 charging Boyz with a PK nob for the same points values. The Marines, on the other hand, get 10 attacks and average less than one dead MEQ, slightly more than one if they charge (but then you lose significant shooting ability so it's a wash).

Note that Grey Knights are also pretty good on the charge, as True Grit pretty much means they get the bonus attack even when not charging. Shame it doesn't work for terminators though.

Superscope wrote:
Chaos Demons - HTH army with strong invunable saves. Must teleport all of your army into the game

Fixed (it can hurt sometimes)

One weakness of the orks is, a sold army is pretty pricey. You can get slugga boys pretty cheap (thank you starter set) but everything else you need, you need ALOT of which means cha-CHING $$$. So save those pennies, and save your bits to help for conversions to save some cash.

Yeah but that's very much mitigated by the strength and competitiveness of orks at all points values.

You can get a couple big Boyz squads and a Warboss into a 500 point army for $100, far less if buying AoBR models.

Add on a big squad of Nobz and a Battlewagon for another $100 for 1,000 pt games. Add on bikes/Lootas/Nobz for another $100 or so for 1500 point games. Rinse and repeat for another $100/500 pts.

Getting a competitive 500 pts of army for $100 retail is pretty darn good. And if you're willing to settle for Assault on Black Reach, I bet you can cut your costs by another 25% at least.