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Well, after awhile of playing 40k it's time to pick my first army, and I'm completely unsure as what to pick... so I'm wondering if maybe I can get some advice from people who play their armies competitively. Currently I'm trying to decide between a few armies.

1) BA
2) Eldar
3) Tyranids

What I'm looking for in an army: 1)The ability to quickly react with speed of units and shift mobility. - 2)Strong units (not a fan of horde armies). - 3) Lastly, competitive play.


If I'm over looking any armies that meet the 3 areas I'm looking for, please advise me.

Sorry for begging for information, it's just that I've been flipfloping between these armies for awhile now, and am hung between a good choice. Any insight would be extremely helpful!

Why would you even think about nids when you hate hordes?!? Eldar fits all 3. BA only fit 2 (IMO).

Thanks for the quick reply, eldarbgamer. The reason I was looking nids was the amount of MC's and fast units, and of course, amazing fluff! Also, which one do you think the BA misses while eldar makes it away with? Thanks again or any input!

1) cause eldar do it much better (trust me I know).

eldarbgamer13 wrote:1) cause eldar do it much better (trust me I know).

I agree on all counts. Having fleet on just about everything, as well as the numerous skimmers and/or jetbikes they can field gives them a ton of mobility potential. The eldar are also a smaller, more elite type force, and therefore not horde in the slightest. As for competition, I personally don't do tournies, but from what I've heard, every army has at least one competitive build.

Space Wolves (i know its not in your category but hey they are awesome)

For speed all i'll say is: vindicators which are fast vehicles. Oh yah, and oddly enough deep-striking land raiders.

Eldar can be pretty nasty but you have to really know how to use the units together. I've seen a couple eldar players crash and burn because they didn't know how to use stuff correctly.

MC nids can be pretty rough but not necessarily fast.

Thanks for the replies, it gives me something to think about. It seems like in daily changing my mind about which army I really want to start. I know any army can win tourniments; but a few seem to to only offer a vary limited "power list" unit comp. I'm really looking for something that has a large decision area when it comes to army selection, as opposed to being pigeon holed into a list.

The biggest draw back I see with ba is. At the end of the day it's just another MEQ. Eldar get an older dex with point cost issuses on some units(so I've read). And tyranids seem less powerful in some regards, not broken. Just less then competeitive -without having a stacked army list of repetitive units.

Also, thanks for recommending SW, even if it wasn't in my list, I'll give my sw dex another read thru and see if I can find more love for them!

I look forward to hearing more info from everyone, so I can stop driving my wife crazy with going to the local shop with intent to spend hundreds of dollars on the army I'm set on that day and returning home empty handed because I'm still unsure, lol.

eldarbgamer13 wrote:Why would you even think about nids when you hate hordes?!?

Nids can actually do a lot aside from hordes now.
You can do an entire army of medium based models.
Warriors led by a Prime can kick serious ass if protected, because every warrior in the unit gets to use the Prime's improved WS and BS.
Almost all of the elites are medium base multiwound models: venomthropes, zoanthropes, Doom, Hive Guard, we have good anti tank now.
Shrikes or Raveners in fast attack.
You can still throw in a tyrant, and if you aren't totally opposed to horde, a unit or two of termagants for screening combined with a tervigon(as a troop) is good as well, and gets you your monstrous creatures.

One last thing,
OM NOM NOM NOM NOM!

*First* army?

Of those 3, Blood Angels.

You leverage the AoBR models, and they have a new Codex.

Hey JohnH, it's not really a 'first' army, I started back in 2nd ed and have had eldar, orks, sm, tau and de. I just got out of the hobby for so long I didn't figure it was worth mentioning, simply because of how much has changed, and i no longer have any armies.

Thanks again for more info, keep it coming!

Oh, if you haven't played since 2nd, 5th is pretty much an all-new game. Good one, too. I say jump in - 5th is easily GW's best version of 40k and arguably GW's best ever ruleset for skirmish-scale play.

Interestingly, GW finally got their heads out and is finally leveraging their unique ability to game with lots of vehicles effectively, as opposed to pure infantry battles. Very cool, but completely different.

I'd have to recommend Eldar as well, if we're goin by your list. I'm in the same situation, and went with a Daemon army purely and utterly for reasons related to metal. Well, I just like being the bad guy! But Eldar are a versatile and dangerous elite/specialist force. Very nasty played right. I think you'll find them less formulaic than any form of Marines, and less of a horde than the nids. Especially with all the painting variants in the aspects.... You also get a huge amount of skimming and hovering vehicles. Power where you need it!

Yeah, eldar do sound like they finally have good mobility. The only thing that makes me question picking eldar is general dislike of their fluff and basic units. At this point I'm swaying towards BA; simpliy for love of jump packs and love of the Baal tank. But it's a double edged sword in the fact that it seems like meq's are even more previlant then ever before. Oh, the choices...

Undecided?
Why not go for Chaos Undivided?

Go for marines...make a DIY army, then you'll have access to a ba'gillion codicies to keep things fresh...at least for you.

I wouldn't mind having a proxy army for fun games, but would like to pick one tourny legit army. Which I guess is another plus for starting a BA army...

Eldar. Blood Angels I really dislike . Eldar were the first army I used for 40k. Either Eldar or Nids , but I would say Eldar .

Hey leeq, thanks for the reply. Is there a reason you dislike BA? Let's hear it! Also, from what i've heard about current eldar makes me wonder about how many competeitive lists they can put up. So if you have any insight I'd love to hear it!

Eldar are competitive, powerful and tick all the boxes. however, they are also a nightmare to play with as a first army, as they require alot of thinking and experiance to use
they are my first army, and i have never changed, as i never mastered them, and am still learning.
starting with marines is always the easiest, but perhaps not the best for what you want. i say Eldar,but they are Hard, i warn you.

erik

instead of BA im thinking DA, the ravenwing squadrons are very good, while you still get great Combat squads and support. but that is just my opinion.