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Eldar, I chose them a long time ago when all I cared for was how they looked on the tabletop, mainly the Wraithlords. Now that I know more about the fluff etc, I love them even more.

My brothers indirectly introduced me to 40k and when looking around at the fluff of the forces of the imperium, King Pariah looked over my shoulder while I was looking at grey knights and told me he thought Exorcists are more legit. I looked up the Exorcists and fell in love with them.

Death Guard have great fluff, a unique aesthetic and plenty of potential for conversions.

Tyranids were always my favorite race. When my brother and I first started GW games with Titan Legions, I jumped on the Hive War expansion and made a small Tyranid army. When the 2nd edition Tyranid codex was released, it was my most coherent 40k army. My Orks ahd Chaos were fairly random, but my Tyranids had a Hive Tyrant, Carnifex, Lictor, warriors and genestealers.

When 3rd edition dropped, I saw the change to the model range and didn't like most of it, and the few parts I did like I didn't have the money to buy at the time (in particular, a bunch of Gaunts and new Warriors). A Space marine army was far cheaper to collect, so I moved on to Salamanders. Tyranids were still my favorite, but basically cost got in the way.

Now I work, and while I don't get as much as I'd like to spend on my little gribblies, I get a lot of enjoyment from planning new purchases due to the model range now, IMO, being the best GW produces.

It varies. Also, don;t be confused about my armies, my buddy and I both stalled for a long time from GW, and so still play games of 3rd/4th Edition.

My absolute favorite army is my 1,800pt Legion of the Damned army. I love the paint job and how I can make each marine an individual. Because my buddy are still using 3ed, I can also play them as a unique army using the Chapter Approved Cursed Founding rules.

I also love my chapter approved Kroot Merc army for the fluff behind Kroot. Just something about them seems cool, I can't pin it down. An auxiliary of the Tau became cooler than them, go figure.

Right now, though, it's helping me to be impartial to Dark Eldar and Space Wolves because I recently was gifted with 4,000pts of 3ed Dark Eldar, and 2,000pts of Space Wolves that were meant to be a 13th Company army, and even better both armies were completely assembled and primed to a good quality and completely FREE.

Space Wolves 13th Company are/were particularly cool, because besides the fluff behind them, with their old rules, they can't take vehicles beyond bikes, but they got the ability to make a free before-game move with everything but bikes, Long Fangs, and Terminator armor. Then you added in the ability of a Rune Priest to give them the Necron ability where he and his squad can disappear from the table(even if engaged) and then immediately make a deep strike move. I'm enjoying them because they are so unlike most Marine armies, even the normal Space Wolves. Hell, my army of marines is only 2,000pts, and includes over 50 models. I never knew you could field a swarm Marine army till recently.

Two things.

First, a quote: "Do NOT think lowly of guardsmen. It's easy for us fight - we are as powerful as a human can be. But Guardsman have to run over the corpses of their friends, and still have the resolve to fire their lasguns. I fear no living enemy. I fear only one possible outcome of all our wars, all our battles, and all our sacrifice: the day when we no longer need guardsmen. Because on that day, my brothers, Humanity's death is assured." -Reclusiarch Lacelles, Eclipse Hawks Chapter.

Second, I have this... "thing," shall we call it... for artillery. There's just something to be said for being able to be sitting miles away from a pitched and all-out epic battle and STILL be able to have the highest kill count. Using MATH.

It also came from watching a 4-way battle of my friends who'd been playing for several months before me. it was IG versus Chaos vs Crons vs Eldar. The 'Crons and Eldar converged on the Chaos player and actually managed to wipe him from the board in 2 turns and he couldn't call in reinforcements. The IG player sent most of his troops (actually all but his CCS) into the fray in Chimeras as mobile pillboxes which were promptly smashed between the raging tides of the 'Crons and Eldar.

In doing so, the Eldar and 'Crons wore eachother down fighting the other two and once they'd plowed through the IG and Chaos in the middle they met head on and a Mortal Kombat worthy fight between the Necron Lord and Eldar Farseer engaged. After 4 rounds of CC with neither of them managing to wear the other one down, they looked over when the IG player started laughing maniacally in his turn. He'd placed a Bassilisk template directly over the two and rolled... and got a direct hit.

There was a moment of silence on the battlefield as every standing unit suddenly heard the last Guardsman on the field, 106" away from the fight and watching through a pair of binoculars, calling over the radio... "Target sighted. Barrel adjusted 11 degrees. Initiate... Mark. Firing for effect."

The 'Crons phased out. The Eldar were routed without their Fortuning Farseer. Victory for the Artillery Corps.

The combination of nobody else playing Necrons, and those green rods.

There were a lot of different reasons for me, but my favorite is by far the Guard. As has been said before, they are heroic in a ridiculously hopeless way, and all of their fluff in that regard makes me love them.

Second, as has also been said before, artillery <3

Third, It's crazy fun to just have hundreds of thousands of men and throw them at a wall with absolutely zero regard for casualties. (See Armor of Contempt) Just like the games workshop official page says, it's fun to play the crazed high commander.

Being a soldier in the Army, I just went with the IG. Something about all those tanks and heavy caliber guns.

Breasts.


what!? I was 12! Of course that isn't the reason anymore!

Knights Errant
I really like them so thats why I went Marines they looked like knights in space.

I started like we all do with a starter box (mine was the 2nd edition box), My first ever army was Blood Angels before they were cool. My second was Eldar due to the way they looked and could ROLF-stomp any thing in the magic phase.
Yet that all changed in 1995 when I was aloud to use the stores IG in a massive apoc style game. After 17 years my heart still belongs to the humble men and women of the Guard.

Armed with nothing more that a mag-light, a t-shert and balls of steel, they are expected to face off against the horrors of the warp to faster than lighting Xenos, souless metal men to even those of their own kind.
They do what they do becouse they have to, never asking or getting any thanks from the countless worlds that can sleep safely that night becouse of them. They are the hammer, shield and sword of the IoM. With out the guard the whole of the IoM would fall.

"We first and last line of of the defence of man. Let none take that honnor from you."

The quote on the spine of the old daemonhunters book "Innocence Proves Nothing"

I have been going through codexes and not being able to chose an army for over 3 months . I bought some IG and Dark eldar and didnt like painting them nor the fluff. In the end I stuck with Necrons. why ? The new codex ! Contrary to the popular opinion, I didn't like mindless robots keen on destroying all living life. With the new codex, they have some personality and lot of politics. They have a deep story and some motivations for their actions. Didnt have to look further - ancient egyptian-like steel warriors, the most advanced race in the galaxy. Necron Glory !

Orks.

Their Ramshackle tech and that they are both silly and brutal.

Dark Angels and Imperial Guard are tied for my favorite army, DA were my first and my main through 3rd/4th edition and Imperial Guard are my main now in 5th edition.

When I started , my friend had bough the starter set and offered me the choice between Dark Eldar and Space Marines (He was going to play Tau). I picked Marines because they had the Land Speeder in the set and had the Land Raider as a model. When I went to get the codex, I noticed the little mini-dexs and the Dark Angels caught my eye. I wanted a more shot-y marine army and the Dark Angels at the time seamed to be that (Intractable meant they could always shoot and Plasma Cannons in tactical squads). I fell in love with the fluff, the character and the Deathwing/Ravenwing army lists after I started to play with them.

As I played more games, I started to realize I like running armored heavy lists. One of my friends was leaving the hobby and offered his Imperial Guard to me. I bought it and shelved it for a while. When I read the Guard Codex though, I liked the Leman Russ Battle Tank and notice the larger numbers of vehicles the Guard could field and found the Armored Company Rules, a full tank army, I had to have! So, I slowly collected Guard stuff for a while until our gaming group got back into 40k in 5th edition. I was less then enthused with the the update to the Dark Angels Codex and saw the impressive improvements that where made to the IG codex, so I threw myself full force into the Guard and have never regretted it.

I often played paladins and the like in any number of RPG type games. I'm also a history instructor... so Ultramarines fit me quite well.

Believe it or not, I actually bought UMs after I owned Eldar, SW, CSM, and some Tau. I just liked Roman paragons in Space (and the low expectations that come with the blue toy soldiers). People often ask me how long I've been playing UM, and I respond "couple years". They assume that means I've been playing 40k for 2 years... instead of 20.

I never liked to play a human in any rpg I was in if there were any other options. I've always liked elves over dwarves, speed vs brute force. First army was DE, I didn't have any interest in marines fromt he start and when I found out they were what most everybody played, there was no way i was playing marines. DE were new at the time, not many people were playing them and they were a speedy finesse army. Sounded like fun. I wasn't a big fan of the some of the fluff aspects and I really wasn't a fan of such a limited selection so after a while I drifted to eldar. I am a fan of either one, I like the idea of harlequins, but I have a devil of a time painting them!

What inspired me to collect my 'Favorite' army? well, i've bounced around collecting different armies over the years mainly forces or part therof of marines mainly, but I would say my recent Flesh Eaters marines are my favorite army i've collected over the years.
I really like trying to find obscure or older chapters that have fallen by the wayside or are not seen much anymore, and the Flesh Eaters are great because i like the original scheme of a single colour marine that favors full frontal assaults where they teeter on the brink of sanity while they brutally dismember thier enemies and ritually eat parts of their flesh, they are still loyal servants of the emperor but have a gritty bloody history that steeps them in some mystery as well! what could be better? once i started painting them i absolutely loved how they looked and left a load of them bare headed to represent a force who love to smell the blood and viscera they spill splashing over their faces!

I really enjoy the look of tau models and the strategy behind playing with them. People say they are currently the weakest army. I think it is more that they are the hardest army to play with at the moment, especially for new players. But they can be just as good as any other race, I mean I win almost all my games with them. But their play style and background was also what drew me in. I am more of a passive sit back and shoot sort of player. I am also not a very aggressive person, so tyranids orks and space marines were a big turn off. Bloodthirst, death and destruction for bloodthirst, death and destruction's sake is also not super appealing to me, fighting for a greater purpose is more my style. So that is why the Tau background, along with the Eldar and Imperium's background is much more to my liking. After I finish my tau army I plan on building up an Eldar and IG army.

Reading the Space Marine codex, and then seeing "Death to the False Emperor!" on the side of the Chaos one. It just reeked of an inversion of everything right and decent, and I loved them for it. And of course, the fact that you can't really be sure who betrayed who helps, and the idea of the CSMs being dedicated to a goal set ten thousand years ago whether or not it was right just has a strange quality to it.

I actual find the Chaos Marine plight somewhat similar to christianity, or any religon for that matter.

Deadshot wrote:I actual find the Chaos Marine plight somewhat similar to christianity, or any religon for that matter.

How so?

For me my favorite army is Sisters. I got into 40K thanks to Dark Heresy the RPG. I've never been a big fan of wargames, so I am typically lured into games liek this via an RPG. I really dug the literature and of course I had heard about it from my buddies, so i picked up the 4th ed book and then the 5th ed book shortly after that. I chose the Sisters of Battle becuase I like the idea of strait-laced nuns kicking ass with guns. I also happened to like their look with the iconography. It was just too cool to passs up. At the time I had no idea the learning curve on them was so steep or that they would become the most expensive army to buy. I still love them in concept, but the execution of late has been horrible. At least the army is gettign some attention with some formations for Apoc and battlemissions.

Back in the misty dawn of RT:

Punk rocker hairdo's and beerkeg Plasmacannon (heavy plasma guns back then) , reinforced by Madboyz lists in WD and a cybernetics list longer than the current Ork codex

I also had Scythes of the Emperor back then, i think, but i lost interest in them and sold them to my brother.

I've played a lot of other armies since then, gaming butterfly that i am, but i always return to Orks

Imperial guard and their waves of infantry. There's something about fielding troops in their hundreds and this phrase:

Firepower. The more the merrier.

Three words: drunken space vikings.

Nothing else is important.

For me choosing DE was easy.. They are the coolest looking army by far.

hellspawn22 wrote:

Deadshot wrote:I actual find the Chaos Marine plight somewhat similar to christianity, or any religon for that matter.

How so?

In each case they follow beliefs and bylaws set down thousands of years ago, whether they are right or wrong, true or false.

Back in '10 a bunch of my mates started 40k. Two of them split the contents of AoBR, another got a guard Battleforce, and the other a CSM battleforce. I was instantly grabbed, and when one of the AoBR guys decided to start tau, I played with his orks. Then he sold the orks from AoBR back to the Original Purchaser (if that makes sense lol), so I couldn't use them. After getting a hyperlink to GW's starting 40k article, I fell for stone cold 'we will kill you' robots who stood back up.

Now I have started Tau cos I love Pirahnas & Broadsides.

I have never looked back