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I'm new to WH40K, got all the bits and pieces for building a kickass looking armor (well, all but paint) and have been reading the rule books and what not trying to decide on a damned race, I've got it down to Space Marines and Tyranids.

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General Concerns: Tactical flexibility. How much can either do? Are there things that they are forced to do at all times (nids I've read you generally always have a feth-ton of gaunts for example)

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Space Marine main issue: I know alot of people use SM, I'm not bothered by that. My main issue is with the uniform look of the marines. Nothing really I can do about, just thought I'd mention it.

Space Marine main like: I like the idea of a smaller army, was going to do a Iron Hands second founding named Emperor's Hammer (focus on tanks and range fighting)

Favorite SM unit: Bikes (like the tanks in general as well as techpriests)

Least Favorite: Dreadnaught.

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Tyranid main issue: Price, I've heard that in a game meant for being expensive, Tyranid are especcially so.

Tyranid main like: How everything is unique

Favorite Tyranid unit: Tyrgon

Least favorite Tyranid unit: Venomthoap

Nids are an army that, in my opinion, requires a greater level of tactical though than SM do. You've got to get the mix of units just right with Nids so that they compliment each other well and work together coherently on the tabletop, whereas SM are more forgiving when it comes to tactics and units, as they are fairly good at everything.
Just bear that in mind when you choose which one. Hope it helped!

Space amrines are one of the easier armies to start out with in terms of tactics, good at everything, but not excellent in any one area.

Tyranids take a little bit more thought if you want to win, but not too bad. They superb a superb close combat army, with a variety of strategies (there's more than one way to skin a marine).

Tyranids were my first army and I very much enjoy them.

If it helps, SM are also more resistant(?) to future changes than Tyranids.

You pretty much know what a lascannon, power armor, or ATSKNF are going to do in the NEXT codex. Scything talons, Thornback, or Synapse. . .not so much.

Well more than how they play on the table, marines are waaaay more popular than anything else (including nids). Which means that GW invests a lot more in them, and you will be able to find more and much better deals on them (ebay and the like). So, for getting into 40k, marines will be the easiest on the wallet. They also have less bodies which means less to purchase. Just something to think about.

I would say when it comes down to it, which one looks cooler to you? Because when you are painting your 35th termagaunt and you have a line of unpainted models out the door, you better still like looking at them. It sounds to me like you have a gripe with how sm look, so I would say go with nids. Besides, nids can be played with small numbers too. Go with small groups of genestealers, then go get some trygons, mawlocs, and hive guard.

*which ever one you pick, I highly suggest your first purchase being the battle force. They do have a high face value, but they will give you a small army you can basically put on the table right away, and your going to save anywhere from 15 to 30 dollars. Just sayin'

If you do choose space marines, try something different than ultramarines, in terms of paint job I mean. I've seen too many bland space marine armies.


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This would be a lot easier if they still sold the assault on macragge box set.

Why not Space Wolves. It gets a lot what you like out of SM Low Model Count, Same Tanks, etc... without the overwhelming uniformity of appearance. They're fairly flexible too, Grey Hunters (SW Tacs) are fairly flexible being above average for basic troops in both shooting & CC.

Mr Nobody wrote:If you do choose space marines, try something different than ultramarines, in terms of paint job I mean. I've seen too many bland space marine armies.


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This would be a lot easier if they still sold the assault on macragge box set.

Was going to do a second founding iron fists, IE lots of bionics and heavy metal.

Chongara wrote:Why not Space Wolves. It gets a lot what you like out of SM Low Model Count, Same Tanks, etc... without the overwhelming uniformity of appearance. They're fairly flexible too, Grey Hunters (SW Tacs) are fairly flexible being above average for basic troops in both shooting & CC.

the hair... dear god the hair...

EDIT: Oh, and aren't they more or less the most melee heavy of all space marines?

Sanon wrote:EDIT: Oh, and aren't they more or less the most melee heavy of all space marines?

Not all. In fact I'd argue most of our dedicated assault units are less than stellar. WS3 makes all of the ____Claw units "Mehhh" at best, not horrible but not super stars. Our Assault Terminators are prohibitively expensive to the point of not being worth fielding. Honestly the only real Assault unit in the dex I'd give a gold star are TWC and Accompanying characters.

While on the other hand the best units in the codex Long Fangs, Rune Priests are all shooty, and very shooty respectively.

Our shooty units are better at fighting than Standard Marines.. that much is true. That doesn't it make it a melee army though.

EDIT: That said the hair point is both fair and accurate.

Some things to consider about marines popularity:

All armies in any remotely competitive situation will be heavily geared to deal with marines. Competitive lists will, of course, be able to deal with Tyranids, but around 50% of all armies are some flavor of MEQ. Very few general purpose lists will be set up primarily to down 'nids, but it's not that rare for a list to focus on dealing with marines. Also, people who are experienced at 40k are experienced at killing marines and at countering marine special abilities, but might not have even played against tyranids. The combination of these two factors really cancel out the advantage of marines being general purpose and tough to kill IMO.

If you play vanilla, you are basically guaranteed to have a current codex with each release, but also will never get the advantage of codex creep and later design decisions. It's kind of annoying that the traditionally melee oriented Blood Angels and Space Wolves get cheaper, better versions of devastator squads.

It's easier to find used marines, but unless you pick a major chapter you have to strip anything painted that you find, because it won't match your guys and marines match. Mismatched tyranids don't bug (hah) people as much, and a lot of the color schemes are similar enough that you can merge a lot of common paint jobs fairly easily.

Space Marines are the default starter army for a reason. they're cheap, forgiving to play, and are extremely flexible.

Also, SMs are only uniform because that's how most people paint and model them. There are actually a lot of ways to make armies with more variety, from using chaos bits and say the chapter spent an extended campaign fighting Chaos in the Maelstrom or Eye of Terror (ala 13th Co), you could build a coalition army that has squads from various chapters (like the Badab war armies), you could paint different squads different colors, or maybe give all squad leaders robed bodies. You could even build a renegade chapter that hasn't gone to chaos, and recruits from dozens of chapters.

Depends what you want out of the game, ask yourself, do you want to win games or not? How competitive are you? Do you plan to travel to a tourney, if so would you rather stand out with a more unique army (Tyranids) or be more capable (Marines).

Modeling should also be a concern, do you want to scratch build things or not? If not definitely don't play the bugs, they have like 12+ units that don't exist as kits, it's ridiculous, probably only 2 or 3 you would want to play, but still.

To make some assumptions and gross generalities:

Play marines, it's much more rewarding because the line is very robust, the army can be very competitive, Marines are a better army than Tyranids, the army does not fall into some theme overly dependent on synergy, its cheaper financially, its generally less to paint (especially tank heavy) and it will be around in more or less the same incarnation if the rules ever change again.

Good luck whatever you choose.

The one thing nobody mentions about space marines: they are actually one of the more technically challenging armies to paint. Lots of large, smooth surfaces means you can't use the base/wash/drybrush technique that makes nearly every other army look pretty good.

True!

Tyranids look pretty great that way, and after building some big huge conversions, well that could be a ton of fun for the modeler emphasis!

Augustus wrote:Depends what you want out of the game, ask yourself, do you want to win games or not? How competitive are you? Do you plan to travel to a tourney, if so would you rather stand out with a more unique army (Tyranids) or be more capable (Marines).

Modeling should also be a concern, do you want to scratch build things or not? If not definitely don't play the bugs, they have like 12+ units that don't exist as kits, it's ridiculous, probably only 2 or 3 you would want to play, but still.

To make some assumptions and gross generalities:

Play marines, it's much more rewarding because the line is very robust, the army can be very competitive, Marines are a better army than Tyranids, the army does not fall into some theme overly dependent on synergy, its cheaper financially, its generally less to paint (especially tank heavy) and it will be around in more or less the same incarnation if the rules ever change again.

Good luck whatever you choose.

3, there are three units that have no model for (The gaunt spawner, harpy, that one with the big ass gun) and a handful of named guys which or more or less other unit + one or two difference on model.

How cheaper are space marines? How are space wolves? (main reason I didn't consider them was that I thought they were a 80% melee oriented army with crappy range, IE if there was an Ork Marine chapter, they'd be it)


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bamp

Personally I think Space Wolves are better than normal SMs. When you take Logan Grimnar you can effectively mimic almost any other Marine Chapter (Ravenwing and White scars can be mimicked by taking Wolf Guard on bikes, then there's Loganwing terminator armies). The Space Wolves sprues are also filled with more options than their standard counterparts (the Wolf Guard Terminators pack alot more weapons onto those frames, and the standard Space Wolves boxset can make Grey Hunters, Blood Claws, Wolf Guards in power armor, and so much more). If you fancy yourself on converting and looking for a good place to grab some bitz, go for the puppies. Gameplay wise they're pretty powerful too.

Choosing an army though, will depend on your playstyle. I personally cannot work with a unit of individually powerful models, instead opting for armies with powerful MCs/tanks and small numbers of vast bread and butter core units (namely Imperial Guard and Nids). Start off with a Marine variant army, and see what you like. My first ever army was a CSM army, and no matter how I tooled it to help defeat my opponents, I never won a game with them. I simply cannot play it effectively since whenever I suffer a critical loss I get disoriented.

I recommend Tyranids. If you want each model to look a bit different, that's how you'd go.

Dun't wanna start a new thread, so re-posting updated thoughts now.


Which space marines "type" can take a healthy amount of shooting and/or tanks, and how well is this?

Tyranids, what units are useful, what aren't, how do I decide on whether I should go hermagaunt or genestealer? how many gaunts generally are needed for 500pt army? 1000pt? (mainly playing with eldar and ork friends first, who also have small armies and are just starting as well)


anything else on either of those armies?

For tyranids facing orks, devourers are your best weapon against ork troops.

Hormagaunts with Toxin sacs are your friends. These little buggers can be bought on the cheap, run really fast, and can stand toe-to-toe in terms of speed with eldar, and tear Orks a new one pretty fast. they can also quickly maul a Wraithlord and Wraith guards in no time flat. With Toxin sacs, even the higher toughness of Orks should be no problem. Genestealers should be used for their infiltration skills. with a 5+ armor save and the cost they are, you cant really field them in high numbers without being severely handicapped. They are good for suddenly appearing via Outflank, which will have your opponent flabberghasted (sp?) at the sudden appearance of the rending buttrape that's about to happen.

Hive Guards, Trygon primes, Mawlocs, the Doom of Matai'lai (sp?), Zoanthropes, Tervigons, Tyrannofex, and the Swarm Lord are generally the ones I've heard are useful. Specifically for Eldar (and possibly Orks) is the Biovore. Cheap in points, you can easily rain down 9 large blast templates that will utterly obliterate all eldar (save exarches and heroes, but then again when their army is gone these will be easy pickings) under them due to the Spore Mine's stats. Orks will be slightly more resistant, but nonetheless should still fall all the same. I personally run 6 of these in my army whenever I face non MEQs (I would run 9 but I love my trygon too much).

As for shooty marines, there's two types within the SM army and the Space Wolves. Salamanders (that is, any army led by Vulkan He'stan) have access to twin-linked multi-meltas and flamers, but those are largely close-range weapons. Standard marine armies also have access to the Sternguard Veteran (which while the Blood Angels do have, they do not have access to the other stuff in here), Thunderfire Cannon, and Master of the Forge, all three of which are extremely good for a shooty army. Sternguards in particular, since they have many types of bolter ammunition to help them in any situation. They also have Tellion, who can lend his higher BS to other units. Space Wolves, on the other hand, is good at a gun-line style army since they have Counter-Attack. Longfangs are also famed for their ability to split their fire and SWs generally do Razorspam well. They also have one of the better shooty HQs, Bjorn, who is insanely good at aiming that plasma cannon. Tank Wise, Blood Angels have the best tanks (especially since they have sole access to the Baal Predator and Stormraven), but Space Wolves can Razorspam. It's harder to tell since all SM armies share the same tank armoury.

Polonius wrote:The one thing nobody mentions about space marines: they are actually one of the more technically challenging armies to paint. Lots of large, smooth surfaces means you can't use the base/wash/drybrush technique that makes nearly every other army look pretty good.

It depends what style of painting you're going for, of course.

Tyranids can be done very nicely with a few sprays and miracle dip.

SMs can be easily done with clean lines and hard edge highlighting; they are practically designed for it.

Sanon wrote:Dun't wanna start a new thread, so re-posting updated thoughts now.


Which space marines "type" can take a healthy amount of shooting and/or tanks, and how well is this?

Tyranids, what units are useful, what aren't, how do I decide on whether I should go hermagaunt or genestealer? how many gaunts generally are needed for 500pt army? 1000pt? (mainly playing with eldar and ork friends first, who also have small armies and are just starting as well)


anything else on either of those armies?

Generally, any decent SM army will have a good amount of shooting units in it. For specifically that sort of build, a mechanised force is probably what you want - lots of rhinos with troops in them, backed up by either Predators or Vindicators.

As to 'Nids, well, as I've mentioned previously, the thing with them is that no unit is completely foolproof. The 'Nid codex makes each unit specialised to some degree, even the Gaunts who are effectively a cheap meatshield. It is the combination of units in a Nid army that makes them special, i.e frontal assaults of Hormagaunts and Warriors whilst Genestealers sneak on from the flanks and maybe a Trygon from the rear.
That's just an example, of course. I've never tested it to see if it works.

Basically Tyranids are not really a shooting army. You want to get them into close range where they can shoot with their assault weapons then charge into melee.

The key is to have a balance of units which pose multiple threats, otherwise you'll find any competent enemy can concentrate on beating your most important unit.

You've basically got four kinds of units:

Gribblies
These are the small, cheap, low power models such as Termagants and Hormagaunts. These are available in large numbers but they aren't very effective in by themselves and are easily killed by blasts, flamers and massed firepower.

Mid-range creatures
These are the Warriors and Raveners. With better armour, wounds and weapons than the Gribblies, they also have superior firepower and melee but they are very vulnerable to one-shot kill weapons like meltas. You can screen them with your Gribblies.

Monstrous Creatures
The Trygon and Carnifex are hard to kill and can be fearsome in shooting and melee. However they are so large that they can be shot at from right across the board and will act as bullet magnets for enemy lascannons and such.

Support Creatures
These are various creatures such as the Zoanthrope, Venomthrope and Tervigon which either have a specialist function (anti-tank) or give useful buffs to the rest of the army. The Venomthrope provides a mobile bubble of 5+ cover save, and the Tervigon enhances any nearby Termaganuts. These creatures are not individually formidable though, and can be picked off by melee, massed firepower or meltas if isolated.

The trick of running Tyranids is how you balance and combine the various classes of creatures for mutual support and to make it difficult for the enemy to counter one of your threats without being badly exposed to another. If he drives close with Chimaeras and Hellhounds, he gets within your Zoanthrope range. If he unloads melta-carrying infantry to zap your Warriors, you can charge him with a Trygon.

That's the general idea, anyway.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Polonius wrote:The one thing nobody mentions about space marines: they are actually one of the more technically challenging armies to paint. Lots of large, smooth surfaces means you can't use the base/wash/drybrush technique that makes nearly every other army look pretty good.

It depends what style of painting you're going for, of course.

Tyranids can be done very nicely with a few sprays and miracle dip.

SMs can be easily done with clean lines and hard edge highlighting; they are practically designed for it.

Hmm, maybe I should say that given my particular technical skills, SMs are hard to make look good. I'm sure some people can take to layering or extreme highlighting, but I took to washing and drybrushing very quickly and reasonably well.

Yar, only bringing up further questions!

Maybe I'll just flip a damned coin


So, how expensive is a Space Marine army compared to 'nid?


Or, ya know what. Just give opinion, Marine or 'nid. I am at the mercy of Dakka Dakka.

I have to say Tyranids on the basis that there are more than enough SM armies around already.

Tyranids. All the way!
You will get pissed at how many players play Space Marines.

'nids it is!

I mainly wanted to make space marines for the tanks anyway, if/when I get bored of nids I'll just make a badass tank and go on back.

Nids. Reason: they are the only true 'neutral' side army in the gameworld, cause they consume anything in their path.

In my experience, the people at my place will always want to play with me (nid player here) cause they are sick of fighting 'anything with 2 legs and lascannon and similar weapon etc' type army.
To win against Tyranids is not about glory or any material reward but it's about able to survive the onslaught of the alien creature.

The keyword to play nids is Synergy. Synapse range gives you fearless while Instinctive Behavior is useful in certain situation.
As for Flexibility, when playing Nids, you would want to charge in and lock in close combat as fast as possible to avoid getting shot.

Nids does cost more expensive comparing with SM army. However, any horde army like I.G and Orks are expensive to collect too.

Sanon wrote:
Least favorite Tyranid unit: Venomthoap

A model provides 5+ cover save to friendly unit within 6", armed with defensive grenade and force non-vehicle unit to roll dangerous terrain test and toughness test after combat, 2+ poison attack to wound, always strike first to any base-to-base model due to lash whip, these, in my opinion, is way better than Pyrovore.

Still pretty low when they're competing for a slot with Zoanthropes, Hive Guards and the Doom And for nids, you can easily bulk out for forces with a few good Battle Force purchases. imo the only horde army that's expensive to collect is guard, since there's no good way to get the bread and butter troops cheaply.