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Been playing horde army type for many years, now I am looking for some low-model counts, non-redundantly upgraded elite army to collect.

While I've been searching around the net and most people suggesting Deathwings Terminator army or grey knight, and maybe Tyranids monsterious creature combination.....

Anyone have any experience to share? Is there any other type of army with this kind of elite play style in 40K?

Maybe not elite, but extremely focused would be Eldar.

I have a total of 39 models including 1 named character and a normal hq with 7 vehicles at 1500 points. All the Eldar units are extremely focused. If you are looking for elite in terms of multi-puprose you won't find that in the Eldar army.

Each of the units in my army serve a very specific role. Might be worthwhile to investigate them.

This depends on what you consider to be a low model count I guess. When people say elite army they usually mean an army where the standard guys/troops can beat most things down by themselves and there aren't many codices which can really do that effectively. You can run elite armies for many armies without these kinds of powerful troops (as in scoring) if you run minimum sized troop units, say 2 x 5 Scouts and then 3 units of TH/SS Terminators, but you really shoot yourself in the foot doing this.

From a competitive standpoint, pure Deathwing is basically outclassed by Loganwing (although Doublewing is still pretty low model count I guess), Wolf Guard are cheaper, far more flexible and you can get better support units into the army. Space Wolves are definitely a good candidate for this actually and would be my recommendation. You can run massively tooled up characters and have several viable hammer units to run with them.

Grey Knights really struggle without Guard support, the only really viable pure GK list atm is Land Raider spam, they really struggle without transports (and even then it works better with some cheaper Guard infantry sprinkled in to save points). Rumours suggest they are going to be updated fairly soon though (as in some time next year) and several rumours point to them redefining the meaning of a small elite and expensive (points wise) army. For the moment though probably better to hold off as they will be getting new plastic kits whenever they do get released.

Nids can't really do a really small elite army (like the old Carnifex spam) anymore, the new codex made the smaller Nids a much more important part of a competitive list. You could take Tervigons are troops, but that requires plenty of Gaunts anyway. The only other option would be Warriors (which in a MC heavy list are viable as they don't have to worry about every S8+ weapon shooting them) but you are still looking at a couple of reasonable sized squads minimum which will push your model count up a bit.

A few other suggestions off the top of my head; Blood Angels have the multiple Death Company build which could possibly fall into this category, but not something I would recommend for a serious army. They can also do Sanguinary Guard lists which would definitely be pretty low model count. Orks can do Nob based lists (either Bikers or Mech), which can be fairly small and pretty killy. The other races don't really have viable builds as they either don't have decent enough super units in general (Guard, Necrons) or have to go with bare bones troop choices which doesn't really work (Eldar double JetCouncil, Tau Farsight Bomb).

Hi ALL

Powerguy is right, what do you consider?

some guys around here wanted to start gaming with low cost, so I told them to invest in sm armies. good allrounder with options ti get even better. a low count army is csm, if you pick the special chaosgod troops. nurglemarines are very expensiv and hard to kill. a friend of mine sets up a copmlete nurgle army. I am playing Eldar and its very difficult to win that one.

deamons can be lcm, by picking two greater deamons, 3 soul grinders, some blood crusher or fineds and just the minimum troops. 1500 points and no more than 40 guys on the table.

but this is just what Powerguy mentioned: most wont work for long. your enemies will face it sometime. When you play conquer missions, you have the prob... you need more troops in count then.

have a nice day!

Thanks for the valuable info people.

Personally, I am looking for a low (or lower) model count army that is easier to carry around gaming clubs and such (sadly not from a tactical point of view....)

I am not sure if it is a proper way to classify it, but what if I looking for such army build which is strong in specific way? such as:

specifically shooty

or

good at melee

or

resilience army that can hold objective but yet low in model count?

If I didn't put things into proper use of words, please do correct me.

Yukoayasaki, I had the same issue recently with getting back into 40k and trying to pick something with fewer models than a tyranid swarm (which leaves the options a little wide open!) When you say elite army I assume you mean high-point models so as to keep the model count low.

I wanted an army that would 1) win; maybe not win GD tournaments but at least win a good percentage. No one likes having an army that sucks even if it was easy to paint and it's easy to store, 2) have points-heavy models for painting & storage & transportation reasons, and 3) have some fluff I like. All three points are equally important and if I can't win with the army or I can't handle the painting & storage involved or I don't like the fluff I won't like them in the long run and I don't think anyone would, to be truthful.

I "narrowed" my choices down to some 6 choices, some of which have already been mentioned here: 1) DA Doublewing (Deathwing terminators working with Ravenwing Bikes) 2) Space Wolf "Logan wing" (more win than deathwing, so they say) 3) High-point scoring unit space marines (bikes or razorback spam) 4) Eldar mech 5) IG mech and 6) Tau mech ( NO kroot!).

I'll put in a plug here for 3 more: 7) monolith spam necrons, though that may not be as competitive for players who know how to handle them, 8) Choas (nurgle is great), and 9) Demons with greater demons. I didn't like the fluff for any of these so I wouldn't like them in the long run. My personal choice, not yours. Feel free to pick any of them or something else entirely. I will say that I have played against nurgle and have found them very tough to beat. Just sayin'.

In the end I picked number 3) High-point scoring unit space marines and focused on bikes. I like to be forced to play agressively and to have mobility and to have uber tank-busting capabilities and this choice gave me all of that.

Having all bikes lacks a bit of staying power and they're not so great in close combat so I've added some deep-striking assault terminators to my list. Everything is pretty easy to carry in the standard foam cases, just remove the partitions where needed to make everything fit. Unless you're playing BIG point games, these are insanely easy to transport.

There's plenty of choices out there; I'm SURE I didn't cover everything, but at least this gets you started. My reccommendation? Go with what you like. You mentioned qualities like shooty, melee, and resilience in your post. IMO, I like to mix these elements around to make an all-around list but if you want to focus on any one in particular, I don't think you could go wrong picking IG mech or Tau mech for a shooty army, certain chaos for melee, and DA or SW terminators for resilience (nothing says "I'm not going anywhere" better than a 2+/5+ save!)

This post turned out a little longer than I thought it would but you asked a question that I was just asking myself a few months ago so all of these things were fresh on my mind and I know where you're coming from. Picking an army is tough. Let us know what you're thinking about!

Grey Knights. Nuff said

yukoayasaki wrote:Been playing horde army type for many years, now I am looking for some low-model counts, non-redundantly upgraded elite army to collect.

While I've been searching around the net and most people suggesting Deathwings Terminator army or grey knight, and maybe Tyranids monsterious creature combination.....

Anyone have any experience to share? Is there any other type of army with this kind of elite play style in 40K?

sanguinary guard army. few models, potentially very deadly, but have to be careful about how you use them bc you have no invulnerable saves.....

C:SM, Shrike, multiple units of fleet Assault Terminators (one infiltrating with Shrike), fleet CC Scouts, and ranged anti-tank.

Gimicky, semi-reliant on first turn, but man I've always wanted to run it.

SW Logan wing
BA Death Companya (Yeah!)
Chaos Space Marine with expensive troops
Necrons
Eldar Aspect warriors/tank or wraightlords
Chaos Deamon Prince heavy
DA Death Wing
Grey Knights

New DA with the more expensive toys

Or just a landraider objective camper

I would recomend deamons and BA Death Company. They play veru diferently.

Yeah, DH is they way to go, great models and great abilities.

If you decide to go the Sang. Guard route, Shooty armys (Like Tau) will pick you apart.

My Space Wolves are a shooty "Elite" army. I would say its very fun to play and can easily destroy some armies and could easily be tabled by others. It has 25 models and 4 armored units.

[b]Space Wolves - 1500 Grim Fangs

Logan Grimnar, The Great Wolf

Rune Priest
Terminator Armour; Wolf Tail Talisman; Runic Weapon; Storm Bolter; Acute Senses; And They Shall Know No Fear; Counter-attack; Independent Character; Psyker; Jaws of the World Wolf; Living Lightning

Rune Priest
Terminator Armour; Chooser of the Slain; Wolf Tail Talisman; Runic Weapon; Storm Bolter; Acute Senses; And They Shall Know No Fear; Counter-attack; Independent Character; Psyker; Living Lightning; Murderous Hurricane

Wolf Guard Pack
4x Wolf Guard in Power Armour
1x Wolf Guard in Terminator Armour; Storm Bolter; Power Fist; Cyclone Missile Launcher
1x Razorback w/ Twin Linked Assault Cannon

Wolf Guard Pack
4x Wolf Guard in Power Armour
1x Wolf Guard in Terminator Armour; Storm Bolter; Power Sword; Cyclone Missile Launcher
1x Razorback w/ Twin Linked Assault Cannon

Long Fangs
1x Squad Leader
5x Lascannons

Long Fangs
1x Squad Leader
5x Missile Launchers

Land Speeder Typhoon

Land Speeder Typhoon

The two terminators with missile launchers break off and join up with the long fangs. The list offers 13 missiles and 5 lascannons in a 1500 point game. With the ability to split fire the long fangs at two targets a piece and for logan to give them them tank hunters, relentless or prefered enemy every turn you can take out most armor turn one. Or at least take out the ones that matter. Once they get close Logan's squad can have a max attack potential of 19 power weapon attacks with prefered enemy. Up to 11 of those can be at strength 8.

Its a fun list but don't expect to win every game. I manage about 50% wins with this list and when I loose its usually tabled or very close.

how many points are you wanting in your army?

you could try this:
9 obliterators
2 demon princes (your choice of abilities)
many plague marines with rhinos to get around

the reason I say obliterators is because they can deal with anything and 9 plasma cannon shots in the same turn sounds fun. the demon princes and oblits are around an estimated 979 points if you get 50 points each with the demon princes abilities. in a 1500 point list you still have 521 points of plague marines and rhinos.

Also just a heads up I am only about 4 games into playing 40k so you probably dont want to try this.

GKs are fun and are a lower model count army.

they will be recieving a new codex in Jan or Feb, but purchasing a bunch of GK minis would be a very safe investment.

i would reccomend a couple boxs of Terminators(buy the psycannon pak too because incinerators arn't very good) and a few boxs of PAGKs(again, buy a few blisters of Psycannon marines)

this will give you a playable force and will be ready to be expanded upon come spring.


GK Terminators will be troops choices so having a bunch of them wouldn't hurt.

As a general rule, super low model count armies aren't always the best.

That said, a lot of logan wing options are fun, as are dread heavy blood angels.

Demons can rock some awesome builds at low model count levels. Bloodcrushers + Heralds of khorne on juggernauts + plaguebearers + soul grinders = Pain!

ORKSz!!!
lol, Nob Biker Army!
2 Warbosses on Bikes
2 or More squads of 10 Nobs on bikes, with the works.
done.

o and did i mention its not a weak army at all? FNP, T(5), 2 wounds, Waagh banners, 5+ Inv Save, 4+Armour, 4+ cover where ever, maximum wound allocation, Power Klawz, Big choppasz, combie weapons,!?!

or you can try flash gitz ? if that works for ya... please... let me know.... tht'd b a first... lol

:-) that ork idea is fun!!

but think about a IG army too. up to nine leman russ... and done. standart in chimera transports. 1500+ but only 12 - 14 tanks to transport :-) not just one trooper ;-)

i really beleave it would work. you can change some leman russ to hellhounds with poison weapons to kill sm more easy. hard to knock out army.

I think the Loganwing list is generally the most effective and easiest to carry around. Logan himself is nasty, and you can add a Runepriest or two for psychic punch & defense. WG terminators are good in HTH, and WG squads led by a WG in terminator armor with a Cyclone give you infantry squads with mobile, two-shot missiles for long range fire support, and are surprisingly good in HTH as well. And thanks to Logan, all the WG are scoring units. Long Fangs or Thunderwolves are also outstanding support units.

SM Bikers are also a very good, low-model count army, with the Captain on a bike leading to make them Troops. You can make the command squad a very deadly HTH unit too. Bikes are generally a bit more expensive and harder to transport than the above list, but it's quite a good army.

Blood Angels Sanguinary Guard (one of the characters make sthem Troops, too, right?) is supposed to be pretty solid, though I've only read a few battle reports, not played against it myself. Their Dreadnoughts are pretty awesome, especially the AV13 Librarian dreads, and the ones with the dreadnought lightning claws that allow them too rip through entire squads. A fun, tiny, BA army I played against had two squads with characters in Blood Ravens, each of which also carried a Dreadbnought. And he had some DS-ing Assault Marines. Very small and elite-feeling but surprisingly good (unless the skimmers got shot down early).

Speaking of Dreadnoughts, regular SM can also do a dreadnought bash army, if you love them. Using the techmarine HQ you can have three regular dreads and three Ironclads in the same army. Read the battle reports section for 40kEnthusiast's Pain Train army; it looks like a lot of fun.

The Nob Biker army is a classic, but has a fair number of weaknesses.

Most of the SM armies also have the option of playing landraider-heavy, which is another way to have a low model count, if you like the big tanks. This can be tricky to play and a bit rock/paper/scissors, however, as you have a tendency to roll over armies which don't bring enough tools to crack open landraiders, and get pummelled by those which do, unless you really know what you're doing. IMO landraider heavy armies are only worth it in SM, BA, and SW, since those are the only ones with the good Machine Spirit rules, allowing you to drive 12" and still fire a gun, or fire at two different targets while moving 6" or less. Engaging multiple targets at once is a huge force multiplier for a small army. One of my team mates did very well at the Battle for Salvation GT recently with LR-heavy Blood Angels, and I won my Golden Ticket this summer using a 3 LR in 1500pts SW list.

Tyranids can be done with what I call a "Mid-Nid" list based on using the medium size, multi-wound creatures such as Warriors, Zoanthropes, Venomthropes, Raveners and MCs, instead of hordes of Gants and Gargoyles.

I don't think it will be as competitive since the medium size bugs are vulnerable to a number of Instant Death weapons.

you coulde throw in a couple of Tervigons as troops if you need numbers. might alleviate the weakness to ID.

You have to take Gaunt squads to get Tervigons as Troops, though, and a big part of the Tervigons' value is generating more gaunts, which again, gets you away from a low model count.

If they hadn't removed Synapse negating ID, mid-nid would be very solid. It worked pretty well in the previous version of the codex. You might still be able to make a decent go of it with Warriors, Hive Guard/Zoans, and Raveners, backed up by Trygons and possibly Tyrannofexes. If you're fielding a bunch of guys who will get IDs by missiles and lascannons, you want a bunch of monstrous creatures as well to give your opponent hard choices of where to point his big guns.

Do you have a preferred race? As you can see, multiple armies can be run with small, elite lists. If I wanted to switch from horde orks to an elite army, for example, my decision would hinge on whether I wanted to expand my current army for the extra Apocalypse options (by going with something like Nob bikers) or if I wanted to go in an entirely new direction (like picking up GK or SW). If you have a preference, that can help someone with more experience than I guide you towards specific lists.

Id say wait till janurary for the new GK codex, wouldnt want to make the wrong decision.

Blood Angels or Space Wolves are your best bet plus these are both top tiered armies.

BA -> DoA with the Sanguinor
SW -> Loganwing

I've been playing Deathwing since 3rd edition. I do have the Space Wolves codex but I use the DA Codex for them, not SW. I have read it however. For all terminators that is somewhat competitive, I would go with Logan Wing unless you really like the Dark Angels (like I do). If I'm not mistaken you can have 4 HQ slots in terminator armor, Arjak (??), and all terminators for your troops with various loadouts. This would truely be a small elite band of heroes. You might not win every game but you would have a small elite force that is up to 5th edition standards, and it would have a lot of character.

Blood Angels can pull off a low model count elite army that can still do decent. Dante, 2 Assault squads, 3 Sanguinary guard, and a couple priests is a pretty solid army that totals less than 40 models.

As some say, just wait for the update of the GK codex, you might want the updated version of the GK's.