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Hello everyone,

So I'm looking to start a new army. I currently play an infantry heavy IG army and I have a blast playing them but as having a life I don't have much time to play 40k per week. The main issue's that I'm running into with my guard army is that 1.) the time I need to spend setting up and packing up & 2.) the time I need to invest to finishing a squad of guardsmen.

I'm looking for an army that doesn't take a lot of time to pack and unpack, doesn't require much time in finishing a sqaud, and an army that I could build a reliable 1k list with a low budget.

The main people that I play with fields Blood Angels, Tau, & Tyranids.
The main armies that I play against are Blood Angels, Tau, & Tyranids.



P.S. And yes Ailaros it's another new army but it's not because I'm bored of IG again.

Well I would have said Grey knights, but Im not sure if they'd be considered 'reliable' at 1000 points, considering you can field about 7-10 models for 1000 points with GK.

BA are good but there are way too many people playing them. Redundancy sucks.

I'd say a good option would be Tau. I know their dex is a bit broken, and they desperately need an update, but they still could hold some hope in the near future for an update. Heck even a codex update would make a world of difference with Tau, models are fine cept crisis suits really.

Nids can be cost effective. However, I always find nids a force where you sorta need to have one of everything, like an eldar force. Each unit is good for something and sucks at another, but you have numbers to play with. You could do nidzilla, but once your big bugs get taken down, it could leave you in the crapper pretty fast, so maybe not the most reliable force.

Thanks Gorgarak but the armies that I listed are what I'm playing against, not what I'm look to start. I'll edit my original post to prevent further confusion.

Right now the armies I'm kind of looking at are more MEQ base armies.

I would suggest Marines of any type. They require the fewest models for the points value, so preparation of transporting or setting up is minimal. You could also play with the BA codex if you like how your friends army plays and simply paint it in sucessor colors or your own chapter. Also, bits on ebay to assemble tactical marines are relatively cheap, not to mention that you can find AOBR terminators and dreadnoughts if you want to stay really cheap. Time to assemble and paint is based on your expectations of your army's presentation. I think bascoating a dark color and drybrushing over it with a similar color except a lighter shade is definately acceptable and should take you all of about 1-4 hrs to paint up an entire sqd (again, based on your ability and preference to their appearance). Best of luck with your decision!

The only other thing I want to add is to give some critical thought to the entry's your including in your list. You dont want all of your army decisions to be based off of budget. Otherwise, you might end up with a really ineffective 1k pt list that isnt much fun to play b/c you loose all the time.

AHhhhh fair enough. My bad!

hmmm. if you are looking to do a MEQ like army, maybe try Chaos space marines. They are MEQ, but you still get that twist to them, and they have some pretty good models as well. Their dex is a bit older, but still holding its own I'd say.

If not them, maybe look into just another marine army. Alot of people seem to like Space wolves, and if that's not your thing, maybe consider doing a crimson fists, imperial fists or Dark angels force. Black templar are always a good force too, especially if you like fluff!

Gorgarak wrote:Well I would have said Grey knights, but Im not sure if they'd be considered 'reliable' at 1000 points, considering you can field about 7-10 models for 1000 points with GK.

Now that would be working with a budget

Gorgarak wrote:hmmm. if you are looking to do a MEQ like army, maybe try Chaos space marines. They are MEQ, but you still get that twist to them, and they have some pretty good models as well. Their dex is a bit older, but still holding its own I'd say.

I've thought about CSM but they don't really hold my interest at all

Gorgarak wrote:If not them, maybe look into just another marine army. Alot of people seem to like Space wolves, and if that's not your thing, maybe consider doing a crimson fists, imperial fists or Dark angels force. Black templar are always a good force too, especially if you like fluff!

I have the same feelings for SW as I do for CSM.

Actually the top three armies I'm looking at right now is C:SM (probably the Crimson Fist chapter), Dark Angels (or one of their successor chapters), or Necrons.

Crons would be awesome, but just be aware the Codex is pretty outdated, and if your up for a challenge they could be a good choice for you.

That being said, Cron models are pretty sweet I think, and it may be a good time to play them. Rumor has it that the C'tan may not be in the next edition, so it could be a good chance to have some fun before they get updated!

Necrons:
Nightbringer ($35.00)
Monolith ($62.00)
2 Boxes of Warriors ($70.00)

That's a 1000 point army for around $157.00. That's not bad at all. The army may not be the greatest but it'll win occasionally.

Marines? AOBR is dead cheap for the marines you get! 10 marines, Dread, 5 termies and a captain! For 1k pts you wouldn't need a great deal more (rhinos, command squad or scouts) and you could also sell off the orks to fund the rest.

They're clip kits, so even quicker to make!

Start a force using AOBR only models. That would be cheeeeaap.

Well, marines would be the obvious choice although orks would be a 2nd choice.

You can get plenty of Ork boyz on E-bay that were originally AoBR.

that saves you money to spend on a good HQ and some Nobs.



Or you could dop either a GK or DA terminator army.

both would be low model count(GK could get REALLY low model count)

So this is what I'm looking at list wise for those three armies that I've listed. Now I don't know much about any of their codexes so this is just based on what I've seen/read that's being played for these armies.

Dark Angels - I want to go more a Death/Raven wing based army.
*Bel
*A few units of deathwing terminators
*Several ravenwing bike squads.

C:SM (Crimson Fist) - With this army I would want to build them around their fluff
*Kantor
*Several units of Sternguard in razor backs or drop pods
*2-3 units of scouts

Necrons - I have no clue on what to build my list around
*Necron lord
*2-3 units of warriors
*Monolith

Now how do these armies play and on a scale of 1 to 10 how competitive are these armies/lists?

I would definetly have to agree on AOBR. Its just an amazing deal for all the models you get! If you want to do BA or DT just buy a conversion pack and your off!

TheMuffinMan98 wrote:I would definetly have to agree on AOBR. Its just an amazing deal for all the models you get! If you want to do BA or DT just buy a conversion pack and your off!

The one piece marines on AoBR won't be suitable for the chapter upgrade packs though...

I'd say go for the Dark Angels Doublewing idea. You're sure to have the lowest model count of your choices which will be a bold contrast from your previous army.

A landspeeder and two Ravenwing Battleforces will yield a 1000 point Ravenwing army for relatively little (The landspeeder is used to convert into the Speeder-riding Sammael).

Sorry for not posting sooner, life been busy for me this week.

So I get the AoBR models are the cheapest way to go but that doesn't really help me if I'm deciding between a Death/Ravenwing army, necrons, or fluffy crimson fist army.

I want to know overall how do those armies play and what works and what doesn't work for those armies?

Necrons are probably the least competitive army in the game right now. They have very few viable unit choices. You're pretty much forced to decide do I want to use a Monolith(s) and do I want Destroyers or Wraiths to fill points?

Codex Space Marines are pretty solid. Can have a few different types of lists. I just find them very dull compared to the specialized Space Marine books.

Deathwing is a lot of fun. I inherited about a 1500 point Deathwing army recently and I think they're fun to play, easy to paint but....with the expense of the Terminators directly from GW you might want to buy regular Terminators and convert them. At $15 a piece those Deathwing Terminators get expensive fast.

Necrons are okay. The few unit choices can be a plus for a beginner (not that OP is), it was for me. They're also pretty easy to paint and assemble.

I had all these armies in front of me with tons of loadouts, tons of troop choices, so many builds.. it was a little overwhelming.

Necrons let me decide between just a few choices to learn the game, have fun, and kill some stuff.

ishanmaster wrote:P.S. And yes Ailaros it's another new army but it's not because I'm bored of IG again.

lol.

ishanmaster wrote: The main issue's that I'm running into with my guard army is that 1.) the time I need to spend setting up and packing up & 2.) the time I need to invest to finishing a squad of guardsmen.

So, I just started working on my own second army largely for these reasons. Another thing that contributed was also a time issue - namely, the time it takes to actually play a game (time deploying, time moving, time rolling dice, etc.)

What I wound up doing is going chaos. I have a 1500 point list planned out that is a "horde" that only includes 48 models and will cost less than $150 when I'm done (actually less than that, because I have store credit where I game).

But you're not interested in CSM, so no go. If you're looking for power armor that's not chaos or space wolves, then I'd say either BA, or the new GK. That or a non-typical SM army, like an all-bike army, or an all-drop-pod army.

I'd be interested in seeing that 1500 list Ailaros.

Have you considered adding to your IG army to make it less hordy? More Tanks, Air Cav based maybe. I know these can be expensive but so can starting a new army. Air Cav has always appealed to me can pick up 3 Valks on ebay for $150, it would be a good start to a 1k point army I'm sure you have the men to make 2-3 vet squads and a CCS to stick in a chimera in the back field or another valk or vendetta. Such as:

CCS, -Plasma Pistol, -4 Plasma Guns, -Carapace Armor, -Astropath
170

Veteran Squad, -Plasma Pistol, -3 Meltaguns, -Carapace Armour
140

Veteran Squad, -Plasma Pistol, -3 Meltaguns, -Carapace Armour
140

2xValkyrie, -MRPs
260

Vendetta
130

Penal Legion Squad
80

Penal Legion Squad
80

You could also drop a Penal Legion Squad for a Hydra or both for a LRBT.

Ailaros wrote:
But you're not interested in CSM, so no go. If you're looking for power armor that's not chaos or space wolves, then I'd say either BA, or the new GK. That or a non-typical SM army, like an all-bike army, or an all-drop-pod army.

I want to try to stay away from BA because my friend plays them though it would be cool to see a flesh tearer army as I haven't seen one of those since 3rd ed. when they had that experimental codex by GW. Can anyone give me feedback on how the new GK play/feel, also how are drop pod armies as that sounds extremely fun?

Hargus56 wrote:Have you considered adding to your IG army to make it less hordy? More Tanks, Air Cav based maybe. I know these can be expensive but so can starting a new army. Air Cav has always appealed to me can pick up 3 Valks on ebay for $150, it would be a good start to a 1k point army I'm sure you have the men to make 2-3 vet squads and a CCS to stick in a chimera in the back field or another valk or vendetta.

I have considered it but making a more mechanized army for my guard is going to cost me as much if not more in starting a new army. At my LGS there are 4 other guard players that play mechanized guard already and with fifth edition I'm not a fan of going pure or even armor heavy (did that in 3rd and 4th edition don't need to rinse and repeat). Air Cav has always had an appeal to me but with the amount of stuff out there that can trash AV12 skimmers I feel like I would have a few hard time winning any of my games.

I do already own one Valk that I used when I was playing a pure grenadier army so if anyone has any knowledge on a good 1k air cav list and tactics I might give that a shot but again at 1k it sounds like I'm going to have an uphill battle.

ishanmaster wrote:How are drop pod armies as that sounds extremely fun?

Drop pods are awesome, if an expensive way to flush out an army (unless you scratch-build). The one thing you need to be concerned about is if your opponent sees your pod list and holds his whole army in reserve, then you lose the tactical advantage you gained because half your pods will come in on the first turn, regardless.

There are a few ways you can manage this, though
(1) I believe (and if someone can confirm/reject this that'd be great) that your troops can take pods as a DT, but deploy as normal and just drop empty pods. So you'd abandon half the pods, drop the empty ones 1st turn and then save the others for reserve rolls.
(2) You could try and pod in such a way that you'll be wrecking his guys as they roll in off the long table edge on your T2, but are positioned so that you're not completely out in the cold on his T1.
(3) You can play , who still use the old rules on drop pods.

Edit: Hey, cool, 100 posts...

So after much thought (while playing Civ V ) I decided that I want to play a drop pod heavy army.

I want to know is there any particular chapter/special character that is a must?

Also any tips or tactics would help too!

ishanmaster wrote:So after much thought (while playing Civ V ) I decided that I want to play a drop pod heavy army.

I want to know is there any particular chapter/special character that is a must?

Also any tips or tactics would help too!

Drop podding Sternguard with Pedro for fluffy Crimson Fists!