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So I'm planning to get into 40k, love the universe and I think I'll like the game (I used to play AT-43 which appears to be fairly similar but contained a smaller ruleset).

But one of my big concerns and one of the biggest reasons I have not jumped into 40K before now is that I don't believe I will be a very strong modeler and I know my painting will not be the greatest.

So as I try and figure out which army I will get into, my questions for the group center around these issues. I know enough about the fluff to have armies I like from that, the same goes for appearance, and I have armies I think will fit my playstyle.

So my main goal is to see which armies in my head will also fit my talents or lack there of. I'd rather pick my second favorite fluff choice if that will be the easiest to model then my favorite if it is the hardest.

So for you folks I ask:

1. Which armies do you find easiest to model? Yes I know all armies will have some difficult models but if a common unit is tough, I may want to stay away from that. Fewer pieces would be easier for me too. Which armies have the most complex models?


2. Which armies have lots of metal models? (GW models only) I've heard metal models are harder to build than plastics and I know I'm not ready for that challenge yet. I expect most armies have at least a few metals but I'd like to avoid them as much as possible.

3. Which armies are the easiest to paint? 1. Necrons. 2. ? 3. ? Which armies are the hardest to paint?


I'll wait a little bit to hear answers and then post which three armies I'm thinking of. I want to wait a bit in case there's an army out there that meets the top 3 that I'm not thinking of.

Thanks in advance,

T2R

easiest armies painting wise in my opinion go like this:
1. Space marines
2. tyranids
3. guard

i haven't put necrons on there because they are really hard to get to look good. as most people just throw some boltgun on there and maybe a badab black wash and it looks crap.

hardest? probably eldar

lots of metals in sisters and orks

easy to model would be marines, guard or nids (though nids can be an absolut mother to transport)

All depends on how much you have painted in the past. if you know some tricks to the trade per-say. Necrons are easy if you use flow-aid. I like Orcs for you can pull off some crazy stuff that normally would not go along with the other armies in 40K. if you want chessie easy and have no background in painting of figs then I say Space marines for you can spray paint them the base color and then just do little bits here and there and your done.

1. Space Marines
2. Tyranids
3. Space Marines

1. Space Marines
2. A different kind of Space Marines
3. Another different kind of Space Marine

Csm with a nurgle theme. Bad paint jobs and terrible modeling are okay with nurgle.

Space Marines. Definitely the easiest to paint, especially with the foundation paints and washes. The hardest part will probably be the eyes, but as long as you're using a very small brush, you'll be alright, OP.

Orks are pretty easy to paint, but have a few metal models.
Nid's have a metric ton of metal models, but massive metal chunks arn't very hard to put together, just a pain to paint.
Your best bet is space marines, namely vanilla marines.

Maybe start with a black-armoured Space Marine chapter like the Black Templars. Marines are pretty good fighters so you will tend to have a smaller number of models then say a 'nid or ork army. They also have their own plastic upgrade box for modifying standard marines.

Following undercoating the models with a black primer spray all you will need to do is the metal bits and the white decoration.

The GW website is a great resource for this - http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?categoryId=cat1400013&aId=2100048 - for example.

Later when you get more confident you can add high-lights to the black and do faces etc.

Good luck!

Space marines are easy to model and paint as it's fairly straightforward what patterns are used.

My second would be necrons though, I think they are a fairly easy race to paint, and there are a lot of options on how to paint them. Modelling them can be tricky at times, with how you position the arms.

Dude, I love modelling but hate painting. Modelling is easy once you do it for a bit, so is painting... but it's more time consuming.

Pci ka low model count army- but mostly , pick one you'll enjoy playing, man! if you paint it and dont play it, what's the point?
I would suggest:

SM
CSM
SW
GK
BA

But, look around and find an army you like the story and play style of first!

I run a black themed Angry marines army (sorta a mix of the ones above, fan made) AND I LOVE IT!

Yeah, I think Necrons are definitely one of the easiest races to paint. If you don't know how to make them look good, then you don't know some of the simplest and easiest techniques of painting. There is very little detail painting, and with some washes and drybrushing over the whole model you can make them look pretty good without much effort. Go ahead and P.M. me if you don't believe me, I can put some pictures up of my Necrons.

Nurgle daemons are the easiest. I painted 5000 points in a week and won best painted with them the next. Greens and browns with a wash...

And as far as choosing an army based on your modelling abilities, my advice is to pick the army you want to do regardless of how tough it appears. With a little practice and perseverance, you'll soon be pretty happy with your painting. Just talk to other more experienced painters about tips and the like, experiment, and you'll be fine. If you paint up a whole squad or so and are really unhappy with how it turns out, you can always strip the paint off and try it again.

SpitfireArsonist wrote:Csm with a nurgle theme. Bad paint jobs and terrible modeling are okay with nurgle.

Hey! What's that supposed to mea.... oh... yeah. Ok, you're right.

Skalk Bloodaxe wrote:

SpitfireArsonist wrote:Csm with a nurgle theme. Bad paint jobs and terrible modeling are okay with nurgle.

Hey! What's that supposed to mea.... oh... yeah. Ok, you're right.

Well..I don't know that I totally agree with this,IMO it takes some skill to make Nurgle themed armies look properly decayed and not just like a five year old slapped paint and washes all over the minis..

As for my vote for easiest army to paint...Space Marines..

EDIT: Good to see your back Skalk,I'll have to go check out what you've been up to in your blog...

your puttin the hobby up on a pedastal. Unless you dont have any fingers you can create any GW model with ease, and you can paint basic layers as well its really not that hard.

Tyranids are relatively easy to paint because you can use washes very effectively for very realalistic details.

Eldar and Dark Eldar are hard in my opinion to paint because the models are smaller and have alot of detail.

Space Marines/Chaos are easy because they are large square models with large surfaces.

IG are meh.

Demons are hard because you need realistic effects.

Tau are same as Space marines.

SOB are fine.

Orcs require you to paint a bizillion models.

I just want to say again, yo umay underestimate your skills. Try to find an army you love, and go for a small force at first. If you dont like it, sell it and start anew.

Smitty0305 wrote:your puttin the hobby up on a pedastal. Unless you dont have any fingers you can create any GW model with ease, and you can paint basic layers as well its really not that hard.

Tyranids are relatively easy to paint because you can use washes very effectively for very realalistic details.

Eldar and Dark Eldar are hard in my opinion to paint because the models are smaller and have alot of detail.

Space Marines/Chaos are easy because they are large square models with large surfaces.

IG are meh.

Demons are hard because you need realistic effects.

Tau are same as Space marines.

SOB are fine.

Orcs require you to paint a bizillion models.

+1 to this, sums it up nicely.

SpitfireArsonist wrote:Csm with a nurgle theme. Bad paint jobs and terrible modeling are okay with nurgle.

LOL i agree with this one.

Hardest: Orks or Eldar
Easiest: Necrons or Space Marines

If you just HATE metal models, go with Space Marines or Orks, and grab some Assault on Black Reach models. Orks especially are fairly easy to convert to any special characters or units you want, and a lot of their basic troop choices and 'required' Elite and Heavy Support choices are either plastic, or really, really easy metal.

My advice for painting is one of the more 'regular' races, Orks, Space Marines, Tau, 'crons, maybe 'nids if you feel up to washes and drybrushing, mostly because these races don't require much if any skill to get looking good, even if not perfect. IG I think, because it's Humans, is too difficult to get looking right, Eldar are too tiny and fancy and fragile, and demons, if you don't want them to look shoddily done, require advanced techniques; but Marines, Orks, Tau, Crons and Nids are all in- or ab-human, look good with bright, contrasting colorsand you can get away with basecoat-skin-armour-details on them, with maybe a wash if you want to.

Thank you for the responses everyone. This site amazes me with how quick folks jump on and help you out.

Thanks again.

Well, the good news is I think I'm still going to be able to go with my fluff choices.

When I first posed the question my top 3 were:
1A. Nids
1B. Crons
2. Tau

I expected to see the crons appear many times from posters commenting on how easy they were to paint and model but I was very pleased to see the nids appear so many times as well.

Love the Nids as I've always been a fan of biological creatures that could stand up to technology. (Yes, I was a zerg player as well).

Like the Necrons for their lower model count, easier paint scheme and the monolith is pretty cool.

Like the look of the Tau but the "we suck in close combat" probably does them in . I've never been very good at playing a long-distance shooting army. I'm a pretty poor general and need to be able to suffer some casualties.

I think I'll buy the rulebook and read it through a couple times while I wait for the Crons' new codex. If there's not anything overwhelmingly cool in there, or, if worse yet, they make them another mech army, then it's the Nids for sure.

Thanks for your help everyone. It is really appreciated.

Great! glad you decided. I wanted to start with nids, too, but got drawn to SW...

It's hard to judge what's going to be easiest for you without knowing what level of quality you want your army to have and what painting/modeling techniques you can and cannot do easily, that is to say, one man's cake and another man's mountain.

One of the easiest ways to paint a figure (besides dipping, and I won't go there.) is to drybrush, but drybrushing only looks very effective in my opinion on metallic schemes. Drybrushed skin tones, biological parts and armor highlights can look pretty bad, but on machinery, with a little practice, it can rival pro level work.

That said, go with your hunch on Necrons. Basecoat black, drybrush boltgun metal mixed with black, then easy highlights of pure boltgun and silver on edges. You can even apply thin washes of inks over some areas to change the tone of the metal in spots afterwards. Actually quite a fun way to paint, low pressure. :p

Time 2 Roll wrote:
I'm a pretty poor general and need to be able to suffer some casualties.

Necrons can sure as hell take a beating. Very, very resilient.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just not more than 75% casualties

Until next edition.

Meh... I hope they keep that. Just too see the looks on my opponents' faces.

As a Tyranid player myself I don't want to pu you off them but it's fair to let you know the drawbacks.

Several models are not available
Mycetic Spore Pod
Tervigon
Tyrannofex
A couple of others.

If you want to use these you have to convert something.

There are a lot of metal models especially some of the medium sized creatures like Zoanthropes and Hive Guard. It's possible that GW are planning to replace these with resin or plastic but we don't know for sure.

If you play a horde army you need a lot of the small creatures like Termagants.

On the plus side, Tyranids can easily be painted with spray paints and magic dip and come up with a good tabletop result quikcly.