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So, I've been playing various Space Marine armies, BA, Vanilla, GK, and am looking to switch to something xenos. I read through the DE codex, and although the army looks like it could be seriously competitive, I can't stand their fluff. I couldn't be happy trying to win with a sadistic maniacal evil culture.
That being said, both fluff and competitiveness is important to me. What else might be a good choice? I've leaned towards orks, but am not really sure there. Should I wait for a new xenos codex to come out? I think necrons is rumored to be coming soon. Perhaps wait for a new Eldar codex?
Just fishing for some opinions. Thanks guys.

Necrons are indeed coming out soon.
Ever tried guard? They aren't MEQs...

Yeah, I've given guard a good look. But like I said, something xenos is what I'm really leaning towards.

Well Eldar are a while away so go figure...
Orks are fun.
Necrons are out soon but they may be too similar to MeQ for your liking...
Tau are fun but possibly a touch out-dated...

I have doubts you'd enjoy Necron if you're growing tired of Marines to be honest. Unless of course their rules are massively changed (which they're rumored to be).

As for DE, you could approach them as overly egotistical space vampires as this is the same general idea behind their culture. You could interpret them as space drow without magic/lolth as this is pretty much a direct port of how they are in the novels (homeland would be a good book to read).

I'd personally suggest you try Eldar or Dark Eldar though. They seem to be the primary armies that are the complete opposite of Marines. What I mean by this is you can mirror the way Tau play with a marine gun line for example.

Orks are fun, they also are pretty much opposite marines.


6+ armor vs 3+

they are Str3 and I2 instead of 4 and 4.


large numbers and FC compensate for the differences.



Orks are fun and quite competitive too.

Good point about the Necrons. Orks are still a pretty big contender. It'll probably come down between them and Eldar. I like the idea of having a massive hoard of orks, but also the idea of Eldar tanks zipping around every where. :/

If you don't like DE, wait for the new Necrons. I've no doubt they'll be powerful. Of course, they are also evil ...

You could also play Guard. They are more or less good guys and don't wear power armor.

Orks are ok, but they don't have much in the way of ranged anti-tank.

From what I've seen, orks and tau are both competetive. Ork especially function very differently from marines. In my personal opinion, they are also very fun.

This was my dilemma, i have a large marine army, my brother plays as my tau army, and i tried guard and they are alright, but i wanted something alien and not eldar, so it was basically orks vs necron, and i prefer saves to numbers, plus the gauss rule is cool. Needless to say, i have a 1000 pt necron army and the couple battles ive played with em, they were awesome, well be back is sweet as well

I'm not sure about Tau being competitive honestly.

They aren't.

ive won with em, but i find if you make one mistake, you should just charge them to get the game over with quicker because your just wasting time past that first mistake, whereas my marines, when i accidentaly do something stupid, it is more easy to recover

Omegus wrote:They aren't.

They can be with the right list and good tactics... though it is hard to manage so go figure.

Phiasco II wrote: I couldn't be happy trying to win with a sadistic maniacal evil culture.

Sounds like you'd have a fun time using Tau then. Only problem with them is their lack-there-of of what definitely makes a Tau list competitive as people tend to bend towards using "not-a-crisis-suit" unit A over B, or B over A, and whether or not a line of Over-glorified chicken people should be standing in front of them. If you ever do plan on playing them after they get updated in 2012, I'd recommend stocking up on some units now before they raise their prices and reduce the amount of soldiers per box.

Phiasco II wrote:I've leaned towards orks, but am not really sure there.

Don't be too afraid of using Orkz. They are competitive to quite a good extent, and have quite some moldable fluff (Meaning that warband X can being doing Y for just about any reason and can be easily accepted)

I think he would like Eldar but boy do they need an update. 110 points for a transport my ass.

If you do Craftworld Eldar, wait for all of the kinks to get worked out of the finecast otherwise you will be short on the aspect warriors, which I am sure you will want to use.

Noisy_Marine wrote:I think he would like Eldar but boy do they need an update. 110 points for a transport my ass.

thats why i like rhino's, can have a 10 man transport for 35 pt

dajobe wrote:

Noisy_Marine wrote:I think he would like Eldar but boy do they need an update. 110 points for a transport my ass.

thats why i like rhino's, can have a 10 man transport for 35 pt

The issue is here we are trying to avoid armies of the Space Marine variety, or other Marine Equivalent armies (MEQ).

Noisy_Marine wrote:I think he would like Eldar but boy do they need an update. 110 points for a transport my ass.

one word, Holofields

Phiasco II wrote:Good point about the Necrons. Orks are still a pretty big contender. It'll probably come down between them and Eldar. I like the idea of having a massive hoard of orks, but also the idea of Eldar tanks zipping around every where. :/

Why not have a horde of orks zipping around everywhere? Speed Freeks could be just up your alley. they're less fiddly than the Eldar, and are just as fun in my experience.

I will be honest and say that I was considering Craftworld Eldar, until the whoel finecast thing came, now I am going to be making an army that uses cardboard boxes with flickerfields.

btemple0 wrote:I will be honest and say that I was considering Craftworld Eldar, until the whoel finecast thing came, now I am going to be making an army that uses cardboard boxes with flickerfields.

You realise that Eldar tanks aren't Finecast right?

Yes, but the Harlequins and aspect warriors are, I like me some harlequins and and banshees.

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:

Why not have a horde of orks zipping around everywhere? Speed Freeks could be just up your alley. they're less fiddly than the Eldar, and are just as fun in my experience.

Yeah, the ork vehikles don't do it for me like the Eldar vehicles do. If I go orks it would definitely be footslogging


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I had ruled out tau, but since I started this thread they've been brought back to the forefront. They do have a certain appeal, but lack enough competitiveness, I think.

Not sure about footslogging those Orks, they tend to be very CC oriented.

As for a xenos that is generally seen as competitive, Dark Eldar is really the only option.

I love my Tau, and do well with them, but most players struggle with the army. Eldar have just slowly faded to a lower-ish tier army. Necrons are... well they're getting a much needed update soon, I guess. Nids and Orks have their struggles but both can do ok.

Without choosing Dark Eldar there isn't much Xenos available when it comes to new models and being competitive. Thank goodness there are so many Marine codexes though...

A lot of the armies are competetive, the problem is most of them aren't versatile. Eldar, Tau, Necrons, Chaos; they all have pretty much 1 list with very little wiggle room for options. DE really are the only xenos range out there right now that can safely say they have a diverse range of options in their codex.

See, this is the problem. I could go in circles all day considering the pros and cons of each xenos faction. I'll probably end up going with whatever codex comes out next, hopefully it will be fairly competitive as well. Also, I'll probably have to wait until after the necrons get their new one. *sigh* It's gonna be such a long wait.

Other than Guardians, I don't really see what's wrong with the current Eldar 'dex?