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Hey all, New to dakka dakka and new again to 40k in general but played when I was still at school.

Some of my friends and I are thinking of playing again, I'm looking to try and pick a good army.

Really not sure which army will be good, dont want to buy an army thats very very out of date and I wont enjoy gaming with.

Armys I'm considering are:
Grey Knights,
Space Marines - wither generic or a specific chapter
Tau
Eldar
Tyranids.
Possibly orcs but the above would be my choice

Really Cant decide which to play at all, what would you's say are the best army to start with?

Go with Black Templars. They're awesome.

A. I think even with out of date armies, you will still have fun playing. (It will just give you a very convient excuse to tell yourself why you lost, I do it all the time.)

B. I feel before I can suggest an army to play, you would need to give more information. How much money are you willing to spend? How many models do you want on the table? What is your attitudes towards vehicles? How competitive does your army need to be? Every army has multiple strength, but each army has its own unique talents. If you can give us more information about what you want to do, we can better direct you.

Sky57 wrote:A. I think even with out of date armies, you will still have fun playing. (It will just give you a very convient excuse to tell yourself why you lost, I do it all the time.)

B. I feel before I can suggest an army to play, you would need to give more information. How much money are you willing to spend? How many models do you want on the table? What is your attitudes towards vehicles? How competitive does your army need to be? Every army has multiple strength, but each army has its own unique talents. If you can give us more information about what you want to do, we can better direct you.

Cheers for the help

Money isnt really a problem tbh so thats not gona be an issue in which army.
Model wise I'm not sure wither a small elite army or a horde army will be better.
Vehicles, as long as there useful I'm all for it.
Competitiveness wise I'll be playing probably against Eldar, Imperial Guards or Tyranids.

I want a bit of versatility with an army, not sure wither or not I wana be mele Heave or ranged yet

Much though i absolutely loathe to say it the current competitive armies are almost all from the IOM.

Space Marines do everything well (if not godlike well compared to hyper-specialized units from other armies), have tons of support options and vehicles, have the best saves in the game, some very annoying rules (for the enemy) and dirt cheap transports that are pretty sturdy. The model range is just about totally supported (there are a handful of units that need an update or are missing) and gets the most love from GW, so the codex is always kept current. It doesn't really allow for a true horde army, but you can field impressive numbers of troops at a decent points game, all of whom are better than average at most anything.

You can also paint them any colour you like, and use special characters from other chapters in the book, even when there is absolutely no reason for them to be in your force The other Marine flavours are similar, with different rules here and there, but much the same stats/weapons/stuff.
Marine armies can be very shooty, very assaulty or a mix.

If you wanted something with a bit more challenge to test your generalship you could try a xenos army. They usually have a deep flaw to balance their good stuff, which an enemy can exploit, but they have some awesomeness too, and it wouldn't swell the 70% or so of 40K gamers that play Marines. The local tournament tends to look like an inter-chapter marine training exercise often enough.

Dark Eldar are very fast, very lethal but very fragile. (nice models too, now )

Necrons ... I would wait for the update. The current book is ok, but lacks versatility and takes a lot of work to win with.

Orks are fun, and better by far at assault than shooting. Shooty armies are possible, using volume of fire rather than accuracy. the codex is very versatile, and they are fun to play.

Eldar are an elite army of dinky little units. They have some good vehicles, and a properly built list can be devestating. If someone runs a list that you didn't expect though... Eldar need to use the right tool (unit) for the right job..

Chaos Daemons are fun, if a little odd. I don't know much about them, but they have some good units.

Chaos Space Marines- Much like space marines with less options/awesomeness and with generic daemons on hand. They have some neat stuff, but i'm no expert. Some think the codex is a bit weak.

Nids- Great for horde armies, these days, but not so much for small elite ones. Assault outweighs shooting.

Guard- vehicle spam with artillery pieplates and soldier-blobs. Can trhow obscene amounts of HEAT downrange

Sisters- WD codex in the works- No idea how they play out these days

That's...not really a lot to go on, unfortunately.

Try seeing if your buddies - or "mates" as I believe they're called in the UK - will let you play a couple games with their armies. Failing that, see if the kind folks at your local GW will let you do the same. If you don't know what style of army you want to play, all you really have to go on is what you think's cool. And they're all pretty cool.

Here is the best advice I have ever heard when dealing with thi question.

Read some fluff for each army that you are debating on even if it is a short story and than decide.

Ascalam wrote:Much though i absolutely loathe to say it the current competitive armies are almost all from the IOM.

Space Marines do everything well (if not godlike well compared to hyper-specialized units from other armies), have tons of support options and vehicles, have the best saves in the game, some every annoying rules (for the enemy) and dirt cheap transports that are pretty sturdy. The model range is just about totally supported (there are a handful of units that need an update or are missing) and gets the most love from GW, so the codex is always kept current. It doesn't really allow for a true horde army, but you can field impressive numbers of troops at a decent points game, all of whom are better than average at most anything.

You can also paint them any colour you like, and use special characters from other chapters in the book, even when there is absolutely no reason for them to be in your force The other Marine flavours are similar, with different rules here and there, but much the same stats/weapons/stuff.
Marien armies can be very shooty, very assaulty or a mix.

If you wanted something with a bit more challenge to test your generalship you could try a xenos army. They usually have a deep flaw to balance their good stuff, which an enemy can exploit, but they have some awesomeness too, and it wouldn't swell the 70% or so of 40K gamers that play Marines. The local tournament tends to look like an inter-chapter marine training exercise often enough.

Dark Eldar are considered to be very fast, very lethal but very fragile. (nice models too, now )

Necrons ... I would wait for the update. The current bookis ok, but lacks versatility and takes a lot of work to win with.

Orks are fun, and better by far at assault than shooting. Shooty armies are possible, using volume of fire rather than accuracy. the codex is very versatile, and they are fun to play.

Eldar are an elite army of dinky little units. They have some good vehicles, and a properly built list can be devestating. If someone runs a lits that you didn't expect though.. Eldar need to use the right tool (unit) for the right job..

Chaos Daemons are fun, if a little odd. I don't know much about them, but they have some good units.

Chaos Space Marines- Much like space marines with less options/awesomeness and with generic daemons on hand. They have some neat stuff, but i'm no expert. SOme thing the codex is a bit weak.

Nids- Great for horde armies, these days, but not so much for small elite ones. Assault outweighs shooting.

Guard- vehicle spam with artillery pieplates and soldier-blobs. Can trhow obscene amounts of HEAT downrange

Sisters- WD codex in the works- No idea how they play out these days

Wow thanks for the helpful post

Ok so one of my friends is playing Eldar... so thats off the list, Annother may be playing Tyranids so thats off the list if he is.

Narrowed it down to:
One of the special marine chapters
Tau
Tyranids
Dark Eldar

Its soo hard to pick lol

If Xeno armies are your thing I'd go with DE. Great army if played right and fun to boot! Never had a slow game against a DE player.

Other than that I'd suggest GK, because they are cheap to make an army with and have some awesome options when you want to expand.

Edit: I play Tau and BA, I would advise against Tau until a new codex, which hopefully shouldn't be too far off.

Also look at the models.

Does the look of a particular army really grab you?

I love the look of the Necrons, and i've been playing them for years. If i found them boring to look at I would probably have moved on to something i found visually appealing.

To me the look and feel of the models outweighs the stats and uber-rules they might have. One reason i almost never field my Deciever, i guess...

Well, i would say chaos cause that is my opinion, but obviously its not yours, out of your top choices, i would go with

Grey Knights if i like the hole inquistion feel and a small elite Force.

Space marines if you like being GW poster boyz ( i HATE marines so i cant really comment here, thats why i play Chaos and btw...Death to the false emperor!)

Tau if you like to run away from combat, the only thing i dislike about tau (on top of having a 4th ed codex) is that the only competetive list you can find is basically all Battlesuits. Other wise I love Tau and their fun.

Eldar are my second army, i pretty much dont like their current 4th ed codex but thats all, they are the army with the best background IMHO, you need to be really tactical and its an elite force, elite forces are nice since you can spend more time painting individual guys instead of 20 Boyz at a time.

Tyranids are really fun in the way that your opponet is your prey, but their background SUCKS, ie whenever their about to do something awesome, the smurfs come and ruin it. Instead of vheciles these guys bring MC's

I like orks, but, i have 8000 points unpainted... this army is by far the most fun, most versatile and has really good background. They also have lots of opportunity for conversions.

Now let me try and convince you to play chaos, but i know i never will so lets not bother.

-Hugs for the Hug God

I would skip Tau as a first army, they are in need of an update almost as bad as necrons, they play differently than almost any other army.

Space marines are a great army to start.

You say money isn't a problem, I would go with blood angels. They have great fluff ( yes blood is in the codex.. ALOT, however they are very flavorful) they have a good color scheme play very well, and you have a decent amount of options. ( razor spam, DOA etc.)

If you were to go with a space marine chapter i would say space wolves since they are very different from the others, them or dark angels who have incredible models.

I just had a big hunt at my big box of old models.

Found the following :

A Rhino,
A squad of Terminator Grey Knights
A Squad of standard Grey Knights
Terminator Lord + routine
Dreadnaught.

Squad of tatical Marines
LandSpeeder

Squad of guardsmen + commisar

squad of dark eldar


Somehow I think a grey knights army wouldnt take long to do.... now just to strip the paint and repair some of the grey knights who's weapons have broken

You can make just about any army work for you. I would go based on fluff and looks rather than on an armies competitive nature. Though they do need a codex update, I started off with the Tau because I liked the look of their models, and though I may not have won as many times as I would like too, I won enough to be happy and had a good time because I was playing an army I could agree with and an army that I liked to look at.

if you are thinking a special marine chapter...DARK ANGELS, i love their cloak things, plus i like green(my favorite color). If you want xenos, it sounds like Dark Eldar are the army for you. I have tau and love them, but not a starter army. never been a nid fan even though they do go NOM NOM NOM NOM. If i choose from all armies and not the 4 you have remaining, i'd say go orks


Automatically Appended Next Post:
ima shoota my lazer at u!

Gona try grey knights... mainly because I can get a pretty basic army quite cheap

Go for some flavour of Marines. Forgiving, wide variety of builds, they introduce you to all the main rules (mech, deep strike, reserves...they do everything..) and quite cheap to get hold of. Get the Boxed set. See if the store will take out the orks and replace them with marines (some will, some won't) or swap the orks with an ork player for ther marines..

If you've already got some GK's then you're st, right?? Just get a codex...

Seems like a good idea as you found some old models. You may look up Driago wing since you found a squad of terms. It is not the most competitive, but it is cheap to build due to such a low model count.

jacetms87 wrote:Seems like a good idea as you found some old models. You may look up Driago wing since you found a squad of terms. It is not the most competitive, but it is cheap to build due to such a low model count.

Brilliant

There all currently bathing in a nice bath of Foaming oven cleaner, I've used it before works very well and safe on plastic too.

Is a driago wing the equivilent of a deathwing dark angels army?

Not equivalent to fluff-wise but in game, Draigo makes your Paladins, 2 wound termies, troops and the death wing is an all terminator force.