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Looking into starting a 40k army, but I'm not sure which army to go with. Horde doesn't really appeal to me, but I haven't played a lot so I'm not certain on that front. I'd like to have a fair amount of vehicles in available because painting them seems like it'd be easier and some of their models look awesome. Also which armies are likely to update soon? I'd rather not buy and assemble just to have new rules and model come out right after.

Dark Eldar maybe? Nice vehicles, which they seem to use a lot of, and they definitely are not horde. The models are sex on round bases. Also, being brand new you should be able to settle into the codex for a goodly while.

Space Marines can get a lot of vehicles, and are well supported. They probably will be updated soon after the next edition, but that won't be before 2012 at the earliest.

Space wolves Razorback spam is always fun .

Likely armies that will get a new edition within the next year are Black Templars, Sisters of Battle, Tau and Necrons, with Necrons hinted at being in the next few months, and Sisters of Battle receiving an updated stop-gap White Dwarf Codex soon.

If you want a non-horde army with lots of vehicles, then most Marines armies, Imperial Guard, Eldar or Dark Eldar are fairly good choices. They aren't Horde armies and all have a variety of transports.

Orks are the most fun and suit themselfs for kit-bashing. Has some nnice random fingz happenin' too.

And they're a Horde army for the most part. Horde armies don't appeal to the OP.

Oops. Sorry! Missed that. Now, lets make him collect ORKS

iproxtaco wrote:Likely armies that will get a new edition within the next year are Black Templars, Sisters of Battle, Tau and Necrons, with Necrons hinted at being in the next few months, and Sisters of Battle receiving an updated stop-gap White Dwarf Codex soon.

If you want a non-horde army with lots of vehicles, then most Marines armies, Imperial Guard, Eldar or Dark Eldar are fairly good choices. They aren't Horde armies and all have a variety of transports.

Generally speaking IG is a horde army. Granted they can take small troop choices, but their minimum troop choices still require painting a lot of figures.

To the OP: Vehicles are not necessarily easier to paint. They require a lot of time and a lot of paint. While an entire squad of units can take a long time, a single unit could only take an hour or two (prime, base coat, color coat, wash, details). Unless you are using an airbrush, a single tank is a multiple hour endeavor.

I would also agree that dark eldar would fit your criteria. They use plenty of vehicles, and their infantry units tend to be small in number. Their strengths include being extremely fast, unit buffing, and hitting hard. Their weaknesses include being physically weak (as in easy to kill). That may seem like they have more strengths then weaknesses, but that weakness is a big one.

Close runners up include space marines of any color or Tau. Eldar could work too, but they are generally difficult for a beginner to pick up.

PraetorDave wrote:Eldar could work too, but they are generally difficult for a beginner to pick up.

I assumed the DE and Eldar would be fairly similar? What makes the DE easier to pick up?

iproxtaco wrote:Likely armies that will get a new edition within the next year are Black Templars, Sisters of Battle, Tau and Necrons, with Necrons hinted at being in the next few months, and Sisters of Battle receiving an updated stop-gap White Dwarf Codex soon.

If you want a non-horde army with lots of vehicles, then most Marines armies, Imperial Guard, Eldar or Dark Eldar are fairly good choices. They aren't Horde armies and all have a variety of transports.

Yeah I liked the visual style of the Necrons and Tau, but saw on the forum they were likely to get updated soon. Which is a good thing but I'm impatient.

ErrantConstruct wrote:

PraetorDave wrote:Eldar could work too, but they are generally difficult for a beginner to pick up.

I assumed the DE and Eldar would be fairly similar? What makes the DE easier to pick up?

Eldar have an older codex.

Vehicles take time...if you want them to look good. I have been building and painting a valkyrie for a good 4-5 hours and I am still 3-4 hours from being done. Guard does have a lot of vehicles but like most people are saying they do require a lot of troops. I'd say grey knights as their paint scheme is very straight forward and they have a lot of vehicle options as well. Including a fair amount of walkers which you may enjoy. They also have Stormravens. They are very updated as well.

If you're still in the learning process I'd say SM just for sheer ease of getting used to game using them. If you're looking for an army that would be fun to paint I'd go with either one of the Eldars. I personally play Tau mainly and thoroughly enjoyed painting them, however i'm not 100% sure I'd suggest them as a first army since you won't really see the whole fun side of the assault phase.

Dark Eldar, Not horde, good vehicles and their models are cool looking

Pick your army based off of appearance alone. If your choice is based off of other opinions (i.e. What you read here), a rule set, or etc then your collecting experience is being hindered right off the bat.

-J.

Alazahr wrote:Pick your army based off of appearance alone. If your choice is based off of other opinions (i.e. What you read here), a rule set, or etc then your collecting experience is being hindered right off the bat.

I'm going to +1 this.

For me:

I picked Space Marines because people said it would be easier to get in the rules. Fact is I'm stuck with an army that i like, but not as much as others (tau,eldar,ork). Plus everyone has a SM army it seems, so if you show up to play at a store no one get excited.

In that case I'll probably go Dark Eldar then and get some Tau or Necrons after they get refreshed. Thanks for your input everyone.