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I'm looking to pick up a new army,

I currently play grey knights, still going to keep collecting them but looking for something else to start for abit of a change.

I'm not really too sure what to get, the guys I game with mainly play dark eldar and orks or imperial guard so dont really want to pick up any of them.

Choices are narrowed down (only by a little bit) to Eldar, Tau, A non-generic SM chapter like BA, SW or Tyranids. I also like the look of necrons but they're due an update very soon so probably wouldnt be good starting them.

How do those armies play currently?

And I've also got a £50 voucher for amazon that'll be going towards a battleforce, if you were going to start one of the above armies would you get there battleforce?

Cheers

Eldar - Can be somewhat good, but they only have one good build. Not very competitive.
Tau - See Eldar
BA - The previous version of Ward cheese (before GK). Knowing you play grey knights, you'd love them. 2 ways to play them: Razor/Pred spam or DoA (jump troop army). Mech is competitive, DoA is not.
SW - Very competitive. Avoid blood claws, swift claws (bikers), skyclaws (jump troops), fenrisian wolf units, and iron preists (techmarines). Every unit in the book is viable in a competitive army other than those. Many ways to theme if you dont want to be competitive.
Tyranids - Epic fail in competitions but can be almost decent in friendly games. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7lFD52BTMCY/TkwBcAOHbSI/AAAAAAAAC5M/wkkTbT2TTLM/s1600/plasticdudesmen024.jpg This pretty much sums it up with nids (ignore the first panel)

IG: You can play them how ever you want, but it is the most expensive army to play.

Go with Eldar. Tyranids suck, and there's no point in having another Space Marine army, really.

If you want to play competitive,Eldar is good,as is orks.If you want to play for crack,then Nids are a good choice.

If you want another forces of Order army then get Eldar or guard. If you want some baddies take your pick of them to include traitor guard.

Jokaero, with Squat Auxiliaries.

...

What?

Try playing a newly updated army.
I like playing tyranids. their sooooo fun to play if you like getting half of them killed in the shooting phase.

Since you have GKs go Eldar or Tau. Tau are the suck right now but Eldar are always strong. Make your third army a SM variant if that's what you want.

Really intreasting opinnions,

Posted this on annother forum, they recommended SW or nids lol. Yet Dakka reccomends Eldar lol

What are the competitive builds for tau, eldar and nids?

Nidzilla for the nids?

Lots of suits for the tau I'd imagine?

Tau competitive build
(plasma rifle and missiles on every battlesuit)
Battlesuit commander with bodyguard
1 or 2 squads of battlesuits
Around 3 6 man fire warrior units in devilfish with disruption pod, multi tracker, and targeting array
2 or more pathfinder units all with markerlights. give the devilfish the same upgrades as the FW fishes.
(heavy support is where people disagree a lot)
2 Hammerheads with same upgrades as the fish
3 Broadsides, 1 w/target lock, leader with target lock
OR
x3 3 Broadsides, 1 w/target lock, leader with target lock


Eldar competitive build
Eldrad
Farseer w/doom, guide, fortune, both runes, spirit stones, and spear
maybe warlock bodyguard: 1w/embolden and spear, 1w/enhance and spear, all others with destructor, give them a wave serpent with scatter lasers if you dont take a falcon
2 or 3 5 man fire dragon squads in wave serpents with scatter lasers and spirit stones
3 5 man dire avenger squads in wave serpents with scatter lasers and TL shuriken catapaults upgraded to shuriken cannons
(again, people disagree on heavy support)
2 prisms with holofields and maybe upgrade to shuriken cannons
Falcon with scatter laser and spirit stones
OR
2 or 3 squads of 3 scatter laser or shuriken cannon warwalkers

Nid competitive build (it kills me to call nids competitive)
Tyrant with lash and bonesword, TL devourers, old adversary, armored shell, 2 or 3 guards with lashwhips
x3 3 Hive Guard
3 or 4 10+ man squads of stealers (infiltrate)
10 termagaunts (objective sitters)
Tervigon (if you have points) with adrenal glands, toxin sacs, and catalyst (i think thats the FNP power)
2 or 3 Trygons (deeptrike unless its table quarter deployment)

Maloghurst wrote:Tau competitive build
(plasma rifle and missiles on every battlesuit)
Battlesuit commander with bodyguard
1 or 2 squads of battlesuits
Around 3 6 man fire warrior units in devilfish with disruption pod, multi tracker, and targeting array
2 or more pathfinder units all with markerlights. give the devilfish the same upgrades as the FW fishes.
(heavy support is where people disagree a lot)
2 Hammerheads with same upgrades as the fish
3 Broadsides, 1 w/target lock, leader with target lock
OR
x3 3 Broadsides, 1 w/target lock, leader with target lock


Eldar competitive build
Eldrad
Farseer w/doom, guide, fortune, both runes, spirit stones, and spear
maybe warlock bodyguard: 1w/embolden and spear, 1w/enhance and spear, all others with destructor, give them a wave serpent with scatter lasers if you dont take a falcon
2 or 3 5 man fire dragon squads in wave serpents with scatter lasers and spirit stones
3 5 man dire avenger squads in wave serpents with scatter lasers and TL shuriken catapaults upgraded to shuriken cannons
(again, people disagree on heavy support)
2 prisms with holofields and maybe upgrade to shuriken cannons
Falcon with scatter laser and spirit stones
OR
2 or 3 squads of 3 scatter laser or shuriken cannon warwalkers

Nid competitive build (it kills me to call nids competitive)
Tyrant with lash and bonesword, TL devourers, old adversary, armored shell, 2 or 3 guards with lashwhips
x3 3 Hive Guard
3 or 4 10+ man squads of stealers (infiltrate)
10 termagaunts (objective sitters)
Tervigon (if you have points) with adrenal glands, toxin sacs, and catalyst (i think thats the FNP power)
2 or 3 Trygons (deeptrike unless its table quarter deployment)

Thanks for the post man

Kinda went off Tyranids now lol Really cant choose which army to get, especially since my friends play some of the other one's I was considering and ruled out since they play them (dark eldar and guard)

People recommend SW for thier broken army builds. If you want to be like every other munckin spammer it's a great army. It's even a great second SM army, MOST of the SM players Ive played with since 3rd have a SW army, because they were fun fluffy and ridiculous. Now they are ridiculous...note the lack of fun.
Nids are an army that can wait till last to build, unless you REALLY want the bug horde.
Tau suffer from being built to DOMINATE 4ed but man of the rules changes hamper them. They can still be a decent army when played with skill.
Eldar manage to continue to be relevant long after thier codex release. Rarely do you hear Eldar players whining for a new codex release, compared to the mewling in BT forums a dex that is what 6 months older?3? I don't remember.
Playing an Eldar army is a delicate balance of firepower and finesse. You can win with any flavor of Space marines with little skill or strategery, if all else fails charge right? With Eldar picking targets, using the right units, and taking advantage of your mobility are paramount. If you want to be able to play and win qt 40k play Eldar. I don't mean that in a WAAC GT meta way, I mean in normal play against regular people. If you are looking to win at GTs...
Summary: Eldar.

Eldar is looking like a good choice, might pick up a battleforce, tho I'm not sure wither or not an eldar one is good value for money

You'll definitely use the wave serpent and dire avengers. Even if you dont use the warwalker, I'd reccomend buying the battleforce because you also get a bunch of guardians to use as paint test models.

Or you can give ME the guardians and I'll put them on bikes.

Rolled a dice in GW, ended up getting a hive tyrant, to go with some warrirors and genestealers i've already got.

Tyranids it is then

gilljoy wrote:Eldar is looking like a good choice, might pick up a battleforce, tho I'm not sure wither or not an eldar one is good value for money

Its one of the better deals out there. Most of the box is useful. I don't use Guardians, but if you go Footdar you will and their bits are somewhat interchangeable with Dires.

You will enjoy Eldar. They can be devastating if you handle them well. They tend to frustrate and intimidate opponents which is a beautiful thing. Don't get frustrated early since they will punish you if you make any tactical mistakes.

Repeat after me, "Fortune and Doom".

Good luck!

I was to slow... Never mind LOL

/dead to me...again

lol Still considering starting eldar.

The warriors and genestealers were a bargin ( £27 for both of them new in box).

Regret buying the hive tyrant now, since I've decided I fancy an eldar army, but I suppose there cool to paint up

As a guy wit a ridiculous amount of plastic crack, I don't regret any of it. Sometimes you just can't pass up a deal, I got a SM megaforce basically minus the TDA heavy weapons for less than 50% off. Still probably haven't clipped most of it off sprues, but I know that someday my CF army will rise up!

I'm glad you are keeping your options open.

If you find that you dont like nids, they make fantastic casualty models on eldar bases. It's best if the nids use the kraken scheme and the eldar have the iyanden scheme.

Yea thats a problem ive got as well lol saying that ive got a voucher for amazon i may use and get some more stuff for the grey knights, more razorbacks or start an eldar army. Tho the battleforce isnt that good.

May not want to play tyranids but the models do look amazing

The battle force is crap. The only thing worthwhile is the wave serpent. You should build army lists and arrive at what you want before buying Eldar. Aspect warriors are pricey, even then eBay is king. If you are going to amazon razorbacks are probably best.

Maloghurst wrote:If you find that you dont like nids, they make fantastic casualty models on eldar bases. It's best if the nids use the kraken scheme and the eldar have the iyanden scheme.

Makes a lot of sense,considering Kraken put the hurt on Iylanden like it was a game.Only reason the Eldar won was because they had Mega-Spear of Death Dealing awesomness vs a Hive Tyrant.

Amazingly prescriptive builds there! I have an Eldar army and a Nid army. What is good about them both is that they are able to build radicaly different forces according to taste/opponent.

Eldar can be competitive against any force as long as they are well-planned and handled. I use a fair amount of guardians because as long as they have warlocks they can make very useful ground holders, especially with scatter laser platforms, which put out 4 shots. I tend to go for volume of fire with the Eldar against hordes, so things like war walkers, which are cheap and put down masses of firepower (3 walkers with 2 scatter lasers each get 24 shots)!

An anti-horde build would include:
guardians
swooping hawks
falcons
war walkers
dire avengers
Scorpions
Possibly support weapons

For harder enemies:
Wraithlord
Autarch
Fire dragons
Dark Reapers
Rangers
Bright Lances
Fire Prisms

Eldar have lots and lots of options and have the potential to be fun to paint and colourful on the table.

Nids are not for the WAAC types. However, they are lovely models - is there a model better than the trygon right now? I have enough to have a swarm type force made up of homragaunts, termagaunts and gargoyles or a more nidzilla type force with hive guard, carnifexes, etc.

I have both so I cannot really say which would be more fun. However, both armies are fun to use as both have interesting facets, nids tend to be hard to handle under synapse and need to close quickly. Eldar have lots of really powerful units but are feeble in CC and need to operate toghether very carefully as a force.

Nids can get a total of 23 MC in a single FOC chart

HQ-The swarmlord,HiveTyrant and Tervigon.Any combo,though I like the Swarmy and Tyrant.-2
Elites-3 Zoanies/Venoms/Malan'tai in Spods-3
Troops-3X:20 Termagants in spods-3
3X tervigons-3
Fast Attack-3X Harpy-3
Heavy Support-3X3 carnifexes-9


2+3+3+3+3+9=23,plus 20 Termagnts,and 9 Zoanies/Venomthropes/Malan'tai


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I actually find that a hybrid list works well against most armies.However,Nids cannot beat IG or DE,unless the player is a moron who thinks that Lelith can beat 3 Carnifexes in an assault,with no backup.

Really appreciate the posts everyone .

All been very helpful lol.

I think i may just keep my options open, paint the nids i have, my lone eldar warlock and keep working with my grey knights for abit.

As for playing against de oe ig as nids, there my friends main forces lol

Really like the look of eldar. What would yous recommend for a good starting force?

Well,the most popular and competitive build is based on a Fortune and Doom Farseer,or Eldrad.I really like the Avatar,but I play fluffy lists.There uis no reason you couldn't do a Farseer/Eldrad and the Avatr,except for money and points.

The easiest way to start playing Eldar is to get two Wave Serpents per box of Dire Avengers. You'll need a at least a token Farseer, of course.
The Wave Serpents can be used out of the box with "pinned" weapons, but if you put the effort to magnetize them it'll work out better with the paint.
Once you decide to go all in with Eldar, after the first box or two of Dire Avengers, it's time to look at larger battles with Fire Dragons (again, saturize your army with Wave Serpents).

The key, really, is to think of the Eldar as CODEX: Wave Serpents. The models inside the Wave Serpents modify what sort of FOC they take up and what sort of payload they drop.

On the other hand, you can go with a footdar, but that's really quite damned hard.