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Hi,

I was wondering if you could recommend a good army for beginners... preferably not space marines

So aside from Space Marines and their variants such as as Chaos, Wolves, Grey Knights, etc? I'd say Orks. you can get them wicked cheap through Black Reach, mobs of boyz are dangerous and forgiving, and they teach you just how cheap life is in 40k. It's hard to screw up compositionally as well, as long as you just avoid Flash Gitz.

Orks.
Lots of different build types to learn your play style.
awesome fluff, Good special chars.
If no space marines is ya flavor than go green for your first.

Thanks I was considering chaos daemons, dark eldar or tau... but I will definitely look into Orks now

Daemons seemed a bit ambitious

Tau codex is very outdated and Dark Eldar, while highly competitive, tends to be very punitive if you make a mistake.

Big question, though, is "will you be doing painting or playing the most?"

Both I work at a games company and everyone plays Space Marines... so that's my main reason for wanting something a bit different. I really want to get into the painting aswell and the Chaos Daemons was my 1st choice for pure aesthetic reasons.

Dark Eldar also look amazing but seem a bit more forgiving for noobs, from what I have read.

All the other armies you chose aren't very good for starters, even if Dark Eldar can be incredible in the hands of an experienced player. Do you think you'd enjoy painting Orks? That's an important factor.

You asked the question: best army for beginners, then eliminated all the best armies for beginners and subsequently named the worst ones...
Orks are probably the easiest non MeQ army to start both monetarily and gameplay. The BEST army to learn with is vanilla SM, middle of the road to just plain good stats, good armor saves and flexible employment. Sooner or later you should grow out of them, and if you buy AoBR you have a headstart on both.

Probably not.. that's what put me off the Orks to begin with.

However, I probably should pick something I will have fun playing rather than the one I like the look of most.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
AustonT - yeh I know SM would be the best choice for me right now; the main reason I was asking for alternatives is because everyone I play with has SM armies and it becomes a little boring after a while so I was hoping to add something different to the mix

3 easiest to use imo in descentding order of easiest

1)space marines
2)imperial guard
3)orks

note there are more complex buil;ds for all of these armies but you can build armies with those codexes that range from so simple a 5 year old could play to needlessly complicated lists for fun

Easy to learn and play and interesting rarely go hand in hand.
Nids can be interesting to play if you accept that you probably won't win a lot. And I don't mean nidzilla, I mean the gaunt/genestealer horde. Plus you can just spray them with a color spray, wash and pick out details to three colors.

IG can be good if you know what you want to do with it going into playing. If you try to field everything at once it'll get a bit confusing but that usually doesn't turn out so well since most of the vehicles (which is where the IG shines) are very specialized. It can be a bit expensive if you field a massive (unit-wise) army, but if you upgrade well then the numbers won't be so much of an issue. As far as fighting goes, they are extremely straightforward. Only one general special rule being the orders system (my 'nid friend whips out a new special rule every 29.6 seconds). The main tactic is to pound the enemy to bits. Almost no warp powers to worry about, and nearly all of the main vehicles function similarly. It's only as complex as you make it.

Imperial Guard can be a decent beginners army, though as Yipyioh said, their tanks tend to be specialized towards countering specific units. As far as an army goes, however, they can be very forgiving, since the sheer mass of bodies on the field (regardless of how you run them, treadhead or horde) will generally counter out any stupid mistakes you make (within reason, of course ). I've played against Guard a number of times, and no matter how well I do in the end, it's always an uphill struggle to take down their sheer numbers by the end of the game, especially playing as an assault army against one that doesn't really need to get out of its deployment zone for non-objective games.

AustonT wrote:Easy to learn and play and interesting rarely go hand in hand.
Nids can be interesting to play if you accept that you probably won't win a lot. And I don't mean nidzilla, I mean the gaunt/genestealer horde. Plus you can just spray them with a color spray, wash and pick out details to three colors.

This is the only thing that makes Tyranids good for a beginner. Smaller units are taken in large numbers, so spraying them a colour, hitting them with a wash and a drybrush, then doing the armour, is a good way to get them done quickly. However, there's enough in the schemes to pay attention on the larger models and actually pick out details and do better highlighting and shading. You can basically teach yourself painting techniques on smaller models to use on larger models.

IG is the one you can sink into for min max and they are great at everything.

Blood Ravens are imo the best SM chapter!

or

Orks are where you can go insane because they are crazy! You can make orks weps out of old legs and weird stuff. you can also suck as a painter and it's ok cuz it's "orky".

I made a Deffdred out of a vacuum cleaner hose, The bits from a metal CSM i chopped up, and a McDonalds toy.

or


Also i don't know your pref but my brother loves Necrons. They are evil incarnate. They are a bitch to kill. You hardly need to think to use them. They are easy to paint. They have really op HQ and it's cheap(generally cheaper than others) to make sizable army with them. They are being retooled relatively soon though i hear.

If everyone plays SM, you might be able to find a number of people to split AOBR sets with you, which would really cut down your costs and net you plenty of core ork models, and loads of bits (the extra copters can be turned into bikes, or sold for extra monies, etc).

I'd really consider getting even the AOBR SM to get a grasp of the rules as SM are designed as a beginners army.

All the other armies you mentioned are what I'd call experienced players armies.

Just pick an interesting army, you wont be a beginner forever.

Your first army should'nt be picked because it's easy to play, it should be picked because you like it.

I also find that if you begin with a more complex army it will make you a better gamer as you will learn from your mistakes more often.

XevB3K wrote:Thanks I was considering chaos daemons, dark eldar or tau... but I will definitely look into Orks now

Daemons seemed a bit ambitious

Tau- wait for new edition
dark eldar- wait till you know the game better
deamons- wait till you know the game better

Apart from space marines, orks or nids are a good option (they exist on the opposite end of the spectrum as space marines, numerous instead of few) but are still forgiving

The rule is 'if its in the boxset, its good for biginners'

Blah, all this "not a beginner army" or "wait till you are more experienced" talk is a bunch of hogwash.

You need to pick your first army because you are genuinely interested in them. You will be spending alot of time and money so don't pick on ease of play. If you pick an army based on how much you like the playstyle and aesthetic you will be happier in the long run.

You can start dark elder, elder, or chaos demons- so called expert armies just fine. As others have pointed out, you will take your lumps, but you will develop into a better player because when you are severely punished for mistakes you learn to stop making them. A lesson easily missed for 3+ players.

Go with what grabs you most. Its the best way to start an army that you love.

Just pick the army you like the models off the most and go for them as your going to spend more time painting and modelling and writing lists to begin with go with that.

And then just learn to play the game against your buddies (if they play) don't worry about "hard armies" just don't go all out just yet.

When i say all out i mean avoid nids unless you love the models as they're a pretty full out assault army same with guard being pretty much full shoot gives you chance to maybe run a couple of variety of list get you learning all aspects of the game.

akaean wrote:Blah, all this "not a beginner army" or "wait till you are more experienced" talk is a bunch of hogwash.

You need to pick your first army because you are genuinely interested in them. You will be spending alot of time and money so don't pick on ease of play. If you pick an army based on how much you like the playstyle and aesthetic you will be happier in the long run.

You can start dark elder, elder, or chaos demons- so called expert armies just fine. As others have pointed out, you will take your lumps, but you will develop into a better player because when you are severely punished for mistakes you learn to stop making them. A lesson easily missed for 3+ players.

Go with what grabs you most. Its the best way to start an army that you love.

This. I am planning on playing DE because I am genuinely interested in them.

Take a look at Draigowing. It's usually got <20 models but can be surprisingly survivable and put out a lot of hurt. And did I mention there are <20 models? You can really go to town painting a small count army, making it shine for those paint scores.

The downside is you have to wrap your head around the many rules, and try to pit your army against smaller bits of the enemy at a time.

Orks. Necrons.

Well bear in mind that multi use armies are good to learn with as well. Imperial Guard/Traitor Guard or Eldar can with the right reasons can fight any other faction.