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Well, that's the question. What do you feel is important for your army? That you have made good fluff? That you have painted it well? That it is highly competetive?


IMHO, competetiveness does not matter to an army at all. I played an casual ork army, and i won all the time. I will likely to do the same with my (if possible) even less competetive CSM army. Background is quite important; you do not fight over a piece of scrap. A well painted army is also good. i can imagine to fight against unpainted or lazily painted army, but it is not the same.

What do you think?

I am obviously posting this in both WHFB and 40k sub-forums.

Even barring background and paintjob; I'd just say general looks and the idea behind the troops. I'm not TOO keen on the true background of the Elysians, but I love the "idea" of drop troops, so you bet they're my first army. (I'm obsessed with Halo's ODST's, so that's what my troops are based on.)

And the looks go beyond the paintjob; I know for sure the Sniper SWS for IG isn't exactly a competitive unit. Look at the Elysian Sniper's model though; it's one of the more handsome models I've seen in 40k, so I got them.

Maybe I'm shallow, but for me, it's all about looks, and the idea behind the Army.

For me, an even balance of them all. I'm not the greatest painter, but I take my time and turn out decent table top quality. My armies either use pre-established fluff (Mordians for IG, working on Salamanders), or I'm in the process of creating fluff for an army (DIY chapter). Finally, my lists are cohesive and normally range in the semi-competitive to competitive range.

I like playing armies that look cool on the table. I love running a heavy armor imperial guard list (LRMBT galore!) because I love battletanks. There are far more comparative IG builds, but nothing beats putting four LR down on the field and thrill of rolling that scatter dice so many times a game! I win, I lose, but at the end of the day I can look at my army and just smile

For me personally background is the most important to my armies. Every one of my armies is a fluffy list. I have 3 main forces I use:

Raven Guard (vanilla marines w/ shrike) which is ALL fast attack, literally. Now I had to use a Bike Captain to accomplish this but I take two bike squads as troops (painted as Knights of the Raven) 2 Assault squads, and a 3 model land speeder squad...with lots of meltabombs and meltas to deal with vehicles.

Pre-Heresy Thousand Sons (I used the current GK codex since I figured it made the most fluff sense). Set up to resemble the First Fellowship prior to the fall of Prospero.

and last but not least a Farsight Tau army...not much of a stretch but I enjoy his background.

I mostly enjoy having a painted force with just a touch of background fluff. Having everything matching (bases too!) is important to me and I think that I play better when using painted models, perhaps because I care more (Can't sacrifice that brood; spent too much time painting them!)

I am beginning an Eldar army that will be using only models that I find attractive from a modelling/painting perspective. I couldn't care less about the 'competitiveness' of the units - I want to spend a very long time carefully painting each model and developing a backstory for most of them as well.

This of course means that I will have a weird and possibly bad list, but I'm OK with that. I'm very much looking forward to having a display army, hah!

For me it is an esoteric kind of thing. I have to *like* the army and find it interesting in different ways. I want it to be fun to play, but I also want it to be fun to model and get ready for play. I also need options. I hated the old Necron codex because there were at most 2 options for each unit type. BOR-ING. These days I also like Forge World support because I am buying fewer newer forces and more buying decent center pieces for my armies instead. I also dislike one trick pony armies which is why my massive khorne chaos marine horde has a *single* unit of beserkers in it and is not just full of only CC troops. Khorne likes skulls for the skull throne and blood, but doesn't require them to come from close combat only and playing one dimensional armies like that is pretty dull to me.

This is why I picked other in the poll.

Skriker

To me, it'd probably be the appearance of the models and their paint job. I'm not saying they all have to be works of art, but an army with a clear "theme," good cohesion, and a neat paint job are what matters to me.

In the end, the competitiveness of an army doesn't really matter because I personally believe a good player can win with any army. Also, since chance is an important element in 40k, there is even another element against a competitive list.

I like how you can use highly detailed miniatures to depict a sci-fi battle, and that's what drew 40k to me in the first place. So I'm all about seeing neat paint jobs and cool looking minis.

Fun, is it fun for you. That's all that has mattered to me.

Painting and Fluff give each game/army/unit/character soul and meaning. I love having a background story for my army. I always ask myself before playing, "Why would my guys be fighting those guys at this place?"

Painting is, in my humble opinion, a very important part of the game. Painting makes your army unique, and forces you to invest time and concentration into your models. Painting never needs to be Golden Demon winning, but should indicate a level of care and interest. The skills get better as time goes on, but the level of caring should never waver.