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With my Iron Hands turning into a commission and my loss of interest in GK, I'm on the lookout for a new army.

I'm looking for a non MEQ/TEQ army that is shooty.

Not looking to Necrons or Guard.

Any thoughts?

I think if you make the right list, nids can be shooty.

Orks. Not trolling, but a guy at my FLGS has a sweet shooty ork army.

I vote Tyranids or Orks. You may not have ap2 or pie plates all over the place but you will have BUCKETS of dice.

Orks tempt me as they have the best model range, but with the IH commission I have, I'm limited on time to paint Orks.

Nids just do not appeal to me at all. I'm not a massive fan of the models and their ruleset is dire.

That basically leaves Eldar, Tau, Chaos Daemons, and maybe Sisters of Battle, depending on whether or not you factor Strength and Toughness into your definition of MEQ.

Tau are probably the shootiest of those. If you don't like Tau, then Eldar are next. Then probably Sisters (though an all-metal infantry range isn't for everyone).

I'm not sure at all how shooty Chaos Daemons can be, so I don't know where they fit in.

Dark Eldar are starting to appeal to me, but how shooty are they?

Tau have always appealed to me, but I'll wait until the new dex, hopefully next year.

Sisters are too expensive to even think about and Daemons... Are they shooty? I'm assuming Tzeentch lists, but still not with the huge amount of GK players around.

Go Orks, they are really funny and have allot of very interesting units.

Orks are definitely not on my list I'm afraid. Just too many models.

Tau or eldar.

The Tau welcome you to join the Greater Good

Even without the new Codex we have become significantly more fun to play, and some of our aggravating niches are mostly gone (for example, 1 single unit reaching your Fire Warriors and getting the whole squad Sweeping Advanced... Now we get to shot at them before they still successfully do that!)

Might go with a Hybrid Dark Eldar army.

Wychvenom Spam.

Wyches wipeout vehicles, Venoms wipeout their contents.
Blasterborn and Flyer back up.

It's seems to be heavy AI with AT elements.

Is there anything I should look out for?

Don't forget the SoB.

Orks are sooooo much koola than those squishy eldars, that and venom spam is very sull and Orks care probs going to get a codex in 6th (I guess) so will give you something to look forward to. WAAAAAAAAAGH!

Dark Eldar play almost exclusively as a shooting army these days.

They're a hard army to get the hang of, but still good despite this edition pulling a few of our teeth. Wyches are arguably the best anti-tank unit in the game, albeit pay for that ability by being pretty lame in every other respect.

A 5th edition venomspam list and a 6th edition one won't look too different from one another. Plenty of those to find on the internet to give you a frame to work with. I'm personally trying to recreate the hybrid shooting and assault build I had in 5th by swapping a few units around. Beast packs instead of Wych blocks, reavers instead of blasterborn, wych bombs instead of warriors who sat in their venom and picked their noses... So on and so forth.

That being said, I personally loathe blasterborn. I can see the appeal, but they're pretty dull to model and blasters suck. Especially in this edition, where it's far easier to get assaulted even if you dance at their maximum range. They'll probably only strip 1-2 hull points a turn, and have a fairly low chance of exploding a vehicle in one go. They fall over to a stray fart even if they destroy their target of choice, because I've only once encountered a player who doesn't use his units in support of one another. Blasterborn are a lot of points that are almost guaranteed to die. Not that Reavers are any cheaper, just more survivable. The blasterborn's only advantage (and I use that term lightly) is that they are two separate units, which offers up the advantage of requiring 2 units at minimum to kill them completely. This also has the disadvantage of offering more kill points. Personally, I see it as more of a boon than a downside, even though I still hate blasterborn.

Regardless, Dark Eldar can still do a mean shooting list.

I just read up on Blasterborn being mediocre. I'll just take Haywire Scourges instead and Bloodbrides for Elites for even more AT!!!

Either way, I'm looking at venoms and those nasty DE flyers.

Venoms are phenomenal, always have been. They're not much more fragile than they were in 5th, because while you have a concrete 'you will die after this many glancing hits' you could die just as easily on your first glancing hit back in ye olden days (about two months ago.)

Haywire scourges are good, but keep them cheap. You already pay a premium for a bunch of assault benefits that you will never ever use. 5's and 10's, I prefer 5's, but that's because I look at the price tag of scourges before upgrades and I can't help but weep.

Bloodbrides are wyches that are more expensive than wyches but do about 30% more damage in CC for about 30% more points. They are, however, not scoring. For that reason, I'd always take wyches over Bloodbrides unless my troops slots are totally full. While Bloodbrides aren't bad (far from it! A 5 man unit of bloodbrides might actually kill something in CC) we need as many scoring units as possible to make up for our inherent fragility. The usual formula is 1 scoring unit per 500 points in an army. I personally go for 1 scoring unit per 500 points, plus one more. So 4 at 1500, 5 at 2000 at a bare minimum. Then again, our troops kick ass in their own way so it's sometimes a good idea to max them out. Warriors can kill anything in the game, wyches can surgically remove anything with an armor value, wracks have always been amazing, and are even more amazing in this edition, they're a good alternative to 9 wyches in a raider. Take 9, give 'em a liquifier gun, attach a haemonculus, and watch the limbs fly. They're the closest thing we get to weight of attacks in CC. They're also good for objective snatching, as it's harder to shift units off these days and charging into 2d3 AP D6 attacks is rarely a good idea. Especially when we're late enough in the game that most units have been worn down to some degree or another.

The flyers, oh the flyers. Don't take more than 2. Don't take more than 1 if you're playing below 2,000 points. They are not cheap, and every point you spend on a flier is a point missing from your first turn alpha-strike. Especially since the fliers fight for slots with Ravagers, which we need to open up metal boxes on the first turn. You're not getting a first turn assault with your haywire wyches, and your scourges aren't going to do enough damage on their own. Now, for all of the negative things I've said so far... Our flyers are wicked. The Razorwing is a mean anti-infantry platform with its stock missiles and a pair of disintegrators. Throw a flickerfield on that sucker and call it a day. There's rarely a need for the splinter cannon upgrade, since you're restricted to firing 4 weapons a turn, meaning you'll spend two of your 3-4 potential shooting phases using your missiles. It's not worth it for a gun that will only fire once, and only in the late game when the juicy targets have already been depleted. I wouldn't take it with dark lances, as dark lances suck against the targets that missiles want to shoot and missiles suck against the targets that dark lances want to shoot. You're getting a limited number of useful shooting phases thanks to flyer's movement restrictions, and you're diluting your anti-infantry firepower for sub-par anti-tank firepower.

And then there's the voidraven. I fething love this thing. I take mine with a pair of shatterfield missiles and a flickerfield. Shatterfields will effectively gut any infantry unit on the board. The void lances will help make up for the lack of AT from taking this over a Ravager, as well as giving you the opportunity to do some dogfighting with enemy fliers. Shoot tanks with this thing, then drop bombs on the survivors as you rocket off the board, wait for the opportune moment and then use it to wipe the most valuable enemy infantry unit off the board. More expensive, but damn have I never been disappointed by its performance, and it has the added bonus of being immune to small arms fire. While a Razorwing can be brought down by mass strength 4 fire glancing it to death, a voidraven suffers no such penalty. It's much easier to mass 108 strength 4 shots than it is to mass 108 strength 5 shots.

Puscifer wrote:Dark Eldar are starting to appeal to me, but how shooty are they?

Tau have always appealed to me, but I'll wait until the new dex, hopefully next year.

Sisters are too expensive to even think about and Daemons... Are they shooty? I'm assuming Tzeentch lists, but still not with the huge amount of GK players around.

DE? They can be really shooty.Their shooty got stronger with 6th edition, though their assault capabilities have suffered.

Tau? I think most everyone is waiting for a new codex to start a Tau army. I am as well.

Daemons? They have a single weapon with a range greater than 24". That weapon is a on the Soul Grinder. Every other weapon is 24" or lower and is a Tzeentch power. Daemons usually focus on CC, but a Tzeentch list can be a close range shooty. Which would be the opposite of the Tau, since they are long-range shooty.

Well, I picked up the DE dex, an Archon and a squad of Warriors.
Loving the models, so that's a good start.

Rules wise I like:

Sliscus - for his Wych buffs and Deep Strike.
Wyches - for their insane AT.
Venoms - for their insane AI.
A large DE Warrior Blob - seems good with Sliscus.
Reaver Jetbikes - their flyby attacks with Bladevanes and Caltrops.
Scourges - Haywire Blasters are pretty cool, but the unit is expensive.
Razorwing Jet Fighter - great model, can be modded for AI or AT.
Voidraven Bomber - great for flyers and tanks and it's Implosion Missiles are godly.

I'm not a fan of Ravagers as you tend to need 3 minimum and with flyers dominating 40k, I think the fighter and/or bomber will be needed more.

Is there anything I'm missing?

Orks don't have to be horde. Warboss on a bike with 3 nob biker escort twice, flashgits and lootas,

RFHolloway wrote:Orks don't have to be horde. Warboss on a bike with 3 nob biker escort twice, flashgits and lootas,

I have a friend who has that army, nearly identical to what you have just said and he cannot win a game in 6th. It was pretty broken in 5th though.

He says The Nob Bikers are too expensive and are now quite fragile compared to previous standards.