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I think it's time. I've read the basic fluff, extracts from all of the codex's, I almost know the main rules off by heart. I've seen a few batrep's. It's time for me to get a 40k army! I don't think I've ever been more exited. Even so, I need you guys' help. I don't really know which army to get, because I don't know their play styles. I've made a list of the criteria of a perfect army, and I want you people to help me decide which army would be best for me. Here we go.

-They have to be fun and easy to paint. I also like the idea of conversions, but not pointless or over complicated ones.

-The army should be cheap to run. (I'm only 13 and don't get that much money)

-I like the idea of over shadowing the opponents army with tons of models, but a more elite army might be a better option because of the price.

-I want to be able to write the history for my army.

-I want it to be completely different from any other army out there. Different paint jobs, fluff e.t.c.

-I like painting armour.

-Allied attachments are cool.

-Speed and close combat rule!

-they HAVE to be fun to play. I'm not here to win, I'm here to have fun

So, what I want to know from you guys is what are the armies like to play, paint, build, e.t.c, and, based on my criteria, which one should I get?
Your help would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance

PsykerInTheWarp

Ork biker lists, eldar jetseer lists, paladin lists, sanguinary guard spam, and.... well thats all that comes to mind.

Codex: Space marines also can do a rather nifty all biker list. But ork biker nobs with a biker boss is tiny and can pack a wallop. So there are some options. Good luck in your shopn

This would help if I knew what the armies in 40k are like

well for small elite force Daemon hunter scenarios would work. its like 10-15 models of grey knight space marines with a few misc models against the evil daemons. I know they are small but I can not vouch for price. Tip if you have lots of wargaming friends you can just pool what money you have and just have tons of models everyone can use when you all war game together. my buddies have been doing that for a few years now and we have enough models (no titans ) :( to do apoc scenarios for every faction/army except for dark eldar.

although this is assuming you can get the daemon models or you know some one who has them.
Hope you have fun

Ok, here's the thing.

Tonnes of models is not something that's either kind on your wallet nor painting skills. It's simply an endurance contest which is harder than it sounds.
Easy to paint and cheap is Space Marines. That's not going to win you any unique little star awards. Quite the contrary, you'll be as generic as can be.

Regardless, it sounds like the army you describe, sans close combat, is Imperial Guard. Maybe Orks, but in that case you get lower amount of armour. Both will cost you some cash compared to Space Marines, though, so keep that in mind!
The benefit of Imperial Guard is that it's significantly easier to mix in models from other manufacturers for both decreased (or increased) cost and a more unique look. Also, book keeping is more in character for Imperial Guard than Orks.

Guard just saying expensive as hell but fun as hell

 PsykerInTheWarp wrote:

-They have to be fun and easy to paint. I also like the idea of conversions, but not pointless or over complicated ones.

-The army should be cheap to run. (I'm only 13 and don't get that much money)

-I want to be able to write the history for my army.

-I like painting armour.

-Allied attachments are cool.

-Speed and close combat rule!

-they HAVE to be fun to play. I'm not here to win, I'm here to have fun

I'd put a vote in for a Blood Angel successor chapter. (an offshoot of the blood angels) They seem to fit a lot of your criteria
-red armor is not to hard to paint, but blood angels models have a lot of character, lots of cool bits for kitbashing, and fun to paint
-marines are easy to find through ebay, also you won't need a billion models, so cheaper than horde armies.
-successor chapters let you write up the fluff for your chapter and think of your own paint scheme
-BA have access to a lot of fun and fast vehicles
-SM have lots of battle brothers, so plenty of options for allies
-BA are all about speed and close combat!
-CC centered armies are really fun to play (personal opinion). They are a strong army, but not overpowered, so you won't be losing every game due to a bad codex.

It seems that a space marine army would be up my alley. Which ones suit my criteria best?

If you like close combat and a lot of models, look into tyranids.They can also be run as only a few models if you design a nidzilla list. The other option I would recommend is chaos space marines. They have a lot of armor and a lot of different options, leaving it open for conversions. They have armor, personally I really like their bikers which are fast and very useful plus units like khorne berserkers with Huron blackheart allow you to get into cc very quickly. Also you can design your own warband and write fluff for them however you like. Hope this helps

As noted, I would probably recommend Blood Angels.

Fast, in-your-face close-combat army with the potential to add lots of armour if you choose to.



For your completely unique background, etc.. it doesn't really matter what army you start with. If it's completely unique, it'll have to be done from scratch anyhow.

I'd go with blood angels or chaos marines. With an eventual goal of adding an imperial guard ally force.

hmmm. There's alot to consider. What about space wolves? aside from them I'm veering towards a sm chapter. Can one of you guys please tell me what all of the 40k armies are like though?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I didn't know csm could fit my criteria?

 Hive Fleet Lazarus wrote:
If you like close combat and a lot of models, look into tyranids.They can also be run as only a few models if you design a nidzilla list. The other option I would recommend is chaos space marines. They have a lot of armor and a lot of different options, leaving it open for conversions. They have armor, personally I really like their bikers which are fast and very useful plus units like khorne berserkers with Huron blackheart allow you to get into cc very quickly. Also you can design your own warband and write fluff for them however you like. Hope this helps

Actually, don't run Tyranids. They're easily the worst army in 6e, if only because they have no access to any anti-aircraft weapons and no way to get it since they can't ally with anyone. I get that you're here to have fun rather than to win, but being stuck with an army that's virtually unable to win is not a good introduction to the hobby.

Space Marines are the easiest to learn, cheapest to run, and easiest to paint of any army I've ever seen; I'd advise starting there. Of the current Space Marine Codexes the Blood Angels are probably your best bet when going for speed and close combat; you have easy access to Assault Marines (jump pack (it's distinct from saying 'jetpack' in 40k, but it's still a rocket strapped to your back) Marines with chainsaw swords), Land Speeders (fast light skimmers with a variety of large guns) for support, and a good potential allies list (everyone who isn't 'Nids, Orks, DE, or Chaos). All Space Marines are easy to kitbash since their parts are almost 100% interchangeable between every kit and most of the distinguishing factors between unit types are in the paint scheme. As far as being 'completely different', that's pretty easy to come up with; declare your people a Blood Angels successor (a Chapter founded by people from the Blood Angels) and you can pretty much make up your own paint scheme (it'll ideally include some red, if only to remind people that you're using the Blood Angels book) and write an entire history that has nothing to do with anyone else. Play-style-wise they tend to be a pretty aggressive and unsubtle army, zooming up with lots of close-combat soldiers and bashing the other guy in the face until you win or you die. Assault Marines, Vanguard Veterans, and Death Company are really the reason to use this list, so take full advantage of their abilities.

As far as other armies that meet your criteria go, the best I can think of are Grey Knights; they'll be extremely small and relatively cheap, especially since you can literally build an entire playable army with combinations of two boxes (PAGKs include every part you'll ever need to build Strike squads, Purifiers, Interceptors, Purgators, and a Brotherhood Champion, while the Terminators box includes everything you'll ever need to build Terminators, Paladins, Grand Masters, Brother-Captains, and Librarians), though you may end up wanting to add Inquisition/Assassins/vehicles and have to get more stuff. They're not particularly fast except insofar as they can Deep Strike (deploy in the middle of the table) and they're both easier (you don't need freehanding or decals) and harder (you need to master drybrushing/washes) to paint than regular Space Marines. Distinctiveness is also slightly harder because in-universe all Grey Knights are part of one organization, but it's entirely possible with a little imagination, creativity, and knowledge of the setting's lore to come up with a Grey Knight army unlike any other (mine is composed of people who split off from the main Chapter in a schism following the elevation of the current Supreme Grand Master in order to avoid being subject to the problems inherent in Matt Ward's rewrite of the fluff, which pissed off most of us who played Grey Knights under the previous Codex, and they're all painted green and silver instead of silver/white/red). Play-style-wise there are three ways to run Grey Knights: Mechanized, which uses Rhinos/Razorbacks/Stormravens to ensure your troops make it close enough to beat on the other guy in one piece; Deep Strike, which eschews the obnoxiously omnipresent Purifiers in favor of taking Terminators, Interceptors, Strike squads, and Paladins and dropping them onto the field in the thick of things; and footslogging, which should make heavy use of Dreadnaughts since they're longer-ranged than anything else in the Codex and Interceptors since they can move quickly without a transport. They've all got their drawbacks (mechanized tends to be expensive to build and vehicles aren't very tough these days, Deep Strike relies a lot on good Reserves and scatter rolls to ensure you don't end up with your army strung out and chopped up piece by piece, and footslogging is slow), but your prime focus with Grey Knights needs to be on how to deliver your troops into range (most GK units are useless if they're further than 24" from the enemy), where they will usually dominate most things they're pitted against.

Chaos is a bit harder to paint than the loyalist armies, but it's doable; there's less constricting you when it comes to fluff, which makes it easy to come up with a distinctive army and paint job. On the tabletop they aren't necessarily the fastest of armies, but they can certainly move due to a good selection of Fast Attack units, and their ability to hit people with chainsaw swords is pretty significant. People will try to direct you towards one Chaos God or another if you ask for advice on building a Chaos army, pointing out that Khorne is better at stabbing and Nurgle is the toughest and most competitive, I'd like to interject here that you don't have to align yourself entirely with one Chaos God and having unaligned units is perfectly viable. Expense is a slight issue here since Chaos relies on more Finecast models and vehicles than Blood Angels or Grey Knights, but it shouldn't be a crippling barrier. Play-style-wise they vary widely from army to army, but if you're going for a speedy close-combat army you'll likely fill up your Fast Attack selection with some mixture of Heldrakes and Raptors, then use them to escort transports loaded with CSM or Berzerkers into the fray.

You mentioned liking allied detachments; airborne IG or the Elysians from IA8 make for a very useful allied detachment since they're marvelously fast and can hold their own against flyers and at any range. I use an Elysians detachment to make up for my Grey Knights' lack of range and the fact that most of them can't move very fast once they're on the table.

 PsykerInTheWarp wrote:
hmmm. There's alot to consider. What about space wolves? aside from them I'm veering towards a sm chapter. Can one of you guys please tell me what all of the 40k armies are like though?

I didn't know csm could fit my criteria?

Your criteria:
-They have to be fun and easy to paint. I also like the idea of conversions, but not pointless or over complicated ones.
-The army should be cheap to run. (I'm only 13 and don't get that much money)
-I like the idea of over shadowing the opponents army with tons of models, but a more elite army might be a better option because of the price.
-I want to be able to write the history for my army.
-I want it to be completely different from any other army out there. Different paint jobs, fluff e.t.c.
-I like painting armour.
-Allied attachments are cool.
-Speed and close combat rule!
-they HAVE to be fun to play. I'm not here to win, I'm here to have fun

Space wolves, I think, are going to come up short on points 3, 4 and 5. I'm not big on the Wolves' lore, but they are a lot harder to make your own. But they should do OK on the rest of your points.

The key to points 4 and 5 are being a successor chapter. It's basically a free pass to make up whatever you want, within some very loose guidelines. Chaos just adds "...and then they went renegade" to the end, and gives you a different codex to work with. It also offers more conversion options, and a different selection of allies. Chaos also has hordes of cheep cultists in the army, so you can work on point 3 without allies. The big question with chaos is do you feel evil?

I'd research online some different armies, or borrow books from friends. You want to pick something you enjoy.

Alternativly, find a mirror and shout:

WAAAAAAGGGGHHHHH!
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!
and
FOR THE EMPEROR!

Which felt better?

Wait for Dark Angels if the rumors are half true.

 PsykerInTheWarp wrote:
hmmm. There's alot to consider. What about space wolves? aside from them I'm veering towards a sm chapter. Can one of you guys please tell me what all of the 40k armies are like though?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I didn't know csm could fit my criteria?

Wait, you need an overview of all of them? Right. Here goes:

Blood Angels: See Space Marines, but a little faster and a lot more close-combat focused. Strong against anything slower than they are, weak against mobile shooty forces. Quite easy to convert and to paint.

Black Templars: Outdated, avoid them. Everything they can do, a different Space Marine can do better. Quite easy to convert and to paint.

Chaos Daemons: Extremely close-combat focused, but extremely dice-reliant. Every unit starts in Reserves and deploys by Deep Strike, which means you're utterly at the mercy of Reserves rolls and scatter dice to see if you can actually accomplish anything. When they come in on time they will brutally massacre anything they can get close to, if they don't they will get their asses handed to them. Strong against slower vehicle-light armies, weak against anything mechanized. Extremely difficult to convert and to paint.

Chaos Space Marines: Versatile and loaded with fancy toys, can build a shooty force and a close combat force just as easily. In any incarnation they tend to be durable and composed of elite troops. Can build an army to counter most anything you throw at them. A little more difficult to convert or to paint.

Dark Angels: Outdated, but with a couple of advantages to make up for it, successful Dark Angels armies make use of the Deathwing (Fearless Terminators that have a rule that makes it easier to build a Deep Strike army with them) and the Ravenwing (Fearless Bikes with teleport homers to help out the Deathwing). A jack-of-all-trades army, but they tend to be significantly weaker than any specialized force on that specialized force's home ground, so they really do require building a list tailored to your enemy (e.g. my Eldar-playing friend brings an army built around close-ranged shooting, I build an army based around long-ranged shooting and around sneaking my Terminators into assault, thus tying her army down and allowing my Devastators to pick off enemy units at their leisure).

Dark Eldar: Horribly fast and horribly capable offensively, they fold like wet tissue paper if the enemy pins them down. Successful Dark Eldar forces are entirely mechanized and use their speed to throw their entire force against a smaller portion of the enemy, chewing them up and spitting them out before the rest of the enemy army can react, then rolling up the enemy line. They tend to be stronger against larger-model-count armies and weaker against elite armies. Easy to convert due to a variety of interchangeable parts between the plastic kits, but moderately difficult to paint.

Eldar: Every unit in this army is very, very good at one thing, and somewhere between mediocre and absolute rubbish at doing anything else (example: Dark Reapers. Very good at shooting down heavy infantry, mediocre at dealing with light infantry and light vehicles, absolute rubbish at taking down heavier vehicles, fighting in close combat, and moving around). Successful Eldar armies use a variety of units in concert to cover each others' weaknesses (so you might have a unit of Dire Avengers (very good at dealing with lighter infantry at close range, mediocre at dealing with heavier infantry, moving around, and fighting in assault, absolute rubbish at dealing with vehicles and long-range engagements) and a unit of Harlequins (very good at dealing with any non-vehicle target in close combat, mediocre at shooting down vehicles at close range, absolute rubbish at any other shooting) deployed to cover the Dark Reapers if someone throws a challenge they can't handle their way). They're another jack-of-all-trades army that needs to be built to take advantage of the other guy's weaknesses. Moderately difficult to paint and a nightmare to convert.

Grey Knights: Horribly short-ranged but horribly powerful if they get close enough to do anything, successful Grey Knight strategies utilize transports, Deep Strike, and/or Allies to mitigate the short-rangedness and the slowness. Strong against assault-oriented armies, weak against shooting-oriented armies. Easy to convert, slightly harder to paint.

Imperial Guard: Their three advantages are numbers, volume of long-ranged fire, and awesome vehicles. Most armies tend to fall into one of two patterns: The gunline, which uses lots of infantry covered by tanks to shoot down the enemy before they get anywhere near you, and the mechanized force, using veteran squads and either Chimeras (ground vehicles) or Vendettas (anti-vehicle flyers) to transport them around. They tend to beat slow armies and lose to faster armies in either configuration; they're pretty easy to convert and paint, but expensive to build an army for.

Necrons: One of the surprise winners of 6e, Necrons are a powerful shooting army with a wide variety of gimmicks, tricks, and light vehicles to back up their firepower. Successful Necron armies maximize their mobility, since most of their units are very poor in close combat; they tend to lose to faster armies with anti-aircraft capability and beat slower armies. Difficult to convert, and moderately difficult to paint.

Orks: A weaker army, Orks rely on numbers to accomplish anything. Successful Ork armies tend to be those that have enough Boyz and vehicles on the table that it groans under their weight; they tend to lose to anything that can field lots of templates of any kind, and beat anything that's slow enough that they can make it into close combat with them. Unfortunately the number of things that both lack templates and are slow is kind of zero. They're a conversion artist's dream, since you can throw together pretty much anything you can imagine, paint it to look like it's made of crudely-painted patched-together rusty scrap metal, add fangs, and it's Orky.

Sisters of Battle: Avoid, unless you can get permission to use the old Witch Hunters Codex, and probably avoid even then. With no plastic models,S a basic Sisters of Battle squad is around $60 at absolute minimum.

Space Marines (general): The jack-of-all-trades army. Space Marines can hit things in assault, but not as well as assault armies, they can shoot things, but not as well as shooty armies, and they can move, but not as well as fast armies. Successful Marine armies tend to leverage the list's Bikes and Land Speeders or Sternguard Veterans to make mobile shooting lists that aren't feasible under the other Marine Codexes. They can beat anyone, if they know who they're facing and prepare for it ahead of time. Marvelously easy to convert and paint.

Space Wolves: An infantry-focused assault army, successful Space Wolves armies tend to rely on Drop Pods and/or transports to get their soldiers into the fray. They're a capable assault army, but they're not very fast; they tend to beat anyone slower than they are and lose to faster armies.

Tau Empire: A shooty army with assault prowess so bad it's almost negative, successful Tau armies make use of their ridiculously powerful guns to ensure nobody makes it close enough to get to them in melee. They tend to lose to anyone who has an assault army with a gimmick to prevent them from getting shot on the way in (Drop Pods and Deep Strike, mostly), but they'll outshoot almost anyone at mid-ranges. Relatively easy to paint but difficult to convert.

Tyranids: A poor army in 6e, Tyranids rely on large hordes of assault models and large assault monsters, but they have almost no shooting ability. The only successful Tyranid armies I've ever seen are those that leverage Mycetic Spores to get their monsters onto the ground in the right place and aren't facing an army with flyers. Tyranids will win against slow armies, but anyone who takes the simple expedient of having a couple of flyers or skimmers can count on them being perfectly safe, since the Tyranids have no way to destroy them. They're nasty to paint/convert and get looking right, unfortunately, most attempts just come out looking lopsided.

I'm actually sitting on my hands,waiting on the Dark Angels myself.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Tyranids: A poor army in 6e, Tyranids rely on large hordes of assault models and large assault monsters, but they have almost no shooting ability. The only successful Tyranid armies I've ever seen are those that leverage Mycetic Spores to get their monsters onto the ground in the right place and aren't facing an army with flyers. Tyranids will win against slow armies, but anyone who takes the simple expedient of having a couple of flyers or skimmers can count on them being perfectly safe, since the Tyranids have no way to destroy them. They're nasty to paint/convert and get looking right, unfortunately, most attempts just come out looking lopsided.

Well that doesn't make me too happy to hear, I was really hoping to make Tyranids my army of choice for 6E, guess staying with Dark Angels for now...

 Greedfeed wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Tyranids: A poor army in 6e, Tyranids rely on large hordes of assault models and large assault monsters, but they have almost no shooting ability. The only successful Tyranid armies I've ever seen are those that leverage Mycetic Spores to get their monsters onto the ground in the right place and aren't facing an army with flyers. Tyranids will win against slow armies, but anyone who takes the simple expedient of having a couple of flyers or skimmers can count on them being perfectly safe, since the Tyranids have no way to destroy them. They're nasty to paint/convert and get looking right, unfortunately, most attempts just come out looking lopsided.

Well that doesn't make me too happy to hear, I was really hoping to make Tyranids my army of choice for 6E, guess staying with Dark Angels for now...

From what I've seen and read Tyranids are doing quite well in the 6e scene. I would advise the op of not getting them due to how expensive they are to collect, but not obsolete I wouldn't think. I tend to run lists that prefer to shoot instead of going to hand to hand with tyranids and I've always done really well for how little I get to play. Even in larger tournaments a heavy dakka list is nothing to blow off. If you read a lot of the battle reports there are plenty of good reads that would show you builds and tactics will be able to handle anything except extreme flyer spam like crons, but currently no one can handle them. Many armies just rely on the attrition tactic and nids can do that better than most armies I would think.

O.K, the journey is almost up. I have wittled it down to a few armies. Which one do you think would be right guys?

Ultra marines

Blood angels

grey knights

Dark Eldar

Eldar

I'm going to throw my lot in with the people saying you probably want to go with Blood Angels.

They are played by Dave at Miniwargaming, and you can find alot of quality batreps made by him playing his blood angels. I'd suggest watching them.

Hmmm. They're ones to consider, but I love ultramarines and their diversity

p.s. I already know and love miniwargaming. I would meet all of them (espesially Dave's sister) if I didn't live in merry old England. Just to prov e that I know of their existence

Matt, plays necrons and nids

Dan, plays orks and is borrowing, and wilk probably start tau

Dave, plays ba andcsm

Mike, eldar i think

Tim,Tom, something like that, play's eldar

You can try collecting Blood Angels, and then if you don't like it, the models are interchangeable enough that you can use the vanilla SM codex and few people would have problems with it.

I love my ba to bits great army to play they move fast and hit hard 6th was rather good for them.

For price point go gk. For around $200 you can make like a 1500 army.

De and eldar can get pricey because of the vehicles that are pretty much must haves. so that ads up fast. The fancy eldar are all kinda pricey too.

codex Sm is fun but nothing exiting you all play nicely by the rules. My opinion

marines and ba will be in the same neighborhood sw will be a lil more depending on your list.


May the emperor guide you


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also mephiston red makes painting ba stupidly easy.

I recently started playing Blood Angels and aside from the cool fluff. The models are very widely available cheap off eBay etc.
so I would recommend them

When it comes to speed, I like bikes and land speeders more than assault marines. Also, with sm, I can have a range of different things in the whole army and not care. They are also a great starting army. I think I might go for sm

Go with something like this
main Force SW
rune priest
2x10 GH squads 2xplasma , power ax , totem , MotW 1 rhino 1 drop pod
1x5 GH plasma gun , las/plas razorback

2x5 Long Fangs 3xML 2xlas

1xSM cpt on bike with storm shield relic blade artificer power armor
1x5 bikers sgt with power ax , attached MM attack bike
3x1 MM attack bikes or a storm talon

cheap , lots of assault m lots of fast moving , good HQs , shoting more then ok .

It's a good force but I'm not going for space wolves. I have chosen sm! Thanks everyone for your help. Now all I need is a list


Automatically Appended Next Post:
What should I get to start me off?

 PsykerInTheWarp wrote:
It's a good force but I'm not going for space wolves. I have chosen sm! Thanks everyone for your help. Now all I need is a list


Automatically Appended Next Post:
What should I get to start me off?

-Captain
-Tactical Squad
-Tactical Squad
-Land speeder

Is a good start, It's a playable army.
Plus, you can use either Codex:Sm or Codex:Blood Angels.
I'd go for the latter, they have stormraven gunships and land raiders galore.

If you like bikes, start off with:

Captain on Bike + wargear of choice i.e. artificer armor, hellfire bolter rounds etc. When your captain is on a bike you may have SM bikers as troop choices

8 Bikes + Attack Bike with Multi Melta (add 2x heavy weapons like Melta Gun or Plasma Gun) + Teleport Homer
8 Bikes + Attack Bike with Multi Melta (add 2x heavy weapons like Melta Gun or Plasma Gun) + Teleport Homer

Then add terminators or whatever. Keep them in reserve to deep strike and the teleport homers mean that you may deepstrike anywhere within 6 inches of the biker sergeant with teleport homer without needing to roll scatter die. Don't forget to consider Storm Talons!

If you like this kind of playstyle I will suggest Dark Angels. However, their codex is underpowered and dated now so stick to vanilla SM codex until new DA codex comes out. Grab it, read it. If you like it, play DA!