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First I’d like to say thank you for taking the time to read this. I’m a new mini wargamer and a new DakkaDakka member, and this is my first post ever! I’m so new to 40k that I’ve not even chosen my first army yet. At least not until I’ve asked this question.

GW has offered up a large variety of play styles and themes in the form of the many armies you can choose from their 40k roster. My problem is that there isn’t one I wouldn’t want to collect!
I like the unrelenting evil power and the rapid viciousness of the Daemons, and the grim, heretical nature and the brute force of the CSM’s. I totally get the “sick and twisted in a sexy way” DE, and their wise forefathers blessed with ancient knowledge – stricken from greatness by the birth of a Chaos God. Epic.

I even like the undying loyalty and faith to The God Emperor of Mankind found in pretty much all the human factions. I’m still getting my head around the reason for the numerous SM chapters. But I guess it’s a good thing to choose from a variety of ways of tackling the same task. I especially admire the paladin-esque “power in purity” of the Grey Knights.

I love the crazy randomness of the Orkz! That must be a really entertaining army to play; I reckon no two games are the same when fielding Orkz! Waaargh! I’ts a shame they couldn’t hit a barn door from ten yards, but boy can they bludgeon stuff to death! And they use teeth as money – that’s so cool!

The Tau are the space communists. And the most naive. I don’t think they fit the Grimdark set of the 40k universe. But they do have giant flying mech suits – and a S10 AP1 skimmer!

I think the Nids and Necrons are the actual “bad guys” of the 40k universe and for that reason alone I’d field them. The Necrons especially because, firstly, they’re evil Egyptian terminators with kick-ass guns! And secondly because they
keep getting back up! Not even Chuck Norris can do that.

So in order to help me make my mind up I thought I’d ask you guys for your opinions (because I’m obviously unable to form opinions of my own – ouch!) Actually I’d like to ask you three simple questions, if I could.

1) In order, what would you consider are the three most common armies you seem to always come up against.
2) And in respective order, what three armies would you choose to fight against each of them.
3) Lastly, what’s your army faction and why did you choose to play them?

Thanks for reading my first post and I hope you post your opinion as I look forward to reading it.

Mick

1. I'd say the three most common armies in casual play are probably Space Marines, Chaos Space Marines and Orks, but this will change depending on your area. All varieties of Space Marine are pretty popular everywhere, though.

A lot of people on here play tournaments, and at tournaments you see an awful lot of Space Wolves, Imperial Guard and Grey Knights, because they are perceived to have the 'best' codexes.

2. Not sure - you should be able to fight any army with any other. Apart from Grey Knights/Daemons, it's not as simple as 'this army counters that army'. But I'd take different things in my Tau army if I was playing against Space Marines to if I was playing against Orks.

3. I have LOTS of armies, because I've been playing a long time. All of them were started because I liked the models, the fluff, or the 'idea' for that army. Remember that there are lots of ways of choosing the same army. For example, I like the idea of a Harlequin army, even though I'm not really that fond of Eldar.

I also tend to choose armies I haven't seen before, or aren't very common.

I'd say that you should always pick your first army based on the models you like the most, and the fluff you like the most, and the facet of the army you like the most. How good they are in game terms is secondary - you're going to need a lot of motivation to sit down and build/paint them, and loving the models really helps.

1) Space Marines (including all chapters here or else it'd be SM as first second and third place) -> Imperial Guard -> Chaos Space Marines.

2) Grey Knights, Grey Knights, Grey Knights (see a trend?)

3) Dark Angels Space Marines, because: a) if I want army-wideT3 I'll play my HE's; b) I like their background.

1) Darks Angels because it's what my son has, and so far I've only played against him. Though the few times I've been to the local store I've seen CSM and Tau.

2) Any and all. Don't really care which army I play against.

3) I play Orks because they either mess you up or they mess themselves up. Also I love the fluff behind them.

Thanks for the response guys!

I gues Grey Knights would be the best army to begin with. Which is cool because they have cool fluff and can take terminaters as troops! And omg the dreadnight! Moar dreadnite pleez.

Thanks again for your help guys!

Mick

1. This is tough, I see a ton of everything in my area. If I had to say the top 3 though, it would probably be IG, Whatever flavor of Space marines is the best this week, and grey knights. We have a very tourney focused meta, but we have a rediculous amount of IG players (as in, I think almost everyone has at least a small IG army, no idea why.)

2. Orks, Orks, Orks, and probably Orks. They're such a fun army to play against and with. They're one of the few things keeping me in 40k.

3. I'm running IG, starting Orks, and plan on starting Sisters of Battle soon. Ran IG because the idea of your average man fighting off 1,000 year old daemonically possessed super soldiers, the legions of hell, undying robots from the beginning of known time, and a race that was genetically engineered to be the ultimate warrior race is incredibly inspiring. The fact that he does it with nothing more than the "weakest" small arm in the game, T-shirt armor, tanks built from tractors and a crazy amount of courage only made it cooler.

Orks were because I loved their more lighthearted nature. They're incredibly fun to build, paint, and play. Everytime I've used them, they've been a blast to play. Add to the fact that these guys pick fights with the strongest factions in the universe ON PURPOSE for extra challenge only makes that cooler to me. There are even recorded instances where orks have led WAAAGHS directly into the eye of terror, and kicked ass the whole way in.

As for sisters of battle, never seen anyone play them before, and when I realized I'd have a ton of dreamforge stormtroopers from the kickstarter, I decided to convert them and make some sisters of battle for fun games. I look forward to trying them out. The fact that they're basically guardsmen with better armor and unshakeable faith in their cause helps too. Well, that, and the fact they seem to love burning things more than even orks (and that's saying something)

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
As for sisters of battle, never seen anyone play them before, and when I realized I'd have a ton of dreamforge stormtroopers from the kickstarter, I decided to convert them and make some sisters of battle for fun games. I look forward to trying them out.

How will those stormtroopers compare from a scale standpoint?

 Eldarain wrote:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
As for sisters of battle, never seen anyone play them before, and when I realized I'd have a ton of dreamforge stormtroopers from the kickstarter, I decided to convert them and make some sisters of battle for fun games. I look forward to trying them out.

How will those stormtroopers compare from a scale standpoint?

From what I've seen, should be about the same height as a guardsman. With female headswaps they'll look a bit smaller, and since they're not in chunkyscale 40k, they should look plenty feminine alongside my guardsmen.

We'll see if I'm right or just an idiot in about a month

3 Common: Grey Knights, Space Marines, Orcs

Funnest Enemy: Sisters of Battle/Tyranids/Orcs

My army, have several, Necrons. They have so many combat tricks and different Tactics based on your lords and courts that you can change your force with ease. Flyers, AV 13 spam, hordes or resorb warriors, scarab farm, mix, it's all viable and fun.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
As for sisters of battle, never seen anyone play them before, and when I realized I'd have a ton of dreamforge stormtroopers from the kickstarter, I decided to convert them and make some sisters of battle for fun games. I look forward to trying them out.

How will those stormtroopers compare from a scale standpoint?

From what I've seen, should be about the same height as a guardsman. With female headswaps they'll look a bit smaller, and since they're not in chunkyscale 40k, they should look plenty feminine alongside my guardsmen.

We'll see if I'm right or just an idiot in about a month

I was trying to remember what mm scale the Eisenkern soldiers were in but I'm drawing a blank. Anyway I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what you come up with as a way of doing plastic Sisters would be a godsend for a lot of people.

Three most common armies?

Space marines, space marines and space marines. The colour of them is irrelevant as they are mostly not painted anyway.

I field armies based on the look of the models in it, not upon how useful they might be. When it comes to fighting against them, I just don't care anymore.

Main one: Eldar. Had them for 27 years. Secondary is marines (because in 2nd ed, people got sick of losing to eldar) - had them for about 20 years. Tertiary: Grey Knights. Started them in 3rd ed, stuck with them through the dry years (4th ed ) and still refuse to play with draigo or paladin spam. Don't win as often as I could - but I have principles and will not raise them for anyone.