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Was just curious about everyone else.

I used to pick an army because of the models/fluff, then make up my own faction/chapter/craft-world. I now pick solely on established fluff: e.g. i LOVE Nurgle and Word Bearers back-stories, and was keen to contribute in turn.

I picked my Dark Angels because I liked the models and the way they looked painted. Then I thought; "Hey a little bit of converting and paint scheming and they will be over the top.". Then after reading the fluff I was locked in. I had to use the army. And now they are my main force.

I find that aesthetics, theme (i.e. fluff, in the most general, overarching sense - scrap-tech bloodthirsty barbarians, elite super-soldiers, etc.), and general play-style are inextricably linked, if the gameplay and setting have any shred of continuity. The relative strength of a codex (assuming we're talking 40k, here) concerns me less than how the army plays (specialized units in mutual support, cheap horde, glass cannons, etc.). If we move beyond GW territory, the same tends to hold true, with the potential removal of the army balance issue, entirely.

I picked they army that most represents my style of play in all war type elements. Stand back and blow you away with firepower(preferably a sniper rifle) before you can reach me. Naturally when Tau came out i fell in love. Cant wait for the new dex

All of the options are important factors in picking an army

All of the above except for conversion opportunities. I hate doing conversions, mostly cause I suck at it.

*When I say conversion I mean having to physically altering the model for WYSIWYG options, simply swapping arms/weapons/heads doesn't bother me.

Mostly for the whole underdog feel, I picked guard cuz theres just something about a million poor souls getting dropped into the worse possible war zones with nothing but a flash light and paper armour lol. Then comes the fluff with Gaunt's Ghosts, Last Chancers and I'm locked in.

Also the fact that my lone Platoon LT held off a tervigon for 3 turns with nothing but a chain sword helps as well

All of the Above. as each forms an Integeral part of the Grim Dark which is 40k. sorry that isn't really helpful

Chicks man, it's all about the chicks.

Models & fluff. Although to be fair I like most of the background in 40K.

When I started I preferred the Ork models, they seemed the easiest to paint with my feeble skills (Necrons aside), and I love that they can be both brutal and silly at the same time.

Models. Always models.

I can ignore fluff if I don't particularly like it. I can make a bad army book work for me if I really need to, and I'm not to bothered with playing an army at the top of the power curve.

I cannot, at all, bring myself to spend time painting models I hate. Nor care about them as they get blown apart on the table.

Cool looking models first, then gameplay.

Fluff.

Knight is armor in space, what is not cool about that?

Models. If I'm going to spend £200+ on an army I want them to look good. If I went with an army purely because of in game abilities I would just be left with an empty feeling if I wasn't fully committed to the appearance of the models.

I picked Imperial Guard because I was attracted by the fluff. The idea of thousands of normal humans being put up against super-soldiers, daemons, Orks, and ninja-elves with nothing but pretty sub-par equipment is awesome to me.

The next thing I got attracted to was the amount of opportunities. I usually hate being forced into a type of fluff, so any known regiments was out of the question. It allowed me to be creative and invent everything my own. I actually felt like I was leading an army of my own soldiers and not just a representation of something that already exists (Im a BIG role-player so I actually went through and gave each officer and Sergeant a name and story. I even name models that do incredible things, like I have a "corporal" in my CCS that I have named because he pulled a LoS when being attacked by a bloodthirster. He know has an honor medal named for him as well ).

Lastly, the play-style I loved too. I was always a fan of shock and awe tactics, so being able to put down large amounts of fire-power before the enemy knew what hit them was a key thing for me.

Cool looking models, conversion opportunities, in-game strength, then fluff.

They're all important, just in that order of importance.

Sure, fluff is nice, but that's what books are for. If I'm not going to enjoy painting, building, and playing with my toys on the tabletop, their backstory hardly matters.

I'll tell you this. The reason I got into Dark Angels at the time was because they were "Cheap" to get into, realtively since you would buy DV, and trade the chaos half to someone who wanted the cultists.

Tau on the other hand, I've always liked tau, they were my army the first time I got into 40k.