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I've played a little 40k before 6th edition as a death guard CSM army and it was pretty fun. now i am earning some money i'm thinking of starting my own army. i like the idea of dark angels, imperial guard, maybe orks or tyranids. i don't really like the other armies looks wise.

is there any advice you guys could give me, which is better, easier to paint, army lists etc etc

thanks


PS. i know about different armies having different tactics and i don't mind changing my style of play

from my understanding IG are a good race for beginning players to get a grasp on the game, and can be quite competative as well as fun to play.
I have a friend that uses a reletively simple camo scheme on his IG and it looks pretty good. I think at one point he mentioned 15 minute paint jobs on his russes.

great armor(by this i mean vehicles), inexpensive troops, neat HQs, very versatile

Orks are great fun to play as you can just throw hordes onto the table
they are reletively simple to paint, but then think about having to paint 30 boys, and that's just for 1 squad.

fast light armor, high body count, bikers are freakin sweet, lots of wonky fun stuff

Nids

i think they can be fun to play and the expertise required to paint them varies on how far you want to take it.
if you like monstrous creatures and hordes of little bugs you will love these guys. They are fairly versatile in what they can do, but that being said they have quite a few cost ineffective units in their codex, and lack any real high strength or long range weapons. Devastating when they get close, have the best lance weapon in the game (s10 ap1)

Cant help you on the DA

all that being said, i really hate to think that there is a "better" codex, some are simply easier to play than others and can be more tactically forgiving (like orks). than others (Dark eldar)

Alright, I can give you the lowdown on some things.

Dark Angels: Cheapest option that you listed, super-duper easy to get into w/ the starter set and new stuff just coming out. Two kinds of strategy, Ravenwing is going to be very fast-moving, hard to hit guys on bikes. Deathwing allows you to take nothing but terminator armored guys, you'll be slower, but nigh indestructible.

Imperial Guard: I think these guys are going to be THE MOST expensive army, bit more complicated than most what with orders and all, but they're a blast to play. You can run just about anything except rough riders/ministorium priests and be able to win. Incredible swarms of infantry, massive walls of tanks, squadrons of flyers (And just about the largest source of non-GK butthurt)

Orks: Swarm army, these guys aren't as competitive as IG, but they are absolutely hilarious. Close combat oriented, good anti-infantry, and a gun that shoots goblins and black holes. I honestly don't know much about em, never played against em.

Tyranids: For when you absolutely need to field as many models as you possibly can. These guys are completely swarm, orks and IG have some other tactics, but these aliens are pure, unadulterated SWAAAAARRRMMMMMMM. Not much in the way of anti-tank, can't operate fortification guns, can't take allies, but they have scoring monstrous creatures that poop out more little gribblies, and make said baby monsters crazy powerful.

Economically, Dark Angels will be best. If that's not an issue, pick whichever one you want. Just know that the last 3 I mentioned are going to be quite an investment.

Depends what you want. 40k is really two very different games. Theres ultra-competitive games, where some armies are straight up better than others due to a less-than-stellar game balance by GW, and then there are friendly/casual/campaign games, where winning is less important and your there more to have fun - at which point some of the more powerbuildy armies aren't as good, and others like Orks really come into their own.

You need to decide which one you want to play, that will influence your decision.

Think of it like this. Have you ever played Magic The Gathering? I know many players of 40k who also dabble in that. You can compare competitive play to the "make broken combos" aspect of that game, and casual play to game types like EDH.

Also don't get me wrong, a 'lower tier' army like Orks can and will beat a top tier army like Imperial Guard, its just they'll have a harder time of it. My Orks, in my first ever game, got a 'draw' (aka, an overwhelming, nearly tabled win he snatched away because I forgot some rule which gave him 1 VP) against an Imperial Guard power build.

Personally I play the fun/casual/campaign style, and hate seeing the same old armies of broken units spammed by powergamers (Nob Biker, Nob Biker, Nob Biker, Shoota Boy, Shoota Boy, Dakkajet, Dakkajet, Dakkajet)

Personally I'd say that nids are a bit too difficult for beginners.
Orks are nice and pretty easy army on low points, but need a lot of painting.
I've heard IG is pretty easy and forgiving army for beginners. Would be nice choice.

But of all these, I'd pick DA. That 3+ armor can cover some of the beginners mistakes (I play BA as my first army). And they look nice IMO.
And @ Gyrtop: you don't have to choose either one of those. Simple DA army can be made with only tactical squads (palma weapons) and Company Veteran squad. Take librarian as HQ choice and add either fast attack (ravenwing bike squad) or some terminators (Deathwing).

Someone might have already said it, but I recommend buying Dark Vengeance set (if you decide to take DA). With 80€ you get starting army with 2 excellent HQ choices, rulebook, dice and some other useful stuff. And you can sell the chaos troops if you don't need them and get the box even cheaper.

Save yourself some grief and look at the codex editions, orks are in dire need of update, so anything you buy now may need to be replaced on a new release. Tyranids are amazing but do lack firepower, also very fun to paint. Dark angels are a rich history and are a well rounded army with good options, they also have access to great alliances among the other marine codex, so you have even more firepower available

Tau = newest
DA because it is the newest choice on your list

Best thing I would say is to play an army that you like to paint first then get used to their rules. Nothing sucks worse than getting and army that you can't stand to paint and having dozens(hundreds if orks) to paint.

Orks & Daemons= shared models from fantasy and 40k.

I sort of regret choosing Chaos Space Marines. If I had chosen to play daemons I could have also been playing fantasy and 40k by placing round bases onto a rectangular grid. I thought daemons were weak in 5th and that was why I chose the CSM believing they were better until I found out only the Lash build was the only competitive way to win. Now with the new Daemon codex, the epidemus+ plague marines does not work as it use to.

If you choose Dark Angles, then my recommendation would be to go deathwing spamming the cheap termi from the Dark Vengeance box on ebay. I saw groups of the 5 termi (3 regular power fist+strombolter, 1 assault cannon+power fist, 1 power sword+stormboler) sold around $15. However it is not viable if you wanted 4 TH/SS + Cyclone Missles which is the popular build. My solution would be to greenstuff a storm shield onto the stormbolter arm covering it and then cut and rotate the power fists and then glue the thunderhammer in such a way that it appears to be held by the power fist.

A friend of mine is just getting back into 40k and has very little in terms of spare cash so I've told him to go for a deathwing army. For less than £100 (due to the DV set) he can get 5 squads of terminators, yes they're all the same but for £2 each you can really get stuck in with green stuff. As well as Belial and the codex. By any standards (especially GW's) that's a bargain!