Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hey everyone,
Recently I have been contemplating starting a new army (I have about 1000 points worth of space marines) I just got into the hobby and got I got the dark vengeance set to use the rulebook and marines for vanilla marines. It seemed like the cheapest way to get a starter army. After playing with the people at my flgs I realized mostly everyone's armies are some variant of space marines.
I started looking at getting a new army about 750 to 1000 points worth for now.

The armies I have been most interested in are Tau and Eldar and was wondering how many points in each box approximately?
Also which battle box is the best value for the money models and point value to price? For the best battle box I just don't want to hear any space marine variations because I have them already haha.

Thanks!

Your decision should be based entirely off which army you think is coolest. If you pick an army besides the one you like most soley because you feel the battleforce was a better value, you will end up regretting your choice down the line. An army is a significant investment of both time and money, pick what you like the most.

I would wait until the Eldar codex comes out, and with it a new Battleforce, before making any choices in that direction.

I can't comment too much on the Tau battleforce, but I rarely see Stealthsuits and Piranhas.

As far as the best value Battleforce for a new Army? It's the Necron one hands down.

the tau battle force and the imperial battleforces are the only battleforces i have seen that have 2 troops and a HQ.

Tyranids have HQ & 2 troops?
Tyranid Prime (Warrior) as a HQ choice...?

sLeEpYrOcK wrote:
the tau battle force and the imperial battleforces are the only battleforces i have seen that have 2 troops and a HQ.

Tyranids comes with 4 troops, and if you don't mind sacrificing the Warrior squad, you can turn it into 2 Tyranid Primes (and a spare Warrior for later, or even if you're feeling crafty, use the large Scything Talons and Rending Claws from the Warriors and a Feeder Tendril Genestealer head to make a Lictor). The Tyranid Battleforce, if you do this, throw Fleshborers on the 16 Termagants and Devourers on the 16 Hormagaunts, gives you a legal 550pt army. 600pt if you decide to try and make a Lictor out of that spare Warrior. Not exactly competitive, but gives you two HQ's, an Elite and three troops.

I'd consider the Tyranid battleforce as;
HQ Prime
Termagants
Hormagaunts
Ymgarls

Best use. Warriors are junk and so are vanilla genestealers unless you're just running them for the Broodlord, but still not great.

I wouldn't bother dedicating useable mini parts to make a Lictor unless you're also considering burning bitz to make your own Pyrovores amd Stranglewebs to compliment it.

You're complaining about competitiveness with scratchbuilding a Lictor but condoning Hormagaunts over using them to make Devilgaunts? I mean, I use Hormagaunts because the models are badass, but Devilgaunts blow them away. Not to mention you can't do a WYSIWIG Ymgarl unit from the box, since you only get 2 feeder tendril heads.

My suggestion was merely to get the most out of the Battleforce for a new player. A Lictor is a Warrior with larger upper scything talons, rending claws and feeder tendrils - very easily done with the battleforce, requiring little more than shaving away the shoulder chitin, putting the arms on and doing a headswap with a genestealer head.

That gives a new player zero waste models, and a nice varied force. No, it's not competitive, but from that one box they can make a legal 600pt army to start having fun with.

I'd say the best value battleforce, is to go on ebay, and buy half of dark vengeance. You get a choice of two armies, as much as you would get in a battleforce, guaranteed hq and 2 troops, agreat looking models, and it will be less than half the cost of an actual battleforce.

 -Loki- wrote:
You're complaining about competitiveness with scratchbuilding a Lictor but condoning Hormagaunts over using them to make Devilgaunts? I mean, I use Hormagaunts because the models are badass, but Devilgaunts blow them away. Not to mention you can't do a WYSIWIG Ymgarl unit from the box, since you only get 2 feeder tendril heads.

My suggestion was merely to get the most out of the Battleforce for a new player. A Lictor is a Warrior with larger upper scything talons, rending claws and feeder tendrils - very easily done with the battleforce, requiring little more than shaving away the shoulder chitin, putting the arms on and doing a headswap with a genestealer head.

That gives a new player zero waste models, and a nice varied force. No, it's not competitive, but from that one box they can make a legal 600pt army to start having fun with.

I would also say that even if you did not use the Lictor, it would at least be useful for testing out your paint scheme in either the converted lictor form or as a normal warrior, Also thanks for the awesome Lictor conversion, I never even thought about using those over sized talons for anything useful.

I use the oversized talons to make the prime along with the extra shoulder pads and what I think are brainleach worms

Jayo'r wrote:
I use the oversized talons to make the prime along with the extra shoulder pads and what I think are brainleach worms

You mean a Devourer? Brainleech Worms are special ammo for Monstrous Creature Devourers, you don't get them on Tyranid Primes. You do get regular Devourers though.

Well I do like the look of eldar and tau a lot I also really like the look of tyrannids as well they are pretty awesome just not a fan of close combat because isn't that what they play like? How much should I spend to get 1000 points of tau or tyrannids?

I'd say Necrons.

It contains two full squads of Necron warriors, an excellent Elite unit (deathmarks), a good supply of Scarabs and a vehicle you can either assemble as a transport or a powerful Heavy Support option.

You only need a HQ (I'd recommend a Catacomb command barge) and you're ready to go.

The orks one isn't bad either. lots of boys and trukks, with some bikes thrown on for good measure. Buy a pair, and all you need is an extra, larger ork to be the boss, and you've got a decent start to an ork army, as you can run it with two trukk mobz and a squad of nob bikers with wazdakka, or whatever.

I do like the idea of necrons. I don't really want orks though because I am just not into the look of them.

I would say Tau, necrons or eldar. Although prices of eldar now are kind of outrageous.

I think I am leaning towards Tau because I just read a bunch about their history and its cool. One problem is I am not sure if their battle box is any good. Will I ever use the stealth suits or piranha?

The DE one isn't bad.

Two troop choices, a transport and a FA choice.

Not too bad a start for a DE force.



The Daemons one is ok if you aren't into a mono-god force.

Three troop choices, two fast attack.


They also have the mono-god 'battleforces' which are a little spendy, but not a bad starter.

The Necron battleforce is great and from that i suggest getting an Annihilation barge/commandbarge because it comes with an overlord(now your H.Q.) and gives you a heavy support or a nice ride for your H.Q because the CCB is a mean piece of equipment when a Lord with Warscythe is flying around. I'm a be making videos this week about necrons and some ways to start a small force for cheap.i play and love necrons there are lots of fun things they can do and even if you aren't strong in CC your strong shooting like tau but better because your BS 4 all over the place. no marker lights needed. also the Tau Battle force isn't as strong. I rarely see stealth suits used because they aren't as good as they once were. the command squad and troops in the box wouldn't be a bad start but its not enough to even start playing games. for the money the necron battle force comes with two troops a transport or heavy support (I suggest magnatizing the Arc) Then buy the CCB you get your H.Q and a H.S/D.T for a lot less than buying them individually for tau.