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Right I am a 40k noob first off. I have been looking at starting out for about a month now and would like peoples opinions on possible armies for myself.
I have a general feeling of what I do and dont like and basically have a list of points against the races. however I would like assistance so here we go.

Tau - to much like starwars drones imho
Tyranids - I don't particularly like the idea of a swarm or huge numbered army and also dont want to start out with highly organic models.
Chaos - I liked the look of whats in dv however I have a feeling they just arent right
Ork - another swarm army and although the scratchbuilding side is very cool I'm not a huge fan of rusty dilapidated vehicles etc (my design side coming through)
Eldar and DE - Admittedly I personally have'nt looked into these much. Vehicle look cool and sleek however I'd like to get to know more of the fluff behind
Necrons - again lacking on fluff and research but I dont particulaly like the little metal guys due to personal preference
IG - read a few 40k books on IG and liked them, however my friend has several IG armies as does my girlfriends dad
SM - right the armour and things appeal to me, I like the differing chapters etc. am crrently getting into the fluff with some books and I have looked at several tuts on painting out on the www

any feedback and helps appreciated (also would be nice to know who started with what army) and also let me know if I have missed any


cheers cookiesk8r

From your own feelings you are clearly leaning to the marines.

You missed The sisters of battle and Chaos Deamons.

Space marines tend to be the more Beginner friendly army unless you absolutely LOVE another army, be it fluff be it looks be it the play style i say go for the army you like the most!

Well it seams like you narrowed it down to IG, SM, and maybe eldar/DE.

I would advise picking an army that will be different from the majority of your opponents. IG vs IG is very much sit tight and wait to see who screws up first. Maybe you can save IG for a future project down the road (this is one thing to keep in mind - many people have 2nd or 3rd armies or even a small allied detachment)

Space marines are fine and you can try and spice up your army by picking a specific chapter, but when it comes down to it - they are all the same just different colours and some small unit tweaks here and there.

I'd honestly lean towards the dark eldar as they are just amazing to look at. You would have lots of options to choose from since many of their units can be competitive. It isn't the most beginner friendly army.... but if you are a fairly quick learner then you lose maybe your first 2-3 games then you are good to go (not a big enough deal to make you stick with a "safe" choice).

DE fluff wise..... back in the day the eldar had a massive murder party/orgy and the chaos god slaanesh was born from all their craziness. 95+% of the eldar died and the prudes took off to live on craftworlds (giant space cities/ships) while the kinky eldar who were still crazy became the DE in their dark city where they still murder and **** to this day.

Can't go wrong with Ultramarines!

You can get a nice overview of each army in the main rule book. Basic fluff, galley of minis, etc. You want to pick one that resonates with you. Balance and power change with each codex and edition, so unless you are playing competitively to win, go with an army with a looks and feel you like.

i started with a few marines and then once i discovered that the majority played power armour in one variation or another it put me off. I love IG, how can space marines be the true heroes of the imperium when they dont feel fear? it takes true guts to embrace and combat your fear and thats why i like IG.

I have DKOK though, faceless, souless and its their job to cause the enemy to run out of ammunition before getting a bayonet thrust into their face

A lot of people start off with Marines because you don't need a ton of them, and they scale well with painting and playing skill. A novice painter can paint their Marines blue and make a lot of mistakes in game, since they have tough units and a good armor save. An experienced painter can lavish them with details, do some excellent shading and edge highlighting, freehand details, or add bits that have detail. An experienced player can try out different army builds, take full advantage of Combat Tactics, and work out some of the synergy of the units in the codex. They're just an army that's good at growing with the player.

Because they're so prevalent, you often find Marines going for peanuts on eBay. You may have to fix them up, strip some paint, or do some other kind of work with them, but they're up there, and they're cheap. I've gotten Marines for as little as a dollar per model on eBay. When your army only requires a few dozen models, this makes a Marine army very affordable compared to anything else.

Marines are more forgiving than other armies as they have a great stat line. However as there are more marine books than others its easiy for other armies to tailor their list to target marines specifically with ease.

I was considering marines when I started but settled with Tau as I liked the way the models looked. Also who doesn't want a fleet of battle suits with jet packs?

cookiesk8r wrote:

Chaos - I liked the look of whats in dv however I have a feeling they just arent right

What do you mean by this?
BTW Welcome to Dakka

Marines are very beginner friendly, and so are orks if you don't mind losing a bunch of models a turn for their beginning strategy is very simple rush in mass.

I did like the look of the chaos marines in the dark vengeance boxset
sisters of battle don't really appeal tbh due to the fact that I've heard they are extremley expensive, and I'd grouped the deamons with the space marines as I really didn't know alot about them

Yeah I am leaning towards space marines honestly but decideing on chapter etc will be difficult may make my own in the end. and thanks for all information and feedback. going to look into eldar/DE later tonight.


cheers cookiesk8r

DE is quite unforgiving, until you get used to the army's style, you'll lose a lot, and... a lot. You may even get the wrong impression that the army is weak!

If money is a concern however, DE are deceptively expensive, they may look cheap per box, but because of the rather low point cost and most every unit needing transport, the cost adds up quickly... Victim here. Still, a fun army if you don't mind the punishing difficulty curve.

cookiesk8r wrote:
Right I am a 40k noob first off. I have been looking at starting out for about a month now and would like peoples opinions on possible armies for myself.
I have a general feeling of what I do and dont like and basically have a list of points against the races. however I would like assistance so here we go.

Tau - to much like starwars drones imho
Necrons - again lacking on fluff and research but I dont particulaly like the little metal guys due to personal preference

So you prefer the Jedi?

Tyranids - I don't particularly like the idea of a swarm or huge numbered army and also dont want to start out with highly organic models.

You don't have to field waves of little bugs. You can use a bunch of big guys as an army.

Chaos - I liked the look of whats in dv however I have a feeling they just arent right

Don't judge the army by a single box kit.

Ork - another swarm army and although the scratchbuilding side is very cool I'm not a huge fan of rusty dilapidated vehicles etc (my design side coming through)

You don't have to use a Green tide. I have a few thousand points of Orks... with only 60 boyz.

Eldar and DE - Admittedly I personally have'nt looked into these much. Vehicle look cool and sleek however I'd like to get to know more of the fluff behind

Eldar are awesome... especially if you want to paint a "smooth" army. Dark Eldar are a bit of a pain if you're new to painting models.

IG - read a few 40k books on IG and liked them, however my friend has several IG armies as does my girlfriends dad

And they can be a swarm army which you seem not to be interested in.

SM - right the armour and things appeal to me, I like the differing chapters etc. am crrently getting into the fluff with some books and I have looked at several tuts on painting out on the www

any feedback and helps appreciated (also would be nice to know who started with what army) and also let me know if I have missed any

Sounds like you should just go with Marines. It's the only one you had anything positive to say about.

You left out Sisters of Battle, Chaos Daemons, Grey Knights and the specific chapters of marines... Black Templars, Blood Angels, Dark Angels and Space Wolves.

Well I'm sorry I sounded SM biased but thats all the info I have at the moment and would like help broadening my knowledge before I took the plunge

SM for a new player is pretty straight forward, easy to paint, and you can do a few mistakes without that much consequences...

personaly, I play IG the only problem is, you need many models to get something decent, since they are standard humans with weak armour and weapons.

I'd recommend you read of all army and then pick which you'd find better for you. I started with IG, had to paint alot, but now I'm satisfied with what I got and getting extre models are not that much of a pain now, since painting 60 models with a few vehicles at first jaded me agaisnt painting numerous models

Seems like you're interested in Marines, which is a good starting point. The codex never gets too far out of date, there is always a decent selection of models both new and secondhand, and it is always easy to find advice or assistance, since almost EVERYONE plays Marines at some point.

thanks for the feedback

going to look at the IG, SM, eldar and DE later this week

cheers cookiesk8r

picked up some marines cheap on ebay tonight so I'm know looking into differing chapters.

Thanks for the help again guys

Cookiesk8r

So I have now built the marines and narrowed it down to Dark angels or Salamanders. Also I ordered some paint for the two colourschemes as they are very similar and they should arrive tomorrow

My first army was Dark Angels, thought my first models were elder. But that was a different time.

if your are choosing between DA and Salamanders, well you've obviously decided it's not easy being green. ;-)

Salamanders are kings of the drop pod flamer/metla spam. It's their schtick, they do it well. DA are far less specialized. they are almost three armies: Deathwing, Ravenwing and mixedwing/greenwing (or neither of the first 2).

Interestingly there is a popular opinion that DA are used to test future SM (so salamanders included) rules. Currently they have marginally overpriced terminators that are slightly more effective and excellent bikes that are simply too few in number to handle excessive shooting or assault units, though they do have the ability to handle it, and are probably the best marine bike army in the game. So the third option is some mix of terminators, bikes and power armor.Currently some other units such as devestators and whirlwinds are cheaper than normal marines.

This means that DA tend to be mixed/mid-ranged while salamanders tend to be close range. Either is decent though the Salamanders may change when the new SM codex comes out. However, as a SM some will have no problem with you using any SM chapter codex for you army as long as the models are properly equipped. I recommend you butch up a little on the fluff and see which you like better and as the paint scheme only differs due to the shoulderpads it is mostly irrelevant to most players.

dont base your thoughs on CSM units on the DV boxset, it makes the rest of us cry :( those chosen models... they need a box of their own... hellbrute could do with it as well seeing as the dreadnaught was discontinued, they are genuinly i think some of the hottest CSM models from GW, though i must say i prefer the FW dreads to the hellbrute but those chosen... mmmmmm

I have read and enjoyed the fluff on both the marines I got were from Dark Vengeance and obviously if I were to do salamanders all the iconography needs removing :/

Also to not you can find squads of DA from the DV extremely cheap on eBay. I got the squad of DW for $13 compared to the $60 other box set. Granted there isn't the customization but its really cheap.

You need to pick the army that looks, sounds, and "feels" the coolest to you, or else you're going to end up buying a new army or quitting.

I started with the old Daemonhunters codex as a teenager.

It was a 'get good fast' codex, very hard to use especially for a beginner. My tournament prowess probably stems from this codex *feeling bigheaded.

Started with Da Orkz and I haven't looked back!
Waaaagh!

I started with Eldar, but I recommend Guard, Marines, or GK for newbs.

Daemonhunters

I started with Eldar back in the Rogue Trader days, when weaponry was random and every Eldar had a 95% chance to be a psyker.

I started with Chaos in second edition 40K and have since had Orks, Tau, Eldar, Chaos Daemons and Space Wolves.

The only one I still play is Eldar.