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new to 40k and have a csm army. trying to get my girlfreind to get into it and she would want a shooting army. i know of tau but only who they are. i dont know anything else about them, or what other armys do. ive played orks and blood angel.

thanks for any recommendations, and a few facts or tricks about the armys.

Tau with Markerlights.

Well you have: necrons decent shooty, plus they get back up when they die sometimes.

Eldar: Kinda shooty, shuriken catapults, lots of running to get close

Dark eldar: very shooty, lots of vehicles, not very tough

Imperial guard: incredibly shooty, but squishy, lots of tanks

Well if not tau, IG.

For a Girlfriend army focused on shooting, I would go eldar, for 2 main reasons..the models are elegant, and they can shoot quite well, and of the few female 40kers I have met, a good percentage of them play eldar for some reason.

And they are fun to paint.

eldar

Dark eldar is my solid suggestion.

Lots of cool shooty stuff, and cool girly units too.

id say its a tossup between IG and Necrons after tau. Necrons are BS4 and have some fancy guns but theyre usually low numbered (reanimation fixes this to an extent). IG have some hella good guns but they suffer hardcore once you catch them, and unlike Tau they arent very mobile.

Both have their flaws though. Many people will swear up and down that necron air force is the only viable list they have anymore, and like i already said IG just crumble once you catch them.

ok cool.

on average who usually has the better bs numbers and armor saves, i know they may all average out. But just in general, who has better guns or tanks, or who has better troop units. I dont need the whole codex ( i know thats why they make the codexes and sell them seperately) just a few opinions on troop unit and mabye some basic hqs or other types

i appreciate everyones help and let you know if she picks one.

the GOAT 765 wrote:
ok cool.

on average who usually has the better bs numbers and armor saves, i know they may all average out. But just in general, who has better guns or tanks, or who has better troop units. I dont need the whole codex ( i know thats why they make the codexes and sell them seperately) just a few opinions on troop unit and mabye some basic hqs or other types

i appreciate everyones help and let you know if she picks one.

Of the choices, Necrons are the toughest and have at least BS4 for most of their stuff. Your dirt cheap troop choice is T4 with a 4+ save (Warriors).

Eldar have the most ridiculous tanks with their shield war gear giving them a 4+ jink save when they move. The guns mounted on them aren't bad either. As for their infantry's guns, they're short ranged but have a chance to cut through armor. And everything in the Eldar book is at least BS4, with the (usually worth it from what I've seen) Exarchs being BS5.

Necrons are good with shooting primarily due to their awesome weaponry which can pepper vehicles to death. They have some very nice armor saves and in general are rather hard to kill, so they become very survivable. Their vehicles are solidly shooty, and from what I understand the CC Flayed Ones are no longer quite so good, leaving the army as a very ranged force. I don't know much about their HQ's so I won't comment on that.

Eldar have very specialized individual units, so they don't particularly shine in one area as an army but they have the ability to take down anything with propper planning. General consensus is since they are as weak as Guardsmen when it comes to close combat, then they must be considered a shooty army, which they do wind up being. They are also a very fast-moving one since they can move-run-shoot or move-shoot-run whenever. Their Psykers can be a pain or awesome depending on what side you're on though, particularly Eldrad. Lots of powers, access to some damned good powers. Puppet Master on a Vendetta can really ruin an IG player's day.

Imperial Guard has big numbers or big guns or a combo of both, there is little moderation. The basic troops (the statline for almost every infantry model) are rather meh with WS/BS/S/T all 3 and only 5+ armor save, but you can take MANY of them if you want with Platoons or you can get some pretty survivable infantry with Veterans in Chimeras sporting heavy weapons and Plasma Guns. Aside from that, tanks. Lots and lots of big guns on big vehicles with Front AV 14. Their oddball HQ's and elites are rather lackluster, but good tactical usage of the unique "Orders" system you get from the Company Command Squad and Platoon Command Squads can be a great boon, enough to make the difference between a squad being completely squished or said squad frying an MC/vehicle.

I can't comment on DE, don't really know enough. Only 1 DE player around here that I've met.

DE are a very shooty army, as the assaulty side to the codex took a stiff one to the happy sacs with the advent of 6th. They have good BS, and some nasty toys.

DE vehicle weapons are limited to Dark lances, good for killing heavy armour as they treat all AV above 12 as 12, Disintegrators are for mailing just about anything non vehicle, as they are multishot AP 2 , and splinter cannons, which can pour insane amounts of poisoned shots downrange.

DE guns are midrange rather than long, but their vehicles are fast skimmers.

DE also have night vision as standard, which helps in night fight games.

Raiders full of warriors can pour impressive amounts of hurt out also.

The one thing with DE is that they are sadists, not masochists, in play. They love to dish out the pain, but hate to receive it.

Their units are almost universally frail, so it suits an aggressive approach that allows for accepting that your force will be shot to hell.

It's a DE player, I said steer her towards regular Eldar. DE have great looking models, are very shooty, but are extremely hard to master. If she wants to win a game in the next 6 months then stay away from them.

Craftworld Eldar, on the other hand, are a solid 6th Ed army and have a backstory that is far more "romantic" than any of the other races.

I agree that Necron are very shooty, except for two things:

1. Wraiths (they own in close combat and don't usually do much if any shooting)

and 2. Pretty much all of the guns in the Necron army are 24". Which after moving basically gives them a 30" threat range.

I would steer her towards Necrons or, if she does not like them, Eldar. Although in truth you should do less steering and let her pick what she wants out of the selection of forces available. Part of the fun is picking the force that matches you best.

That said, unless she is dead set on Dark Eldar I do not suggest it. I play and love Dark Eldar, but an army for a beginner they are not. They die to a stiff breeze and are utterly unforgiving of mistakes.

clively wrote:
It's a DE player, I said steer her towards regular Eldar. DE have great looking models, are very shooty, but are extremely hard to master. If she wants to win a game in the next 6 months then stay away from them.

Craftworld Eldar, on the other hand, are a solid 6th Ed army and have a backstory that is far more "romantic" than any of the other races.

This is definitely a large factor as well. Dark Eldar are very unforgiving from what I understand, especially compared to the Eldar. Speaking from experience, Imperial Guard is an army that is forgiving simply in its versatility, in that you don't have to be mindful of what target each unit is good against and not-so-good against, due to the ability to give a weapon for any occasion to standard Infantry squads and most vehicles. The kicker with IG for the most part is that reading the codex can make your head spin with all the oddball special rules. Orders, Platoons, and the ability to have a vehicle squadron firing Large Blast-Heavy 20-Blast-Gets Hot-Ordnance-Denies Cover weapons all at once can be very fun and useful, but it's not easy to understand at first by any means.

Eldar, on the other hand, have awesome special rules within their army that are both effective and easy to understand, such as the move-run-shoot rule and the anti-Slaanesh rule. For comparison, the Battle Focus rule takes up what, 5 lines to explain? The basic rules for how Orders are issued with IG takes up a whole page. Then you have to go fish around for all of the orders split under the descriptions of 6 or 7 different unit descriptions.

TLDR: Eldar might be a good idea if you're looking for something easy to understand that isn't a b**** to make a list for.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also if the "look" of the army is a factor, don't forget that any army can be done any way you want in reality. One of my friends commented that a number of my oddball IG sniper/Veteran models wouldn't look out of place as Eldar Rangers, and in reality as long as your models have helmets and their guns look to be something similar to what they're representing, then I don't think anyone will complain. I got into IG because I saw a guy who had an army that looked straight out of the Colonial Marines from the Aliens series. I recently spectated a match in a tourney where a girl playing Chaos Daemons had an entirely aquatic themed army. Yes, the monstrous creature was a crab. There were seahorse cavalry and floating jellyfish. I also saw a Samurai Jack Aku-themed 'nids army on here recently. They can all be made tourney legal at that!

My absolute favorite shooting army (and I'll get bashed for this) is dakkaorks.

2 Big Meks, shoota boys, full squads of lootas, dakka jets. You're only BS2, but your infantry just gets to mow down things by volume of shot. Snapshot hardly matters to you.

It's so much fun. You just cover the board in dice and watch things disappear.

Necrons

Thanks for all the input. I will definitely relay all this information.And of course she will have final say in an army shepicks. I dodon't plan on doing much steering, just wanted some info on options as I have only played against orks and blood angel

Both of which are very assaulty armies lol. Orks more than BA but BA have a fair amount of assault too.

Grey knights are a shooty army that just also happen to be very good in assault.

Soo'Vah'Cha wrote: and of the few female 40kers I have met, a good percentage of them play eldar for some reason.

Girls who are into fantasy predominantly like the "elves and fairies" aspects of it. Space Elves seems like the perfect fit. In the long long ago, half the reason my buddy played Eldar was because his girlfriend was happy to paint them for him.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
id say its a tossup between IG and Necrons after tau. Necrons are BS4 and have some fancy guns but theyre usually low numbered (reanimation fixes this to an extent). IG have some hella good guns but they suffer hardcore once you catch them, and unlike Tau they arent very mobile.

Both have their flaws though. Many people will swear up and down that necron air force is the only viable list they have anymore, and like i already said IG just crumble once you catch them.

They only crumble if you lack commissars.

Necrons: Overwhelming firepower tactic at 6 -24 inches usually do either a creeping advance or teleport flanking. (veil of darkness, phased reinforcements/ ethereal interception, deep strike)
Take out anti tank units ASAP and drop in a monolith. They will see it coming but can't really do much about it. never let them get closer and try to move them into this range and they will flay like the tiny organics they are.

Eldar: Don't know much, but their tactics are very flexible and can change mid game and sometimes even turn. Short range, decent strength weapons, very mobile, and very high ballistic skill. Keep the enemy on the run and blast them with arcane technologies.

Dark Eldar: Poisoned rounds. Everywhere. Regular troops with 3+ to hit and 2+ to wound. Get close enough, two shots each. What else could you possibly want? Oh, right, Armour and tanks.

Imperial guard: Nice 3++ invulnerable. Now make that 20 more times. Lots of low powered shots supported by the best tanks imaginable for their price. A leman russ may not stand up to a monolith but it is also a lot cheaper and you can take up to nine in a regular battle compared to the three monoliths that the necrons can take.

Orks: Not really a shooty army but they can be built as one and when done properly the consequences are horrifying. For everything else that is.

Space marines: Decent firepower with a lot of different options. They are all rounders meaning your tactical squad carries melee, anti tank, long range, and anti infantry fire power usually backed by one or two shoulder mounted heavy weapons.
They also have different chapters that offer different abilities (salamanders excel at melee and close range with their flamers, dark angels have mysterious weapons and plasma batteries mounted on the backs of speeders).

Tyranids: Do not consider for shooty. They may have the ability to shoot but that doesn't mean you should. They are much more deadly in melee.

Daemons: do not consider for shooty. Though they do have ranged magic.

Tau: Highly mobile with ultra long range weapons and high strength. Ultimately the best shooty choice though they are at a lack for arcane weapons. Mostly it's just stats and very few cool weapon abilities.

IG are good as a shooting army, you can issue orders to fire more shots than normal, lots of different types, and you have the classic LRBT.

But like earlier posts say, if the guard cant shoot down whatever is coming at them,they're gone.

Szeras wrote:
Necrons: Overwhelming firepower tactic at 6 -24 inches usually do either a creeping advance or teleport flanking. (veil of darkness, phased reinforcements/ ethereal interception, deep strike)
Take out anti tank units ASAP and drop in a monolith. They will see it coming but can't really do much about it. never let them get closer and try to move them into this range and they will flay like the tiny organics they are.

Eldar: Don't know much, but their tactics are very flexible and can change mid game and sometimes even turn. Short range, decent strength weapons, very mobile, and very high ballistic skill. Keep the enemy on the run and blast them with arcane technologies.

Dark Eldar: Poisoned rounds. Everywhere. Regular troops with 3+ to hit and 2+ to wound. Get close enough, two shots each. What else could you possibly want? Oh, right, Armour and tanks.

Imperial guard: Nice 3++ invulnerable. Now make that 20 more times. Lots of low powered shots supported by the best tanks imaginable for their price. A leman russ may not stand up to a monolith but it is also a lot cheaper and you can take up to nine in a regular battle compared to the three monoliths that the necrons can take.

Orks: Not really a shooty army but they can be built as one and when done properly the consequences are horrifying. For everything else that is.

Space marines: Decent firepower with a lot of different options. They are all rounders meaning your tactical squad carries melee, anti tank, long range, and anti infantry fire power usually backed by one or two shoulder mounted heavy weapons.
They also have different chapters that offer different abilities (salamanders excel at melee and close range with their flamers, dark angels have mysterious weapons and plasma batteries mounted on the backs of speeders).

Tyranids: Do not consider for shooty. They may have the ability to shoot but that doesn't mean you should. They are much more deadly in melee.

Daemons: do not consider for shooty. Though they do have ranged magic.

Tau: Highly mobile with ultra long range weapons and high strength. Ultimately the best shooty choice though they are at a lack for arcane weapons. Mostly it's just stats and very few cool weapon abilities.

If someone has been claiming that their poisoned shots are 2+ standard, they've been cheating. They wound on 4+ not 2+.

I'd say IG. I maybe a bit bias as I'm starting one.

Sisters of battle have some of the deadliest shooting you will find at 8-12" range and the means to deliver it there. Even at 24" range they can pour it on. I can't think of a simpler army to build and the tactica is complex enough to be interesting but simple enough that a beginner can at least play them and not get too tangled up.

And they dont die quite as fast as IG which is nice.

Well, the answer is tau. Followed by tau with eldar allies. Followed by tau again, and then tau.

In a distant twelfth or fourteenth place or so, I'd probably say necron, as they have pretty good speed and durability, and their combination of hull-point stripping gauss and mass apply-the-armor-saves (and more HP stripping) of hit-more-than-you-shot tesla is able to cover all your bases. After that, it's probably eldar, thanks to psychic powers, but by this point, you're kind of in a pool with the rest of them, honestly.

DE and guard can both do shooting, but their shooting has holes in it (guard have trouble with MCs, while DE have trouble with vehicles), and both of them have durability issues sufficient to cancel their firepower advantages. Likewise, lots of regular eldar stuff is flimsy, and everyone seems to forget that wave serpents can use their shield as a gun OR a shield, which means they sort of have the same problems.

The rest of the codices can do shooting just fine, but it's nothing special. Honestly, I think the premise is sort of silly. ANY army can be made a shooty army, and 6th ed hates CC so much, that nearly every army IS a shooty army, because the CC options from their codex tend not to be used that much.

I mean, CSM is a "choppy" codex, but for every mutilator or squad of warp talons, there are a thousand helldrakes or obliterators out there.

Girls who are into fantasy predominantly like the "elves and fairies" aspects of it. Space Elves seems like the perfect fit. In the long long ago, half the reason my buddy played Eldar was because his girlfriend was happy to paint them for him.

Absolute bullocks. The women that I have seen playing warhammer 40k have played a multitude of races from Tyranids, to Necrons, to Chaos, to Eldar (leaning towards Chaos and Tyranids). I have seen women playing marines as well. Please leave the stereotyping at home.