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I prioritise colour scheme and lore but have some loose rules I tend to stick to:

Faction: Something a bit niche
Power level: Not at the top of the heap
Colour scheme: I can paint it up to my standards, and it's not too time consuming (this is the big one that makes me ditch projects)
Models: All plastic if possible
Composition: The list I play is believable, somewhat realistic and the units can be justified

I've been painting Khorne daemons for a while now. I couldn't get a red scheme I liked when I was test painting bloodletters so I've gone black. It's a nice, easy scheme. Mono Khorne daemons aren't exactly common and they certainly aren't top tier. The only non plastics now are a couple of HQ's (I waited a long time for plastic hounds).

The army composition thing is a bit annoying though. I don't like the idea of more than one bloodthirster but I'm planning three. I suppose you have to make some sacrifices in this hobby.

Argive wrote:You just wouldn't send guardians to the battlefield full stop lore wise..
Rangers maybe. They make sense. Can set up using web way, shoot out of safe distance while being nearly invisible and in theory should be able to evac via webway.

Even most of the aspect warriors seem a bit of a stretch in terms of combat potential vs value of eldar souls...
I'm really surprised there isint a range of wraith automata/ drones. But this has been talked about on an old thread previously.

Weirdly enough the current mechanised eldar play style with lots grav tanks/vehicles seem to be the most logical (but fluffy because reasons) to me ironically.

If one could always choose the wars they would fight, Eldar wouldn't fight at all. However, the choices of others can often narrow the options one has so that fighting provides the more preferable outcomes. Guardians come across as militia, and I'm fine with that. I just don't understand why the militia is armed with what are effectively shotguns when the greatest enemy in history outranges them quite easily.

And yeah, I would think more Wraith-like options would be something Craftworlds would be encouraged to use. Even if it is just stealing the souls of lesser races for the light troops. It is one of the sad losses to removing the Formations and Slot-swapping of previous editions so one can build an army out of Wraiths without serious sacrifices.

Even then, the Wraithguard weaponry is still remarkably short-ranged.

Snake Tortoise wrote:Faction: Something a bit niche

I admit, the more I see an army locally, the less I actually want to play it. Lizardmen/Seraphon in Fantasy/AoS is in that slot for me.

Models mainly.

The lore on both counts, and as time has gone on the models have also kept me nailed down for each.

Orks were my first and I loved how absolutely brutal yet absurd they are. As I got older I went to Guard and I loved being the underdogs in a universe full of nightmare monster and supermen. I then fell out of the game for a few years and ended up selling my stuff and now I've come full circle and have come back to Orks.

I chose all the armies I own (or owned) because of their lore, look, playstyle and kitbashing/converting possibilities. Couldn't care less if they are competitive or not.

Lore l, but even more for modeling opportunities. I play from too many years (and I've never sold a minis) to care about transient stuff like rules.

My first armies were Dark Angel because I liked the variety in paint scheme (3 armies into one).

I bought 4 Imperial Knights and a Cerastus only because those were fun to convert, base and magnetize...and I filled them with Led lights.

I have bought (still have to build them however) an Alpha Legion army for their SpecOps vibe (all started from a third party unit), with a lot of converted 30k stuff, no Demon and a very clean vibe... Because I want to paint them with perlescent paint and created swamp-water bases.

In the end, I think I pass more time to convert and paint the model (and look satisfied at them in my showcase) then the time I play with them (and before Covid, I played once a week regularly).

For me it is really a mix, the lore is great but sometimes I have an army theme in mind so I also look at what army supports it well. I wanted to do a dreadnaught heavy army last edition, so I ended up going BA because they had a great variety of options to use and there lore is great.

For me, it's the models above and beyond lore or rules, although lore and rules I don't like did chase me back into older editions eventually.

With Tyranids, I fell in love the first time I saw the goofy OG hive tyrant on a shelf. I slowly collected some and played a few very small games while mostly being a WHFB player, but when the 3e codex with that amazing art and a whole slew of redesigned plastic and metal models (especially the Warriors!) dropped, I started a lifelong commitment to painting broods of Gaunts.

Tau, I was impressed the moment I saw a preview for a Crisis suit, and I still adore them today. It took me a few editions to get around to them though.

Necrons? Badab Black had just been released and I suddenly realized I could paint an entire army in one weekend. Although as an edgy young teen I did enjoy all the faux-Lovecraft/mythology fluff snippets and prophecies that built up to and followed the original Codex: Necrons.

As for Ultramarines, they're a lot more recent and based on how nice I thought the scale on Primaris models looked. The only problem? After being deeply disinterested in the 6th and 7th editions of the game (big thanks to the Cruddace Tyranid books and updated Necron fluff for that), I gave 8th a try and found that... I still really didn't like it. Having been jamming the odd game of 3rd or 4th with a few casually playing friends over that time period anyway, I decided to just make it official and become a grognard. "How does this relate to Primaris Ultramarines? Get to the bloody point, man!" I can hear you thinking - I swapped the helmets for classic ones, added a few special weapons, painted the trim yellow and the guns red, and called it a day with a nice new Marine army for 3e.

Lore and painting are my primary drivers to pick a faction. I have to feel enthusiastic for an army to want to play it and it's narrative and aesthetics that does that for me. Besides those things though I'm a lot more likely to go for an army if it is under-represented in my gaming society and if it provides a play style that is unique from other armies I play.

I would love to be able to say that rules are irrelevant, but it's just no fun playing an army that is bottom of the pile or has poor internal balance and only 1 or 2 viable builds that don't fit the fluff. Competitiveness fluctuates over time but I'll avoid starting an army if it is currently very under or over powered or if it has terrible internal balance.

I started Death Guard, CSM, and Orkz back in 6th edition, based off the lore. I picked up Imperial Knights for rules at the end of 8th. I haven't played any 9th, but currently working on Ultramarines for half rules, and half lore after reading Know no Fear and Dark Imperium.

Lore/models/appearance every time.

Lore/aesthetics (not necessarily based on available models)/rules/Paint scheme

I'll try to make fluffy lists, using models I like, but the rules needs to be serviceable. I'm not going to use a unit that is not playable. Lore representation/models can make up only so much for crappy rules/cost. I still want to actually ..you know...win, just not at the cost of silly lists like three daemon princes.

Nope, I picked a colour scheme and went from there.

A E S T H E T I C

I picked Nids in 3e because of Starship Troopers and Starcraft Zerg. A swarming mass of hungry babies and and bioengineered masses of muscle and destruction.

Eventually, when I wanted to start collecting a second army in 5e, I wanted something to act as a polar opposite of Nids. I wanted customizable wargear options, I wanted squads with a variety of models, and I wanted models with AV. Eventually, the GK codex got released, and I fell in love with the concept of Inquisitorial Warbands flying under Coteaz's banner.

When they added the ability to Ally up and make some soup, the concept of the Inquisition to requisition troops from other factions hit my lore bone just right. I've got a unifying color scheme across the imperial armies: it's like a dirty, rusted coppery thematic which I decided on from the lore concept that GKs opted to not paint their Power Armor to keep it 'pure' (similarly, Deathwatch strip their colors for their service).

Fast forward, and I've got a modest AdMech army (which, again, is built on a e s t h e t i c: almost 100% hooded Skitarii models and Crabtanks). I'm slowly working on some Iron Hands and Deathwatch to act as foils to my power armored Grey Knights. I've got plans to retool the GKs to be a mostly fast-hitting strike force of Interceptors and the like (also heavily convert a custom 5-man Paladin Squad with hoods/cloaks), while using Iron Hands as the chonky, indominable defenders (a small force at the moment, just some Tacticals, Dev Cents, a handful of Dreadnoughts, eyeballing some Aggressors and Heavy Intercessors) and Deathwatch as the in-game replacement for Henchmen the since GW sabotaged the heavy customization from 5e Inquisitorial Warbands.

Both depending on Faction:

SM Sons of Medusa(Iron Hands): Lore. Started them in 5th, Rules kept getting better. Love dreads, but didn't want to paint Black and White/steel army, Bright Green however...

IG/Admech, Not really caring about subfaction on these guys: Lore. IG where built around very specific regimental themes: all foot trenchers, Russ column, Artillery company, etc. Admech were always wanted as a standalone army since 3rd.

Imp Knights, House Taranis: Rules, but a bit of lore. Wanted a Mechanicus house for repairs, and wanted Taranis for extra survivabillity/zombie Knights. Also fits with the Admech force idea and even allied with Guard has Techpriests for repair.

Orks, Kultur matters less: Lore. just fun to play around with.

Grey Knights: Lore. only have a patrol to play certain matches, Point is to ally them with other imperial forces for their intended lore purposes. Going to do the same with Deathwatch soonish.

I generally go for models and lore. Rules tend to change a lot more frequently. I don’t believe you can get the full 40k experience/enjoyment if you don’t have any affinity to the faction/army you are pouring many hours into painting and playing as.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Simple question: When you choose to start a new army, do you make the decision of which army it will be based on your love of its lore, playstyle, look, etc, or do you choose it because of how strong its rules are?

Secondary question: If you choose your army based on its lore, do you try to use units that fit that lore, even if they aren't the best available to it?

I chose NightLords/Noise Marines and CWE for the Lore, old school Slaanesh Daemons for the models. I prefer to play units based on the lore for my CSM so Bikers/Jump for NightLords with Dreadnought back up, Noise EVERYTHING for my Emp Children and Aspect armies for my CWE. I only play models of the appropriate era to fit with my Daemonettes army, which means a lot of people either outright will not play them due to size creep or I miss out on a bunch of units due to the difficulty of converting from older models and then facing size creep again with things like Chariots and the Keeper of Secrets. Seriously, that thing is huge and aesthetically vanilla af.

BUT you missed a third option there... I also have a fairly large IG army that came mostly from extremely favorable trades and super cheap purchases. It was the same with my Tau a few years back. I think I picked up 1.5k of Tau for 50 bucks with a carry case? And it wasn’t a bad army either, not competitive but super fun for casual play.

Lore for me. The story of the Crimson Fists drew me in. All of my other factions are based on either the cannon lore, or something that I can run with on my own, like renegade space marines/IG that are not chaos. I almost never look at rules as they always change every five years.

I guess this would count as aesthetics, but what about random project ideas? For example, I started an Ork army so I could kitbash a bunch of vehicles. Or I started a chaos army because I wanted to make a blood pact army from the Sabbat crusade. And then I just never stopped.

I pick faction based on their lore and how they look. Buying, building and painting is a major endeavor, and the motivation to hobby for me is based on bringing the faction to life. The lore and look are important.

I will sometimes pick units within the faction, though, based on their rules.

I started painting my orks in a scheme that gradually settled on Goffs around 7th edition with a handful of bad Moonz Sprinkled in for flavoring. The painting style I had had bare metal plates for my infantry but I started painting my Kanz and Deff Dread black and then I discovered the Goff color scheme and ran with it. Took me a couple models but I settled on it.

My Nidz are a custom color scheme because I thought that Leviathan was silly.

My Black Templars were painting in their colors but it isn't exact.

I picked my faction based on both. Lore is great, but I can enjoy that without paying a penny. But I do feel a desire to play that faction afterwards. If the rules suck, or if they don't reflect the lore in the slightest, then I won't spend my time and money.

Lore always. That's why I have an inquisition army. There is no rules reason to play inq.

Necrons because they were easy to get a first fully painted army back when I came back to the game
Death Guard because they were a really cheap way to get a second army
Tyranids as I always liked their models
Custodes so I could spend a lot of time painting per model while still being able to build an army in a reasonable amount of time
Guard because if you don’t eventually get a guard army, you’re not really a fan of the game.