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Hey guys,
I'm thinking of getting back into 40k, but since we're in 7th edition now I'm not sure what army to start with. I thought maybe I would start a poll to see what the community thinks is the best starter army. Make sure to post a reply stating what army you voted for and why.

P.S. I didn't put down Adepta Sororitas because I don't like them.

A good rule of thumb is “play what you love”. I notice you have some BT thing going on in your avatar/location, so run with that. They might not be the top-dog competitive army, but marines are generally one of the cheeper ones to play, and flexible in the long term.

Chaos Daemons.

1. Solid, well balanced book that can either be played as a pantheon of your favourite units, or else can essentially become 4 'mini armies' and go mono-God, or anything in between. There really aren't any truly 'useless' units in the book, though those Slaany chariots are pretty fragile things.

2. Offers Psychic phase dominance. If you like magic, Daemons can smash even Eldar & GK's at the psychic game.

3. You get a Fantasy army at the same time!!
Seriously, what's not to love about what is basically a 2-for-1 army deal?! Sure Daemons are dysfunctional as hell right now in Fantasy, but within a couple years they'll probably get new rules, or else you can (hopefully) get opponents to tone down their own lists so you're not shoehorned into a specific build or two to compete...

Orks. They are just fun to play.

Space Marines. Easy learning curve, can evolve into a wide variety of choices. Since it's the most popular army, there's lots of support for it.

Necrons.
-Easy to start buying models (battleforce + barge gives you an 800+ point army depending how you build stuff and all the units there are good. Necron battleforce is arguably the best battleforce at the moment.)
-Easy to paint compared to other armies (really, really easy)
-Good codex at the moment, you won't be losing all your games
-After your models die they come back
-I had another point but I can't remember

I voted Necrons because they're stong, easy to paint, and that's what I started with.

But upon reflection, I'd say Space Marines or Chaos Space Marines...I mean, that's what 40k is really mostly about.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
But even better advice is to pick whichever army you think looks coolest, and go from there.

Space Marines allow you to learn nearly all of the fundamentals without punishing you for failing some. Stick to cover, but if you forget you still have a normal 3+ across the board. Hold the Assault, but you regroup if you fail to pass morale. Plan your moves before you make it, but each model is durable so you can weather a few bad decisions.

Some models, Necrons and Tyranids for example, expect you to learn everything new AND have dozens of additional rules thrown in. Synapse, Tesla, Teleport Gates, Ressurection Protocols. While these are good rules and solid armies, they aren't starter friendly. Others really fail in certain areas. Eldar and Orks. Eldar won't teach you the Assault phase and will teach you to move too much and Orks won't have you put faith in your guns. First impressions can mean a lot and if you expect to miss with all your Ork guns, how would you feel moving to Tau, who JUST shoot? Not a good block to build from. I still find myself charging blindly forward because I started with Tyranids and I often have to reign in my Eldar turn 3 and correct my own tactical errors if it's not too late.

Marines will give you simplicity, reliability and a decent foothold in every section of the game, including Psychic with Librarians. So to start, there ya go. Find what you enjoy and then after 750pts or so, it'd be easier for you to choose what you want to settle with for the long haul.

Any of the space marine armies are easy to learn and forgiving and each will give a different flavor of game play and most hold a competitive codex. Painting most space marines can be easy.

Orks are pretty straight forward too... Run at things and kill things.

Necrons would be my next suggestion and are also pretty forgiving as they have anasty habit to standing back up. Super easy to paint.

I gotta throw out a vote for Space Marines. They are very forgiving to new players. Easy to learn. Not overly expensive money-wise.

I went for Space Marines. Flexible play styles, and most popular army. Making your own chapter is one of my favorite parts of this hobby!

Tau... If you get the right units, it can be so cost efficient. Also, tau are considered top tier right now so it's good to start with a upper tier army.

I typically recommend Space Marines simply because they're the easiest army to buy a reasonable selection of models for, have the broadest range of plastics, and are the easiest to slap a couple of colours onto and end up with fine-looking models. There's also the fact that since they're the poster army GW never dumps them at the bottom tier with no updates, they're always at least midrange.

Grey Knights or necrons. Both are easy to paint, plus greyknights will allow you to get on the table with a low model count.

Orks,

Because Orks. One of the few armies with open topped transports to use as assault vehicles. Kitted out dreffdreads for less than 100pts, low pts decent bikes, can not pop a pain boy in a big mob of boys. Waagh has gotten more useful. Lootas. Except the newer releases the GW rice tag is usually quite good and you can still find them cheaper.

If you are getting back into it and you have models already I would go along those lines. Maybe use what you have as allies and start a new force to compliment them.

Everyone has space marine miniature hanging around and they are relatively easy to get unpainted second hand. That's how I built most of my CSM army up. I just needed to shell out for some dinobot things.

The one you like the look of the most. That's the only right answer.

Anything from the imperium of man, otherwise your a filthy traitor or xenos scum...