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Let me give you a bit of background on myself. I started playing at the very end of 3rd edtition and played through all of 4th right until 5th came out. I ran Necrons at the time and was one of Very few players in my area to run an Xenos army. And....It rocked. I know 4th was FAR more shooting phase oriented then subsequent editions. And dear lord I loved my Necron Destroyers, 36" Strength 6 AP 4 Heavy 4 with Gauss Special rule. The old school Elite immortals with T5. And the C'tan the at the time most expensive nastiest non-forge-world models that you could field. Today's necrons have little resemblance to the ones of yesteryear though that might change with the coming codex I doubt it. In addition frankly the game has changed with things added such as Overwatch, Running, Go to ground, hull points, Flyers, etc.

Still nostalgia is strong. I would like to know what army can help me recapture the feel of those old 4th edtions necrons and be effective. As I am flush with Christmas Cash and have someone who can get me most anything 1/2 off now seems the time to get back into the game.

If it's shooting you love then the greater good is what you need! Go Tau!

old school necrons, which is summarised by warriors marching next to monoliths, shooting until they've almost won, but then frank died and we had to go home.

not sure if there's much like that these days, you can still do it with the necrons but it's a poor tactic.

are you in the hobby just to play, or do you like converting, or sculpting, or scratchbuilding? Do you want an efficient army that'll either fail or spam the 2 decent units in the book, much to your opponents boredom? (Eldar) Do you want a resilient army with cheap units and many backups to get the job done and an unbelievable amount of laughs? (Orks), or do you want overwhelming firepower that relies on good synergy and support? (Guard or Tau) Or do you want to get angry with GW every time you look at your army list? (Sisters).

tau are a fun and easy army to pick up. Really easy to paint too. Have a look at the range.

Tir Mcdoul wrote:I know 4th was FAR more shooting phase oriented then subsequent editions.

I believe you're mistaken. Every rules edition has favored shooting more than close combat since 3rd. This is the shootiest edition of the game, I'd say, even moreso than 6th.

Tir Mcdoul wrote: Elite immortals ... most expensive nastiest non-forge-world models that you could field ... I would like to know what army can help me recapture the feel of those old 4th edtions necrons and be effective.

Well, it depends on what part of that feel you're looking for most.

If what you liked was that sort of invincible inevitability, then you're probably best off with GK now. They have two-wound terminators, and a bunch of extra little defense things thrown on. They have the heaviest flier in the non-FW game (well, tied with other SM), and their land raiders can take immunity to the melta rule. They also have psycannons, which, outside of necron, are going to be the closest approximation to old gauss, thanks to having rending. They also get to do one-off long-range teleportation, sort of like everybody having their own one-use veil of darkness. They also don't have the most gruesome special characters, but their special character pool as a whole is probably the strongest. Tough to kill, rending weapons, teleportation. Sounds 4th ed necron to me.

Another possibility is the wraith side of the eldar codex. Wraithguard are similar to old necron as they're tough to kill and have small arms that can just nuke stuff. They also have wraithlords and wraithknights, which are pretty serious, as monstrous creatures go, especially in the durability department. Eldar psychic powers can also recreate some of that old shenanigans feel. Plus, you can put them in wave serpents, which are the closest thing outside of fliers to the old monolith (though, really, they're more like 4th ed falcons). The only real problem with this is that you're sort of ignoring 3/4 of the codex you're playing your army out of.

A third possibility is tau. Like necron, they rely on a narrow pool of weapons to do all their damage for them, and rely on volume of fire. They're also shooty, and can also cause fits of depression in your opponents, and, like pulling monoliths out of your army case of old, you'll get plenty of groans as you pull out your first riptide, and then your second... to last riptide. They're also decently tough, but on the offense they play more like dark eldar than necron. Thankfully, you don't need to do offense with tau, as all your guns are always already in range, so you can just sort of sit there rolling dice if you want.

Other than that, I guess I'd have to say new necron. There's nothing that says you MUST use all of their new stuff. You can still run an army of warriors and monoliths if you want to. It's just in a different world now.

Thanks much for all the help and the detailed answers.

Acutally I never liked running monoliths much due to my curse of bad luck they would always take 1 lascannon shot and die....

The way I ran my for force was as foot slogging host of Immortals and Warriors that put withering amounts of fire to all who came close then had the nightbringer out front to deal with any assault forces they might have.

But the unit I favored the most was my Destroyers. I always ran as many as I could cram and that was usually 15 of them. Hell when Apoc came out and that was the big thing I was fielding a fleet of 50 of them. That 36" on a Jet bike with the high volume of shots I loved. T5 with 3+ save and reanimation protocols with beautiful. What is the closed thing to it out there now? I don't care if its even Forge-world that is what I'm looking for.

So I kinda shy from vehicles just due to the memories of them popping so easily in 4th but I know that's not quite the case anymore.

So you want some tough units that you can fly around the board and put out a massive volume of shots with?

How about Orks and warbikers? T5 with 4+ armor save. 3+ jink if they turbo-boost but then youre not shooting. TL assault 3 weapons. str5 ap5 so not the best weapon out there.

But you can stick a Big Mek with a MFF on a bike and all models in 6" get a 4+ Invuln save. And a painboy HQ gives the whole squad FNP.

And if you are shy from vehicles, Orks have one of the best footslogging lists out there, just go full on Horde.

Nurgle marked CSM bikes are T6 and have defensive grenades (Blight Grenades?). They're hard as heck to kill.

CSM are NOT a top-tier codex by any means, but there's fun to be had in running a mono-nurgle CSM/allied Daemon army. Bonus: It's shooty(ish) AND assaulty!

Yeah, you could torture CSM into here. I'd once again bump doing the same to eldar. Mass eldar jetbikes is sort of similar to mass destroyers. Fast, tough, mid-S shooting, etc. You can throw a seer council on bikes as well to make a mini bikestar.

You should pick up the Wave Serpent codex and start a Wave Serpent Army.

Hmm. Right after looking things over these seem to be what I like the most.

Tau: Farsight Enclave army with LOTS of crisis suits, Riptides, and Broadsides. And a few Pathfinders and Firewarriors to round out the lot. Oh and drones....LOTs of drones.

Eldar Wave Serpant spam. Seriously whats the counter to this it seems quite ridiculous

and Lastly an army that is a major break from my previous theme Imperial Knight. These guys are just Cool. I'm Think 3-4 Knight Paladins/Errants and 1-2 Castigators maybe a Lancer.

Well, if what you really want is the strongest army right now, I'd definitely go for a tau-eldar mix. There may be stronger lists in specific at the moment, but in general the two are right up at the top. Combine the wonkiness of eldar with the point-and-click of tau, and you too can be winning games of 40k with minimal effort on your part.

Of course, what power levels will be like in even the immediate future...

If you are just starting I'd suggest a space marine chapter that isn't painted like one of the founding legions.

Edit: Draigo centurion star has a lot of shooting. 4-5 C:sm cents, Draigo, a bike cm, tigurius (if you have the points and are willing to trade hit and run, since Draigo can gate of infinity you out..) and a gk librarian.

Necron because is the next book.

 hellpato wrote:
Necron because is the next book.

I think Necrons will get a hit but it will definitely be worth it to play them.

 wuestenfux wrote:

 hellpato wrote:
Necron because is the next book.

I think Necrons will get a hit but it will definitely be worth it to play them.

With IA12, necron's players will have good stuff to play with

If they bring back my old destroyers you can bet Ill play the crap out of necrons. But I don't want to buy in and the find they have a terrible codex.

Necrons are supposed to be out sometime in january so since you've got only a month to wait tops I'd wait and see what the new 'dex is like before deciding anything. I'd also reccomend reading through it yourself rather then listening to the internet,. GW could buff 9 out of 10 things, but that 10th thing'll be nerfed and thats what the internet will focus on discussing

If you still have your models, then I would stick with the Necrons. If you have to build your army up from scratch once again, then I would recommend buying the codexes that interest you until you find the army that suits you best. This way, you get an idea of what you can field within a typical army list. As well as, what your opponent can field as well.

Just did a little research on Battlescribe:

Double forge organisation chart, you could just squeeze in 15 heavy destroyers, two units of ten immortals, two units of ten warriors and two combat kitted phaerons into 2000 points.

With an entire 900 points spent on lascannons, you'd better hope you're playing a small, elite army where you can make those shots count.

So yes, far from ideal right now... But, there's heavy speculation they'll improve destroyers to improve sales of destroyers. Give it a little time.

changemod wrote:
Just did a little research on Battlescribe:

Double forge organisation chart, you could just squeeze in 15 heavy destroyers, two units of ten immortals, two units of ten warriors and two combat kitted phaerons into 2000 points.

With an entire 900 points spent on lascannons, you'd better hope you're playing a small, elite army where you can make those shots count.

So yes, far from ideal right now... But, there's heavy speculation they'll improve destroyers to improve sales of destroyers. Give it a little time.

It's not only the Destroyers, but also the Monos.
Destroyers and their heavy counterpart are too costly these days.