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I have been playing plenty of armies, but most of them are getting stale. Orks and IG, for example, are mostly based around bringing more dakka and more bodies than the enemy. SM are based around damn good stats. They are simply too forgiving to play.
What I am looking for is an army that has close to zero margin of error. If I play my game right, I will shred my enemy in record time, but one mistake and my army will disintegrate into rainbow confetti.
I do not want to survive because of numbers or stats, but with positioning, deployment, maybe even psychic powers to prevent the enemy from retaliating. For those who played WoW, imagine a Rogue. If you play your game right, go get the enemy from 100% to 0% in one go. If you feth up, you die.

Basically, I am looking for a challenge without spamming or relying on stats, but rather an army that I need to get good at and grow with and use my brain rather than boatloads of dice.
I hope you can help me with that.

Thanks for any input

So Dark Eldar?

They epitomize the Glass Cannon. They can hit hard and fast, but one screw up and you'll get wiped.

At least that is how it was pre-7th edition. Not sure if it still holds true.

Harlequins

Sisters of Battle!

A different game?

Do both. Dark eldar are exactly what you just described. Harlies add the cc they only get via incubi.

 ChazSexington wrote:
Sisters of Battle!

No. They are just another PA codex with some ribbons tacked on.

DE and Harlies do sound interesting. To be frank, DE are one of the two armies I never played (the other being nids) and I only once played against them (and won by a lot) so I know close to nothing about them. I do not think Harlies make for a good main army, so I will leave them for now (and re-consider if I choose an Eldar-type army).

In case it matters, I am aiming for tournament level of play (my meta alone is highly competitive and plentiful, with power lists close to everywhere). Not sure if DE is good enough for that. I am looking for a challenge, not an impossible undertaking

Dark Eldar have the juice to compete with any list out there, ESPECIALLY with Eldar Psychic support and perhaps Harlequin support as well. Easy to throw in a Farseer and a couple Objective grabbing Jetbikes (and I'm actually liking Vypers running with Reavers but that's your choice). You can absolutely use the three armies to make a high speed, high power and still very fragile army. The 3+ "power" of Jetbikes can be offset by low numbers, really needing good placement and timing. The list would have to be VERY high risk, and VERY high reward.

Having played Saim-Hann Eldar during 6ed and 7ed, I can say that they are the exact opposite of a fragile army. Wave Serpents are toughness level of Land Raiders unless faced with Ignore Cover. And don't get me started on the Wraith units...

Having looked into the Harlies, I really like the Psychic powers going on there. Veil of Tears, Cover Saves and that reverse Invisibility and access to Telepathy and negative Ld modifiers can make for an interesting army all about controlling the enemy. In the best case scenario the opponent only does things you allow him to do.

But to get back the DE issue at hand. Does anyone have an example list or maybe a good advice where to start? As strange as it sounds to me, I am going into unfamiliar territory in 40k. Never thought I'd ever say that

I think that the hardest army to Play would be militarium tempestus because you have no magic bag of tricks to play with. In other armies you have relic tables, supplements, forgeworld imperial armor, and army specific units. The tempestus have literally none of that. Ita about the bare essentials if troop movement and deployment, vehicle selection and pairing them with squads and the careful application of commanders as force multipliers in your force.

Imo it takes raw skill at the game to do well with tempestus and not relying on gimmicks or cheesy game abuses/codex loopholes. Because you don't have any loopholes you have a bunch of dudes, their troop transports, and a bare field commander

I agree with dark eldar or harlequins. Glass cannon armies are exactly what you are searching for.

Having done some superficial research into some DE lists.. they do feel rather spammy. I mean, you are basically taking Ravagers, Blasterborn and Warriors in Venoms and Raiders respectively.
I am sort of lacking those little tricks you can do with some armies. This is, again, another case of bringing more dakka than the enemy (albeit on more fragile platforms) without much thought behind it. I agree that this army requires exceptional positioning and movement, but they can not do much in terms of controlling and handicapping the enemy. A good step, but not big enough step in the right direction.
But as I said, it was a superficial look and I am still looking for a pointer for DE info.

Play BA. There is nothing forgiving about BA at all.

" SM are based around damn good stats"

Not really. Most marine lists are based around grav cents and grav bikers. Their stats have little to do with it. In fact, many Xeno lists render many marine stats useless, like WS and S.

Another vote for DE with allied harlequins. That army would fit what you're looking for perfectly.

While it's true that Dark Eldar are famous for spamming transports, and are quite good at it, our codex is balanced such that there is no "right" way to play them. Even Wytches are ok in the right circumstances. For non vehicle options check out Haemonculus Covens

Trade_Prince wrote:What I am looking for is an army that has close to zero margin of error. If I play my game right, I will shred my enemy in record time, but one mistake and my army will disintegrate into rainbow confetti.

Then you want a close combat army.

With long range shooting, if you miss on turn 1, you'll get a chance to hit again on turn 2 and 3. With close combat, you might not get the charge in at all, and if you do, you might only get one, so you better have made sure enough of you survived/killed enough of their stuff to be able to do well, because you can still lose the close combat, even if you charged.

Not only is CC more challenging in general, but it's more challenging than usual with this version of the main rulebook. This is probably the most hostile time in 40k to the idea of an easy win with a CC army.

Of course, lots of armies can do close combat, so that isn't THAT much of a differentiator. I guess what I'd do to ratchet the challenge level up again would be to find a version of close combat that's weaker, or is close combat in a non-close-combat army. So, for example, play a CC army that's a horde. Bump it up again if it's a CC horde from, guard, or either eldar or something.

But if you only one to take a step or two up the challenge ladder, then go hunting for one of the stronger CC armies.

Eldar of any type. While DE are a glass cannon, regular Eldar are supposed to be that way, but somewhere in the codex there was a wrong term and they lost it

Interestingly enough you don't actually need a different army. What you need is a different play style of the armies you have.

You should check out the LVO top lists. A number of those lists are geared toward tactical flexibility, mobility, and damage rather than durability.

Whether forgeworld is an option will also open up a lot of different mobile, high damage builds. The Elysian Drop Troops lists are all like this and the new death rider detachment w/ siege drills seems to fit this as well. Without forgeworld a high risk - high reward army that is fun and competitive is the drop vets lists that recently became possible.

An example of a drop pod vets list that placed 4th overall at the LVO;
http://bloodofkittens.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Geoff-Thompson-4th-Best-Overall-Las-Vegas-Open-2015.pdf

Biker armies are also fragile relative to their points costs. If you mess up with them the situation snow balls rapidly.

I concur with those who said DE. They play much differently than almost every other army because of their army-wide fragility. You really have to understand how each unit synergizes with your other units. Your games will be won (or lost) in the movement phase, with your target priority also playing a crucial factor in how you do. Also definitely check out the Covens supplement. The most fun I've had in 7th ed. is using the formation from the Covens book along with the regular DE codex. If you can win consistently with DE then you're a pretty good general.

Dark elder...

 Trade_Prince wrote:

What I am looking for is an army that has close to zero margin of error. If I play my game right, I will shred my enemy in record time, but one mistake and my army will disintegrate into rainbow confetti.

I do not want to survive because of numbers or stats, but with positioning, deployment, maybe even psychic powers to prevent the enemy from retaliating. For those who played WoW, imagine a Rogue. If you play your game right, go get the enemy from 100% to 0% in one go. If you feth up, you die.

Run MT with the DA Librarius Conclave, its exactly this. You will be outnumbered, outgunned, and outarmored at all times. All you will have are some very dirty tricks and special abilities, which you had better manage perfectly if you want to survive. Nothing is disposable, attrition is not an strategy, and you are going to have to win the game with your choices as the player (because your units most certainly won't do it for you).

What's on your side? Fast and punchy transports, 11 psychic ML's, deep strike on everything except Ezekiel, plasma and melta everywhere, 4++ on anything you want, Orders that let S3 Lasguns kill Wraithknghts, Fearless on everything, or 4x Jump Librarians with Force Weapons combining to make a Voltron deathstar... How is this NOT popular? Oh yeah... something like 40 models and 5 AV11 vehicles at 1850pts. It's like XCOM Ironman Impossible in 40k. Sadistically unforgiving.

Good luck dude... if you choose this army, you're going to need it!

If people play 30k near you or you're allowed to do 30k v 40k... Corax Raven Guard would be awesome and different.

But yeah Harlequins and DE sound like what you are looking for.

Dark Eldar all the way. They are absolutely challenging, but can be really rewarding when you play them right.

Sisters of battle and use all their unit options!

Another vote for Dark Eldar. They rely on fast, hard attacks which require a lot of strategy. You might think they look like they're spammy, but they're not broken. They have a lot of transports and webway portals to allow them to get where they need to be. They excel at surgical strikes vs wars of attrition. If you don't kill something instantly, it's going to hurt, and you have to have enough foresight to keep the opponent on their toes. Nobody will ever gripe about your DE army being broken, as everything is so fragile that it falls apart if you slip up.

Chaos space marines. Using actual Chaos Marine squads, chosen squads and raptor squads.

I found GK had a great learning curve, Yeah they are SM but with their now low model count because inq got removed they can easily get punished with a wrong move but when you are on fire you know it because your army just flows.

Raven Cowl wrote:
While it's true that Dark Eldar are famous for spamming transports, and are quite good at it, our codex is balanced such that there is no "right" way to play them. Even Wytches are ok in the right circumstances. For non vehicle options check out Haemonculus Covens

I wouldn't like to lose my speed, but beyond that I welcome any non transport spam suggestions.

As for the Coven. There is basically one faction amongst the Eldar I have no gripes with, and those are Corsairs. I think a DE army could make decent Corsairs with all their sails and pirate-like looks. However, not sure if space pirates would run around with giant flesh hulks. Any conversion ideas to stick with the theme?
(and no, FW Corsair list is not an option )

Tau!

SGTPozy wrote:
Tau!

As a matter of fact, I was very close to choosing Tau. I played them a good while and the JSJ and ML shenanigans were fairly interesting. However, I am not to big on the unit design. Something about those Eldar sails (those on DE vehicles) turns me on. Maybe because I like sailing? Who knows