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I'm getting into 40K and these are the two armies I like the look, lore, and general play style of the most. What would you guys recommend? Also, which do those of you who own these armies find easier to paint? Thank you in advance! I'm only guessing play style based on battle reports I've read/watched regarding them by the way.

Militarum Tempestus is a really crappy army alone. And very boring. They have all of one box set of Infantry and a Commissar, and two vehicles to choose from. Getting an Astra Militarum army with some Tempestus in it, or using Tempestus models in an Inquisition army as Acolytes with Hot Shot Lasrifles and using all the other toys available to Inquisition, or use them as Allies to a better main force, are all better options from a gameplay perspective. And a hobby perspective since they have so few things to offer.

Eldar are exceptionally powerful, easy to learn and difficult to master a non-spam army. There are ways to play Eldar like a symphony with every part working together flawlessly for the overall plan. Or you can just load up on three unit types and pulverize your opponent without skill. Both are valid ways to play. I use Eldar as my loaner army. New players pick up how to use the units very quickly.

An issue, and part of the reason I stopped actively building the army and moved to something else, is that the online community urges Eldar players towards spam. Spam Jetbikes. Spam Strength D weapons. Spam Psykers. I find that very boring. So if you want to build something fun and fluffy you have to make that very clear or you get the same advice again and again. It's not bad advice for the tournament table, but Eldar have a lot they can offer to casual players too.

So, between the two presented, I'd pick Eldar hands down. But, an Inquisition army would be a lot of fun as well, and they have some very very good lore.

If you want to win, pick Eldar. If you want to lose, pick Tempestus. It's that simple,really.

AM have a lot of forge world options. They have lots of choices for allies, if you want to mix it up later.

Eldar are rather common at the moment.

If you want to win? If you want to lose? What craps are you all spitting!? Look man, if you wanna win, but be looked at as a waac, and have no friends, eldar or necrons are your armies. If you wanna have fun, play anything else.


Ok in all seriousness... Play what you want man. Win or lose. Good or bad. If the fluff and the aesthetics of the army you choose fit you and you enjoy them, you'll always win. Cause you'll always have fun. Period.

Eldar and Necrons are the winners right now. In a few months it will be Tau again. GW power creep makes choosing an army an endless game of russian roulette, so winning probably shouldn't be the defining factor in what army you play. Especially considering that a truly competitive list will involve spam and min/maxing which will render your whole collection invalid as soon as GW updates your faction's rules again and shuffles all of the point values around.

Eldar because Tempestus is not a full army. But you should look at Astra Militarum also.

Militarum Tempestus is pretty much an army you make if you randomly got money and other armies to make it work.

Just play Imperial Guard and use the scions in that.

I'd pick Eldar for no reason other than that Militarum Tempestus is not a real army- they have very little options or variety in what you can bring- if you want to go that route I'd suggest going Imperial Guard instead and either allying in a Stormtrooper detachment or just use them as an elites choice. Since they come in platoons, you can take several dozen even in an Imperial Guard detachment.

Fluff wise you can even play around with a kind of "Guardsmen hold the line until the badass stormtroopers swoop in and clear everything out" list dynamic.

MT are relatively easy to paint, as they'll all be painted the same. Pick a scheme and watch the How-to videos on Youtube.
They are a fraction of another army, and are supposed to be deployed alongside something else. They are an allies army.

Eldar are a full army, and can be painted in many ways.
Some units can be fairly easy to paint (any of the Guardian kits), but Aspect Warriors can be fiddly. Vehicles are usually painted fairly clean, but to look good, they take practice (which I am still working towards).

So, I would say Tempestus could be good for a small 'army' to start with. Build up your Eldar until you have enough to drop the Scions.

If I were you, I would go for Militarum Tempestus. I mean, yes it is not a good army, but I find the models really cool looking

But yes, my opinion on the side, Eldar are a better choice as a starter army. More place for expansion, more list variation, better chance at winning, different models to paint with different scheme. And also, their last codex was release not so long ago, so you can expect to go with it for another 2year maybe.

Thanks for the feedback everyone! My only issue with Imperial Guard/Astra Militarum is the sheer model quantity. So many guardsmen. I'll look into them though. Since the consensus is Eldar - how would everyone suggest starting them? Start off with a few Guardians or an HQ and move on from there?



Also! Since someone mentioned the IG Forge World stuff - I checked that out. Elysian Drop Troops seem fun and have a pretty nice aesthetic. Any thoughts there?

Elysian Drop Troops is awesome! Use scions or Elysian models that you can just do custom yourself if you want.

Tabletop wise if you bring the right list you will do amazing. People tend to only bring enough AA games to handle 1-2 flyers, so a whole army of flyers is just impossible for most lists to deal with.

Vultures (Easy to do custom) and Avenger Strike Fighters are the two big units to look at when making your list. Apparently there is a new "D99" version of them that gives them even better options.

Also parachuting troops are great for the meta since mobility is big with capturing objectives and getting your troops there first into cover.

May I suggest: How to start Warhammer 40k video on youtube, by Miniwargaming.com (just google it and you will find it).

Basicly, to fully enjoy an army, I think you have to buy slowly (don't get overexcited and buy too much like I do lol). Also, don't plan too much ahead what you want to do, because it might change along the way (again, don't do what I do lol).

So, first of all, I would put my hand on the Codex of the army you choose. (PDF, or hard-copy). Then, pick 2 Troops from that books, and transport for them (if you want them to ride). Once you have that, I would suggest painting a few models, just to decide your paint scheme and get confortable with the army you have. Then get an HQ. The most awesome HQ you can find in the book (don't worry about named or whatever, as you can easily proxy most of the HQ in most of the books).

Now, get some small game going on, just to get the feel of your army, your special rules, your stenght and weekness, etc. That will help you determine what your army is lacking. Problems with vehicle on the other side? Get some heavy support to bring the pain to their door. always getting charge and cut to piece? Get a decent counter-charge unit that you keep close to your gunline, but jump in last minute to charge the opponent who dare charge you.

for the Eldar case, it could be something like: Get Book, Get 2 squad of Dire Avengers, Get 2 Wave Serpent. Paint a bit. Get an HQ (I don't know much about Eldar HQ sorry). Then get a Fire Prism. Finally round up your list with a squad of Banshees or Striking Scorpion.

That may not be the perfect Win-at-all-cost list. It may not be proper if you want to join a highly competitive environment by doing tournament after tournament. But I'm 100% positive that you will win and lose some at any Local Gaming Store with pick-up game, or at home with friends. Then you will realise that it's funny how it seem like EVERYBODy on dakka seem to be building list for big shot tournament, but you will never actually face those list in a friendly gaming store lol.

We have all heard about Flyrant spam, Cent deathstar, Screamstar and what not. I have played a minimum of 1 game per week for more than 2 year now, and I have never faced those lol.

EpicPursuit wrote:
Thanks for the feedback everyone! My only issue with Imperial Guard/Astra Militarum is the sheer model quantity. So many guardsmen. I'll look into them though. Since the consensus is Eldar - how would everyone suggest starting them? Start off with a few Guardians or an HQ and move on from there?



Also! Since someone mentioned the IG Forge World stuff - I checked that out. Elysian Drop Troops seem fun and have a pretty nice aesthetic. Any thoughts there?

You can do a more elite Guard force that doesn't strictly use the MT book. If you want MT, I'd strongly recommend just using the full Imperial Guard book as it has just about everything the MT book has, minus some orders you can just scan and tuck in the back of your IG book.

As for making an elite force, either something like the Elysians you mentioned, or taking nothing but Veterans with carapace armour and great weaponry mounted in Valkyries or Chimeras can be a rather low model count army - somewhere in 40 model range total for a 1000-1500pts army, including vehicles.

With Eldar, can't go wrong with a Farseer, some Guardians or Dire Avengers and Wave Serpents to ride around in. Alternatively, you can get a bunch of bikes and run a force that's heavy on jetbikes and other quick elements.

Militarum Tempestus are a bit of a one trick pony army, whereas Eldar give multiple ways to play them. Militarum Tempestus have their place as a small detachment to use as an ally to your main army and can be effective, but as a single entity, Eldar will give you so much more.

Start with some basic troops and HQ with a heavy support unit or two and play and paint that until you figure out what direction/playstyle you want to take with your Eldar force. I'm sure there are many experienced Eldar players on this forum that could give you some recommendations of a basic small force to start out with to help learn the ropes.

To start Eldar:

1 Farseer Skyrunner
2 Boxes of Dire Avengers in Wave Serpents or Windrider Jetbikes.
Put all Shuriken Cannon or all Scatter Laser on the jetbikes.

Teehee

Why not Astra Militarum and with a Tempestus detachment

psnmario wrote:
Why not Astra Militarum and with a Tempestus detachment

It was mostly me liking the idea of an entirely elite/storm trooper force. I'm considering getting that as a second army after the Elder now, I think.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 PandaHero wrote:
May I suggest: How to start Warhammer 40k video on youtube, by Miniwargaming.com (just google it and you will find it).

Basicly, to fully enjoy an army, I think you have to buy slowly (don't get overexcited and buy too much like I do lol). Also, don't plan too much ahead what you want to do, because it might change along the way (again, don't do what I do lol).

So, first of all, I would put my hand on the Codex of the army you choose. (PDF, or hard-copy). Then, pick 2 Troops from that books, and transport for them (if you want them to ride). Once you have that, I would suggest painting a few models, just to decide your paint scheme and get confortable with the army you have. Then get an HQ. The most awesome HQ you can find in the book (don't worry about named or whatever, as you can easily proxy most of the HQ in most of the books).

Now, get some small game going on, just to get the feel of your army, your special rules, your stenght and weekness, etc. That will help you determine what your army is lacking. Problems with vehicle on the other side? Get some heavy support to bring the pain to their door. always getting charge and cut to piece? Get a decent counter-charge unit that you keep close to your gunline, but jump in last minute to charge the opponent who dare charge you.

for the Eldar case, it could be something like: Get Book, Get 2 squad of Dire Avengers, Get 2 Wave Serpent. Paint a bit. Get an HQ (I don't know much about Eldar HQ sorry). Then get a Fire Prism. Finally round up your list with a squad of Banshees or Striking Scorpion.

That may not be the perfect Win-at-all-cost list. It may not be proper if you want to join a highly competitive environment by doing tournament after tournament. But I'm 100% positive that you will win and lose some at any Local Gaming Store with pick-up game, or at home with friends. Then you will realise that it's funny how it seem like EVERYBODy on dakka seem to be building list for big shot tournament, but you will never actually face those list in a friendly gaming store lol.

We have all heard about Flyrant spam, Cent deathstar, Screamstar and what not. I have played a minimum of 1 game per week for more than 2 year now, and I have never faced those lol.

Thanks! I'll check out the Miniwargaming video. Most people so far seem to agree on the starting models. My friend is getting Blood Angels, so I don't know about my effectiveness there - but should be fun to learn!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Blacksails wrote:

EpicPursuit wrote:
Thanks for the feedback everyone! My only issue with Imperial Guard/Astra Militarum is the sheer model quantity. So many guardsmen. I'll look into them though. Since the consensus is Eldar - how would everyone suggest starting them? Start off with a few Guardians or an HQ and move on from there?



Also! Since someone mentioned the IG Forge World stuff - I checked that out. Elysian Drop Troops seem fun and have a pretty nice aesthetic. Any thoughts there?

You can do a more elite Guard force that doesn't strictly use the MT book. If you want MT, I'd strongly recommend just using the full Imperial Guard book as it has just about everything the MT book has, minus some orders you can just scan and tuck in the back of your IG book.

As for making an elite force, either something like the Elysians you mentioned, or taking nothing but Veterans with carapace armour and great weaponry mounted in Valkyries or Chimeras can be a rather low model count army - somewhere in 40 model range total for a 1000-1500pts army, including vehicles.

With Eldar, can't go wrong with a Farseer, some Guardians or Dire Avengers and Wave Serpents to ride around in. Alternatively, you can get a bunch of bikes and run a force that's heavy on jetbikes and other quick elements.

I love the idea of an elite drop regiment. So, I'll consider that. The lack of heavy support would be the only thing I could see as an issue - but you could build a list to lessen the impact that has, I suppose? Carapace armor veterans are definitely more my style, though. Thanks for mentioning that!

psnmario wrote:
Why not Astra Militarum and with a Tempestus detachment

In all honesty Tempestus are pretty good at small point values. In kill-team, for example, Tempestus can really clean up.

There is a problem though

The game has 4 phases a turn, movement, psychic, shooting, and assault

You move 6" a turn, without any cool mechanic like flying or cavalry or turbo boosting. I believe scions do get move through cover but nothing really fun.

You have no psychics. At all

You're shooting is OK but it's all special weapons. There are no non-vehicle heavy weapons in the scion army, and no ordnance or a lot of other cool options.

Unless you're charging a non-walker vehicle, assault is the last place you want to be as a scion.

So in 4 phases of the game, you only really play well in 1. Some phases you don't participate in at all. That leads to a pretty boring army, over time. Plus, there isn't any guarantee that the scions will still be a supported army in the future, and they may just get rolled back as a single elites choice in the AM codex.

Compare that to Eldar. They compete in every phase of the game. They are the fastest army in the game, with movement shenanigans that are so ridiculous they let you move during the enemies' shooting phase, in one example, or move over his flyers and blow them up. No other army in the game can move like Eldar.

Psychics is a huge shtick for the Eldar. They aren't the best at it, but they are very, very good. Better than all but specially built psyker armies.

"Their arrogance is only matched by their firepower'-- Yeah that's eldar. They are easily the best shooting army in the game. It's not even close. However since shooting platforms tend to be somewhat fragile, or use interesting mechanics to work (like monofiliment) there is a fun element in trying to put the right weapons on the right target. Or you can just scatter laser d-cannon everyone into the next life.

Assault-- you don't generally think of the Eldar as an assault army, but they have some viscious MCs and GMCs that can make a mess of most things in assault. They have standard issue at-iniative power fists. It's crazy.

The new eldar codex was really a labor of love from the developers. Sure there are ways to abuse it, but it is one of the best internally balanced books every put out by GW. Aspects, psykers, guardian hordes, air forces, mech, whatever, it's all in there and all of it is viable.

EpicPursuit wrote:
[ I love the idea of an elite drop regiment. So, I'll consider that. The lack of heavy support would be the only thing I could see as an issue - but you could build a list to lessen the impact that has, I suppose? Carapace armor veterans are definitely more my style, though. Thanks for mentioning that!

Heavy support in the traditional sense, certainly, but the whole point of a drop regiment is that you're thinking outside the conventional box of tools. Instead of Russes and Bassies tossing out pie plates, you have Vultures and Vendettas laying down withering Punisher cannon fire and salvoes of well placed lascannons. You have infantry support drop Sentinels with Multi-meltas and twin-linked Lascannon Tauros' instead of the more stationary heavy weapons squads employed by other regiments. You have Thunderbolts and Lightnings dropping small payloads and clearing the skies of enemy support. Finally, you can call on the Marauders to drop massive bombs all over your enemy.

Its not so much a lack of heavy support as it is a lack of heavy armour. You're more fragile generally, but faster, and rely more on mutliple shot weapons than lots of blasts.

And the models are pretty bitchin', though expensive. Don't be afraid to check out the massive variety of third party Imperial Guard minis out there.

And Carapace vets are much more reasonable in this codex than their last one. Its a 15pts upgrade, which is fine. Throw them all in Chimeras, support them with Russes or arty of whatever flavour, and bring some Vendettas for air support. Off the top of my head, you could build a ~1500pts army with about 3-4 vet squads in Chimeras, a company command squad in a chimera, two vendettas, and three Russes with whatever weapon options you want. That's 35-45 infantry, 4-5 Chimeras, 2 Vendettas, and 3 Leman Russ tanks. Pretty reasonable and fairly elite as far as I'm concerned.

An Elysian list would have a few vet squads in Valkyries, some Vultures and Vendettas as support, maybe a fighter or two, and some recon vehicles like sentinels and Tauros.

Also, if you're going Elysians, make sure to ally in the Scions, as their list wasn't updated, I think, and you'd be stuck with the even more overpriced 5th ed Stormtroopers/Scions

I tell people to base their choice on which they think looks better. If you don't enjoy painting and building the models, or have army envy, yer gonna have a bad time.

Pick which looks the best to you!

 zgort wrote:
I tell people to base their choice on which they think looks better. If you don't enjoy painting and building the models, or have army envy, yer gonna have a bad time.

Pick which looks the best to you!

That's kind of my issue! I love the way both of them look for their own reasons. The Scions have a very appealing look to me. And I love the sleek design of the Eldar armor and vehicles. The Wraith units all look awesome too.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Blacksails wrote:

EpicPursuit wrote:
[ I love the idea of an elite drop regiment. So, I'll consider that. The lack of heavy support would be the only thing I could see as an issue - but you could build a list to lessen the impact that has, I suppose? Carapace armor veterans are definitely more my style, though. Thanks for mentioning that!

Heavy support in the traditional sense, certainly, but the whole point of a drop regiment is that you're thinking outside the conventional box of tools. Instead of Russes and Bassies tossing out pie plates, you have Vultures and Vendettas laying down withering Punisher cannon fire and salvoes of well placed lascannons. You have infantry support drop Sentinels with Multi-meltas and twin-linked Lascannon Tauros' instead of the more stationary heavy weapons squads employed by other regiments. You have Thunderbolts and Lightnings dropping small payloads and clearing the skies of enemy support. Finally, you can call on the Marauders to drop massive bombs all over your enemy.

Its not so much a lack of heavy support as it is a lack of heavy armour. You're more fragile generally, but faster, and rely more on mutliple shot weapons than lots of blasts.

And the models are pretty bitchin', though expensive. Don't be afraid to check out the massive variety of third party Imperial Guard minis out there.

And Carapace vets are much more reasonable in this codex than their last one. Its a 15pts upgrade, which is fine. Throw them all in Chimeras, support them with Russes or arty of whatever flavour, and bring some Vendettas for air support. Off the top of my head, you could build a ~1500pts army with about 3-4 vet squads in Chimeras, a company command squad in a chimera, two vendettas, and three Russes with whatever weapon options you want. That's 35-45 infantry, 4-5 Chimeras, 2 Vendettas, and 3 Leman Russ tanks. Pretty reasonable and fairly elite as far as I'm concerned.

An Elysian list would have a few vet squads in Valkyries, some Vultures and Vendettas as support, maybe a fighter or two, and some recon vehicles like sentinels and Tauros.

The Elysians look is really starting to grow on me, looking through some fully painted models. In regards to the third party minis, I've heard that some people won't allow them to be played or something along those lines. No idea what's going on there. I'm going to do some digging in regards to the Elysians backstory and see how their lore appeals to me. Seems awesome so far though!

EpicPursuit wrote:
[ The Elysians look is really starting to grow on me, looking through some fully painted models. In regards to the third party minis, I've heard that some people won't allow them to be played or something along those lines. No idea what's going on there. I'm going to do some digging in regards to the Elysians backstory and see how their lore appeals to me. Seems awesome so far though!

They are good looking models. FW has much better proportions and faces than the plastic GW stuff, though you pay a premium.

Official GW stores tend to ban 3rd party minis, which, fair is fair, its their store and using their own product is not completely unreasonable. At a FLGS, you should be allowed, and if anyone would turn down a game solely because they aren't official GW models, they weren't playing against anyways.

Fair warning about the Elysians, they tend to get kicked around in some of the FW campaigns. Heavy losses, generally considered to not complete most of their objectives, etc. But, they do so with cool tactics and are pretty badass even when heavily outnumbered and outgunned.

If people won't let you play Elysians because of third-party minis, it is probably more likely they don't want to go against a flyers list and just using a excuse.

The only thing that really matters is the vehicles be correct, but otherwise 28mm troops dimensions are basically all the same.

Here's a cool batrep with a MT Ground Formation.

http://www.theindependentcharacters.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&p=110633&sid=321e7bee0bc364a8dbf3562ebab91b1b

I think you can use either. Dakka consistently underplays the human factors in 40k. 99% of 40k's balance issues take place in an environment where the players involved can't cooperate or compromise. Pick the army you want, find someone who's invested in fun and fair matchups, and you'll never have that bad a time.

 Blacksails wrote:

EpicPursuit wrote:
[ The Elysians look is really starting to grow on me, looking through some fully painted models. In regards to the third party minis, I've heard that some people won't allow them to be played or something along those lines. No idea what's going on there. I'm going to do some digging in regards to the Elysians backstory and see how their lore appeals to me. Seems awesome so far though!

They are good looking models. FW has much better proportions and faces than the plastic GW stuff, though you pay a premium.

Official GW stores tend to ban 3rd party minis, which, fair is fair, its their store and using their own product is not completely unreasonable. At a FLGS, you should be allowed, and if anyone would turn down a game solely because they aren't official GW models, they weren't playing against anyways.

Fair warning about the Elysians, they tend to get kicked around in some of the FW campaigns. Heavy losses, generally considered to not complete most of their objectives, etc. But, they do so with cool tactics and are pretty badass even when heavily outnumbered and outgunned.

Based on what I could tell, they get those heavy losses 'cause of lack of support from their other Imperial Guard cohorts. I mean. I know my friend and my local gaming store don't mind that sort of stuff. I'd probably end up using the respirator head instead of the normal - just because I like the full helmet design way more than open face. The price tag is a little much - but for slowly buying them I can manage. Now to decide on a color scheme for my regiment...