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I used to play casual 40K, but moved cities around five years ago (middle of fifth edition) and soon completely fell out of touch with the hobby. I recently met up with one of my old gaming buddies, learned of new codices, an edition I completely missed and the current seventh edition rules. With a little help, I put together 1500 points of my Nids and played a game against him. Obviously, an utter trouncing due to poor decisions I made (and not realising how bad assault armies play under the current rules), but in talking about the hobby, looking at peoples' models (including seeing my own again) and playing around, I realised how much I missed 40K (despite its many flaws).

I scrounged around and have found most of my models (I think I am missing a box of Sisters somewhere, as I can only find one Exorcist (and I know I used to have more points of them). Unfortunately, over the years, my paints have all dried out and will need replacing. Most of my old models were sufficiently protected, but some have gotten quite dusty. Blowing the dust off helps a little, but the colours look muted next to the better-protected models. Is it safe to somehow wash painted models of dust, or is there a better way to deal with this? Most are varnished (except for a half-painted unit of Repentia I was working on at the time I moved).

I am also not sure on where to start. Sisters were always my favourite army (fluff, aesthetics, many of the old rules), with the Nids being one I like the aesthetics and basic concept of (and the old biomorph rules). I have most of a Mech-Sisters army, but the current state of the army sounds worse than it was in fifth (which was bad enough). I suspect I would need to use allies to make them functional, though I have no idea where to start there, and not sure it is worth the effort. I do not have to win all the time (my win:loss record was never that good anyway), but I want to at least put up a fight, and the changes to Acts of Faith sound like a lot of the fun has been removed. I think I have found all of my hoard Tyranid army, but based on my experiences and what I have read, anything short of spamming FMCs is simply not viable at all. That is not a play style that appeals to me, preferring to run Gaunt screens, Warrior-sized elites and only a few stompy MCs. Given both these armies sound to be in an extremely poor state at present, and I need to buy all new paints anyway (and likely drop a few hundred in new models), is it even worth my while trying to make them work in their present state, or would I be better advised to start a new army now and worry about these two when (if) they are fixed in a future update. If I should pick a new army, are there any threads/other links that help players pick an army under the current metagame?

Well nids aren't a bad little force but their currently leaning very hard on their campaign supplement shield of Baal: leviathan. Which is a supplement for play based on give fleet leviathan. It's much more consistent than the base tyranid codex.

The sister are in a right sorry state and I almost would call them all but squatted. Games workshops plan has been to update everyone to hardback books and to bring them into at least one editions coherency (so your codex is from 6th edition or newer). Sisters rock a codex from late 5th edition really it's virtually a 5.5 edition book and is in bad need of reform. To pick an army to pair with them is actually pretty easy to do though because the holes in the force are fairly obvious and there's plenty of armies to work with them.

Sisters as an example lack total board presence, they can't get in your face much unless you come in after them, and they lack any meaningful anti tank anymore beyond their multi meltas. So sisters really need long range anti tank and board control. The most obvious solution is a marine army pretty much any will do. If you want to be fluffy blood Angels are probably the way to go. As the two forces fought tooth and nail during the shield of Baal campaign.

If you want something more to the tune of hammer and anvil you could use militarium tempestus, storm troopers and planes swing in and the enemy is caught between the sisters and the troopers. It doesn't solve their anti tank issues but it gives them air power and the ability to drop units comparable to their own all over the table. It's also fluffy since sisters spend many years training with storm troopers before they are taken to convents to master the gifts of power armour and sign their lives away to the church.

As for a new army? Well I'm probably going to pick one of the more obvious well rounded armies:

Space wolves, dark Angels, and codex marines can and will probably be the go too recommend for a new or returning player wanting a well rounded option with new plastic they probay don't own to go out and buy as well as fairly easy painting.

If your tired of burly men in space suits the necrons are my pick from the Xenos litter, lots of good options, lots of good rules, not too many bad eggs in the bunch and they stack up favourably against lots of current books with big angry lists like eldar and mechanicus.

My dark horse pick is mechanicus as they have lots of really cool models and are two forces in two different armies that mesh together in unique ways. The skitarii are master of outflanking warfare that excel at 24-36" gunfights and the cult mechanicus is a much more he wily armed and armoured force that likes to get in and brawl as well as hammer you from 36-48". The biggest downside is that you need to buy two codecies.

Dude enough talk about sisters. It's like in every thread people hate GW for not updating sisters when they are the worst selling army and haven't been updated in a full decade. It gets so old.

Have they not been 'updated in a declared' because they are the worse selling army or are they the worse selling army because they have not been Updated?

DorianGray wrote:
Dude enough talk about sisters. It's like in every thread people hate GW for not updating sisters when they are the worst selling army and haven't been updated in a full decade. It gets so old.

Good point. Let's not answer the questions of the original poster, which specifically pertain to SoB and instead share our purely factual knowledge of GWs non-public sales numbers.

Elric:
IG isn't bad to pair if you want to run a couple tanks or Wyverns. As far as space marines, BA and SW are your best bet to pair with Sob, since both have access to drop pods which are fast attack and non dedicated. Drop podding dominions are a fun time. Also, the champions of fenris formation is pretty good to pair as well. If you have a spare 40 hours you can read through all 163 pages (which strikes me as a lot of pages for a squatted army, huh, dorian), I'd read through this:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/558526.page

It covers from the newest codex release until today.

As far as nids, I'm not the best resource, but start gluing some wings on your hive tyrants.