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I've been away from the gaming aspect of the hobby for a few years. I have blood angels as my imperium army, but the xenos have been calling my name!

I know this is a very common question here, but help me choose a xenos army. I want it to play differently than my blood angels, which is all in your face and more assault oriented.

The armies I have been contemplating and have not been able to decide are dark eldar, necrons, and tau. I have read up on the fluff of each, and have looked at some lists for each, but one minute I think ill be decided, then the next I won't be.

I would like the army to be more ranged oriented, since my BA is all about assault. I don't really care about competitiveness.

Like I said, I haven't played in awhile and I can't exactly pin point the strengths of each. Any help would be appreciated!

Well, to put it in the simplest ways, Dark Eldar excel at light armor and use Poisoned weapons. Very limited advantages there but they are a pretty quick army. The entire army crumbles against Strength 6 Spam (bunch of shots at Str 6 or 7) though, and that's a common thing to come across.

Necrons are about as balanced as you can get in terms of internal use. They have decent ways to have an Air Force, Melee, Shooting and Armor Wall and I am loving how varied a list can be even when using the Decurion layouts. Primary strength though is their defense. Reanimation is a huge buff for them. They're a good counter to the Strength 6 Spam.

Tau just got their update and are looking really really good. Some of their Formation benefits are very scary. Still a lot of hang back and shoot, but the new additions to the army mean that more can be focused on aggressive playstyles too. Especially in a friendly environment. Since it's so new I don't remember the name of the Formation, but one of them allows multiple units to focus fire on one enemy and all benefit from the same Markerlights. This is a huge bonus to remove Cover from a Deathstar unit and just pile on the wounds with bigger guns.

Thanks for the explanation! Like I said, I haven't played a game in awhile, so that helps.

I envy the people that just look at an army and are like, "yep, thats the one i want to play". For me, I've sat and stared at units and paint schemes and lists for weeks, and can't make a decision.

I'm scatterbrained enough that I just get them all. I have ten armies represented. Some are 500pts, some are 3000. For the most part I build a list up to 1500pts and then move on to something else that catches my fancy. But Necrons are my current focus until Heresy comes out and then I go back to Ultramarines. Sometimes it's just about testing everything until you find the one that sits well with you.

It depends on the kind of army you want to run:

Dark Eldar can be best described as a Glass Hammer army. They can do tons of damage, but most of their units (barring the covens stuff) is fairly fragile and will crumple if it's hit hard enough. Their shtick is lots of poison weapons and fast vehicles.

Necrons are currently one of the strongest codices, thanks to the Decurion detachment. Necrons can take a ton of firepower without going down, and they have an emphasis on shooting (although they can do assault fairly well with certain units)

Tau are in the midst of getting an update right now, but they're also an army focused on shooting. They have lots of high strength long range weapons and battlesuits, but they will crumple in assault.

At the end of the day I'd recommend Dark Eldar, but that's just my opinion. Good Luck in your decision