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Hi all! About a year back I switched over to entirely 30k (mainly due to me selling most of my 40k models to buy a new car), and recently I've been having a bit of a hankering for an army I could take to tournaments or play against other people without having to go into a mile long explination, and I was wondering what one I should go for? Because of my 30k armies, I don't want: Guardsmen, Space Marines, Chaos Space Marines, Knights, or Mechanicus which basically leaves me with Xenos armies.

I've though about eldar, though I'm a bit torn because the type of army I've always wanted to do with them, is now really broken (constructs and corsair buddies) However, It could still be a fun one to go for. Any Thoughts on playing this in a manner that WON'T loose me friends?Along the same lines I've considered Necrons (one of my first ever armies) and playing a Dredd Mob Ork list, but I want to avoid having a larger army (as painting 2 legions + a solar auxilia army will take your will to paint away).

I guess a Tl;dr of my question is: What armies can be strong, with a smaller model count, and non-imperium (this is a lesser one)?

Necrons are easy to paint!

Run an orikanstar within a decurion, with an attached canoptek harvest. The orikanstar isn't the most competitive, but it is a lot of fun as it absolutely... will... not... stop... until you are dead! (bored).

If you are looking for a smaller army and are losing the will to paint, I would definitely go for Necron.

Dont go Orks. The dredd mob is super tough to run and you will have a very hard time in tournaments. The Eldar one sounds cool, and it sounds like it would be pretty powerful. When you say constructs did you mean the wraithbone units?

But Necrons will be the easiest to paint and you can get a pretty large army from a relatively small number of models.

Thanks! yeah, I was referring to wraithbone units when I said constructs, and I won't lie, necrons do seem like a lot of fun. My big few with necrons is me wanting to run multiple huge units (mostly because I think it looks amazing )

Ignoring the "non-imperial" part, GK are probably the lowest model count army.

Tyranids can be pretty low count if you take a load of MCs (and why wouldn't you?!) Plus they're pretty darn fun to play.

Necrons can do a low-ish model count army, even while using the Decurion. IIRC you're required 28 models and an Overlord, and from there you can start adding formations, and there are a handful of 1-3 model formations.

Without Decurion you could take 1 HQ, 2 squads of 5 Immortals to get a CAD, then add a bunch of low-model count formations.

I'm unclear on this:

If you already have a 30k army (say, a space marines variant), why don't you wish to use this for 40k?

Basically the same equipment, just different rules, no?

Traditio wrote:
I'm unclear on this:

If you already have a 30k army (say, a space marines variant), why don't you wish to use this for 40k?

Basically the same equipment, just different rules, no?

roughly, though a few problems:

1) variety is the spice of life (I'd like some more play styles and painting opportunities
2) the units I play with 30k don't really transfer over to a 'tournament' level 40k list.

Eldar, you can take jetbikes as basic troops, which are pretty pricey. They have ~ space marine survivability, are super fast and if you are so inclined you can load out the whole squad with heavy weapons to make them even more expensive per model.

Remember, you don't need to max out on your filth, and if even then you think your winning too easily with your army you can always just agree to use different points limits to your opponent (or do it in secret to save them the embarrassment ), which will also aid you in your quest to keep the army small.

Imperial Knights is the lowest model count army you can get away with 3.

nareik wrote:
Eldar, you can take jetbikes as basic troops, which are pretty pricey. They have ~ space marine survivability, are super fast and if you are so inclined you can load out the whole squad with heavy weapons to make them even more expensive per model.

Remember, you don't need to max out on your filth, and if even then you think your winning too easily with your army you can always just agree to use different points limits to your opponent (or do it in secret to save them the embarrassment ), which will also aid you in your quest to keep the army small.

well, my first 2 armies were: Necrons and Iyenden Eldar, so if I went the eldar route, I'd probably build something like the guardian formation + the construct host or whatever it's called that you bring a knight, lord, and 3 wraith units.

You could also do tau battlesuits. There's the Riptide Wing and Optimized Stealth Cadre if you wanna go balls to the wall cheddar cheese combo, or Hunter Cadre if you just want to be strong, but not OP.

 Brennonjw wrote:

nareik wrote:
Eldar, you can take jetbikes as basic troops, which are pretty pricey. They have ~ space marine survivability, are super fast and if you are so inclined you can load out the whole squad with heavy weapons to make them even more expensive per model.

Remember, you don't need to max out on your filth, and if even then you think your winning too easily with your army you can always just agree to use different points limits to your opponent (or do it in secret to save them the embarrassment ), which will also aid you in your quest to keep the army small.

well, my first 2 armies were: Necrons and Iyenden Eldar, so if I went the eldar route, I'd probably build something like the guardian formation + the construct host or whatever it's called that you bring a knight, lord, and 3 wraith units.

Prepare for a LOT of hate. I play Iyanden eldar, all metal old school (except knight) so even though I played them before they were OP as balls you will get hate on for it. same with crons. If you don't care about that, then Eldar is the way to go! lots of choices, dedicated units that excel at one thing and loads of cool models!