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I've been longtime interested in Warhammer universe, and am finally in a spot that I can get into it. I will be playing with a few friends, who are likely to be playing Tau, Eldar, and Orks.

I've limited it to a few based on fluff, and appearance, but after reading 1d4 chan tactics im still quite confused about a few of them., as its a ton of abbreviations and I dont know if "Extra reroll saves on X ++" is actually good.

I like to have a "combined arms" approach when I play games. The ability to do ranged, melee, and have various options at my disposal based on what I'm fighting, or how the battlefield changes. I tend to be more aggressive than defensive, and love playing things that reward me for playing smart / have a lot of nuances to them.

I'm not concerned with skill floor, as im willing to learn, I'd be more worried about skill ceiling

1) Admech.

Are they Good outside of that War Convocation I keep reading? Does their Doctrine things let them be able to adjust to most things? Is it likely there will be more models given its a new faction? Does the lack of Psykers, and Transports, and Flyers hurt them (specifically, how do they cross the map to get to melee without dying)? (Specifically, not being able to use Blood Brother transports to deploy, does this mean they cant use drop pods like ive been seeing?) The lack of unit variety might make them only able to field a single build...? What is their general play style? Are they durable?

What are their General strengths and weaknesses?

2) Space Wolves

Are they basically melee only? (Can they fight a ranged fight and do well?) Do they have decent Psionics? What is their general playstyle, strengths, and weaknesses? Are they fairly competitive in competitions? They have a ton of models, and seems to have a recent codex update to make them decent from what I can see. Are they durable?

3) Grey Knights

So, theyre Psychic Warriors that bring a few units. This is nice on my wallet, and sounds great in lore. But does the lack of units hurt them on the battlefield? Can they be a "main force" or are they better as allies? Do they fair well in competition? What are their general pros and cons, and playstyle? Are they durable?


Any/All information i can get on the 3 would be fantastic and appreciated

I would probably go with Space Wolves. Fluffwise they are very aggressive and close quarters based. They excel in combat, but can pull off the ranged game fairly well, nothing special. They have very durable units in Thunderwolf Cavalry and Wulfen (2W is better than any armour save).

Psychic is a bit of a negative, they can use them to supplement a force but don't spam them and expect them to win games.

My advice would be pick the one you like the look of the most and also you can see yourself painting the easiest. Get the rules and the codex and get the started set for that army. have a few smallish games with your mates and take it from there.

At this point it's not so much playing well, it's more about having fun. Once you have a solid grasping of the rules and comfortable with your force, then it's time to move onto building competitive lists, which is the impression I'm getting from you here.

 Baldeagle91 wrote:
My advice would be pick the one you like the look of the most and also you can see yourself painting the easiest. Get the rules and the codex and get the started set for that army. have a few smallish games with your mates and take it from there.

At this point it's not so much playing well, it's more about having fun. Once you have a solid grasping of the rules and comfortable with your force, then it's time to move onto building competitive lists, which is the impression I'm getting from you here.

I very much like how all 3 look :( Thus how i eliminated the other 15 or so :p

When I say competitive, I dont necessarily mean in giant tournaments, but I certainly want to be able to field and army that is certainly viable.

Arkengate wrote:

 Baldeagle91 wrote:
My advice would be pick the one you like the look of the most and also you can see yourself painting the easiest. Get the rules and the codex and get the started set for that army. have a few smallish games with your mates and take it from there.

At this point it's not so much playing well, it's more about having fun. Once you have a solid grasping of the rules and comfortable with your force, then it's time to move onto building competitive lists, which is the impression I'm getting from you here.

I very much like how all 3 look :( Thus how i eliminated the other 15 or so :p

When I say competitive, I dont necessarily mean in giant tournaments, but I certainly want to be able to field and army that is certainly viable.

Unless you pick orks, chaos space marines or a few others you're fine. Even then until you get to a competitive level most factions can win if you play them right. I play both guard and Tyranids, both hardly top tier armies, but do fairly well with them in my meta.

Out of the choices you have almost non of them are strictly bad.

Just pick the one that looks the coolest to you as you will be staring at them for a while.

I would go wolves though. its a full army and is pretty decent with tons of options. and lots of conversion opportunities and TONS of cool looking parts.

GK are on the small side and will get samey really quick. even if you add in INQ stuff.

admech got hit hard with the FAQ so no more borrowed drop pods which was super lame anyway. otherwise they are still good.

Necrons are boring and boring for everyone involved. the amount of shooting involved to take out regular dudes is insane. unless you are list tailoring specifically to ID them. and even then they still get saves.

 Desubot wrote:
Out of the choices you have almost non of them are strictly bad.

Just pick the one that looks the coolest to you as you will be staring at them for a while.

I would go wolves though. its a full army and is pretty decent with tons of options. and lots of conversion opportunities and TONS of cool looking parts.

GK are on the small side and will get samey really quick. even if you add in INQ stuff.

admech got hit hard with the FAQ so no more borrowed drop pods which was super lame anyway. otherwise they are still good.

Necrons are boring and boring for everyone involved. the amount of shooting involved to take out regular dudes is insane. unless you are list tailoring specifically to ID them. and even then they still get saves.

Yea, I was reading that FAQ, and a lot of battle reports for admech... How exactly will they be mobile now, without transports, and the ability to use allies transports as well? What "good" can the admech bring to the table as a main force?

And what are the strengths/weaknesses of Space wolves, outside of being able to CC well?

1) Admech can easily be played outside of convocation, however, convocation is the preferred competitive choice. There have been rumors from reliable sources that in the near future, admech will be combined into a single codex, with a handful of new models. To close to melee, Admech either moves faster than other units can (they have several units that move 9" rather than 6" as a basic move) or they rely on being so tough it doesn't matter, in the case of the robots. The most combined-arms approach to admech would have more of a reliance on Cult Mechanicus, and specifically the robots, breachers and Dominus, as those are flexible melee and ranged units.

But for the most part, Admech has nice saves/rolls/army wide buffs (Doctrines?) that last a turn. Decent front line, excellent shooting (Can it fight tau?) (Just not long range) and tools to deal with most things (Armor, Infantry, Monsters etc)... With a lack of Transports (But can borrow from allies after deployment) and might be getting more soon...

They also get healing from their Dominus? Does this make their army durable? Or does it tend to be squishy?

Are they at all mobile without vehicles?
I would assume they tend to be more aggressive...?


And the Space Wolves move fast, Are excellent in melee, Can they shoot well? (Like against tau?) Have access to about everything, given their large numbers of models... Have some buffs... Do they field large numbers, or small? Is there more than 1 formation?

Are most of their units durable, can they heal, etc?

And I assume theyre highly aggressive?

Also, they get counter attacks? What does that entail?

Sorry for all the questions :-)

Honestly I think vanilla space marines are more in line with the doctrinal preference you outlined above. And I wouldn't rely on 1D4Chan's tactical advice, as they generally prefer funny to accurate

Of the three options you've lain out I think the Wolves are probably your best bet. Though they do have a more close combat focus with thunderwolf cav, they can still take reasonably hefty firepower and have a unique flyer.

None of them can really outshoot Tau, though. What you want to do against them is press into their extremely deficient close combat game.

 Captain Joystick wrote:
Honestly I think vanilla space marines are more in line with the doctrinal preference you outlined above. And I wouldn't rely on 1D4Chan's tactical advice, as they generally prefer funny to accurate

Of the three options you've lain out I think the Wolves are probably your best bet. Though they do have a more close combat focus with thunderwolf cav, they can still take reasonably hefty firepower and have a unique flyer.

None of them can really outshoot Tau, though. What you want to do against them is press into their extremely deficient close combat game.

How are they different from Space Wolves?

Space Wolves will be able to hold their own against competitive Eldar and Tau and fit your playstyle. Agressive, but can provide long range and defensive support. A good tactic is jump out of your rhino, rapid fire, eat the charge with CCW and counter attack.

 #1ShieldBrother3++ wrote:
Space Wolves will be able to hold their own against competitive Eldar and Tau and fit your playstyle. Agressive, but can provide long range and defensive support. A good tactic is jump out of your rhino, rapid fire, eat the charge with CCW and counter attack.

Or just go charge tau and make them cry.

They also just got those wolfen back and they are really chaos rage inducingly good at first glance.

 Desubot wrote:

 #1ShieldBrother3++ wrote:
Space Wolves will be able to hold their own against competitive Eldar and Tau and fit your playstyle. Agressive, but can provide long range and defensive support. A good tactic is jump out of your rhino, rapid fire, eat the charge with CCW and counter attack.

Or just go charge tau and make them cry.

They also just got those wolfen back and they are really chaos rage inducingly good at first glance.

Would there be a general "If you enjoy doing X play admech, Y play space wolves" Other than Admech can shoot, and Space wolves can melee better?

I wish they woulda released some more units with admech, though. But the Ignoring cover for some weapons seems nice, and they seem to have nice saves but are somewhat squishy.

The space wolves i watch them play and just generally see them lose lol. People keep saying they melee well, but what if they cant get up to melee? D:

Well, whatever players you are watching must be doing something wrong. SW are probably the scond most powerful marine 'dex, behind vanilla, matching DA and better than BA.

And why wouldn't you be able to get into melee? We've got land raiders, run and charge bonuses, stormwolves, and deepstrike (that's all I can think of right now).

And remember allies are always a thing. Half wolves, half admech. Although I would advuse committing to one, sticking with my original suggestion of wolves. They've still got decent shooting mind you, they just lack grav and the fancy admech stuff, but they've got the standard melta, plasma, and even helfrost. All of which can do their jobs effectively and still hold up in CC.

Wolves are crazy. Very durable, hard hitting and decent shooting. They miss out on super fancy guns but they do get helfrost which is awful (for me when I play them). I would definitely recommend wolves.

Try space wolves if you want superior close combat capabilities. The tau stand barely and chance in close combat. And I assume most of there weapons on basic infantry don't have ap3. Eldar... there another story and orks might be a possible problem. But i think you could kill them if not much of them are present.

There are no skill ceilings in 40k. Just dice.

 Griddlelol wrote:
There are no skill ceilings in 40k. Just dice.

Believe me some people are bad enough the dice don't matter.