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I know you've all probably seen a million of these threads, so sorry if this is the wrong place to ask...

I'm a new player trying to get into the game, and after watching a ton of videos about the rules I'm trying to figure out what army suits my needs. I'm a fairly competitive person so I want to avoid underpowered armies, but I'm not necessarily ruling out anything that isn't absolutely Tier 1. I definitely prefer having elite models over hordes, and I would like to have a playstyle that is more tactical than just "run at the enemy." (I know I'm over-simplifying that.) So I'm thinking more on the shooty side than the assaulty side?

I was thinking Space Marines because I've heard it's good for beginners and is also pretty strong. I also enjoy the aesthetic of huge heavy war machinery like tanks and stuff.
I'm not sure how to choose between all the different Chapters of Space Marines. Do they have unique playstyles? What makes them feel different than the others?
Is there one that is more focused on range than close combat?

I'd also welcome suggestions for strong armies that fit that kind of playstyle other than the Space Marines. I guess I'm just trying to find out how the different armies play.

If you want a strong shooty army, go with Tau or Eldar. Eldar are at the top of the pile right now competitively, but Tau aren't too bad either. Aesthetics wise, if you want to choose between those two, you should ask yourself if you like Space Elves with a lot of curved, organic-looking armor and vehicles (Eldar), or do you like Gundam-style robot battlesuits and slightly samurai-looking infantry armor (Tau)?

If you really want to do Space Marines, you could paint your guys in your own homemade color scheme and then run them as whatever chapter you want. Then you could try them all and see which one is your favorite. Really Ultramarines, White Scars and Iron Hands are at the top of the competitive pile with Marines right now, but Dark Angels aren't too bad either (they have their own separate codex from regular Marines). If you don't like bikes you probably shouldn't play Marines as bikes are some of their strongest units.

Might have overstated my distaste for the bikes.

Still kinda confused about the difference between the chapters - what makes Ultramarines, White Scars and Iron Hands good? I don't actually know what makes them different. Do they use different units?

I've been doing some research on Iron Hands - seems like they are encouraged to run a lot of tanks... I like tanks...

Each Chapter gets their own special bonus. Ultras get conditional re-rolls army-wide depending on what type of unit and which doctrine you use (and re-rolls are always strong), White Scars get hit and run (one of the best rules in the game since you're a shooting army that can't be locked in combat and can hide in combat if you don't want to be shot without being stuck there), Iron Hands get +1 to FNP (so normally a 6+++, but it stacks to the point where you can have a 2+++ chapter master) and IWND for characters. Tanks aren't great this edition since glancing hits are so easy to come by, but free tanks are great, especially ObSec ones, which means battle company (ie. 2x Demi-companies, more commonly refered to as a Gladius) because 500 odd free points of ObSec armour is incredibly annoying for an opponent to remove while also killing the contents, who are also ObSec.

Picking the chapter that goes hand in hand with your army plan (or visa versa depending on how you want to pick your army) is wise, but there's nothing to say that a Black Templar Gladius spamming grav won't be good, it's just that you'd be even better with another chapter for literally no loss (since BT have pretty trash rules compared to everyone else).

Cult Mechanicus can be a horrifyingly shooty army, using elite units; their basic troop choice costs 150pts base.
And as a bonus, they won't get completely screwed if they end up in CC, unlike Tau and Eldar.
I'd say that by virtue of needing [having] so few different units, the Cult Mech is easy to pick up, and unlike Skitarii, have a damn-sight fewer special rules to keep forgetting.

Nothing in the way of tanks, or big guns (until we get Fires of Cyraxus, but that's if you're fine with FW stuff), but that's rectified by taking Knight allies, with which there's a couple of formations for the whole AdMech that involve knights.

If you were to start off a Cult Mech army, I'd say the best place to start is by getting an Elimination Maniple.
Used to be sold as a box set, but the individual units are bought at roughly the same price, and that being:
2 boxes of Kataphrons, and 1 box of Castellan Robots.
735 points right there if you max out what you've got.

 Drasius wrote:
Each Chapter gets their own special bonus. Ultras get conditional re-rolls army-wide depending on what type of unit and which doctrine you use (and re-rolls are always strong), White Scars get hit and run (one of the best rules in the game since you're a shooting army that can't be locked in combat and can hide in combat if you don't want to be shot without being stuck there), Iron Hands get +1 to FNP (so normally a 6+++, but it stacks to the point where you can have a 2+++ chapter master) and IWND for characters. Tanks aren't great this edition since glancing hits are so easy to come by, but free tanks are great, especially ObSec ones, which means battle company (ie. 2x Demi-companies, more commonly refered to as a Gladius) because 500 odd free points of ObSec armour is incredibly annoying for an opponent to remove while also killing the contents, who are also ObSec.

Picking the chapter that goes hand in hand with your army plan (or visa versa depending on how you want to pick your army) is wise, but there's nothing to say that a Black Templar Gladius spamming grav won't be good, it's just that you'd be even better with another chapter for literally no loss (since BT have pretty trash rules compared to everyone else).

Yeah I've been seeing a lot of people talk about how strong the 2x Demi-Companies are - free vehicles doesn't sound like a bad deal.

Thanks for the breakdown.

Be careful about choosing a SM/CSM army at the moment. We know things are changing and 8th is being deployed sometime this year. It's no telling how much the individual chapter/legions could change.

Space Marine armies will always be strong. They are traditionally the bar that all other armies, and even units, are measured from. They are the definition of an elite army. Ultimately, 40K always shuffles the tiers around. So what is good currently may not (Bob Dylan's, "What is first will be last." sort of thing). Space marines tend to be somewhat resistant to this due to their popularity.

Even with the new edition on the horizon stating it will be more balanced (I am sure every new edition stated that), Games Workshop has had some 30 years to balance the game and yet is one of the worst offenders of miniatures games.

What I am getting at is I wouldn't worry about competitiveness that much and play Warhammer 40K. As mentioned, it is one of the more horribly balanced miniatures wargames out there. And despite the metric ton of rules, the game is very basic when it comes actual on the table decision making (tactical level). Which is to say the game choices come down to basically target priority and unit order of activation once deployment is out of the way. Chasing the tail of the competitiveness dragon in 40K is a good way to become frustrated after spending more than a $1,000 to have the next edition/codex junk half your army.

I agree with ZergSmasher on painting your models in your own color scheme that way you can always consider them a successor chapter of blank until you determine which astartes chapter you like. It would be best for your opponents' sake if you stick to that successor chapter, but you could always switch it up every now again. Just as a kindness, if you play with a regular group give them a heads up so it doesn't feel like a bait and switch.

If you want to have more of a connection to the 40K universe, I completely understand wanting to paint an army in standard legion/chapter colors. I think your best bet is going to a 40K wiki or even 1d4chan (their tactics pages give a pretty good run down of how each of the armies work pros/cons). Barring that, I don't know, take a which space marine chapter quiz and read up on which ones you score highest with (my guess given the information you posted it might be Ultramarines).

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:
If you want to have more of a connection to the 40K universe, I completely understand wanting to paint an army in standard legion/chapter colors. I think your best bet is going to a 40K wiki or even 1d4chan (their tactics pages give a pretty good run down of how each of the armies work pros/cons). Barring that, I don't know, take a which space marine chapter quiz and read up on which ones you score highest with (my guess given the information you posted it might be Ultramarines).

Yeah I definitely need to be better acquainted with the lore/fluff of this game - I don't actually know much about the story, and it's kind of hard to figure out where to start. All the wiki pages are lead me down rabbit holes of having to click a link to another page in order to understand the one I'm in the middle of reading, and then it happens again and again...

 scoutingtacos wrote:

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:
If you want to have more of a connection to the 40K universe, I completely understand wanting to paint an army in standard legion/chapter colors. I think your best bet is going to a 40K wiki or even 1d4chan (their tactics pages give a pretty good run down of how each of the armies work pros/cons). Barring that, I don't know, take a which space marine chapter quiz and read up on which ones you score highest with (my guess given the information you posted it might be Ultramarines).

Yeah I definitely need to be better acquainted with the lore/fluff of this game - I don't actually know much about the story, and it's kind of hard to figure out where to start. All the wiki pages are lead me down rabbit holes of having to click a link to another page in order to understand the one I'm in the middle of reading, and then it happens again and again...

If you do use a wiki to get up to date on the lore, I would reccomend Lexicanum over 40kwiki. 40kwiki is unsourced, making it hard to seperate actual fluff from fanfiction. Lexicanum at least tries to be accurate. Apart from that, Lexicanum articles also tend to be more brief and easier to read.

If you want a shooty army that is more tactical than just "line up at the edge of the board and roll dice to remove enemy units", I would recommend looking at Space Marines or Eldar. Space Marines have a wide variety of viable tactics, while Eldar at least need to move around to be effective.

As to what Space Marine chapter you should pick, that depends on the specific playstyle and fluff that you like. It is virtually impossible to answer that for you.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
If you want a shooty army that is more tactical than just "line up at the edge of the board and roll dice to remove enemy units", I would recommend looking at Space Marines or Eldar. Space Marines have a wide variety of viable tactics, while Eldar at least need to move around to be effective.

As to what Space Marine chapter you should pick, that depends on the specific playstyle and fluff that you like. It is virtually impossible to answer that for you.

Yeah, I think I'm going to try to pick a space marine chapter that uses razorbacks and predators to good effect. Have to do some more research on that front.

I'm also considering the IG/Astra Militarium because tanks, though I'm worried they won't be as competitive as Space Marines.