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So I'm returning to the game after about 10 years (was never able to play very much, more of a painter with some game experience), and while I figured out my AoS army pretty easily, my 40k one is eluding me. I've narrowed it down to a few and I'm looking for some input on them in this edition. Here's the list:

Genestealer Cult
Adeptus Mechanicus
Ork
Thousand Sons

All of these are mostly because of either aesthetic, lore, or both. I'm sort of a lore nerd with things, and I'm sure this won't be any different. Anyway, I was looking for some info on the various play styles of each army (casual play for now, 1k-2k point). I'm pretty vague on the lingo and mechanics in the game now, so going super in depth numbers wise may lose me. I have friends who play Necrons, Chaos, and some others though I'm not necessarily looking for a counter to them. Thanks in advance!

GSC is one of the weakest if not the weakest army at this stage.. relies heavily on Goliath Trucks (and Rock Grinders)
Or their Guard Allies

But they do have some nice models

I do like the look of the Adeptus Mechanicus and being key word Imperial, does give you a lot of expansion options in the future

GodDamUser wrote:
GSC is one of the weakest if not the weakest army at this stage..

This is just not true. There looks to plenty of viable choices for GSC. If I were you I'd base my choice on miniatures. Rules come and go, but models are with you (potentially) forever.

 Hollow wrote:

GodDamUser wrote:
GSC is one of the weakest if not the weakest army at this stage..

This is just not true. There looks to plenty of viable choices for GSC. If I were you I'd base my choice on miniatures. Rules come and go, but models are with you (potentially) forever.

Thats how I'm sort of leaning, but I also want to have fun with the army. I'm not too concerned about viability, I mean yeah I'd love to win games and stuff, but I really just want to have fun. Model wise the GSC stuff is so cool, I'm literally looking at it right now (for the 14th time today). But then again, so is AdMech. Orkz are only an option because I have a big battleforce (I can't remember what the big box was called) from awhile ago and have a lot of models for that. Thousand Sons are beautiful models, plus the Tzeentch demons are cool. Aesthetically its extremely hard.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ok I've narrowed it down to GSC and AdMech. From my research, GSC utilizes the Ambush concept a lot, very in and out and a lot of mobility. AdMech, from what I've read, is much slower, but can't seem to find a direct idea of their playstyle from what I've read and watched. It's also 2 am and I should be asleep but hey, sleep is for the intelligent.

A little advice then. Buy ONE box of troops (from any faction) build and paint them. See how long it takes you, how motivated you stay and how much you enjoy the experience. There are ranges I really like the look of, however, when it comes to painting them up I really don't enjoy them as others.

 Hollow wrote:
A little advice then. Buy ONE box of troops (from any faction) build and paint them. See how long it takes you, how motivated you stay and how much you enjoy the experience. There are ranges I really like the look of, however, when it comes to painting them up I really don't enjoy them as others.

Thats a really good idea. Thats why I picked Kharadron in AoS, because I love painting the ships. One question, is either GSC or AdMech worth it at lower points like 500 or 750? Because those Start Collecting boxes look nice, or maybe even the Overkill set for GSC.

I suppose it depends on who you would be playing. You might be better off trying to aim for two smaller 500/100 point builds for GSC and AdMech. Combined they most definitely give you a nice broad range of experiences in painting, playing and lore styles.

Forgetting strength and focusing on the question at hand.

Genestealer Cult ( limited choices, can ally with Tyranids or Imperial Guard but not both! Higher difficulty in playing I think, especially without allies)

Adeptus Mechanicus (Very cool army, the fluffiest Faction if you want to include some imperial knights in your games)

Ork (horde army to the extreme if you want, expensive in $ )

Thousand Sons (elite army, limited choices if you want to stay pure Thousand sons, could upgrade to Tzeentch if you want to have some more choices)

 Hollow wrote:
A little advice then. Buy ONE box of troops (from any faction) build and paint them. See how long it takes you, how motivated you stay and how much you enjoy the experience. There are ranges I really like the look of, however, when it comes to painting them up I really don't enjoy them as others.

yeah I had that experiance with Gaunts.

One good way to decide on a particular faction is to see what others you would have the option to expand into later while remaining battle-forged. For Genestealer Cults, that's Tyranids and Astra Militarum, and contrary to what another user posted I see no reason you can't take both as long as you have some GC in there as well. Note that there are more units than you'd think that are flagged as AM - All of the Imperial Navy flyers, for instance.

Adeptus Mechanicus, on the other hand, would give you access to every other Imperium army as 'allies'. With that in mind, I would recommend looking at both ranges (including Forge World models, just in case) and deciding whether you'd rather have the option to add Tyranid units or to add non-AM imperial stuff.

I wouldn't make the decision solely based on this, of course, but if you're having a hard time deciding it's a good extra factor to consider.

Thousand Sons gets a lot of its damage from Smite, so it's a good option if you like predictable, consistent wounds. The Tzeentch Daemon list is very good and it's hard for me to defend a KSons list that doesn't include Horrors, though.

Adeptus Mechanicus leans heavily on shooting from Kastellan Robots and Onager Dunecrawlers, with the rest of their army being used either to buff or to screen those models.

That's a basic summary of the two armies listed I'm fairly familiar with.

I appreciate everyone's input a lot. Thank you guys. I'm probably going to build a small army of GSC and AdMech. I haven't painted in years, so I ended up cancelling out 1kSons because I honestly don't know if I have the skill to paint them up to my own artistic standards (aka absurdly high and I'll always think I could paint it better but hey, that's life), and Orkz I have a load of models for so I may sell them to fund this project. I looked extensively on the list forums and many other and finding 500-1k armies for GSC has proven extremely difficult. Does anyone know of a list or a place to look? I know 8th edition is rather new and all, so maybe I'm looking in the wrong places.

I also figured these 2 would give me something different (palette wise) to paint from the Kharadron/Fyreslayers list I'm building as well.

A place to look for potential list ideas would be youtube. I know miniwargaming had a bat-rep with GSC v Harlequins recently.

I recently started a GSC Army and have had a good time painting them (well one Neophyte Squad). There's enough variety between the models to keep my interest, even though there are a lot of models to paint. As of now I have two squads of Neophytes (One Autogun and One Shotgun), two squads of Hybrids, and the entire DWOK box so I'll be building/painting for awhile

Orks. Blood axes specifically.

GSC or Orks. The others are boring to model.

Are Ork biker or jet pack armies still around?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Well due to some financial obligations that suddenly came up an hour ago, I shall be building my old dusty Orks. I appreciate everyone's input, I'm sure I'll be back for some list building help (never actually done it before without help).

Now to paint roughly 50 boys, 6 bikes, a weird boy and whatever else I have yet to pull out of this box.

Edit: or....just a thought. Orks mind controlled by a patriarch to serve alongside the cult. Just basically replace the Hybrids with Orks. Dunno if that would work, but it could be cool.

Those are the two armies I collect, ad Mech and GSC.
They both have really great models.

Ad Mech is kind of just stand and shoot. GSC has much fewer units and options, but is more...interactive I guess you'd call it.

If I had to pick one I'd say probably ad Mech because of the wider range visually. Still love my GSC models.

GSC also suck now, but like others have said don't base you're decision on that because if you aren't obsessed with winning at all costs you'll enjoy any army that you put effort into assembling and painting.