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Hey everyone!

I used to play 40k back in 6th edition I think. Had a large Eldar army. About 4-5k points. I'm thinking about possibly coming back, but I don't want to amass such a huge amount of models again. I'd prefer something with low model count. Something along the lines of old GK terminator spam, jetseer council etc. I'd prefer having some actual troops like crisis suits, terminators, bikes or whatever, but not a pure vehicle spam. Ideally I'd want to buy enough models be able to attend tournaments and be somewhat competitive. I've no idea how the meta looks now and what's hot.

My goals:
A)low model count. Up to 30 I'd say
B)the army must be on the cheap side. I'd be great if there were many models available second hand
C)somewhat competitive
D)now that I think about it, Crisis spam sounds sexy. Is it good? What are the other options?

Deathwing or Grey Knights Terminators perhaps. Or a dreadnought heavy list with a counts-as Chaplain Dreads for HQ and Mortis for Heavy Dakka. A stormraven to drop dreadnoughts in deep perhaps?

Commander Spam is lame IMHO and will probably be hit with a nerfhammer in a year. That being said a Farsight Enclave's themed Commander army would be pretty awesome.

If you want "meta", then anything other than 400+ model hoards is not going to do all that well. The current meta seems to be bringing enough bodies to be literally impossible to be killed.

Grey Knights look to be reasonably good this time around, plus you've got lots of options for conversions etc. I'd try them.

Unfortunately suit-tau is kinda bad right now (Riptides and Stormsurges are overcosted) otherwise I'd run them.

BCB is right, current meta seems to be hordes, so... *shrugs*

6th ed? Oh greetings ancient player!! Haahaahhaha

If you enjoyed playing the lightning fast Eldar style, you could play Eldar once again, but this time with a focus on Wraith units or vehicles. Wraith-suffix units are tough and dangerous, while lending to a fairly elite and low model count.

Tyrannid big gribblies is a way to go as well. Carnifexes, loads of warriors for troops. All the scary stompy things.

Space Marines can run an entirely Dreadnought army, using a Dreadnought Chaplain as it's HQ.
The new Primaris marines also get you to a low model count.

Of course, these unique builds require the use of the alternate army detatchments, such as Outrider, Vanguard, Spearhead, ect.

Iyanden wraithguard can be very competitive and have a low model count

I'd like to try a different army this time. I feel like I'l always have this feeling, that I used to have much more models to choose from. Most of them painted rather well. That's why I want to avoid that and play something else.

Did the Tyranids get a new codex? GK also seem nice.
I'll pass the Dreadnoought spam cause I don't want to field vehicles mainly. Just my personal preference.

I've also got one off topic question. What happened to Tau and Necrons. I see that their power level was brought down quite significantly. They both were formidable enemies before.

macexor wrote:
What happened to Tau and Necrons.

I can't speak for Necrons, but Tau got hurt by cost changes that made the big suit focussed armies significantly less viable, exasperated by the change to the way marker lights work mean they now make all units shooting at the target slightly better instead of being able to buff one shooter into the stratosphere. Troops in general got good in exchange but the two most egregious problems they have right now (IMO) is that the drones detach into small units of their own after deployment and thus surrender kill points and first blood extremely quickly; and on top of that, crisis suits are extremely expensive for what you get out of them- you can take two fully equipped Commanders for the price of three fully equipped crisis suits and between their wounds and better BS they're actually more effective.

 BaconCatBug wrote:


If you want "meta", then anything other than 400+ model hoards is not going to do all that well. The current meta seems to be bringing enough bodies to be literally impossible to be killed.

well when you have unbalanced indexes that was never playtested before they was released...
the only way an low model count elite army is viable in 8th is if you force your opponent to bring the same.

You might consider the new primaris marines, I suppose. Relatively low model count, but have some heavy hitting units. Same for centurions, dreads, land raiders, etc.

Grey knights are another obvious choice.

Other than that......hrmm. Maybe eldar wraith armies?

I also think tau suit (crisis, riptide, etc) spam is probably not very points effective.

GK got a new codex last week. Its the best GK codex ever.
GK can have a low model count with Terminators or Paladins, NDK (also as HQ), Dreads, and Stormravens.

My wraith army is ~ 22 models @ 2000 points, and is doing just fine.

Surprised no one has said Harlequins. Relatively low model count and you can run a lot of jetbikes. Their jetbikes are super nasty too. Still keeping the Eldar type army.

Chaos Terminators backed up by Daemon Prince and Renegade Knight.

If you want a really low model count run a house detachment. 4 knights comes in at 2k points. It's a fun list, it's not over powered and it's not underpowered is very middle of the road.

Deathwing ravenwing is also a good fluffy list with low count.

macexor wrote:
Hey everyone!

I used to play 40k back in 6th edition I think. Had a large Eldar army. About 4-5k points. I'm thinking about possibly coming back, but I don't want to amass such a huge amount of models again. I'd prefer something with low model count. Something along the lines of old GK terminator spam, jetseer council etc. I'd prefer having some actual troops like crisis suits, terminators, bikes or whatever, but not a pure vehicle spam. Ideally I'd want to buy enough models be able to attend tournaments and be somewhat competitive. I've no idea how the meta looks now and what's hot.

My goals:
A)low model count. Up to 30 I'd say
B)the army must be on the cheap side. I'd be great if there were many models available second hand
C)somewhat competitive
D)now that I think about it, Crisis spam sounds sexy. Is it good? What are the other options?

Going backwards

D) Its not as good as it used to be. but Crisis commander is apparently a thing
C) eh
B) Its probably not going to be as cheap as say starter box terminators but you can get all sorts of stuff cheap if you are willing to strip and repaint second hand
A) Gks should work and going with B you might be able to do a sick army if the starter collecting box comes up sooner or later.

Dark Angels. I was getting bored painting my Orks so I grabbed 2 Dark Vengeance starter sets off Kijiji (Canadian second hand site) and that was enough to start getting some games in.

A second hand venerable dreadnought, predator, scouts, 2 boxes of black knights and some cheap metal characters off EBay and I have enough stuff to run a few different 1500 pts lists.

 Eldarain wrote:
Chaos Terminators backed up by Daemon Prince and Renegade Knight.

This sounds cool.
Or new death guard with their little flyers and a big demon and/or big tanks.

I'd consider a Primaris Marine army, it can be pretty low model count, but you could then expand into space mariens as you decided to grow.

Deathwatch

2 grand masters in nemesis dreadknight armor and 6 dreadknights. BOOM.

An option would be 3 to 5 Imperial Knights with some AM support.

Thanks for all the replies! It helps a lot. Especially since there are so many armies to choose from now.

I've still got some time since I won't be buying anything for the next month. I'm too busy right now. That means it's more time to get used to new things.
Just one little question. I know that GW released Indexes for all the armies and now are realeasing proper codices. There are SM, CSM and GK codices. How often are ew ones relesed and is there any schedule? Do we know what comes next? Are the changes between incedx <> codex huge, or are they just adding stratagems, traits etc?

Gw said ten codices before Xmas.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
If you want a really low model count run a house detachment. 4 knights comes in at 2k points. It's a fun list, it's not over powered and it's not underpowered is very middle of the road.

Not so fun to play with and against to be honest. A lot of players hate facing 4 huge dudes, I'm one of them I also love armies that are very mobile, CC oriented and with expendable units. Knights are very extreme, running 4 dudes is not fun for a lot of people.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Hoodwink wrote:
Surprised no one has said Harlequins. Relatively low model count and you can run a lot of jetbikes. Their jetbikes are super nasty too. Still keeping the Eldar type army.

They're a quite effective army but they're basically the vehicle spam the OP doesn't want to build.