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So by this I mean the army that veterans with a lot of skill would love to do because they either need more work to look good, or they are armies that look fantastic with a higher level of workmanship and painting.Why do you think the things that you do? I can't say I've seen enough kits and and models from other factions to say with a fact, but of the armies I've experienced building I would put my vote in for the Dark Eldar as being very fiddly and lots of detail. On the other hand what do you consider the easier hobby projects and armies? Have any of you picked up an army just because it looked like a challenge to build and paint?

Either Dark Eldar or Sisters of Battle. Both of them are very detailed armies with gorgeous models (albeit armies with a vastly different aesthetic) and both of them have been considered '40k hardmode' armies. (Sisters less so nowadays, from what I hear.)

That is a tough question. Any army in 40k can be built using only super detailed models just by your own choices on which units to use, and even within that which models to use as your units. Now, That said I think Space Marines and imperial guard can be painted up with the simplest color schemes, because for the most part the background encourages whole forces in the same "uniform". I think armies like Dark Eldar, Eldar and chaos encourage the most individualism among its soldiers. As to the army I have seen taking the most skill on average models? Harlequins.
I run Sisters of battle, and find them in the space marine corner. Yes, they do have good details on the models, but they are 90% old un-posable metal, and again, generally the whole force fluff says same uniform.
This is only my opinion of course. Again, you could take a sister's army and make every unit from a different chapter/shrine etc. Same with guard. You could go from generic base, shade, highlight all the same Cadians, to a ragtag group of survivors from a planetary assault pulled from a dozen different worlds each with its own background, uniform, customs, etc.

I imagine for newer hobbyists the sisters would be really tough. I don't think I've ever even seen a metal model in my life. I know my local flgs owner has worked with metal in the past because he was here way before me, but have not actually seen any in person myself.

+1 for sisters or dark eldar

I had a friend years ago who played sisters in 4th (which was next to impossible to win with back then due to a severe lack of long range options at the time) and he didn't play often.

However he did spend more time than the rest of us painting his models and they were absolutely gorgeous. Each one he took a lot of time on, even the basic sisters. Hands down still to this day the nicest army I have ever seen in person that was actually used to play with as well.

I might be biased because I'm a huge HR Giger fan, but I think Tyranids are probably the top level hobby army. they don't have "easy" models like tanks, and the sheer variety of results you see for them is really unique. I've seen lobster inspired tyranids, once that looked cell shaded, Ones that were painted like lady bugs and dozens more. Tyranids, more than any other army, are a blank canvas for people to go wild on. Just look at the variety you'll see on pinterest or even in the galleries on dakka. Now that they don't suck, I hope we will see a lot more of them.

The reason I made this topic is I just put my Corvus Blackstar together and was feeling like I could do a Raider (my first) quickly and nope. Way too much work to get it to even be spray painted lol. So much options though it's insane.

That's an easy one.

You start with marines. EVERYONE starts with marines.

You evolve into Tau, Tyranid, Imperial Guard, or Chaos, learning to do some advanced painting for some (Tau) or kitbashing for others (Chaos)

Eventually, you level out of the yeoman forces and hit the experts.

For painters, you turn to Eldar. There's no harder army to paint but when you nail it, it radiates with glory, with bright colors, brilliant gemstones, and unique patterns everywhere.

For modellers, you turn to Orks. There's no army more enjoyable to model, creating insane things out of handy parts from official kits, toys, household debris ... you are the King of Kitbashing and you just have fun playing. Who cares if you win because Orks never lose!

For generals, you return to Marines. The tools that you have are versatile and adaptable and the range is *massive*, letting you get the right tool for the job, adjusting for your local meta, and generally being the old hand that teaches the next generation how to win.

I didn't start with marines. I started with Tau. My friend started with IG. So at least two people exist who didn't.

For easiest, I'd say any of the plastic heavy power armored armies, plus probably tau. Fairly straight forward color schemes, low model count, and plenty of "out of the box" conversions.

For hardest? That really depends. Painting any horde army to even a high table top standard is tough. Painting highly detailed models can be tough. Painting armies with tons of colors can be tough. Buidling armies with extensive conversions can be tough.

All else being equal, a decently painted Ork, IG, or Nid army is going to get more attention than a decently painted Space Marine army, just because there are more models and they tend to be rarer.

However, when you start to look at the hardest armies to look amazing... ironically space marines jump back in there. Power armor is easy to paint, but it's suprisingly tricky to make look really good. It basically takes blending, which is a tricky technique.

Harlequins with the diamonds are probably painting hard mode though. That's just such a specific, labor intensive scheme that requires a ton of skill in free handing.

Orks. Orks should be the most common Xenos encountered in the 40k universe. They have existed since rogue trader days and generally once an ork player starts he never lets them go. As a result his ork horse just gets bigger and bigger and bigger till is a full blown Waaaaaaggh!

 Generalstoner wrote:
Orks. Orks should be the most common Xenos encountered in the 40k universe. They have existed since rogue trader days and generally once an ork player starts he never lets them go. As a result his ork horse just gets bigger and bigger and bigger till is a full blown Waaaaaaggh!

Orks are a lot of work, but actually don't require a lot of technique. They look great with washes and drybrushing, although they do have a lot of detail. The plastics out now all work together easily, making conversions pretty simple. Painting orks is more about time and effort, although when top painters take them on, they can be next level..

 Polonius wrote:

 Generalstoner wrote:
Orks. Orks should be the most common Xenos encountered in the 40k universe. They have existed since rogue trader days and generally once an ork player starts he never lets them go. As a result his ork horse just gets bigger and bigger and bigger till is a full blown Waaaaaaggh!

Orks are a lot of work, but actually don't require a lot of technique. They look great with washes and drybrushing, although they do have a lot of detail. The plastics out now all work together easily, making conversions pretty simple. Painting orks is more about time and effort, although when top painters take them on, they can be next level..

I dunno, I'm by no means an expert (in fact I'm barely adequate) but I would say Orks could easily be a very complex army to paint.

Sure they *can* be painted quickly and easily using basic techniques, and still end up looking Orky. But the magic of Orks is that you can pretty much make your own Warboss or Tank or Walker or whatever you want out of kitbashed models and bits of plasticard and make each character a mini diorama, with beautiful blended paintwork. I've seen some Ork conversions that are just amazin'.



This is one I just found on dakka after a very quick search. I kinda love it. Tempted to make one someday, when warbosses are actually usable again.

Death Korps of Krieg. Every step is hell, buying, cleaning flash, rebending resin, washing resin, gs fixing spots, gluing, painting etc...

But they're gorgeous on the table and also not a beginner army to play.

Easiest in my book is either marines or tyranids - both can get complex if you want, but both easily look good with a base/spray coat and some shading. Necrons can be pretty easy too.

Eldar have been in my experience the one that takes a great deal of work to get decent results. Harlequins being the real buster to get done right (unless the check patterns are now molded onto the models).

Squats

In all seriousness I would say Orks. Because you can convert them and make a lot of scratch built things with them. Also, you have a lot of them and they are very detailed models so there is a lot to paint.

Well any army can be painted to the "Next Level" by a talented painter. And many armies can be painted to a tabletop standard pretty easily (Guard, Orks, Nids, etc). However I would say something like Thousand Sons cannot be successfully pulled off by basic painting techniques. Just check out Rubric Marines or Ahriman or Magnus. The amount of elaborate detail is just insane. I really like the models and they would offer a perfect contrast to my Space Wolves fluffwise, but the idea of painting the guys is just too daunting.

E: For endless crazy conversion opportunities: Orks by a wide margin.

Some of the best looking armies ive seen in person are Daemons and swarm nids. Horde Guard as well.

Orks, or Vostroyan Firstborn Imperial Guard are my choices.

Take it easy.

-Red__Thirst-

Properly converted Orks.

Am I the only player who thinks that death guard is one of the tougher armies to paint. If you want to make high-end stuff, you need to lay out some green stuff love all over the transports, tanks, renegade knights etc.. The new DG models look very nice with high amount of details.

Xirax wrote:
Am I the only player who thinks that death guard is one of the tougher armies to paint. If you want to make high-end stuff, you need to lay out some green stuff love all over the transports, tanks, renegade knights etc.. The new DG models look very nice with high amount of details.

I've actually found them easy - but I'm not a great painter so my stuff is very basic. I found a great tutorial online for quickly painting plague marines, and adapted from that. Typhus Corrosion (citadel technical paint) really helps as you can very quickly get a rust effect.

I think the armies that fit your description best are those that rely on heavily converting your models, usually with a lot of count-as. Armies like Red Gobbo's revolution, squats, kroot mercenaries ...

Inquisition.

IMO any army can become a great "hobby army", all it takes is a little imagination and a lot of work.

But hats off to anybody who paints Imperial Fists. Yellow sucks, and this is from a guy who has painted over a hundred space marines white.

 Gamgee wrote:
So by this I mean the army that veterans with a lot of skill would love to do because they either need more work to look good, or they are armies that look fantastic with a higher level of workmanship and painting.Why do you think the things that you do? I can't say I've seen enough kits and and models from other factions to say with a fact, but of the armies I've experienced building I would put my vote in for the Dark Eldar as being very fiddly and lots of detail. On the other hand what do you consider the easier hobby projects and armies? Have any of you picked up an army just because it looked like a challenge to build and paint?

Hobby wise? oh man

there are a lot of facets to it i feel.

Best overall i feel like it would be Dark eldar done right. lots of different shapes and sizes of things, skin, armor, detail bits up the wazoo.

but then i feel a normal space marine or imperial guard army also looks amazing if done right and consistently which is the key part of it. ditto with a lot of the other armies as well

I think the most "fun" would be orks though. conversions options and oozing personality from every orifice.

I would think that it's Ad Mech.

There's a big difference between "dry brush metal with red cloak" and a superbly converted and painted army. All of the different metal colors, heat-stressed metal effects, carbon scoring, converted wires/coils/extra arms, OSL glow effects on strange gun types, etc.

It could easily be a super complex army to assemble and paint.

ok.
When it comes to painting, hard i would say is harlequins with their blasted dimon shapes and lots of personalisation, easy is guards, nids or sm.

As for modeling, hard is anything that requiers GWs failcast.
that stuff is so fragile and brittle that i barly dear to hold the model let alone clense it for flash. (not to mention all the airbubbles that you need to fill whit greenstuff....urgh.......)
easy to model is basicly mono pose infantry, simple as that.

As for models that simply requires a heap of work that is barly worth it, there is nothing like the orks.
So many colours on so many models, yet it is allso the army that allows you to go completely nutters and convert every single model in your army muliplying the time it takes to make the army by 10x easily.
but when it is done you will have an army unique to the whole world.

I would say that any army that has hundreds of models to deal with for a 2k army, at least 10+ paints used on every model, proper highlights and shadow on every model, and that every model is painted a 10/10 golden demon level, plus every model is converted in some way, every model has dynamic poses & basing (like bullets hitting the dirt and puffs of dirt flying up or rain drops), every model has effects like gun flashes with shells flying out or blood trailing off sword, "hair" on the model is covered in fuzz to mimic real hair (think 1970s GI Joe with kung Fu grip), working lights in vehicles, vehicles are converted to be actually remote controlled, hand painted everything so no decals, sound effects card in vehicles for moving and shooting and exploding, hand painted & actual cloth banners, all the minis made into real true scale size, every possible thing magnetized with multiple alternates that can go on, all the minis can be placed in a magnetized golden demon worthy display/carry case, individual ranks & names painted on the bases and stats underneath, custom dice and templates and other gaming aids made that match the army, magnetized helmeted/unhelmeted heads, then finally "dead" versions of every mini and vehicle you have in your army painted to the same standards above... That'd be a veteran gamer ultimate army project.

Orks are the army of veterans who realize the game is about fun and making stupid conversions.