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So my friend loves strategy games and the tactical part of warhammer

But he's not creative or artistic
And he can't paint for gak
So what army would you recommend for him
Oh, guard isn't an option,

Marines and nids mostly.

Base coat with spray, shade with some ink then highlight most prominent parts, focus on details as much as you wish.

How about tyranids, basespray them and then put some shade on. Thats like 2 minutes per model then done And the more he wants to get better on painting the more can he play with nuances and smaller details, the carapaces etc.

I wouldn't recommend Nids actually. Yes, they are easy to paint as above, but you need LOTS of models. An easy paint job can still become tedious after the 100th or so model.

I would go with Marines or Necrons
Necrons are particularly easy because they are an Elite style army with few(ish) models and all you need to do is prime them black and dry brush them metal.

Definitely Necrons, anything else and sooner or later you are going to have to paint a face.

Spray Leadbelcher, wash with Nuln Oil, drybrush Leadbelcher, lighter drybrush stormhost silver and that is them mostly done. Just a bit of picking out details and contrasty bits left to do.

Yeah, Crons, or marines with helmets.

I was thinking to start with, eldar. Buy him a 4 man guardian box, a spray for his main colour of his army and one or two colours to highlight say armour plates and the gun

They won't look good, but he'll be able to get a feel for if he likes painting

 ZenBadger wrote:
Definitely Necrons, anything else and sooner or later you are going to have to paint a face.

Spray Leadbelcher, wash with Nuln Oil, drybrush Leadbelcher, lighter drybrush stormhost silver and that is them mostly done. Just a bit of picking out details and contrasty bits left to do.

Honestly, you can spray leadbelcher, wash with nuln oil, put in the green staves and call it done. It's not gonna be pretty, but it's gonna be totally fine to play with or against.

Problem with necrins is, unless I missed something, unlike say orks, Astartes, or bids, you can't buy a small amount for £6 so it's an investment to start

Necrons are the easiest army to paint, yes.

Warboss Grimdakka wrote:
Problem with necrins is, unless I missed something, unlike say orks, Astartes, or bids, you can't buy a small amount for £6 so it's an investment to start

Your friends not gonna get much out of the strategy side of the game with 6 disney-bucks worth of models.

nids.
Get a skin color spray, wash whit a dark flesh tone, paint the carpace and talons a flat colour, wash whit a dark tone. done.

He doesn't need to paint the whole army right away.

... What? He doesn't!

Start him off with the basic rulebook and let him loose on the lore, ask have him ask around the store people's opinions on how the different armies play and let him chose based on what interests him.

ERJAK wrote:

Warboss Grimdakka wrote:
Problem with necrins is, unless I missed something, unlike say orks, Astartes, or bids, you can't buy a small amount for £6 so it's an investment to start

Your friends not gonna get much out of the strategy side of the game with 6 disney-bucks worth of models.

Yeah, but it's definitely better for a new player to waste £6 on models and decide they don't like the hobby, than to buy a full start collecting box and waste significantly more just to leave it

Necrons and Iron Warriors for about the same reasons. Spray paint metal, dunk in some form of black wash than add a few dots of contrasting colour.

Khorne Daemons aren't that much more difficult - spray red, dunk in varnish, paint the swords metal once it's dry.

Alternatively, he can play whatever army interests him most and pay someone else to do a basic paint job on them.

Iron Hands Space Marines. Spray black, drybrush mechanical bits and one hand silver, clean up, pick out details in brass and other stuff like purity seals and wires, and boom you're done. He should be able to finish a patrol detachment in a single weekend.

Iron Hands or Raven Guard, probably mainly Primaris from the Dark Millenium box as these are pretty good value. Source any other flavours of marines he wants 2nd hand on eBay.

Spray Black and pick out details in white and gunmetal. Add transfers if he is feeling adventurous. It helps that Raven Guard in particular have a very good Chapter Tactic that works well with an infantry heavy force.

Warboss Grimdakka wrote:
So my friend loves strategy games and the tactical part of warhammer

But he's not creative or artistic
And he can't paint for gak
So what army would you recommend for him
Oh, guard isn't an option,

How easy are you looking for.

and what army does he want.

because the absolute easiest thing to do is a black base army.

say Templar or iron hands for space marine. cut off sprue, remove mold lines, assumable/ sub assemble, spray prime black, hairy stick areas you missed, fully assemble, dry brush dark grey, spot dry brush next shade up, pick out colors and texture paint he base and you are done unless you want to seal it with a spray varnish.

you can knock out a whole army in like a week or 2.

Optionally also though its a bit more expensive than black. you can do spray color primer from army painter. same technique as above but you hairy stick with their color matched paints. its just expensive.

Daemons are easy too.

Spray prime white, wash with glazes of different tones of the appropriate colors for a psychedelic look.

I'd say if he doesn't want to play Necrons I'd point him in the direction of the Iron Warriors for Chaos. Spray with the Lead Belcher undercoat, do a layer of shading with Agrax Earthshade and then a layer of Nuln Oil shade, and after that just do the trim of the armor in black or Balthazar Gold. Boom finished good looking model.....

In order from stupid omfg is easy to semi very easy.

Necrons > Nids > Daemons > SM and or CSM

Here is how you do it very fast, easy AND it looks good

Necrons
1) Spar silver
2) Dip
3) Let dry and base

Nids
1) Spar white
2) Paint red on Carapace and claws
3) Dip
4) Let dry and base

Daemons
1) Spare (in put color)
2) Dip
3) Let dry and base

Space Marines and or CSM
1) Spar 9in put color you like for faction)
2) Paint weapon silver
3) Dip
4) Let dry and base

I would say
Necrons (Just paint it black and silver and some light green for gauss cannons)
Blood Angels and similar (Red, in general, is a pretty simple color to paint)
Black Templars, Iron Hands and similar (Black armies are also pretty simple to paint.)
Iron Warriors (Just get some Leadbelcher and Nuln Oil, some bronze for extra detail, and you got yourself some IW)

Space marines and necrons are by far the easiest armies to paint. Basically one-color armies.

I'll add a vote for necrons. Prime in black, drybrush in your favourite metallic colour and add a few highlights to produce a passable army for minimal effort...

Mark.

Tau is not the easier but it is easier than most. The only really difficult thing is the highlighting on them which needs to be fairly precise to look good.

Necrons are by far the easiest army to paint.

Leadbelcher spray, Nuln Oil wash, apply green rods done.

Of course, you can jazz them up a bit but for the most part you can get a tabletop army ready in no time.

No one mentions Grey Knights? How hard is - prime grey, nuln oil ink, dry brish light grey. Gunmetal their weapons. Done.

Marines, nids, or necrons.

Embrace the coloured primer, and learn how to dip. It's stupid easy to paint very reasonable table-top marines in this fashion.

Necrons or Grey Knights.

Prime black, dry brush your favorite metallic silver color, paint a few small details.

Congratulations on your table top quality army.

I'll go the Necron route for a few specific reasons over other armies.

1) Necron infantry are extremely basic in their look. They all look practically the same. You're not going to get into odd poses and being all creative with it.

2) Their models are pretty much the same base style as you go along to Elites, Fast Attack, etc, so there's not much of a need to try to think of how you're going to paint the next type of unit.

3) Their upgrades are very minimum. There's really no "oops I put <insert X weapon> on this unit and now they suck". There are a few options here and there but largely the options are very minimum.

4) Their play style is pretty forgiving for newcomers. Their resurrection allows you to make mistakes and not be punished as bad as other armies for it. They don't have many odd and quirky rules. Once you get the resurrection down, everything else is pretty basic. They aren't the top tier army but a newcomer doesn't need to get into that aspect off the bat (and this will likely change with the codex so no worries there).

 Desubot wrote:

because the absolute easiest thing to do is a black base army.

grey is easier