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Recently I have been looking at collecting some new things for my armies however I have felt that maybe it is time to switch things up. My armies are both space marine based (One being space wolves, the other death guard) and I feel like a change of pace. Whilst I enjoy the strong slow melee dynamic of the armies I feel like switching it up to fast shooty style things. I tried IG and I just found the amount of micro management with orders and the sheer amount of models to think about made it hard for me too enjoy. I also don't mind being not the top meta or best army as I enjoy the feel and connection with my army and less so winning. I've been having trouble figuring this one out and I hope some of you out there can lend a hand to this noob.

Cheers

You could do worse than picking one of the Aeldari factions.

All of them can feature very fast, fluid lists, good shooting, and a fairly low model count. Pick the faction you prefer the aesthetic of the best and go for it.

Aeldari have been a potential choice just we already have craftworld and dark eldar at our club right now.

I have been looking at Tau and I enjoy their mechanized aesthetics but main issue is I have no idea how to play them and where to start.

what about tyranids?
The thing i like about them is that there are so many ways you can build your army, and they don't suck in any of them. also the codex is balanced i think (specialy for casual gamers), and they are on a powerlevel that is Ok with most other armies i play against (necron, guard, sister, grey knights)
You can make a pure CC army that drops-unburrows-pops up with lictors, trygons and tyrannocyte, you can have genestealers running over the field and charge turn 1 (kraken hive fleet with stratagem boosts). On the other side, you can make a shooty swarm list, dakka elite infantry list or a shooty MC list AND/OR a mix of all of this.
Only negative points i can think of are: Dollarwise more expensive if you like the MC's, and painting can be monotome..

 FunyonFrodo wrote:
Aeldari have been a potential choice just we already have craftworld and dark eldar at our club right now.

I have been looking at Tau and I enjoy their mechanized aesthetics but main issue is I have no idea how to play them and where to start.

You could try necrons. They can be quite mobile and shooty if you build them right.

Tomb blades, Ghost Arks; Doomsday Arks, annihilation barges and destroyers are all highly mobile units with the Fly rule with some decent weapons (especially destroyers and DDA).
Their troops are all slow foot sloggers, but if you build outrider detachments you could just stock up on blades and destroyers.

Aeldari are a good choice. All of their units are really good, and even weaker choices like Dire Avengers can perform well in the game. Meanwhile the stronger choices like Wave Serpents and Dark Reapers are head and shoulders above most things in the game and they have some of the most potent psychic phases in the game. (being slightly edged out by Thousand Sons and Tzeentch Daemons in the psychic phase).

I wouldn't worry about having the same army as someone else. There are so many different ways to build Eldar that most builds won't look the same unless you are both taking cookie cutter reaper spam tournament lists. If you really want to be different figure out what your Aeldari player is playing and pick a different craftworld. An Iyanden army with lots of wraith constructs will look and feel a lot different from an Alaitoc Ranger List. Or a Biel Tan Avatar list. Playing a different style of Eldar list will still give you a unique force.

Unless you want to look me in the eyes and tell me that a Khonre Berserker World Eaters army is basically the same as an Noise Marine Emperor's Children army because they come from the same book!

Good point. When going eldar I really like the idea of a fast jet bike build or a mechanized (Wraithlord, knight, guard etc). I have no idea if either of those would be effective however.

 FunyonFrodo wrote:
Good point. When going eldar I really like the idea of a fast jet bike build or a mechanized (Wraithlord, knight, guard etc). I have no idea if either of those would be effective however.

Both are very good.

Saim-Hann is the jet bike faction, and their rules heavily favor Eldar Jetbikes. Each Jetbike can take a heavy weapon, and Saim-Hann bikes can move and shoot heavy weapons without penalty. This includes heavy weapons mounted on Vypers. As such Saim-Hann is able to redeploy bike mounted heavy weapon squads at a moments notice. Eldar actually can mount most of their characters on bikes, so your support elements have an easy time keeping up. Finally the aspect warrior jetbikers Shinning Spears are one of the premier melee units in the game for sheer speed. Its an expensive army to collect- as most all biker forces are, but its definitely a solid army.

Wraith armies are decent as well, but I would be careful, as Wraith constructs are going to be the closest Eldar get to feeling like Space Wolves or Deathguard with bulky durable elite units with strong short ranged shooting and cqc. If you are looking for a totally different army feel it may be better to go with bikers.

Thanks for the advice there. I need to figure out around an 1000 point list that I can affordably buy.

Jet Bikes - not troops anymore, not so survivable, not as great dakka. Not necessarily bad, but not what they were in 7th (which was OP). Building an army around it is hard - you'll either need troops (all of which are infantry) which do a lot of the same things, or not use Brigade/Battalion hamstringing your CP. Better as an added tool as opposed to an army backbone, now.

"Mechanized" -
You mention Wraithlord and Knight in the Mech list. They aren't Mech (beyond "not a vehicle") in both fluff and usefullness.

The Knight is terrible right now, and the Wraithlord isn't good either. The Knight makes IKs look great. Extremely overcosted (which I'm totally fine with, not a fan). The Wraithlord is an analogue to the Dreadnaught. It can take the sameish loadout as a basic CCW/Heavy gun Dread, for the sameish points. it's tougher, but has a degrading statline. It can't take a second CCW like a dread. More relevant in the current meta, it can't match a dakka dread.

The other 'mechanized' stuff is vehicles. Serpents are good. Very good. A BL Serpent is half the dakka of a LasPred, for a good chunk of the points, and better survivability. But that's not what people take. Shuriken Cannon Serpents are like AC Razorbacks. Much more expensive and fewer shots, but same range, the shots are equivelent, and it doesn't suffer -1 to hit for moving. However, the Serpent is a lot more durable, especially to Plasma. Plus fly. Falcons are not as good as Preds (75% of the cost of a LasPred for ~60% of the firepower). Prisms have a lot of versatility and a great stratagem, although they fail at any given role compared to tanks specialized in that role if they don't use the stratagem. The other tanks (firestorm, nightspinner) aren't great.

Mechanized infantry can be good.

Guardians are usually not worth the points of the Serpent, but the Serpent is good anyways - typically you WWP Guardians in or backfield with them.

DAs are a PG/CombiPG Tac squad. Less durability, about the same firepower. Scales vs big stuff better, though.

Fragons and Wraithguard really hit hard. They love Serpents, but WWP does great for them.

The rest of CWE infantry doesn't care much for transports. A lot of it is fun, though.

With CWE, just focus on what you like, not what's effective. That changes a lot, and it's a stronger book. Just don't overinvest in one thing. I usually say "one box of anything" aside from Troops and transports. That way, you have a nice diverse army, and if you like a unit or two that aren't great, your other units can pick up the slack.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Addendum - another style CWE provides is short-range elite units with heavy impact, but are not big, bulky, or survivable.

Most CWE infantry has short ranges. Weapons platforms obviously have long range (although many of them shorter than their IoM counterparts). Rangers are snipers. Reapers are SM Devs. Swooping Hawks have 24" range. Beyond that, they cap out at 18". Some of their range weapons are only 6" range.

It requires a different playstyle. Marines might not feel durable, but you don't know fragile until your MEQ-costed units die in droves to boltguns.

it can be an extremely effective playstyle, but is different.

What army are you willing to paint? We'll start there.

When it comes to painting I do prefer basic yet effective. But really Necrons, Eldar and tau all seem so fit how i prefer to paint as they have quite singular colors which vary not that much.

CWE can vary a lot between units if you take Aspects. Although you don't need to paint them taht way.

"Basic yet effective" sounds Necron-y. But may not be the playstyle you're looking for.

Necrons look interesting but I don't really feel like i'd enjoy them due to their looks and play style.

From upthread, it really sounds like you're best with Tau or Eldar. Have you considered DE vs CWE?

If you want consistent colors, I'd avoid Harlequins, and not go too Aspect-heavy (although you *can* paint them how you want, it offends me!).

Do you want duplicates of a couple staple units, or for each unit in your army to be unique/have a different role?

I like the idea of staple units. It is why I kind of want to go bikes.I would then move on to expand on that unit with other bigger or different things

Aeldari are definitely going to be the direction for you. With the plethora of fast moving and/or flying units, the Aeldari let you get a strong sense of freedom on the table top. They can field an effective elite force so you're not buying/pushing around too many models as well, while still having lots of lethality and some staying power. Jetbikes are still good, largely due to the extra wounds and extra shots from even basic Shuriken weapons, though putting Shuriken Cannons on them is likely the way to go. You can be everywhere on the map while also being no-where. Having HQ's that are on bikes is also very useful. There are a butt-load of synergies in the Aeldari factions, so you can really go deep if you want.

Have fun!

If you like staples, DE Kabs are a staple unit. They can be somewhat configured like Marines, but play very differently.

Also, on the staples road, units of Fire Warriors provide a lot of base load firepower to suppliment with Ionheads or Suits. So most of your army would be made up of variants of the same units.

CWE doesn't do great at a staple unit that can handle anything. When it does have that, it's only because it was stupidly OP (ScatterBikes, DAVU Serpents, flickering Spiders). Even with OP Reapers, the lists tend to include a bunch of different options too (spears, flyers, rangers) to do different roles. CWE units typically do one role well, but lack versatility. A Reaper squad outperforms Devs at killing elites at long range, but Devs kitted for killing elites at long range are much better at going toe to toe with units in CC or midrange.

Harlequins.

They are pretty nippy and have decent rules following the codex dropping and some fun tricks - as is fitting for the disciples of the Laughing God.

Painting wise you can go nuts with them.