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I've been doing this hobby for over 10 years now and have amassed approx. 30,000 points of various Imperium forces. I've never really gone for Chaos or Xenos, mainly due to the aesthetics but also the play styles. I had around 1.5k of Night Lords and Necrons in the past but they both need a fair bit of work done before they're playable (the Necrons suffered an accident and are not really even worth scrap value).

I've been reading the various Codexes trying to find something new to try. My Imperium forces are mainly gunlines, and the only non-Imperial armies that seem to really fit that idea are Tau, while I love their aesthetics, a lot of their units seemed to have got shafted pretty bad. The XV8s in particular, the iconic Tau unit, made useless in the new book.


What would be a good Chaos/Xenos force to try out at the 1.5k level? I'm also trying to take price into account.

Well if you like range and techo then you could consider Tau or Eldar. Try not to get too wrapped up in meta balance discussions, they can be a rather hotbed of downsides of factions which is pooled from actual problems through to people who are just not good at playing those factions airing their thoughts. Plus sometimes an army is looked down on until someone wins a GT or other major event and then suddenly its the "new hotness".

Tau is likely cheaper to build, Eldar still have some higher cost finecast legacy models that can make them a bit more expensive.


Another option is to go the other way and look at more close combat which could be Tyranids - the most alien of the alien races.


Then there's Orks who are getting a new book in just under 2 weeks time, plus several new vehicle kits!

Tau might have a lot of underpowered units now, but rebalancing is a constant thing, and GW's shown a willingness to change rules outside of official codex/edition releases, so I wouldn't write them off on account of their current performance.

But if current performance is important to you (and I can understand that), why not wait a month and then evaluate your options? Chapter Approved might shake up the meta, and the Ork codex is right around the corner.

I say DAEMONS!

The nurgle daemons start collecting is GREAT value! You can easily make 6 nurglings instead of 3, you get a nice cheap caster, and the flies are either great to kitbash a nice nurgly DP, or to be used on their own.

Plaguebearers are just one of the best objective holding unit in the game! t4 with a 5++ 5+++ and - 1 to hit (not just against shooting!) will sit and hold midfield objectives vs everything but the most determined opponent! To top this off you can give them an additional -1 to hit with your Poxbringer!

What speaks against a chaos soup?
Csm daemon mix can be fairly good, add in r&h and you could fairly easily simulate a black crusade. Or mix and match daemonkin.

Iron Warriors cult of destruction would be a gunline possibility.
Maybee change it up and pick up orkz or a World Eaters warband? Orkz will mostlikely get some love, not to mention that they are highly customizable.
GSC with broodbrothers? You allready own IG so fairly easy for you.

I would say Genestealer Cult since, if you already have a guard unit, you can use some models with them. Plus the Patriarch is really a cool model.

Then, you can branch out to Tyranids if you want to and they have a wide selection of units that can be very fun to assemble, paint and play. (the carnifex kit is really cool in my opinion)

I find it helpful to think about whether you're primarily collecting for models/aesthetics, or for gameplay. A lot of people just say "both," but I think all of us have a bias towards one or the other and that ought to be an important factor in deciding what to collect.

Don't play Tau, the last thing the world needs is another Tau player.

Eldar/Tyranids/Orks - all good choices.

Orks are getting new models. It's probably a good time to WAAGH

If you've always done Imperium, I would go for an army that is least like Imperial stuff. So I'd probably go with Orks, Nids, or Daemons. Beyond that, just pick the aesthetic you like the most.

I would ask you what is your favorite sci fi movie and your favorite alien race from that movie?

I play mainly Imperium, and have just started an eldar CW force. Man, I'm loving the different aesthetic! Great lines, lots of areas for airbrush transitions. Plus very combowombo playstyle which is a lot of fun.

Chaos and eldar benefits from being soupable. Not as much as Imperium but still bit which means it's harder for entire faction to completely suck compared to one codex factions like tau, necron, orks. Tyranids also soupable though not quite as well as chaos and eldar.

Bonus point for allowing wider variety of units to paint to keep things fresh.

My suggestion? assuming your IoM stuff includes space marines, you might as well borrow a copy of a chaos marine codex, and try running a proxy of that, see if CSMs is something that catches you. in many regards they may not be the ideal choice as they're somewhat "samey" to standard marines in some respects. but at the same time that might actually be a good thing if you really enjoy painting Marines, and want to work on growing your skills in the area chaos would alllow. you could even convert some of your loyalist marines to chaos marines pretty easily, (just slap a fresh coat of paint on em)

How WYSIWYG/official GW do you want this army to be? The vast majority of the faction is available in plastic, but some of the kits are a bit pricey. Fire warriors in particular are expensive if you don't buy them second hand. That being said, the start collecting tau box is a great value. Crisis suits can be run as Commanders, fire warriors are great, and the ethereal can be used as is or converted into a fireblade. The biggest pains to acquire are Cyclic Ion Blasters and firesight marksmen followed shortly by reasonably priced fusion blasters and drones. I would still advise on waiting for CA to come out before you buy anything.

Waiting for CA is not really necessary, unless you're trying to be cutting edge reaching for the top of ITC.

You can build a fundamentally good army in any faction - except maybe Orks, because of the new kits and codex - with the knowledge you already have.

People crying doom and nerfs are just going to be wrong. CA is going to be about balancing the lower end, not smashing the higher end. You'll see.