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I'm currently torn between playing Aeldari or some variant of Space Marine/Imperium. What would people recommend? I keep reading that the Ynnari if used properly are insane but then I also see that Space Marine/Imperium armies place really well at tournaments.

I always Blood Angels were awesome but I don't like the all red colour scheme.

I wouldn't initially be looking to play tournaments though. Of course, I still want to field a strong list.

Any advice would be appreciated!

MikeRavo wrote:
I'm currently torn between playing Aeldari or some variant of Space Marine/Imperium. What would people recommend? I keep reading that the Ynnari if used properly are insane but then I also see that Space Marine/Imperium armies place really well at tournaments.

I always Blood Angels were awesome but I don't like the all red colour scheme.

I wouldn't initially be looking to play tournaments though. Of course, I still want to field a strong list.

Any advice would be appreciated!

Space Marines definitely are not particularly great for tournaments though they have been making a slight resurgence with the Deathwatch teams appearing in mixed imperial lists. Most imperial lists since the release of the Knights codex have featured mostly Astra Miltarium with 1 knight, using most of the command points generated (typically a knight castellan).

I would DEFINITELY recommend aeldari for a consistently competitive faction if you're looking to collect just one thing for a long time. Craftworld eldar is probably THE most consistently competitive faction in the game, thanks to their highly specialized aspect units that will often have extremely strong rules, their psykers which often have a huge power list available (meaning there is very often something good) and their high mobility, which is very frequently something a player can use to win missions.

Currently, and for pretty much the first time in several editions, the Drukhari are really killer, and they are often the backbone of competitive mixed aeldari lists. The Craftworld Eldar specialists are quite amazing, but their basic troopers are somewhat uninspiring, which is where the highly efficient kabalite warriors of the drukari really shine.

I typically advise people against "chasing the dragon" with respect to a competitive army. You will most likely end up having to reconfigure your miniatures or even ebay/trade miniatures as the comptitive meta evolves, but I would consider Eldar to be among the safest bets around at the moment. Basic eldar vehicles like the Wave Serpent come with a copy of every single weapon option they can take, and it is very easy to use magnets to make them fully swappable. Drukhari on the flipside often have very few weapon options, meaning a fully flexible squad of kabalite warriors or a drukhari transport is very easy to manage. Craftworld infantry like Guardians also often have NO special options at all - so really, once you buy it and build it, as long as that unit doesn't become uncompetitive entirely, you are pretty well set.

If you're just getting started, and want a single faction to start on, I strongly advise you to choose either Craftworlds, or Drukhari, and later on down the line when you've built up a collection of one, to work on getting a few of the other for some allies.

If you're ok with both, go with Eldar. 50% of players are playing some variant of space marine. A good 75% of people are playing some variant of imperium. I haven't played for a while, but on the occasion that I did get a game in, it just felt better to play imperium vs xeno/chaos, rather than imperium vs imperium.

If you're starting the hobby now, by time you've got a full, painted army and know what you're doing, the meta won't be the same.

If you want the faction that is most consistently top tier, that's Craftworld Eldar. The second-most-frequently top tier is Space Marines, but the difference between how often they've been top tier is huge. And Space Marines are bad right now.

The first (of two) warnings about starting CWE (Craftworld Eldar) because you want to be top tier: while they are top tier the most of all the books, each unit is typically used in top tier lists less frequently than most others. A CWE Top Tier list from a year ago uses very different units than one today. Two years ago, three years ago, and four years ago - each of those time periods had very different CWE lists in the top tier, with very little shared between them.

So CWE will probably be a strong army in a year, or whenever you're ready to really get into tournaments. But the units you get now because they're OP may be trash.

Second warning about starting CWE because you want to be top tier: Play what you like. If you're looking for a technical challenge, I don't see 40k as a good outlet for that; other tabletop games have better balance, and video games can incorporate much better math to challenge strategy/adaption better, and do so in a cleaner and fairer manner. 40k is more a hobby than a game. If you love the idea that unit X has +1 to stat Y compared to everyone else so should handle Z% more on its own, therefore you should do $thing, you'll either get bored by the simplicity or frustrated by the lack of complexity (slightly different things).

If you care that your Marines strapped !rockets! to their backs, and fire them off to CHARGE INTO THE FRAY - that's what this game is about. And, if you love that, but pick Arrogant Elitist Space Elves to win games, you're not going to get to SWOOP FROM THE SKY, BROTHERS the way you could with Marines. You might win more games, but 40k needs to add more than just winning games to be worth it; you'll be spending rediculous amounts of time, money, and energy into building, painting, and fielding your army. If they're just Unit X and Unit Y, why do you care?

So go with what you enjoy. But to answer your question, CWE is the army that will most likely be top dog.

"The second-most-frequently top tier is Space Marines"

Tracking back to 2nd ed, this is not accurate. Largely irrelevant, but the misrepresentation is very annoying.

I know it seems unbelieveable, but if you don't agree with that asssesment, feel free to point out why here: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/771200.page

Eldar have been better for far longer. You'll get more use from your models.

Martel732 wrote:
"The second-most-frequently top tier is Space Marines"

Tracking back to 2nd ed, this is not accurate. Largely irrelevant, but the misrepresentation is very annoying.

I think it depends on how you break it down. By my memory, if you count the periods in which people used space marine armies to "count as" the space marine+1 factions that didn't require different models (space wolves in 5th/3rd and blood angels in 4th) then I'd definitely say marines were top tier second-most. Because realistically every single competitive tournament player I know paints their marines a custom chapter color and counts them as whatever is most competitive, so the periods where "most competitive" was space wolves...then their devastator squads became long fangs, their tacticals became grey hunters, and the models remained identical. just played out of a different book.

A period where the top dog was "marines" but you needed a totally different collection to run them (eg Grey Knights with dreadknights, strike squads and psy rifleman dreads in 5th) then I would say that's not an era of "space marines" being top dog - you'd need new models to play, not just a new book.

What else would you put up there, though?

Tau, maybe? They had a good run throughout 6th and 7th and they're kind of a dark horse faction right now you occasionally see in top tables. Guard for leafblower and 8th?

The gulf between how often Craftworld Eldar and "Space Marines" (meaning you own regular power armor models and play whatever book is best) have been top tier is pretty big. But I also think the number of times competitive eldar players had to buy new models to stay competitive is probably about equivalent if not more than the number of times competitive space marine players had to buy new models/buy a new book. A lot of times to keep your marines relevant you just had to swap the weapons. You can't make a Warp Spider into a Dark Reaper.

"You'll get more use from your models."
Are you sure about that?

DAVU was a thing for half of 6th - but Dire Avengers haven't been competitive since before the 7E codex. Still not, in 8th.

Their Serpents were good in 6th in large number, not competitive in 7th, and good in 8th but not in large number. So half your Serpents get reused after an edition of all of them on the shelf.

Scatter Bikes were OP for 7th. Didn't exist in 6th and garbage in 8th.

WK was good in 6th and 7th, but absolute trash in 8th.

Warp Spiders weren't competitive in 6th, were competitive in 7th, and are now trash in 8th.

Reapers were garbage in 6th, passable but not competitive in 7th, OP in the first half of 8th, and decent in the second half.

Shining Spears were garbage in 6th and 7th, decent in the first half on 8th and OP for most of the second half of 8th.

Guardians weren't competitive in 6th and 7th, but are in 8th.

Rangers were bad in 6th ok in 7th, but not competitive until the codex came out in 8th.

It's really only the Farseer you'd have gotten more use out of if you had picked up everything OP CWE had since 6th.

So I agree that they've been OP for far longer than anything else. But you won't necessarily get more use from your models.

You spelt Eldar wrong.

MikeRavo wrote:
I always Blood Angels were awesome but I don't like the all red colour scheme.

If the only thing that puts you off BA is the colour scheme then worry not - invent your own sucessor chapter, design your own colour scheme, but use the BA rules and units. Sorted

If you are willing to cough up a bit of money, you could always go with the "why not both" option. There is a set called Wake the Dead that has a few units and an hq from both factions. That way you can build up a small army of both, see what you enjoy building and painting more, and maybe get in some small matches with a friend to see which you'd like to expand more and what your next unit would be. Looks like it isn't available on GW's site anymore, but just a quick glance at ebay is showing several sets of it for pretty cheap.

Space marines are bad and generally in a weird spot right now. I’d wait a couple years and see how all the primaris stuff shakes out. If you want a consistently solid force that has always been at least decent go with eldar.

Thanks for all of the help everyone. Some really useful responses