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Hi there, im planning my entrance into 30k in the next few months, Im not sure on which legion, i like most (not EC, UM or SW for sure) but im struggling a little. My bro is a iron hands player so i know some of what im going to say leans to them, but id prefer not to play them aswell.

I know a few things i enjoy, could you guys give me a feel for whos good at these

I like the primarchs, my favorit dudes, but starting lower points, what primarchs are viable and can cope without a full honour guard+transport to make them playable earlyer?

I love grav and rad weapons so what legions pair well with these?

Some units i like are destroyers and dreads, so legions that can make use of them would be good.

My favorit legion based on the lore, is the salamanders, love them, love vulcan. Sadly they arnt good for what i want, and they also push flamer and melta weapons, and these two are my least favorit special/heavy weapons.

I advise people to avoid starting with Primarchs in small games because they tend to make the game less fun for your opponent and massively limit your own list-building. Even if you really want to get a Primarch on the table as fast as possible I'd still advise trying to make sure you've got the models to field both Primarch and non-Primarch lists to accommodate the needs of your playgroup.

If you are dead-set on playing a Primarch in small games you're going to want someone who moves about under their own power (Corax, Mortarion, the Khan, Curze), someone who can field a reliable-reserves Deep Strike list (Magnus), or both (Sanguinius). Honorable mention goes to Alpharius (whose sneaky hide-inside-units shenanigans let him go places without support if you're good at the shell game) and Ferrus (who has more shooting than most Primarchs and whose walking bodyguard is one of the toughest).

As to your other favoured units:

Destroyers are unfortunately really bad; they're expensive and don't really do anything something else doesn't do better and cheaper. Even the rad missiles can be taken cheaper on Techmarine/Servitor units. The only unique Destroyers are the Angel's Tears out of the Blood Angels, and they're massively better; they slot neatly into Descent of Angels to get into range quickly and easily, and they come down with an amount of firepower that makes normal Destroyers cry.

Dreadnaughts are a staple; they're tough, flexible, and fit well into any Legion. Between Castaferrum, Castaferrum Mortis, Contemptor, Contemptor-Mortis, Contemptor-Cortus, Leviathan, Deredeo, and unique versions there are Dreadnaughts for every role at every pricepoint.

Grav-weapons exist but tend to be hard to make use of; the Heavy type coupled with Blast means Infantry can't move and fire with them, so you usually see either grav-Rapiers (the field artillery) or grav-guns in Dreadnaught fists rather than fielded in quantity. Similarly rad-weapons exist but aren't usually fielded in quantity. If you really want to field a lot of grav/rad weapons you're probably looking at an Ordo Reductor army (Mechanicum) rather than a Legion force.

I think if I were you I'd be looking first at the Blood Angels. They give you a fast Primarch who can make effective use of Deep Strike, good Legion-specific Destroyers (so you'll have more rad-weapons than most armies), and the Contemptor-Incandaeus (a Contemptor with a single-use jump pack thruster). If you decide against them the Death Guard (generalist, strong unique Terminators), Raven Guard (sneaky Infiltration-focus), and Night Lords (melee-focus, Leadership shenanigans) are all also good choices to start off with, the Thousand Sons, White Scars, and Alpha Legion are all harder to use.

Thanks for the comprehensive response, its realy usefull.

I was worried it might make sens to be BA, theres something about them that unsettles me, i think its that they are to pristine and self confident (atleast on the face of it), i also hate the sanguinius model, but ill give it some thought.

The rest of the legions you mention are all up there for me. They all have downsides (which makes sens) like RG glumness is grating, and there scheme is a bit dull. I like so much of night lords i just struggle with there coverings of flesh and bits, to me dosnt look bad A** and just looks tacky.

I have a question around alpha legion, i tend to avoid the top 25% of army's as i hate mirror matching lots (they often get played alot) and it feels underwhelming to win with an inatley strong army. When i looked at 30k a few years back alpha legion was everywear, id see an AL army for every other army i saw. Is this still the case or have the numbers leveled out a little?

You could probably get away with Night Lords without a lot of fleshy bits, Curze's cloak could be easily painted as tattered cloth instead, and it'd be easy enough to use generic Dreadnaughts and Assault Marines instead of the NL-specific Dreads/special Night Raptor models.

As to Alpha Legion it'd depend on your community. I'm the only person I know who plays them but that's my community. And the problem of mirror matches is a weird one when considering the Alpha Legion since it's such a flexible Legion; builds for different Mutable Tactics choices and different Rewards of Treason choices in Coils of the Hydra provide so many options it's unlikely two Alpha Legion lists will look that much alike. They'd also let you field Angel's Tears without needing to be Blood Angels.

Are destroyers really that bad? Everytime I've seen them drop they've absolutely carved up. What units would you say makes them so redundant?

 Nitro Zeus wrote:
Are destroyers really that bad? Everytime I've seen them drop they've absolutely carved up. What units would you say makes them so redundant?

I hadn't gone back and checked over the details of the new pricing when I wrote that; I've now done so, and am still kind of disappointed. In depth:

Destroyers look like they're trying to be an assault veteran squad; they have the statline of veterans, start at pistol/CCW, have rad grenades to give them an edge in melee, and jump packs. The problem: The lack of melee upgrade weapons outside the sergeant means they're overshadowed as a generic Elites-slot melee unit by Tactical Veterans, who can have a power weapon on every model at 5pts per and can take Weaponmasters for WS5. They can perform in melee with four attacks per model charging (2+extra CCW+charging) but their lack of AP, 3+ armour, and no Invulnerable save means they'll get chewed up and spat out by real melee units. Even bog-standard Assault Squads are better at being a shock melee unit.

So then we need to consider them as a shooting unit. The hard limit of 12" on almost all of their shooting is pretty punishing in that role; they have some scary ranged attacks (rad missiles, phosphex bombs) but if you're taking them for the rad missiles you could spend 183pts on a Techmarine Covenant and get four BS3 rad missile launchers (admittedly without suspensors) instead of spending 230pts on two BS4 rad missile launchers. If you're taking them for suicide phosphex delivery you're effectively spending 150pts on a wildly unreliable single phosphex small blast when you could just spend 155pts on a Medusa and get a repeatable phosphex large blast that doesn't need to position itself to die to attack.

So you can use Destroyers, but if you're not playing a small game (1k, Zone Mortalis, things like that) you're pretty much always better off with a specialist unit that does one thing much better than they do.

I think pre-points drop you may have been right, but now I have to disagree - they seem significantly better! Disclaimer: I've only seen the, played around 1.5-2k pts level. Which doesn't make a bad unit, just perhaps not one for bigger games where glassier units might get picked up much easier!

I don't think it's fair to consider them "just a shooting unit", or "just a melee unit". They are a hybrid deathdealer unit that hit very hard on both. I think as long as they are given something to help DS reliability and accuracy (like a damocles, or even a pod) they can be used very effectively in that manner. If naked jumpstriking, probably works best on legions who have the ability to add a touch more defense to them (like Death Guard or Iron Hands), and possibly even an Apoc, to really make them stick around even longer. Charging out of a Phobos is probably more universal, but obviously expensive.

These things can really tear up if placed wisely, and also the missiles put in work, and just one single guy left can make cripple another enemy unit for a friend in melee. I wouldn't write them off at all, I would say they are very playable nowadays, if just a little more niche in application than some other units.

Izikial: It looks like opinions vary, then; I may regard Destroyers as inefficient generalists who are overshadowed by specialists, but Nitro seems to like the versatility, and it sounds like he's seen them on the table more than I have.

Thinking about synergies with Destroyers: Night Lords, White Scars, and Alpha Legion probably do the most for them when we're also considering Legions with fast/independent Primarchs. Thousand Sons need psychic dice too much to spend many points on units that don't get BoS, Death Guard don't do much for them and make them more redundant than usual with the ability to give anyone rad grenades in The Reaping, and they don't really fit into the standard Iron Hands list builds.

All fair points from Anomander.