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I've currently got a mix of Admech and Custodes, mainly because neither were a thing in my playing days and i was drawn to the shiny new (to me) models. However, beyond that, i am looking somewhat longer term as to what i might be intrested in collecting once i have everything i want for my planned Custodes army (still some way off).

and honestly, im really not sure. I kinda want to move to a non-imperial faction for a change, but really its more a vague desire, and i cant really make up my mind. So, i thought i'd ask the Dakka dudes (and dude-ettes, if their are any) a simple question (well, three):

What Army/Armies do you play, and why do you play them, and why should I play them as well?

Im just rather curious as to what draws you to your current armies.

Orks, because ...

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Have you heard of our Lord and Savior the Four Armed Emperor? He is real big with them humble folks.

You should play Eldar.

That way you can always watch as other factions/space marines get endless plastic updates and new units while yo are dossing around with ancient 20+ year old sculpts & hunting ebay for OOP metal models, loose your mind as you have to pick at fail cast, and get told hows your faction is OP because of that one OP unit gimmick while the rest of your codex sucks and remember in edition x where eldar were op because of X ? I member..


But we do have a couple sweet wraith units and space wizards.. so.. Ya know..

1) Go to the GW website and open up a page for one of the Xeno races on the store. Then open each model as a new tab. Go through each tab and view the photos, the 360 views and heck even google them if you want; basically really look at each model and close the tab on any you don't like. By the end it might give you at least a visual idea of what you do and don't like.
You might find you only want one or two models; or that you only like a hero or two; or that you really hate the core infantry and models that would form a big part of the building, painting and army playing. Ergo it can give you a nice visual appeal idea for each army.


2) TYRANIDS - The most alien of the alien from outside the Galaxy itself. A race born in the unknown that has been drawn to the Galaxy. A race known as the Great Devourer for its ability to orbit worlds and consume all biomatter upon the planet; every bit. Consuming world after world, leaving behind dead husks.

Biological weapons of war that evolve at a scary rate; from strong gaunts with weak minds and feral instincts; to elite assains in the lictors; through to huge walking artillery units with vast biological cannon. Hive Tyrants that are feared the Galaxy over for their powerful bodies and mental powers and then Zoanthropes - huge floating brains of psychic energy.
Tyranids can swarm; be it a vast hive of gaunts or a "godzilla" army of huge monsters.



3) NECRONS - A race that was born millennia ago who fought the godlike and immortal Old Ones. A war they were losing onto great Star Gods (the C'Tan) came to them and made an offer. Marching all their people through great machines they sucked the very life from their bodies and pressed them into cold mechanical bodies. Every member of their race was steadily converted as they turned the tide in the war from loss to victory.
But it was a lie, the C'Tan fed upon the bodies and souls; leaving the Necrons with no way to ever leave their cold shells. Thus they rose up and defeated the CTan, the very gods. Shattering and Shackling them to their will; now their shards can be drawn into war when the Necrons wish it.

Then they slept; a great ageless sleep to wait out their enemies weakening. Now they arise; a vast race in many legions; no women, no children, just warriors for the kill. From Warriors who are almost mindless killing machines; to Lords who retain some to much of their former memories; to Destroys, those willing to change their bodies, to hack them apart and be rebuilt with even more powerful weapons. To Canpotek machines, built to monitor and safeguard the tombs. Almost animal like machines that patrol and fight alongsie the Necron.

Sex, drugs and rock and roll and slaves and violence and pain and pleasure and anything else you want

I will second Orkz from a fluff perspective. My first army when moving into 40k and a great force to play with many varied ways of building a list. Alas I decided to shelf/sell my green boyz because the play style got boring for my in 8th.
But I found a new love, the Death Guard. Stoic, unmovable and though, like a brick wall out to kill you. Infantry focused, as I like my armies to be, great fluff even when you dislike the whole diseased/tentacled bits. Play them if, like me, you want your army to be hard to remove while being great at capturing poins. Or if you like the background of a true legion, relatively united even after the Heresy with their daddy still at the helm.

The Astra Militarum: We have tanks. Lots of tanks, and even bigger tanks than that.

I'd actually rather not answer until I know a little more about why you enjoy the hobby. You mention coming back from your "playing days" - do you no longer play, or will you be playing again in the future? Are you more of a modeller, a painter, are you in it for the lore...?

If you're drawn to shinier new models, on that basis alone - I would have suggested either Sisters of Battle (Imperial), Primaris Marines (Imperial) or Necrons (aha! At last! NOT Imperial). But we're told that after the next crop of Codexes, so sometime in early-ish 2021, at least one other Xenos faction will get some fresh love. If it'll take a while for you to finish your Custodes, maybe it's worth waiting to see who that'll be.

It's simple, Magnus did nothing wrong. (Original Joke I know)

So, I don't play these factions, but here's what still draws me to a few:

-Chaos (Chaos Space Marines): a lot of freedom in how you build your army fluff-wise. Are you building a cult uprising on a hive world, dragging desperate groups together? Are you a renegade formerly imperial chapter, disenfranchised with the greater imperium and slowly being pushed, willingly or not, down the dark path? Are you a group who's been there from the beginning? Are you a small band of marauders, looting, murdering, and destroying to survive? Are you thriving and doing this to give fealty to the dark gods? Or are you a powerful warlord, with thousands of Marines at your disposal, making your way to rival Abbadon himself? The choice is yours.

-Necrons: You rule over an entire planet (or planets, depending on the size of your dynasty), with a limitless legion of (almost) perfectly obedient soldiers. Casualties? Rare as you can teleport them away and repair them at a moment's notice. The stars themselves tremble at your might. Only one problem: these dang kids on your lawn. (Also suuuuper easy to paint)

The only factions I currently play are imperial:

-Guard: Tanks and hordes of expendable infantry. You lose millions of men and material every battle, but that's nothing compared to the trillions in reserve.

-Space Marines: another good amount of freedom fluff-wise. You can practically make your Chapter anything you want. Which Primarch is your progenitor, or do you know? Do you hail from a feral world, or are you fleet based and grab the few promising individuals you find on your way? Are you broken up into 10 companies of 100 as the holy Codex dictates, or is the Codex more of a...guideline anyways? Or are you still not trusting of Rowboat Girlyman and throw the whole thing out (I mean really, what does he understand about the conflicts you fight?).

Orks because you can have a truly unique army. Pretty much anything in the army can be kitbashed, converted or scratch built.

They also have multiple functioning styles of playing and pretty much every type of unit works: melee characters, supporting characters, psykers, hordes, smaller squads of troops, cheap transports, heavy transports, tanks, buggies, jetbikes, flyers, artillery, ranged specialists, melee specialists. Maybe even walkers. Only bikes are actually underwhelming as a category, but not trash either.

Orks, because:

1: You want to build it? Build it! no other faction supports this degree of conversions. You go space marines, the most dramatic thing you can do, for the most part, is posing. You want to build a double-decker bus? slap a big shoota on it and call it a trukk. You want to build a land-based aircraft carrier? call it a battlewagon and fill it with stormboyz. You want to build a bunch of orks riding hoverboards like in back to the future? Stormboys. You want to model a rolling ball of death, covered in spikes, with sponson-klaws either side? Deff dread with orkymatic pistons. Etc. The worlds your squiggly beast.

2: Playability. I have never, and I can't stress this enough, never had a boring game with my orks. I've played with my necrons, chaos, and tyranids where the game went against me from turn 1, but with Orks you somehow always feel like you have a chance - maybe it's the waaagh! energy, but I've never been inclined to "just call it" on a game with the orks.

3: Variety & challenge. Orks have strong builds in nearly every style you want - but you have to play them well to get them to work. There are a couple of builds dominating the ork tournament scene (lots of buggies, lots of boys) and that's fine, but there's a lot of other builds which I've found very effective. You want to go fast, you can. You want to go heavy, you can. The only builds orks don't do are the boring ones - huddle around a reroll aura with stupidly accurate guns which take a long time to just roll all hits anyway - and who would find that interesting to play?

Orks also has the benefit of being ready for the (hopefully) inevitable remake of GorkaMorka, which is an exceptionally fun game to play. If you can get da roolz and da uvver book, then give that a go as well - it's awesome!

You could play marine's if you like easy wins and continually complaining about xeno codex's being OP back in 2nd to 7th edition, while seeing any rembalance to your units rendering them unplayable trash. Bonus points if you can show how your codex is honestly not a best in game codex by compairing units within your own codex.

You could play Knights if you like being told your a WAAC player, having the most OP codex (despite not having won an event in 9th) Remeber Castellens, see your codex is OP (was totally nothing to do with allies and CP farming breaking the game)

You could play Tau if you enjoy being called blueberry or fishface, and constantly being told your armies is OP while having the lowest win rate in 9th, and how playing Triptide wing is "totally cancerous and destroying the game".

GSC, down their with Tau on the ability to actually play 9th edition, but "totally deserved and balanced because Kelermorph"

Eldar "well Scatbikes, Yannari so you need to be the worst codex ever to make up for it" not to mention the scuplts are old enough to buy you beer in America.

Drukari well GW decided that 10 units was just too much of a range so they decided that you just nolonger need 3 of them.

Cadians if you like your army to look like a wall of dark helmet from spaceballs.

xerxeskingofking wrote:
I've currently got a mix of Admech and Custodes, mainly because neither were a thing in my playing days and i was drawn to the shiny new (to me) models. However, beyond that, i am looking somewhat longer term as to what i might be intrested in collecting once i have everything i want for my planned Custodes army (still some way off).

and honestly, im really not sure. I kinda want to move to a non-imperial faction for a change, but really its more a vague desire, and i cant really make up my mind. So, i thought i'd ask the Dakka dudes (and dude-ettes, if their are any) a simple question (well, three):

What Army/Armies do you play, and why do you play them, and why should I play them as well?

Im just rather curious as to what draws you to your current armies.

I play Guard. I play them, and you should too, because they have tanks and guns, and lots of them. They're also professional[-ish] compared with the general weird fantasy-ness that is the other factions. Also, they perfectly embody the spirit of the 41st millennium, with political doctrine informing military doctrine, blatantly false propaganda to keep people fighting, mass conscription, disregard for life as long as it keeps the regime in power, and the whole thing with the "grim dark future where there is only war".

I play Sisters. I play them because the old Exorcist model is really pretty and I like Inquisitorial troops. Also, they're like space marines, but way cooler because they're more theocratic, more decorated, are otherwise unaugmented humans with high tech gear, and don't have the genetic deficiency of having a stunty half-sized chromosome.

I play Space Wolves. I play them because space viking werewolves. I also re-got into them in 8th because the tacticool marines from Shadowspear are hilarious and amazing and perfectly encompass what I think of marines in general.

I play Custodes, but you do too.

I play Grey Knights, because the Ordo Malleus is cool. They're the army of the secretest of the secret police of the Imperium.

xerxeskingofking wrote:


Im just rather curious as to what draws you to your current armies.

they were my dudes...

Harlequins!

As a returning player to 40K, Harlequins have been good to me. A single troupe box provided a full 100 point kill team and a follow up Voidweaver kit has been the foundation for a small patrol iin 40K. In Kill Team a single troupe player is a close-encounter, glass-cannon but on smaller boards the distance is fast closed. Equally, a combat patrol will be a small-board affair too...

While I've held off on 8th edition and for the time being only preparing the models for 9th, the rules have proved to be low maintenance at £26 for the codex and White Dwarf PA article. The low model count has been a godsend and the kits have allowed me to kitbash a Death Jester and additional players, saving substaintially on the start up budget. Quite fancied the 8th edition codex for a while( just for their background & art ), but like the Deathwatch which also had a WD PA article, I reckon the Harlequin 9th edition codex will not be too far behind. Unless of course there are going to be new units released alongside it, in which case it could be much later.

With a little kitbashing and sculpting, I've spent £54 on the army and squeezed out...

1x Shadowseer
1x Troupe Master
1x Death Jester
1x Void Weaver
7x Players

...for a patrol of 25 Power. If it were also the current codex and WD that would be topped up to £76, discounted prices of course.

The models are effective with either a simple or complex paint scheme and they do not require diamond patterns to look the part. A single base colour with a secondary colour for the weapons and mask, then a simple basing is good enough for those more interested in the gaming than the painting.

The Solitaire might be the model that sees the least use, but if one is a BSF player then the Annual( or WD article ) provides rules to use him in a solo mission...and apparently hes very powerful! If the game is ever in stock again then I might bite that bullet...

But yes, fragile as they are Harlequins are quite scary when they close in for the kill, which is sooner than your opponent might expect!

Deathwatch!

You get unique and powerful formation options, unique and powerful weapons, and some cool abilities like teleporting dreadnoughts and special ammunition that wounds custodes on a 2+!

.... Which would all have been true up until yesterday.

As of today... Dark Angels if you want to have something crazy strong. Harlequins if you want to go xenos.

If your an imperial player your spoiled. I was too. Once you delve into the rest it's like budget hard mode spam on a diet.

I play Dark eldar because I like my models to collect dust.

I play heretics so I can steal loyalist sh*t and have a legitimate reason to b*tch about it. And still win games.

I'm starting scions because they're not totally loyalists and I'm addicted to crack.

I wanna start sisters because I regret starting scions and got lazy with my heretic painting.

Tldr play heretics. Rewarding army with a near endless model range and a great mix of hero hammer elites and fodder with options to go all in on daemonic, mech and even psych. Second only to imperium in terms of diversity.

I play Craftworlds, because it' my first army since 1999. And they'll always be my first and favourite, even if they are outdated and everyone has fancier units and rules. Mine have the best background, even if it's not translated into the rules, so what?

I play Drukhari because they offer the opposite feel when playing: instead of khaine-inspired martial artists, jedi-like psychers and an army of crafters/citizens with iron discipline, the dark eldar are drug-fueled gladiators, khaine-inspired murderers, sith-like leaders, in a hellraiser/masochistic/space pirate raider army with lots of maneuverability and tricks to do the job. They can adapt to every situation. Of course, you better have an airbrush because you will paint a lot of vehicles.

P.D: Play Judas Priest while playing Drukhari and feel the real Heavy Metal.

I don't want to sell you on Drukhari, because I am a contrarian and like the exclusivity of an unpopular faction

That said...

The models.....Drukhari have really incredible looking planes, iconic transports, and their troops are lovely sculpts that are a great balance between detail and customisability. If you get bored of painting sleek deadliness, then you have great variation in the form of the various Court of the Archon models, Coven monstrosities, or wacky beasts.

In terms of play style, 'glass cannon' is great, as it means that you'll have an exciting couple of turns where either you or your enemy will get wiped out, leaving plenty of time to go to the pub.

Lastly, fluff. Being Saturday morning cartoon villains really takes the pressure off having to win, because you're not supposed to.

Definitely stay away from Drukhari, nothing to see, move along.

I don't want to sell you on Drukhari, because I am a contrarian and like the exclusivity of an unpopular faction

That said...

The models.....Drukhari have really incredible looking planes, iconic transports, and their troops are lovely sculpts that are a great balance between detail and customisability. If you get bored of painting sleek deadliness, then you have great variation in the form of the various Court of the Archon models, Coven monstrosities, or wacky beasts.

In terms of play style, 'glass cannon' is great, as it means that you'll have an exciting couple of turns where either you or your enemy will get wiped out, leaving plenty of time to go to the pub.

Lastly, fluff. Being Saturday morning cartoon villains really takes the pressure off having to win, because you're not supposed to.

Definitely stay away from Drukhari, nothing to see, move along.

There's the added benefit of the fact that they lose a unit or three with each release so the faction is ... theoretically .... cheaper to collect!


For my faction ... May I introduce you to the concept of "One of almost everything?"

1. Marines - Everyone around you will hate you, but most of them are marine players too so what do they know?! #40keasymode

2. Admech - Was 40k not weird enough for you? Seen too much John Blanhce art? Do you enjoy not being able to tell the good guys from the bad? Do you like having models with 40 or 50 spindly little things that WILL break off during construction? This is the army for you my friend!

3. Orks - WAAAAAAAAAAGH! ...and also easy access to TONS of cheap ebay boys ... so many boys ....

4. Death Guard - Do you like marines but feel they aren't tough enough, but are also too fast? Do you enjoy demon engines and lots of ... random bits and bobs? Right this way sir!

5. Thousand Sons - As others have already said - Magnus did nothing wrong! And also MAGIC!

6. Necrons - Space termina .... no wait that's not right .... what are they now ..... oh yeah! Tomb Kings! IN SPACE! And sooooo shiny!

7. Chaos Space Marines - What's not to love? You will always not be as good as your loyalist counter parts so you don't have to worry about all the other marine players hating you, or those filthy Xenos players secretly envying you, most of your codexes WILL be terrible, but most of your mechanics will also be randomly random because what's not fun about not knowing what a unit is going to do each turn until you roll for it? SO IMMERSIVE! Remember that time your Lord became a Demon prince and this actually made him WORSE!? Just roll around in that. It's so great in here! Really!

8. Tau. Also Tau. I have some Tau. But Kroot. Mostly Kroot models. So that's a thing.



In all seriousness, I actually enjoy each of these factions for different reasons. You may consider getting two 500pt forces and playing out some games to see which one feels better.

Catachans because:

Charlie don't surf
https://youtu.be/uU9Y1sNs1rs

and

Bird is the word
https://youtu.be/KQEDojPZ7YI

Necrons because John Connor is a sissy.