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Struggling to pick between the two.

Its not about which is more competitive but which is gonna give me the most fun on TT and which I am gonna find the most rewarding with modelling and painting.

I would personally say csm (just avoid heldrake, cultists, plague marine and oblit spam).

They have a more viable set of strategies available instead of chuck everything in transports and shoot shoot shoot.

Dark eldar are the more challenging army to play though I would say.

On the modelling side, with chaos anything goes. It doesn't matter how crazy or weird, it will fit in.

I already play CSM. I was kicking around starting a DE army, but then I looked into it and it seems like their army has a TON of finecast (i.e. all the HQs, elites, most of the FA, etc.) so I was out.

CSM are very rewarding to model and convert, they have almost limitless possibilities, but they are a pain in the butt to paint.
DE are also quite hard to paint if you want the same style as the studio uses. With alternate paint schemes I find them to be much more fun to paint. DE also have quite a lot modelling and conversion opportunities, especially if you go with heamonculi.

Both codices can put out some viable list. I'd say the DE are somewhat better, but they take a lot of practice and effort to learn how to play properly. DE are a very unforgiving army, even a single mistake (or unlucky dice roll) can cost you the game.
CSM are somewhat more forgiving and have a wide range of strategies.

I know that the there is a learning curve. But I don't mind this, infact I prefer to play something which is seen as difficult as I enjoy the process.

I have never played either army's although I have seen them being played. Are DE fun? I mean I play IG currently and I wanted something which was not so static. CSM are just insane SM's IMO which Is why I like them.

As a CSM player it's my opinion that the codex is bottom tier, on level with SoB and Orkz. It's pretty much impossible to win even casual games without at least one Heldrake, which may be one of the best flyers in the game but other than that, the codex is pretty lackluster. CSM basic troops are probably the worst MEQ in the game, Ksons and Berzerkers are pretty terrible as well. The codex is largely based on assault as there isn't a whole lot of dakka anywhere, and we only have a single unit in the game with skyfire (flakk Havocs) that is outrageously overcosted. And yet, this is Warhammer 40k: Rooty Tooty Point and Shooty Edition which adds insult to injury since our assault units wouldn't even be effective if they costed 75% of their points. No decent assault transports, not even FW. The codex is just bad compared to at least half of the other codices.

DE on the other hand can spit out criminal amounts of dakka and can pretty much ruin anybody's day on turn 1 with the right setup and a little luck. Playing against them with an assault CSM army is like slamming your balls in a car door repeatedly.

 slowthar wrote:
I already play CSM. I was kicking around starting a DE army, but then I looked into it and it seems like their army has a TON of finecast (i.e. all the HQs, elites, most of the FA, etc.) so I was out.

That's what pushed me to Chaos over Dark Eldar as well.

As a long time DE player, the current finecast models are incredibly furstratingly, fragile. gak keeps breaking off again and again

If you like doing conversions there is no better army than CSM.
If you want a glass cannon that can win big or lose big, go DE.

Me, I like CSM because I'm more of a modeler/hobbyist than a player. And I love the fluff of CSM.

But I'd say: figure out which one you're more passionate about and go for that one.

 Alphabet wrote:
I know that the there is a learning curve. But I don't mind this, infact I prefer to play something which is seen as difficult as I enjoy the process.

I have never played either army's although I have seen them being played. Are DE fun? I mean I play IG currently and I wanted something which was not so static. CSM are just insane SM's IMO which Is why I like them.

DE are absolutely not static. Their dynamic and challenging play style is very fun imo.

Alphabet wrote:its not about which is more competitive but which is gonna give me the most fun on TT and which I am gonna find the most rewarding with modelling and painting.

Tabletop, I'd say DE. Both CSM and DE are rather limited in the way your can play them, but DE is going to be faster and give you more flexibility to do stuff, while CSM will tend to be bottlenecked into a bunch of footslogging power armor guys. I like that, which is why I chose CSM over DE, but if you don't, then DE will be better.

For modelling, no question CSM. CSM has so many opportunities, especially in the world of greenstuff. Skulls, fur, nurgle pustules and entrails, spare horns and spikes, mutations. You can also do lots of interesting paint schemes, while DE tend to suffer badly when not painted a version of black with a subtle color trim.

I think I am gonna go with DE, purely because I think their playstyle is unique and challenging, and that they have really awesome models.
Plus I have some awesome Ideas for my HQs

Thankyou all

 Ailaros wrote:

Alphabet wrote:its not about which is more competitive but which is gonna give me the most fun on TT and which I am gonna find the most rewarding with modelling and painting.

Tabletop, I'd say DE. Both CSM and DE are rather limited in the way your can play them, but DE is going to be faster and give you more flexibility to do stuff, while CSM will tend to be bottlenecked into a bunch of footslogging power armor guys. I like that, which is why I chose CSM over DE, but if you don't, then DE will be better.

For modelling, no question CSM. CSM has so many opportunities, especially in the world of greenstuff. Skulls, fur, nurgle pustules and entrails, spare horns and spikes, mutations. You can also do lots of interesting paint schemes, while DE tend to suffer badly when not painted a version of black with a subtle color trim.

I disagree there are a hell of a lot of viable DE builds other than netlist venom spam, which is old-hat, boring and easily countered. DE are a fun army to play, but like the army you have to be a bit of a sadist to play them as the learning curve will be steep, will be hard, and there will be times when you just want to throw in the towel, but once you crack it my god they are fun to play

I'm gonna say CSM.

CSM can have some of the sweetest conversions in my opinion. Plus most of their models are really cool looking.