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Hello all, thought Id get some opinions... Im a fluff player, winning or losing never bothered me... BUT I want to build an army that can handle the business at tournaments... pure 100% by the book, bound and legal... whats peoples suggestions?

Well there you've already found the 40k dilemma

Yeh you can play by the book, bound, legal, take it to that tournie, and likely there is someone who's list is also bound, legal, except it uses a combination of some poorly worded RAW rules in which he now proceeds to smash you

And then after that; it depends what playstyle you like.
Necrons - have a reasonably powerful codex by current standards, have some interesting combos and formations, except imo pretty boring to play. Most units don't have many upgrade choices in regards to altering how they play.

Orks (which I play) - not overly powerful codex, but quite an extensive range of units and interesting rules and combos (if you take into account FW), they also offer the opportunity to create some cool models. But not an easy army if your wanting to win some tournies.

If you want a fluff army that can handle business, then one of the latest SM codex's or Eldar are probably not a bad start.

I love orks, it's just they don't win much... fun to play though... I also have an ultramarine company which got a massive buff, but it's still not the top of the pile... have a big deamonkin army and wolves army there too... just want to see what's the real powerhouse army at the moment

well with the massive pump out of codex's in the past couple months, its going to take a little time for the meta to settle. Ravenwing seems pretty solid, but there hasn't been enough time for counters to be developed.

RaisedFist wrote:
Hello all, thought Id get some opinions... Im a fluff player, winning or losing never bothered me... BUT I want to build an army that can handle the business at tournaments... pure 100% by the book, bound and legal... whats peoples suggestions?

Bound and legal, and 100% by the book is pretty open to all kinds of fun, fluffy, and powerful army builds. Allies would be open, formations would be open...you can do pretty much whatever you want and have fun while being competitive in today's 40k.

It's only when you start putting self made constraints on yourself that you may end up with a "feel badsy" because you eventually play someone who doesn't share your personal list of self-made limitations.

So...what army appeals to you? Start with that, and then look at some formations and allies that make sense to you fluff-wise. That's a good place to start...

I think Daemons can be what you are looking for. Daemons still stand up decently in tournaments thanks to all the shenanigans they can bring to the table. A really meaty daemon list that isn't all summoning can still push your opponent to the edge. Recently my daemons fared amazingly against skitarii.

Biggest issue daemons have right now is taking down superheavies and gargantuans. Only go-to option for both seems to be Be'Lakor.

As above has said daemons can work well in both areas but are also very frustrating to play at times. Ba are really fun and have some of the best fluff but are very much mid teir without allied shenanigans.

Fun is hard to quantify per army though as everyone has a different like and dislike.

Vanilla marines may well be your best bet, excellent range of units and you can built some nasty lists or fluffy rubbish. Very flexible army book but imo a bit characterless compared to ba, sw and da

Sisters of Battle. You get to build a fluffy army that plays very well in this edition where MSU is once again good.

The Space Marine's new Gladius Strike Force is fluffy as anything ever. Take a Demi-company led by a captain, have to take three Tactical squads, can still have a Bike squad and Centurions or the fancy new Grav Devestators and the Formations are just as fluffy. Armoured Task Force is strong as hell and can be padded out with 75pt Predators and a single squadron of something good. Keeps the points down. The Battle Company isn't as fluffy, since you would be taking nothing but MSU and minimum upgrades in normal sized matches. But a Demi-Company works perfectly.

Thw Windrider Battlehost was practically built for the Saim-Hann Eldar. Jetbikes all over the place, Vypers, and still have access to the Wraithknights and other strong Eldar trickery means it won't have any trouble in tournaments. The Biel-Tan can be represented by the Aspect Warrior Formations with Dire Avengers and the 'pick 3' one I don't remember the name of. Serpent Spam isn't as good anymore, but Serpents Infiltrating with Scorpions inside is a pretty good sized threat still. Strong and fluffy.

Solar Shock wrote:
Well there you've already found the 40k dilemma

Yeh you can play by the book, bound, legal, take it to that tournie, and likely there is someone who's list is also bound, legal, except it uses a combination of some poorly worded RAW rules in which he now proceeds to smash you

And then after that; it depends what playstyle you like.
Necrons - have a reasonably powerful codex by current standards, have some interesting combos and formations, except imo pretty boring to play. Most units don't have many upgrade choices in regards to altering how they play.

Orks (which I play) - not overly powerful codex, but quite an extensive range of units and interesting rules and combos (if you take into account FW), they also offer the opportunity to create some cool models. But not an easy army if your wanting to win some tournies.

If you want a fluff army that can handle business, then one of the latest SM codex's or Eldar are probably not a bad start.

Necrons lists actually rarely play in a boring style. The Gladius Strike Force on the other hand plays itself and is foolproof.

Upgrades don't make the game fun. It's the decisions you have to make and how they impact the game. With the strikeforce the game is made easy in the decision making area so I find it boring. You never have to choose which unit you send to claim a maelstrom objective and decide which when is better to send off where it can't hit a priority target because you have a ton of free things that are scoring

You'll do fine with most of the newer books

I have the strikeforce... owning a massive ultramarine force, they will see some play in friendly games. But if you had to play against a guy who just scratched your car and kicked your dog... what army would you slap that fool with?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I must admit I am looking at the necron decurion formation, with warrior / scarab spam

RaisedFist wrote:
I have the strikeforce... owning a massive ultramarine force, they will see some play in friendly games. But if you had to play against a guy who just scratched your car and kicked your dog... what army would you slap that fool with?

First off I'd probably stab that guy with Doomthumb's poisoned Gaunt mini.

Secondly, if I wanted to try to be OP.... Eldar Wraithknight spam? Perhaps Eldar wraithknights backed up by a skyhammer formation, Maybe a librarian conclave for some daemon summoning. The list of OP stuff out there is pretty large. Pick your poison.