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Hey there. I currently play Age of Sigmar but unfortunately there is almost no AoS playerbase in my area and it doesn't sate my obsessive personality so I was looking into 40k and while I don't enjoy high tech things I do enjoy big units and I like the complexity of 40k. I've only watched a few batreps on youtube so i have a very basic understanding of the game. The armies that interested me the most were the Tyranids and the Necrons. I enjoy big impressive looking units but I also enjoy winning.

I was wondering how these two armies played? Like in age of sigmar, you can basically summarize the armies. Not completely but you can get a general idea. Beastman move fast and hit hard but are weak to range and have no war machines, dwarves are sturdy and are powerful in melee and have powerful war machines but weak ranged attacks and move slow. Basic synopsis like that.

Which armies (out of all of them) can still be effective with mostly large units?

What kind of psychic powers and unique mechanics do the Tyranid and Necrons have?


Is damage in 40k mostly determined in the shooting/psychic phase than the combat phase?

Is there much strategy in 40k?

How do I start or even make a decision on which army? Do I need to buy multiple books first and then decide which units I like? I love the way the Mawloc, Canotpek wraiths, Maleceptor, Zoanthropes, Canoptek Spyder, Triarch Stalker and a few others look but I have no idea where to go from here.

Thanks for taking the time to answer.

Edit: Please don't answer with __ is fun. Fun is pretty personal. Whats fun for me may not be the same as you. I enjoy having a powerful army that can beat things, but not so powerful it just instantly wins. I enjoy winning with strategy as the underdogs, but not so underdog I have no chance of winning. I enjoy big impressive looking units and being unique.

Necrons are fun to play. They have decent fire power, are fast with some utilities, and have a very good cc unit. They are very durable when played as Decurion formation. You could play large Warrior mobs.

In no particular order:
Necrons require less strategy than most armies. They have ridiculous odds at surviving nearly any damage because of their special rules. Reanimation is a cure all and there's not a lot of point in trying to hide things that won't die regardless. Still an awesome army, but they were the first super awesome amazing power army and have since been passed by others. They aren't top dog, but they will still crush a bunch of the even smaller dogs. I love how many options there are in the army though and still usable. Jetbikes, CC Beasts, Walkers, Tanks, Flyers, foot troops, floating gun platforms, gods, assassins, they have so many cool options that it can be hard to decide on a theme to focus on. And nearly all of them can be made to be friggin good armies.

Tyranids... Well, on the plus side, the models you mentioned are some of the good ones, except the Maleceptor. The internal balance is so bad that if you do field a Maleceptor, you are bad and should feel bad. Exaggeration, but that is honestly how it feels a lot of the time when building a Tyranid army. You take X Y and Z and if you dare take Q, you have failed at list building and will lose horribly unless you find the friendliest of friendly players ever. I wish it were otherwise. You can take thirty models per squad, but they WILL die to five models of a better army. It's an uphill battle and I have been pretty wounded by not being able to play decently with what I consider to be fun anymore. They have a really good beast in the Flyrant that can handle most things on its own. That's their trick.

Large units are not too common. A common thing right now is called MSU, Multiple Small Units. This is how folks win because seven units can shoot one big unit to oblivion, but shooting seven small units and never really killing any one completely is a lot more difficult to deal with. But big units can still be a thing. Orks, Nids, Imperial Guard and actually Horus Heresy armies in 30k are known for having 20+ man squads as common.

Damage is dealt in all of the phases. Movement is more rare, but it does happen. A big example is the flying bugs in Tyranids like the Harpy or Hive Crone or the special rules of the Mawloc. Psychic Phase can do damage or buffs or debuffs. Necrons don't have one and Tyranids rely heavily on a couple powers to do big damage but even their phase is pretty limited. Shooting is where the most damage will be done. Shooting has every advantage and since Assault is pretty haphazard, it's more reliable to blast away. Necrons have great guns that can wound nearly everything while Tyranids almost invented the Strength 6 Spam that is a big staple in the game. Assault is rough because you can still get shot before you even close in, and certain armies just don't have the needed rules to make it realistic. A 20 man Necron squad could be totally destroyed by a single Space Marine in one turn if the dice go badly via retreat and Sweeping Advance. The reverse can not happen because Marines are immune to Sweeping Advance killing their squad outright. Tyranids do not get Assault Grenades on most units, so if there is a branch or a rock between them and their enemy, they lose out on big bonuses that cost a lot of points and are at a severe disadvantage.

I suggest browsing a resource like Battlescribe before you buy the books. It's tedious, but these things are too expensive to say you should just go out and pick up the books. Borrow them, hang out with a 40k player who has them and pick their brain, find a resource online, but don't sink $150 on books before you even decide on an army.

Necrons are a bit like Dwarves, but more maneuverable - they have no psychic powers, are very, very durable, have relatively good firepower and a few big boom machines, which get harder to use effectively the more powerful they are.

Necrons get flying transports though.

Tyranids... Tyranids are like playing Forest Goblins without Poisoned Attacks. Lots and lots of weak little things, a few slightly less weak medium things, and a couple of nasty big things that work if you use them just right.

Necrons have the ability to deal with the enemy at all threat ranges.
Have some backfield shooty enemy unit? Take a unit of Warriors in a Night Scythe. Move the NS in 24'', let the unit disembark, and whittle down the enemy with rapid fire gaussian weapons.
Have some fast moving cc unit threating your front ranks? First shoot it and then charge with Wraiths (tarpit).
Have some large Ork mob moving along your lines? Take Tomb Blades with particle weapons to punch holes into the mob.
Just three examples where Necrons shine. They shine anyway.

Big unit armies:

1) Nids. Lower tech, variety of monsters. Venomthropes, maw locks, flying give tyrants, Carnifexes, and Zoanthrope are all doable.

2) Eldar Wraith Army. Very strong and even overpowered if you load up on wraithknights.

3) Dark Eldar Covens list. Pain engines and grotesques mostly.

4) Daemons Tzeench Flying Circus. Them crazy crazy chaos duders.

Nids aren't bad, but currently they need a flyrant to be competitive. (Hive tyrant with wings and 2 twin linked devourers)

They are an underdog army but it's fair to say if played right, they aren't half bad.



Necrons on the other hand, are a solid high tier army.
They can shoot and fight well with the right units.
They have the ability to run tough armies than are pretty resilient to damage.





As a new person to 40k and liking winning however, I'd take the necrons as you have a far better chance of pulling wins with them and they are alot more forgiving to mistakes.


Swarm armies are rare in 40k though.
Tyranids can do it, but it's not great.

Closest necrons come is 20 man units of warriors.

I just started playing 40k in the last 4 months, and while I knew right off the bat what army I wanted to start with, as I played a bunch of the Dawn of War games and loved the Blood Ravens, I've also gotten some other friends into the game and they were completely overwhelmed as to which to choose. That was the most difficult part for them, as each has a particular way they like to game, and finding an army to fit their style was daunting until they started reading fluff, or asked me about what each army felt like that I was able to play in the DoW games. You can kind of break it down into categories:

Want to overwhelm your opponent with hordes? Orkz, Tyranids, Sisters, Imperial Guard

Want to strategically outplay your opponent? Eldar, Tau

Want to out shoot your opponent? Tau, Dark Eldar (?), Sisters, Imperial Guard (with armor mostly)

Want an unstoppable juggernaut force that keeps going forward no matter what's thrown at them? Necrons

Want jacks of all trades that do pretty well at all things and can specialize? Space Marines

Want "fun" fluff armies that ally pretty well with stuff? Chaos and Daemons

Want psychic onslaughts? Eldar, Space Marines, Grey Knights

While many of the armies can jump these categories based on how they're built, this is a general impression I've gotten from watching some videos and just inferring in some cases from the Dawn of War games and reading lore stuff.

As far as strategy goes, it does feel like it, even without the objective based play that I've been doing with my friends at the moment while we learn the basics of each phase and such. Deployment and movement of units can sometimes completely doom your army if you decide to move one or two units and not enough of them to be able to do anything to capitalize each turn on what you have available. Having watched some battle reports, I'd say that when it comes to objective based play using the tactical objectives decks, it looks like it starts to get a lot more strategic, as they'd sit there trying to decide which unit to use to go capture a particular objective that is going to do more than just get a 1 turn point. However I could be wrong, since I've yet to try out this type of gameplay myself in a more serious environment of play.

I do still feel like the game is strategic, as trying to position units correctly can doom your army if you move important units into a particular position, or don't deploy and move units meant for more specific tasks correctly.

As far as damage, it really depends on what type of army you have for where the most damage happens. If you have an army built for melee with particular melee upgrades, then the most damage you're going to get is going to happen in the assault phase, but if you're built for shooting, then that's going to be your bread and butter. I've yet to produce devastating results in the psychic phase, but I can see it happening with some of the abilities available. Overall, I'd say that shooting + assault is where I've seen the most destruction in games thus far.

Again, I'm fairly new to 40k so some of my impressions could be quite off, but I feel you on the overwhelming nature of getting started. I'd definitely recommend seeing if there's someone to get into the game with you to make it a little easier to start up

how these two armies played?

Necrons Just don't die, never. Seriously they have the best survival rate per point spend on them. And they have decent allround shooting good specialist shooting, and good combat units and no real weakness but all models kinda look the same they don't have any psi powers. This army is currently in the top rankings of all tournaments.

Tyranids: Lots of different models. In general not as strong as necrons. But it will work for perfectly for casual play and there a few some good tournament builds. This army will give you lots of interesting battles in your local gaming store and have a huge diversity of models. You can go big monsters or swarmy stuff and everyting in between. Good combat, and good shootng tons of psykers. Weakness: No vehicles no transports and not that much anti tank, watch out for force weapons in close combat for they will kill your monsters.

Is damage in 40k mostly determined in the shooting/psychic phase than the combat phase?

The current edition is more balanced to shooting. Or really fast or sturdy close combat units. Good close combat units with poor survivability don't survive before reaching close combat.

Is there much strategy in 40k?

More then Age of sigmar, way less then Warhammer fantasy battles. Currently most of it is in list building for most armies. Weaker armies will need more strategy during the battle then most top tier armies.

How do I start or even make a decision on which army?

-Watch a lot of batte reports and and decide what you like and what you don't like at all.
- Read tactica. and read a lot of them not all of them are perfect but keep in mind to only look for 7th edition versions
-Build army lists with Battle scribe and calculate how much those armies would cost you. Some 40k builds aren't really that money efficient.
-Try before you buy. 40k vassal still works, never tried tabletop Simulator but it should also work. You could lend an army of somebody else or proxy it. But pls try your army out before you buy it because it might just not work at all. This would be a waste of your money.
- When buying NEVER trust a store manager of any kind with suggestions, some might be ok but most would try to sell you things that they would like to sell not things you really need.

Here is a start
https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Tyranids%287E%29

https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Necrons%287E%29

Do I need to buy multiple books first

No

The fist thing you will need to build a necron player army is a codex.

The first thing you will need as a Tyranid player is a codex and these downloads for the units you are missing in the codex http://www.blacklibrary.com/Home/free-to-download.html
On top of that you might want to use other formations etc. If you want that you will have to buy/find yourself some supplements. They are good but not nesesarry and the free black library download covers all units not in the codex.


The units you love
Mawloc -> Really good often combined with lictors. This unit looks great and is used ofen.
Canotpek wraiths - > The Necron close combat unit this thing is fast, nasty and will not die that easy.
Maleceptor -> never see this model on the table and there might be a reason for it.
Zoanthropes -> Look cool but not that good really since they are dependant on psi powers and powers and that is a risk in this edition of the rules. They are a combi kit with venomtropes and those are really good.
Canoptek Spyder -> Decent support unit ( Necron medic / repair man also poops out swarms of spiders)
Triarch Stalker -> An other decent support unit

I might suggest to look for second hand models. Most local second hand sites ( not ebay) have cheap armies for sale. Spending 100-150 euro for a complete and good army is a decent start if it includes lots of units that you wanted to buy anyways.

I enjoy having a powerful army that can beat things, but not so powerful it just instantly wins. I enjoy winning with strategy as the underdogs, but not so underdog I have no chance of winning. I enjoy big impressive looking units and being unique.

Both armies can be your way of fun to play with. But with tyranids you will have a more interesting challenge then with necrons. Since the most simplistic necron build ->Just do decurion is really good and doesn't need much tactics to win.

You can browse 1d4chan.org Look up Necron Tactics or Tyranid tactics....find the 7th ed entry and it will give you a break down of the army in general, every unit including forge world, and wargear option, its a wiki written with a lot of opinions but it is a good starting point to get ideas of any armies you ar considering. Then as someone else stated you can check out battlescribe for actual stats, special rules, and point costs.

Zelarias wrote:


Want to overwhelm your opponent with hordes? Orkz, Tyranids, Sisters, Imperial Guard

Want to strategically outplay your opponent? Eldar, Tau

Do not listen to this. The subject is highly debated and this claim is a oversimplification.
To put it simply: Tau and Eldar are top tier easy to win with armies if you know the game a bit, and the armies above it are lower tier armies that quite hard to play well.

A longer explanation:

Eldar and Tau aren't good if you are completely new to the game so you might say that they requite more tactics.
But everyting changes when you actually get to know the game. Eldar and Tau then suddenly become almost trivial to play with.
Their sole tactic is overwhelming fire power and superior movement. To put it simple Shoot stuff until they almost reach you then move away and shoot some more. These armies become point and click armies once you really get to know them.

Armies like tyanids and orks kinda work in "tryout games" but once you are out of the kiddy pool they suddenly require some serious tactics and thinking ahead.
Since your army is less manoeuvrable and doesn't shoot as much so you actually need to plan where your army will be a few turns ahead of time if you don't you will be squashed.
Playing a non gunline horde looks simple ( just push it forward right ) but is in reality really hard. There is no room for error in movement, since there are simply not enough turns to turn around a horde if it is in the wrong place on the table. Terrain placement really hinders your movement but you need it for over to survive. Spreading out models will keep casualties from blast to a minimum but will also hinder due to the fact that models are removed from the front resulting in more lost inches for each casualty and it also makes it harder to manure. Placing or unit and characters in a horde is really important models dont move at the same time so they hinder each other a lot. On top of that there will probably be lots of aura affects ( especially with tyranids) that you will need to keep in mind while planning. There are some really nice tricks with hordes that involve getting units in and out of tyranid synapse range + a venomthrope but this will require some planning.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Zelarias wrote:


Want psychic onslaughts? Eldar, Space Marines, Grey Knights

Completely wrong again these armies will have generally less or a equal amount of power dice then your average tyranid army. Most tyranids armies really outclass most armies that are not specialised in psionics since they have just more psykers, grey knights will have roughly the same power die deamons might have more. There are a few builds that go over the top on psykers. But these are not the armies listed above. Real psionic power is done by generating massive amounts of diece. And it can best done by Inquisiton and Chaos Daemons + Perhaps allies that can cast on a 2+ such as Space marines and Guards.

But to put it in context most games will not be won by psionic powers.

I have yet to play all the armies tabletop wise, like I said, some of the impressions were fluff/DoW based, but thanks for the clarifications. This would help to answer the strategy part of their question for sure.

For the two armies you asked about, here's my rundown on it:

Necrons are a good starter army right now. Their special rules make them decently durable and their unique rule is that their guns can theoretically harm anything in the game. The Gauss rule allows it to harm high toughness models, vehicles, and infantry, whereas most other guns in the game would either lack volume of fire or be outright useless against vehicles or high toughness. On top of that, there are only a few choices in the Necron Army that is sub-par (such as the C'tan Shards) and even those can still be decently effective against a non-competitive opponent. Finally, Necrons are a shooting-based army, which is very important as this edition favours shooting over the other phases.

Tyranids are the complete opposite, in both gameplay and theme. Each unit is generally geared towards one type of target or purpose, with very few "generalists" in their army, and the entire army is geared towards close combat with a few exceptions. However, most of the small guys are cheap, so spamming is an option. Their most notable traits is Monstrous Creatures; there is a Monstrous creature choice in literally every part of the FoC, and despite grumblings, most of them are still decently effective. The most powerful Tyranid combo right now is the Winged Hive Tyrant with Twin Linked Devourerers, which is like a flying, untouchable gunship that rains down death everywhere it goes. Unlike the necrons though, the usefulness of the Tyranids range from "Awesome" to "completely worthless", so there's a few units you might wanna avoid. Too many to list here, but the most infamous one is the Pyrovore, which is utterly useless even at it's stated goal.

That said, whichever army you choose should be one that you enjoy. Not just in gameplay, but also in modelling and painting. It would be horrible if you actually liked Tyranid models but chose Necrons because you didn't want to lose, and the assembly and painting aspects become a chore for you to do. See if your local FLGS has some display cases of models and take a look at them. That is the best way to start an army.

After you've decided, there's a few options to start. For Tyranids, picking up the Start Collecting! box is a very good way to go. It is one of the better values for the models within, and the units inside are all solid choices (people will debate on the Tyranid Warriors but they're the core of a few formations, and are still a decent choice all said and done. Not fantastic, but decent. That or you can convert them into lictors, look for tutorials online.). For Necrons though, I'd recommend buying the codex first and pick up the individual sets you want. The starter box isn't that good of a value compared to the others (basically the only thing you're getting a discount on is the Overlord, which is already overpriced as it is) and the unit choices are a bit more questionable (they're not bad, but they're also not a unit that usually get played together) so in the long run you'd save yourself some headache by buying units separately.

Protip for buying Necrons: The Catacomb Command Barge comes with an Overlord for a few dollars more than the clampack, and you can either convert the Barge to have the overlord be removable OR build it up as an Annhilation Barge, effectively getting the Overlord for free. You can also magnetize it for both if you so wish.

All said and done, after your first set or so, pick up the codex and play some low-point games. Do make it known that you're a new player getting your feet wet; 40k is notoriously unbalanced and some people will go full turkey on you.

Someone else mentioned 1D4Chan. I have to note that it is a good resource for tactics, but it often dips too far into the competitive side. Just because something isn't declared the best choice doesn't necessarily mean it's something to be ignored. Only when they really rag on a unit then should you think about not including it (again, the Pyrovore is one of them). The site does give you a good overview of the armies though, but I still highly recommend buying an army you like the look of.

Tyranids are the very definition of mid tier. Necrons are perhaps the second most powerful codex in the game currently so keep that in mind.

Personally, I find the necrons boring to think about, play against and use. They are basically the army for people who fear losing, never want to take risks, and want to have no weaknesses. They are devoid of any flavour, inspiration, or imagination. They are easy to paint, very competitive if not the most competitive army, and have very few poor units in their codex. They also have the best army wide detachment of all the armies, the decurion.

I would choose the tyrannids over the necrons any day of the week, in fact I would choose any 40k army over them. Tyrannids are a much richer, evocative and exciting army. They are nowhere near as competitive.

Why would I choose them? Because I have to love the process of building, painting and deploying my army and look down on it on the table and care about it. I wouldn't see my army as a means to an end.

If this is important to you, go for the army that you love the models of, the background and an army that engages your imagination. If the necrons do that for you, then go for it.

If your sole aim is to win games, use the web to find the most competitive tournament winning builds, usually eldar or necrons and get that.

By the sound of it, winning isn't the only important thing for you, but you don't want to get stomped all the time.

To not get stomped all the time avoid armies that have not been updated for too long (CSM) and definitely avoid armies that GW seems to have forgotten (SoB, sorry girls). Also you WILL lose a bunch of game while you're new.

DO realize that updates come and the wheel turns, weak or "mid-tier" armies now will get an update and be good at some stage, so do not get an army because it happens to be good right now.

Get an army for the feel, the fluff or the aesthetic, something you love regardless of how well it does.

Nids (Tyranids) in theory are a swarm army of lots of little bugs with some big bugs mixed. They generally prefer melee combat and use ranged attacks to soften up the enemy before getting in close. In practice Nids rely mostly on flying hive tyrants to fly around shooting things to death before possibly landing and cleaning up in close combat. They also have a few formations that can recycle units to serve as cannon fodder and run interference on the enemy.

Necrons are very versatile in their options with strong ranged units and some strong dedicated melee units. Most units are fairly mono purpose so your ranged units aren't generally going to do well in close combat while your melee units generally don't have guns. Necrons are across the board very durable and probably the most durable army in the game.

Orks, Tyranids, Imperial Guard (Astra Militarum) are generally the "horde" armies but they can also be played in other ways and you could also field large number of models with armies like Nercons, Tau, and Daemons. Very few armies are unable to field lots of models (Grey Knights) you could have a Space Marine army that has mode models than an Ork army if the Ork army is focused on say walkers while the Space Marine army is fielding a lot of Tactical Marines in transports.

Necrons do not have psychic powers at all. Most necron guns (Gauss) can wound (infantry) or glance (vehicle) any model on a 6 which gives even their basic infantry a lot of versatility. Necrons also get Reanimation Protocol which is a better version of Feel no Pain on most of their units (an extra "not a save" that you can take after failing your normal armor/cover/invuln save). Necrons also have certain units (Ghost Ark, Spyder) that can generate new models for a unit in the middle of battle to replenish loses.

Tyranids have above average number of psychic units but their powers are more limited than most psychic heavy armies. Their psykers generally act more as support and supplement their offensive power than being a major part of their firepower. Tyranids have the synapse system in which most of the little bugs have terrible leadership but if they are in synapse range they become fearless. If they aren't in synapse they have to pass leadership tests or else they revert to their instinctive behavior which they roll to see what they do. Bigger bugs are generally synapse creatures which generate that field or can operate on their own.

40K is generally dominated by shooting with most of the strongest armies being shooting focused. Close combat can be incredibly deadly if you can close the distance and against certain enemies (Necrons in particular) its way more effective to wipe them out in close combat than to try and shoot them to death. Very few armies can generate heavy casualties in the psychic phase and psychic powers are usually more for utility work to improve your own units or summon in daemons.

Strategy is a huge part of 40k split between making a list, deployment, plus your in game movement and target priority. A smart player who plans and reads the enemy strategy can pull out victories where as other less strategic minded players could miss out on opportunities or make poor decisions.

Personally I would recommend searching through the model catalog on the GW website and find models that look awesome. Pick maybe 3 factions to look into and read up how they play and what you should expect to see from them on the tabletop (sounds like you did that with your interest in Nids and Necrons). Pick one that fits your general style of play, visual aesthetic, and what you want to experience from the hobby. Pick up one of the "Start Collecting" boxes and/or pick up any models that strike your fancy in that faction. The Start Collecting boxes have a playable formation for all the models included (lets you field them as a valid army, its not the rules for the models) but outside of that formation you do want to meet the 40k standard of 2 troops and an HQ. Start Collecting box generally an HQ, 1 troop choice and 1-2 other unit types. The standard way to field and army is a Combined Arms Detachment (CAD) which requires 1 HQ choice and 2 Troop choices. Elite, Fast Attack, and Heavy Support make up the other slot types as well as the Lord of War and Fortification slots but those generally aren't used in smaller games.

Get your hands on a copy of the faction codex and the main rule book. Not advocating piracy at all but getting a copy before you assemble your models is a very smart idea. You should have a your own legit copy of the rules by the time you get a decent army put together. The Gamer Edition codexes (Digital) and the 7th edition big rule book from the Dark Vengeance box are cost effective sources of the rules. You should be able to find the DV rule book on Ebay.