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Your coming at this from a supper casual winning and loosing doesn't matter, and people will take units that suck and give people 200 points plus extra models to balance the game.
A lot of people play matched play with the hope of a vlose game without needing handycaps.

Also playing a worse army also punishes a new players worse than a competitive army even in a non competitive setting as one mistake can quickly turn the game into a blowout. While a more competitive army can stand a mistake or two and still keep it a close game

Ice_can wrote:
Your coming at this from a supper casual winning and loosing doesn't matter, and people will take units that suck and give people 200 points plus extra models to balance the game.
A lot of people play matched play with the hope of a vlose game without needing handycaps.

Also playing a worse army also punishes a new players worse than a competitive army even in a non competitive setting as one mistake can quickly turn the game into a blowout. While a more competitive army can stand a mistake or two and still keep it a close game

People have to learn that tabletop wargaming is not about a stupid win/lose ratio. You´ll have to assemble the models, paint them and build your own terrain. To own a beautiful painted force is a reward of itself. Do you really think that I would even think for just one second of selling my army that took me months to paint because some writers at GW can´t produce a proper codex for one edition? Of course not.

Another vocabulary which needs to be addressed is balance. Every fourth thread of dakka is about lack of balance. Well, there was never balance in 40K and there will never be. Why? Because it is impossible to implement with all the different units in the game. And another reason is that the designers simply don´t care. So what do you do? It´s pretty easy actually. Your opponent and yourself have to finetune their list in order to have a good game. Choice of the scenario and placement of terrain also matters. Jesus Chrysler, if you are playing on planet bowling ball with this atrocious plastic terrain that won´t affect LOS that GW tries to peddle to us in a very aggressive way then guess what happens? Guy who goes second will be vaporized. What a surprise! And on some occasion the result of a defeat is simply that you lack experience. So git gud!

Just to add to the background radiation that is this thread:

Most opinions regarding army strength can be largely looked at as being based around high level tournament play (NTC, ETC, LVO, ect). Basically if you're not playing in a meta that encourages very specific lists to handle non-GW missions (as many tournaments use), terrain rules, and points systems you can move away from basing your opinion on codex strength on the internet.

That said, even if we no longer consider Grey Knights bottom tier because of this, we can recognize that Marine based armies, especially Marine based armies who don't have a cheap troop choice option like Scouts or Cultists, are going to be an uphill battle at the moment. That's not to say winning is impossible, but be warned that a pure Grey Knights army will face an uphill battle in almost every game, even when playing against anything with the Daemon keyword. Basically Grey Knights are the hard mode of Marine armies right now. One could even make a Dark Souls comparison if they were feeling so cheeky.

I haven't heard as many complaints about Ad Mech, but in general I have heard that the 2017 codexes that came out immediately after 8th dropped have aged poorly. I'm guessing its because they were written first, likely in a batch, since they have some similar traits and stratagem options, only for the later books to inevitably be better by nature of being later releases that are built around a tighter understanding of the game that wasn't available when writing the first books. So they're going to be in the mid to lower mid tier if you're to consider them based on tiers. Regardless though, even in the most casual settings they'll be doing better than Grey Knights.

That said, regardless of what army you start with, you're going to lose games when you begin. Some of it will be tactical error, some of it will be forgotten rules, some of it will be not knowing how to best use units, and some of it will be target priority based. This isn't a reason to be discouraged, but rather to understand that losing is part of the early hobby and it's important to accept that so you can take a step back and look at why you lost. Don't blame your dice (unless you literally only rolled 1s all game) but look at what you did wrong and what you can do better. If you have a good opponent ask them their opinion too, or ask if you can swap armies and see how they play your list.

Regardless of losing or not though you should be looking at making the army "your dudes". Pick something that captures your imagination and inspires you. You might lose a lot (especially with Grey Knights), but putting a painted army on the table and having it be something that interests you will make every game more enjoyable than running around with the flavor of the month (that is unless that sort of game style is appealing to you as some people enjoy that sort of thing).

That aside, you can easily pick up one army for Kill Team (or both) and then do the other as your actual army. Flip a coin if you can't decide which to try first and paint them up to get a feel for them. Painting units is a great way to get a feel for how much you'll really want to bother with painting a full army of something and Kill Team gives you a great excuse to paint up a box of guys without committing to a full army so you can get a feel for the options and how to paint them.

Neutron lasers are terrifying and help keep the admech relevant. The robots don't suck, either.

Martel732 wrote:
Neutron lasers are terrifying and help keep the admech relevant. The robots don't suck, either.

Everyone's always doing the Icarus array. Not sure what you're talking about with the Neutron Laser.

 Strg Alt wrote:

Ice_can wrote:
Your coming at this from a supper casual winning and loosing doesn't matter, and people will take units that suck and give people 200 points plus extra models to balance the game.
A lot of people play matched play with the hope of a vlose game without needing handycaps.

Also playing a worse army also punishes a new players worse than a competitive army even in a non competitive setting as one mistake can quickly turn the game into a blowout. While a more competitive army can stand a mistake or two and still keep it a close game

People have to learn that tabletop wargaming is not about a stupid win/lose ratio. You´ll have to assemble the models, paint them and build your own terrain. To own a beautiful painted force is a reward of itself. Do you really think that I would even think for just one second of selling my army that took me months to paint because some writers at GW can´t produce a proper codex for one edition? Of course not.

For you, perhaps. Others are are focused just as much, if not more, on the experience of using that army to play games, not just the mere possession of their toys.

Another vocabulary which needs to be addressed is balance. Every fourth thread of dakka is about lack of balance. Well, there was never balance in 40K and there will never be. Why? Because it is impossible to implement with all the different units in the game. And another reason is that the designers simply don´t care. So what do you do? It´s pretty easy actually. Your opponent and yourself have to finetune their list in order to have a good game. Choice of the scenario and placement of terrain also matters. Jesus Chrysler, if you are playing on planet bowling ball with this atrocious plastic terrain that won´t affect LOS that GW tries to peddle to us in a very aggressive way then guess what happens? Guy who goes second will be vaporized. What a surprise! And on some occasion the result of a defeat is simply that you lack experience. So git gud!

This is not true. 40k could be balanced with roughly the same amount of diversity as now, but the rules team would need to implement a deeper core to allow all of these different armies and units to be different, and be balanced. The fact of the matter is that with so few levers available to the team to make things unique, and balanced, the game will either not be balanced, or it will be balanced at the cost of being much more homogenous and bland.

OP, yes, sadly GW has decided that 40k should be a game where picking a lower-tier army as a newcomer can be a frustrating experience. If you really like GK or Admech, I would suggest going with them anyway, because you will be spending time assembling and painting them, and the balance of 40k has been known to shift- what's good right now may in 6 months when a new coex/supplement/unit/edition comes out move to mid-tier or even lower.

BrianDavion wrote:

 privateer4hire wrote:
What are the current lower tier armies?
I play pure GSC w/o Imperial Guard. Wondering if I'm really that poor at playing or if I can blame it on my army

you DO lack a codex. so thats definatly a disadvantage right there

my army has a codex and the expiriance is of the same kind. Unless someone is a masochist I would strongly disadvise starting GKs.

Fine except versus top tier tournament stuff.

How does a non top tier list look like that GK beat regularly?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Strg Alt wrote:
Jesus Chrysler, if you are playing on planet bowling ball with this atrocious plastic terrain that won´t affect LOS that GW tries to peddle to us in a very aggressive way then guess what happens? Guy who goes second will be vaporized. What a surprise! And on some occasion the result of a defeat is simply that you lack experience. So git gud!

Ok, lets say you one does happen to play in an area where the terrain is super dense. Shoting armies don't really exist unless they are super fast or fly. In such an enviroment fast moving and fly melee units would wreck GK face. Flyers too. The terrain blocking LoS, combined with the deep strike nerfs would actually work against the GK players army.

 Iur_tae_mont wrote:
The Pendulum swings hard and fast( Well maybe just hard) in Warhammer. A power player today will be tomorrow's punching bag.

every army has a hard matchup, but I don't feel like there's an army that's so rough and unplayable that new players won't be able to play. Just remember to play the objectives and have fun.

CWE are strong throughout most editions if not all.

 Strg Alt wrote:

Ice_can wrote:
Your coming at this from a supper casual winning and loosing doesn't matter, and people will take units that suck and give people 200 points plus extra models to balance the game.
A lot of people play matched play with the hope of a vlose game without needing handycaps.

Also playing a worse army also punishes a new players worse than a competitive army even in a non competitive setting as one mistake can quickly turn the game into a blowout. While a more competitive army can stand a mistake or two and still keep it a close game

People have to learn that tabletop wargaming is not about a stupid win/lose ratio. You´ll have to assemble the models, paint them and build your own terrain. To own a beautiful painted force is a reward of itself. Do you really think that I would even think for just one second of selling my army that took me months to paint because some writers at GW can´t produce a proper codex for one edition? Of course not.

People like you have to learn that WH40k is a game first and foremost. A game that is played against another player with the goal of winning. It's literally nothing but a more complex variant of chess.
There is zero fun in playing a game of chess when you realize that all your miniatures are pawns, while the opponent has the regular setup.

Another vocabulary which needs to be addressed is balance. Every fourth thread of dakka is about lack of balance. Well, there was never balance in 40K and there will never be. Why? Because it is impossible to implement with all the different units in the game.

This has been proven to be wrong, stop repeating that urban myth.
Other games, which are much, much more complex than WH40k have done it. Lots of games like StarCraft, LoL, DotA, MtG, WoW, CS and more have archived a sufficiently balanced state through constant iteration. Most of those have vastly more variables to balance since they are not turn-based games with as little a 5 turns. Heck, most direct competitors in the tabletop branch are considered to be more balanced than WH40k.

And another reason is that the designers simply don´t care.

They have actively stated they do care dozens of times over the last year. This is an objectively wrong statement.

So what do you do? It´s pretty easy actually. Your opponent and yourself have to finetune their list in order to have a good game.

And on some occasion the result of a defeat is simply that you lack experience. So git gud!

Awesome advice
1) Find opponents that lose on purpose because playing competitive is for scrubs
2) Play competitive

Choice of the scenario and placement of terrain also matters. Jesus Chrysler, if you are playing on planet bowling ball with this atrocious plastic terrain that won´t affect LOS that GW tries to peddle to us in a very aggressive way then guess what happens? Guy who goes second will be vaporized. What a surprise!

Oh, look, it's the "LOS blocking terrain will solve everything!" argument again.
Sufficient LOS blocking terrain will make games more interesting, but it will not make an army made of crap units great. Worst case, the LOS blocking terrain will favor the well balanced army on the other side more than your army because the few units that can do anything at all are now even weaker. Karol above me gave plenty of examples why this is the case.

Table wrote:

 Iur_tae_mont wrote:
The Pendulum swings hard and fast( Well maybe just hard) in Warhammer. A power player today will be tomorrow's punching bag.

every army has a hard matchup, but I don't feel like there's an army that's so rough and unplayable that new players won't be able to play. Just remember to play the objectives and have fun.

CWE are strong throughout most editions if not all.

Index CWE were definitely on the meh side of competition.

Even now the CWE codex isn't actually good, they are in a 7h edition tyranid situation. They have one army trait a couple of combos and a couple of busted units that hold the codex together, but the general level of the codex is average at best. In 8th edition where OP stuff actually gets nerfed, that is not a situation where you want your codex to be, you are a couple of nerfs away from being put on the shelf.

Spoletta wrote:

Table wrote:

 Iur_tae_mont wrote:
The Pendulum swings hard and fast( Well maybe just hard) in Warhammer. A power player today will be tomorrow's punching bag.

every army has a hard matchup, but I don't feel like there's an army that's so rough and unplayable that new players won't be able to play. Just remember to play the objectives and have fun.

CWE are strong throughout most editions if not all.

Index CWE were definitely on the meh side of competition.

Even now the CWE codex isn't actually good, they are in a 7h edition tyranid situation. They have one army trait a couple of combos and a couple of busted units that hold the codex together, but the general level of the codex is average at best. In 8th edition where OP stuff actually gets nerfed, that is not a situation where you want your codex to be, you are a couple of nerfs away from being put on the shelf.

Wow. A codex with that many synergies, stratagems and abilities to ignore many basic rules and concepts of the game, nice flexibility and the potential to do lots of mortal wounds, that can be souped with one of the best codices is just a few nerfs away from being put on the shelf?

Which armies are not a couple of nerfs away from being put on the shelf? IG, DE, CWE and Custodes? What if one of the minor nerfs what that soup doesn't work anymore? Will nobody play 40k anymore?

Grey Knights are in a terrible place they struggle even against index armies. If you first experience was with them yo would probably quit and never play again.

Trollbert wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Table wrote:

 Iur_tae_mont wrote:
The Pendulum swings hard and fast( Well maybe just hard) in Warhammer. A power player today will be tomorrow's punching bag.

every army has a hard matchup, but I don't feel like there's an army that's so rough and unplayable that new players won't be able to play. Just remember to play the objectives and have fun.

CWE are strong throughout most editions if not all.

Index CWE were definitely on the meh side of competition.

Even now the CWE codex isn't actually good, they are in a 7h edition tyranid situation. They have one army trait a couple of combos and a couple of busted units that hold the codex together, but the general level of the codex is average at best. In 8th edition where OP stuff actually gets nerfed, that is not a situation where you want your codex to be, you are a couple of nerfs away from being put on the shelf.

Wow. A codex with that many synergies, stratagems and abilities to ignore many basic rules and concepts of the game, nice flexibility and the potential to do lots of mortal wounds, that can be souped with one of the best codices is just a few nerfs away from being put on the shelf?

Which armies are not a couple of nerfs away from being put on the shelf? IG, DE, CWE and Custodes? What if one of the minor nerfs what that soup doesn't work anymore? Will nobody play 40k anymore?

Aeldari soups are a different thing entirely, it's like saying that GK are fine because they can ally with guard.

If you nerf the Alaitoc trait and shining spears, pure CWE lists will no longer be competitive.

 plark wrote:
Thank goodness for kill team, because I've been going back and forth on which army to get into, my top picks are Grey Knights and Ad Mech, however I've heard both are very bad competitively. I don't plan on attending a huge tournament or anything, however i don't like losing all the time either. either viable options for just casual in store tournaments without being tabled every time?

If you're not going into tournaments, competitive meta probably won't be relevant to you, except on occasion when some win at all costs guy shows up for casual play.

Winning and losing games outside those circumstances is usually more about rock/paper/scissors logic, deployment, and keeping an eye on the mission objectives. Since the tournament crowd doesn't make many errors on those fronts, list building efficiency is critical for them.

Admech are in an okay place, are visually interesting and highly varied, though they don't have a ton of choices when it comes to HQ, but they can bring Imperial Knights!

Grey Knights are regarded as having a weak codex, so if you go with them I'd recommend a no frills approach - lots of standard troops units and the better stuff you can borrow from Space Marines, like Assault Cannon Razorbacks.

Well from the Ork perspective it is rather terrible to be a new ork player right now, especially if you are just getting into the hobby. Nothing sets up a roadblock to play like price and right now Orkz have to be one of the most expensive armies to buy new and try to play at the 1500-2000pt level. Worse, for the beginner, unless they REALLY enjoy repetitive tasks they won't like painting 120-150 infantry models. Then in the actual game play aspect, its hordes or nothing so you have to really enjoy a single play style at the moment otherwise you won't win any games.

If you don’t like playing with lots of models, Orks may have been a poor choice. That’s kind of their thing.

meleti wrote:
If you don’t like playing with lots of models, Orks may have been a poor choice. That’s kind of their thing.

Orks really benefit from the lack of templates since you can now stack them on movement trays to move them about the board (you'll have to pile in off of the tray, but that's a sacrifice worth making if you're trying to speed up Green Tide play) so it can mitigate how hard it is to play with them.

That said, I will always remain of the opinion that Orks might be the best starter army. You have lots of bodies so you learn to accept casualties easier, bad paint jobs don't stand out as much and generally their mid-tier level of competitiveness makes them a solid starter army that can win games but usually doesn't get caught up in netlist power builds so much, which discourages jumping on the next best build.

Of course the downside is how much painting you'll need to do, but if you prime white or grey you can do most of it with washes and glazes instead of regular painting, so that's a perk too.

 Strg Alt wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:
And I have a final recommendation to make:
Delete the words viable and competitive from your way of thinking. You are playing just a game after all.

This is the one recommendation every new player should ignore. In a game as badly balanced as WH40k is, buying the wrong units will ruin the entire fun in the game and the new player will leave before he even understood what happened.

You said yourself that you don't care much about the game and prefer modeling and painting. I'd say you are unqualified to give advice on how find good games. How is someone supposed to find a group that enjoys the same game the same way he does before even starting the game?
Don't you think he needs to find out what kind of game he enjoys before doing that?

WH40k is game about cool models doing cool things. Playing a bottom tier army will mean your cool models won't be doing cool things, but you will just be removing them from the table with little or no effect on the game.
Not even the most hardcore beer&prezel gamers are having fun that way.

40K isn´t suited for competitive gameplay. Even a blind man can see that fact. Noobs shouldn´t memorize broken netlists but learn to socialize properly. Then you will have good matches and less people will come to this board to bitch and moan. I am also pretty confident that I could have a good game with my Bad Moonz in 8th with one of my acquaintances at my FLGS.

Not taking competitive units and burying your head in sand, is not going to make your opponents list non-competitive as a result. It just means you WONT have a fair game. I agree that there is far too many scrubs, scrubbing on about balance that they don't understand, and this category is particularly rife with it of all the places I see 40k discussed. But I think it's not putting ENOUGH thought into the units they're taking and how to play them well that causes this, not putting TOO MUCH. I could see how over thinking things could be an issue, but time and time again we see that that a lot of people don't even UNDERSTAND the aspects of the game they criticise as unfair. Going out and getting mopped with your eyes closed isn't going to help this, IMHO.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
That being said, there is something to say for blindly copying netlists or the internet group think in anything, without properly understanding how are why it's good, and not being willing or capable of filling in that knowledge as you play. Then of course, coming back to Dakka to bitch that your army is too weak to compete, your consistently tournament placing army is "completely unviable and cannot compete", your tournament DOMINATING army is "not even that strong people are overrating it", etc. It seems like its more popular than ever to blame the game before recognising mistakes. These people will not get better.

Spoletta wrote:

Trollbert wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Table wrote:

 Iur_tae_mont wrote:
The Pendulum swings hard and fast( Well maybe just hard) in Warhammer. A power player today will be tomorrow's punching bag.

every army has a hard matchup, but I don't feel like there's an army that's so rough and unplayable that new players won't be able to play. Just remember to play the objectives and have fun.

CWE are strong throughout most editions if not all.

Index CWE were definitely on the meh side of competition.

Even now the CWE codex isn't actually good, they are in a 7h edition tyranid situation. They have one army trait a couple of combos and a couple of busted units that hold the codex together, but the general level of the codex is average at best. In 8th edition where OP stuff actually gets nerfed, that is not a situation where you want your codex to be, you are a couple of nerfs away from being put on the shelf.

Wow. A codex with that many synergies, stratagems and abilities to ignore many basic rules and concepts of the game, nice flexibility and the potential to do lots of mortal wounds, that can be souped with one of the best codices is just a few nerfs away from being put on the shelf?

Which armies are not a couple of nerfs away from being put on the shelf? IG, DE, CWE and Custodes? What if one of the minor nerfs what that soup doesn't work anymore? Will nobody play 40k anymore?

Aeldari soups are a different thing entirely, it's like saying that GK are fine because they can ally with guard.

If you nerf the Alaitoc trait and shining spears, pure CWE lists will no longer be competitive.

Sure, soup is entirely different, but if you talk about competitive, then souping is what you have to defeat.
So if soup/allies didn't exist i.e. if all units you field had to be from the same book, what would be the tier list then?

I'm sure Eldar, Dark Eldar and IG would be top tier.
Most of the codices with <15 units and Grey Knights would be bottom tier.
The rest should be mid tier (not sure about Tyranids and Tau though).

Alaitoc would probably not be that broken if Wave Serpents and Flyers didn't get it and if Psi and Stratagems didn't have several boosts for defense. I mean, Eldar are supposed to be rather fragile, but imo, they are a really tough army, defensively.

100% with you on that, indeed my fix for Alaitoc would be applying it only to non FLY models, like the Jormungard trait. Would really make for some interesting infantry lists, ranger centric, without being the absolute must that is now.

I mean, the most common CWE detachment is an alaitoc air support detachment in an aeldari soup, i'm sure something can be done about that.

Plark, the only issue with a new player playing a low tier army is that they will have no idea if they're playing bad and can't learn from it. That is assuming they don't know it is a low tier army, in your case you do so you have expectation of a uphill battle you can get ready for it. The way to get ready for it in your case will simply be reading up on the meta strategy for these two factions. If you play just locally as well you can slightly tailor to the meta of your area.

Orks are in a bad place right now. I'll echo Jidmah and say "If 'Playing a good army' matters to you... Wait for the codex, and perhaps even a month after that."

 ClockworkZion wrote:

meleti wrote:
If you don’t like playing with lots of models, Orks may have been a poor choice. That’s kind of their thing.

Orks really benefit from the lack of templates since you can now stack them on movement trays to move them about the board (you'll have to pile in off of the tray, but that's a sacrifice worth making if you're trying to speed up Green Tide play) so it can mitigate how hard it is to play with them.

That said, I will always remain of the opinion that Orks might be the best starter army. You have lots of bodies so you learn to accept casualties easier, bad paint jobs don't stand out as much and generally their mid-tier level of competitiveness makes them a solid starter army that can win games but usually doesn't get caught up in netlist power builds so much, which discourages jumping on the next best build.

Of course the downside is how much painting you'll need to do, but if you prime white or grey you can do most of it with washes and glazes instead of regular painting, so that's a perk too.

Surprisingly the loss of templates hurt Orks the most of all armies. They were relying on shooting out mass templates to hit things (With wild scatter), now nothing of theirs hits at all.

SeanDrake wrote:
Grey Knights are in a terrible place they struggle even against index armies. If you first experience was with them yo would probably quit and never play again.

No they aren't. I'm sure your GM Baby Carriers or Crowe would knife through the majority of Ork lists.

It seems like a Rite of Passage in 40k to buy your starter army that is garbage, get a second army for a more competitive viewpoint, and end up with an Imperial army just from all the starter sets.

Thats how I ended up with Xenos, Chaos, and Loyal forces.

But this also lets you cycle playstyles and i personally enjoy the learning curve of a new army or list.

My Ork army has been shelved for several editions already, my Loyal bike lst was great in 7th, useless now, and my Chaos army that was terrible in 7th is actually good in 8th. Now im finally getting back into Orkz. I just finished painting up some metal Ork Kommando models for Killteam that I bought nearly 10 years ago.

Go with what looks the most appealing. Because they sit in a box/shelf/dresser more than anything.

 Eonfuzz wrote:
No they aren't. I'm sure your GM Baby Carriers or Crowe would knife through the majority of Ork lists.

I don't know how to tell you this but, I can't think of anybody putting Crowe into his all comers list. Crowe is not a whole lot better than a common strike squad member. He does have some special rules but they are so niche that they're almost unusable.

Yes.

I would honestly say that the only army you can't get fun mileage out of in a casual environment is Grey Knights. They are woeful and you need to be skilled in order to bring them to even casual tables. Admech pair very well with Imperial Knights, which are the new hotness.

Now, if you own a ton of models across multiple different Imperium factions, are well versed in the meta, know the armies you're facing, and can counter-build and play a ruleset that is conducive to them, Grey Knights can win games.

My general advice to new players is to avoid Grey Knights like the plague.

 Marmatag wrote:
I would honestly say that the only army you can't get fun mileage out of in a casual environment is Grey Knights. They are woeful and you need to be skilled in order to bring them to even casual tables. Admech pair very well with Imperial Knights, which are the new hotness.

Now, if you own a ton of models across multiple different Imperium factions, are well versed in the meta, know the armies you're facing, and can counter-build and play a ruleset that is conducive to them, Grey Knights can win games.

My general advice to new players is to avoid Grey Knights like the plague.

I disagree like this, I play pure GK in a casual setting and have good games and do fine. They definitely have their issues at the competetitive/tournament level but if your just playing against other people who are playing the models they like or fluffy lists it's ok.

 Eonfuzz wrote:
Orks are in a bad place right now. I'll echo Jidmah and say "If 'Playing a good army' matters to you... Wait for the codex, and perhaps even a month after that."

 ClockworkZion wrote:

meleti wrote:
If you don’t like playing with lots of models, Orks may have been a poor choice. That’s kind of their thing.

Orks really benefit from the lack of templates since you can now stack them on movement trays to move them about the board (you'll have to pile in off of the tray, but that's a sacrifice worth making if you're trying to speed up Green Tide play) so it can mitigate how hard it is to play with them.

That said, I will always remain of the opinion that Orks might be the best starter army. You have lots of bodies so you learn to accept casualties easier, bad paint jobs don't stand out as much and generally their mid-tier level of competitiveness makes them a solid starter army that can win games but usually doesn't get caught up in netlist power builds so much, which discourages jumping on the next best build.

Of course the downside is how much painting you'll need to do, but if you prime white or grey you can do most of it with washes and glazes instead of regular painting, so that's a perk too.

Surprisingly the loss of templates hurt Orks the most of all armies. They were relying on shooting out mass templates to hit things (With wild scatter), now nothing of theirs hits at all.

SeanDrake wrote:
Grey Knights are in a terrible place they struggle even against index armies. If you first experience was with them yo would probably quit and never play again.

No they aren't. I'm sure your GM Baby Carriers or Crowe would knife through the majority of Ork lists.

Okay, that's fair. If you're not playing a melee focused Ork army (Green Tide of Choppa Boys and other melee stuff), the army is likely going to struggle a lot due to most of the ranged stuff needing to get into 12" to have a shot at hitting.

Maybe their codex will fix them by letting them always hit on a roll of a 6 but we'll see.

When I was new, I started with SM. I'm glad I did. They're the baseline - everything in the game is defined by it's variation from them ("fast"/"slow" means faster/slower than SM, "elite"/"horde" is based on the relation to the Tac marine, and so-on).

SM have options for most playstyles, and list building doesn't pigeonhole the list as easily and quickly. This leads to being able to experiment and try more parts of the game sooner and easier.

Add to that that SM are the second-most-common top-dog over time (although they're not top tier now). By time you build and paint a whole army, the game is likely to be in a very different state. If a new player started building an army at the start of 8th - as in, not start a new army, I mean new to the game - would they necessarily have had a 2k point list before that army got reshuffled in meta position?

Orkz and GK are probably bad choices for new players, although not just because they're bad right now. Orkz are very 1-dimensional outside specialist builds. There are a lot of ways to play this game they just can't do. So, if you start with Orkz, you may never realize that you'd rather do a gunline, or using CC as a supportive element, or a combined arms style list. GK is probably also unwise, as they have only a couple options, and even if they were fine competitively, would still be very unfortiving. You get half the units most other lists get. And you would need to make use of every part of the unit, because of the points.

SM are second most common top dog. Not even close. This is more true recently, but earlier editions did actually happen. Your statement is more true foe space corgis.

Taking all of history into account, marines are a poor starter army imo.