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Martel732 wrote:
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.

SM have historically been fine.

The faction continues to be well supported, cheap, easy to assemble, easy to paint, easy to play. All great features in a player's first army.

Is it "pick the best 3 Eldar units this edition and spam them"? No, but so what? You are starting to play, not aiming to win the LVO.

Tyel wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
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.

SM have historically been fine.

The faction continues to be well supported, cheap, easy to assemble, easy to paint, easy to play. All great features in a player's first army.

Is it "pick the best 3 Eldar units this edition and spam them"? No, but so what? You are starting to play, not aiming to win the LVO.

Yeah, good starter army doesnt mean "Is this a top 3-5 army this edition?", it means its easy to play, well supported and reasonably useable

Flamephoenix182 wrote:

 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.

There is no contract that exists between two players that one must dumb their army down to make it a game for GK. And a fluffy Guard list will gak on GK effortlessly, for example.

For new players, it is a bad army.

Bharring wrote:
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.

The sad part is that Orks used to have all those variations as part of their army. In 5th you could field all sorts of armies, including gunlines, combined arms lists, walker lists, bike lists and more. Sixth edition kicked all those play-styles in the nuts by consequently nerfing CC, ork characters and ork anti-tank and 7th edition codex nerfed every unit involved in any of this into oblivion. The index gave ork quite a few nice things, but most play styles suffer from general 8th edition changes.

Orks used to have just as many play styles as vanilla marines had - Kirby-GW just fethed them up so bad that people like you don't even remember them being an all-round army (no offense).

Jid,
That's a very good point.

However, even if Orkz could do well if they built an army using Lootas, Flash Gitz, and Shoota Boys, using the right choices in each slot to MOAR DAKKA (which is certainly Orky), would it feel as "natural" to a new player to see his Orkz play that way? After he builds up a mob of Slugga Boyz, is he going to replace them with Shoota Boyz?

A new player probably doesn't have both types of Boyz. A new SM player has Tacs, which (in theory) can support either list.

I still think SM is better thematically for a new player. That said, a new player who is an Ork player would be better off starting Orkz. For the right player, I'd agree that starting Orkz is better. For most players, though, I think SM is the better starting army. There'll be exceptions, of course.

Martel732 wrote:
Taking all of history into account, marines are a poor starter army imo.

Can you explain your rationale for thinking this?

You are concerned enough to post here about it. Follow your heart.

 Marmatag wrote:

Flamephoenix182 wrote:

 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.

There is no contract that exists between two players that one must dumb their army down to make it a game for GK. And a fluffy Guard list will gak on GK effortlessly, for example.

For new players, it is a bad army.

I would agree it's bad in the way that Elite armies are generally bad for new players, since hordes are traditionally much easier to play and more forgiving. I would also agree that if the OP wants to move into a more competitive meta then GK are not the way to start.
But I still maintain in casual play they are fine... I beat my buddy and his guard list sometimes, sometimes he beats me... it depends on your definition of casual... my group is 10 friends who basically only play each other, and use 40k as more of a "nerd poker" night. And we don't have any contract about list building, but at the lower end of the casual skill level, the games are won and lost a lot more on in game decisions like "oops I deployed my stormraven stupidly and it died" or "I made mistakes in target priority, or my mathhammer and I wasted that unit" rather than the differences in the armies relative power levels.

I'm guessing based on your posting history here your play group is very competitively minded and bring that playstyle into game in and out of the tournaments (which is fine since that is a great way to play, if you have like minded people who also enjoy the intense competition and I play that way as well for the non 40k minis games I own).

Horde armies are not more forgiving for new players.

The true horde armies - Tyranids, Orks - are in an awful place right now if you play them as horde. This idea that hordes are running the meta is false.

Elite armies are not suffering. Look at the lists doing well in the BAO, they are absolutely elite armies. The death guard army had under 20 models and it won the BAO. At the final table, it played Custodes + Guard, which probably had a net model count of about 50 guys, but the meat of the list is elite.

The problem with Grey Knights is they're a bad elite army.

Are you making the case that "because Grey Knights work for me, they must be fine?" Yes there are very contrived situations where Grey Knights can function, in the same way that any army can function. This is NOT indicative of balance, and is NOT generally applicable to new players. Are tigers harmless because they're in Asia and you are not?

 Marmatag wrote:
Horde armies are not more forgiving for new players.

The true horde armies - Tyranids, Orks - are in an awful place right now if you play them as horde. This idea that hordes are running the meta is false.

Elite armies are not suffering. Look at the lists doing well in the BAO, they are absolutely elite armies. The death guard army had under 20 models and it won the BAO. At the final table, it played Custodes + Guard, which probably had a net model count of about 50 guys, but the meat of the list is elite.

The problem with Grey Knights is they're a bad elite army.

Are you making the case that "because Grey Knights work for me, they must be fine?" Yes there are very contrived situations where Grey Knights can function, in the same way that any army can function. This is NOT indicative of balance, and is NOT generally applicable to new players. Are tigers harmless because they're in Asia and you are not?

Wow there is a lot to unpack there and you are putting a lot of words in my mouth.

1) hordes vs elite: I never commented even remotely on the competitive balance of hordes vs elites. what I said is if you are new, hordes are typically easier to play than elite armies. Since if you make a mistake and leave a unit out of position or vulnerable in an elite army you will lose a large part of your army. If you make the same mistake with a unit in a horde army you will only lose a small part of your army. Full stop, I have no comment on the viability of elite vs horde amongst experienced players.

2) I made it very clear in this thread and other posts threads that grey knights are not ok as they are when playing competitively... but there is a large difference between being competitive and being ok to play in a casual setting... I would never bring GK to a tournament as they are now, but playing a pick up game against casual players with fluffy lists... sure I play them all the time and they are fun, which is my personnel experience. in my casual meta... Which may or may not apply to the OPS meta, as both of us are not familiar with it.

 nurgle5 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Taking all of history into account, marines are a poor starter army imo.

Can you explain your rationale for thinking this?

It's always been easy to build a marine army that is completely non-functional against even average competition. Lots of choices, with the majority of them being bad, is actually the ILLUSION of choice, not true choice. The basal tactical marine has been largely ineffective every edition except the front half of 3rd. That's not a good starting place.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tyel wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
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.

SM have historically been fine.

The faction continues to be well supported, cheap, easy to assemble, easy to paint, easy to play. All great features in a player's first army.

Is it "pick the best 3 Eldar units this edition and spam them"? No, but so what? You are starting to play, not aiming to win the LVO.

Marines are NOT easy to play, imo. Nor easy to list build. Historically speaking.

Flamephoenix182 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Horde armies are not more forgiving for new players.

The true horde armies - Tyranids, Orks - are in an awful place right now if you play them as horde. This idea that hordes are running the meta is false.

Elite armies are not suffering. Look at the lists doing well in the BAO, they are absolutely elite armies. The death guard army had under 20 models and it won the BAO. At the final table, it played Custodes + Guard, which probably had a net model count of about 50 guys, but the meat of the list is elite.

The problem with Grey Knights is they're a bad elite army.

Are you making the case that "because Grey Knights work for me, they must be fine?" Yes there are very contrived situations where Grey Knights can function, in the same way that any army can function. This is NOT indicative of balance, and is NOT generally applicable to new players. Are tigers harmless because they're in Asia and you are not?

Wow there is a lot to unpack there and you are putting a lot of words in my mouth.

1) hordes vs elite: I never commented even remotely on the competitive balance of hordes vs elites. what I said is if you are new, hordes are typically easier to play than elite armies. Since if you make a mistake and leave a unit out of position or vulnerable in an elite army you will lose a large part of your army. If you make the same mistake with a unit in a horde army you will only lose a small part of your army. Full stop, I have no comment on the viability of elite vs horde amongst experienced players.

2) I made it very clear in this thread and other posts threads that grey knights are not ok as they are when playing competitively... but there is a large difference between being competitive and being ok to play in a casual setting... I would never bring GK to a tournament as they are now, but playing a pick up game against casual players with fluffy lists... sure I play them all the time and they are fun, which is my personnel experience. in my casual meta... Which may or may not apply to the OPS meta, as both of us are not familiar with it.

Ok - got it.

I think we might have differing ideas on what a horde army is. In a general sense, horde armies lack the tools to handle high toughness models, and come apart faster than elite models as they're far more difficult to hide and will drown in volume of fire. Horde armies in casual settings died the day that the Punisher Russ got Grinding Advance, and was buried when Custodes Bikes dropped with Hurricane Bolters on them.

In general the most forgiving armies will give you tools to handle a wider variety of threats you might encounter. This is why Space Marines are generally considered newbie friendly, because you can just put lascannons in your squads and suddenly you've got the tools to hit T8. Meanwhile, I can't put a Lascannon Hormagant in a squad of 30. You can upscale in quantity but not quality.

My problem is that "competitively" is tossed around a lot, but there's a pretty big scale of competitive play. There's top-table BAO and then there's the average RTT. These are not remotely the same. Necrons are an example that can do well at an RTT but won't do well at BAO. Tyranids are similar. Both are interesting fun armies to play that feel enjoyable at the table. Grey Knights struggle in all of these organized formats, and that's the real issue. You can't assume the meta or the format of play for any new player. What you can assume is that stores will have organized events as they draw in players, which means playing games with strangers, without the casual agreement.

The trap a lot of new players fall into is trying to catch up to playing 2000 points like the rest of the community as quickly as possible. Bad models are less of a problem at 800ish points, where you can try out a lower investment sized army and decide what aspects of it are worth buying more of to get to 2000.

8th makes this an even better plan, since even Grey Knights are okay if you limit how much you spend on them and ally the rest. They're still far from "optimal" but an optimized GK ally detachment is far from a total waste unless you're playing with an incredibly competitive crowd.

Apart from GK no, in a casual, fluffy enviroment for people who are starting everything is fine, really.

If you try to start with a subpar army in a place where people are super competitive.... eh, less so.

Generally speaking. Weaker armies are harder to play.

Honestly speaking no armies are really "hard to play". The less efficient your units rules are though the less bad luck you can get away with.

Bharring wrote:
Jid,
That's a very good point.

However, even if Orkz could do well if they built an army using Lootas, Flash Gitz, and Shoota Boys, using the right choices in each slot to MOAR DAKKA (which is certainly Orky), would it feel as "natural" to a new player to see his Orkz play that way? After he builds up a mob of Slugga Boyz, is he going to replace them with Shoota Boyz?

A new player probably doesn't have both types of Boyz. A new SM player has Tacs, which (in theory) can support either list.

I still think SM is better thematically for a new player. That said, a new player who is an Ork player would be better off starting Orkz. For the right player, I'd agree that starting Orkz is better. For most players, though, I think SM is the better starting army. There'll be exceptions, of course.

I would say that Orks have all the potential to be a solid starter army. In theory they have units for everything: shooting, melee, walkers, tanks, small infantry, large infantry, artillery etc... right now they just need all those units to be good.
Right now Orks have this "melee horde" stigma that keeps them people from seeing them as they truly are: a faction dedicated to war in its entirety. All playstyles should be valid for the most warmongering of races. This site is called "dakkadakka" for pete's sake!
I personally would love to start a bad moonz or freebootaz army based around flash gits, but I can't be bothered since melee horde is all orks are good at right now.

Besides, every meta needs Orkz. I honestly can only recall 1 game with Orkz on the table, friend or foe, that I did *not* enjoy (and that had nothing to do with the Orkz).

I think I need to retract my claim that Orkz aren't ideal for new players.

I still believe it works for new players only for certain new players. I wouldn't have lasted long in 40k if I started with Orkz, as they're just not my thing. But y'all make good points.

CapRichard wrote:
Apart from GK no, in a casual, fluffy enviroment for people who are starting everything is fine, really.

If you try to start with a subpar army in a place where people are super competitive.... eh, less so.

Untrue, Necrons are provably worse than GK currently.

There's no way to "prove" any army is better than any other. Theoretically any army can beat any other army regardless of skill just through dice rolls. On a practical level this isn't really true but the possibility is there.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
There's no way to "prove" any army is better than any other. Theoretically any army can beat any other army regardless of skill just through dice rolls. On a practical level this isn't really true but the possibility is there.

You can check tournament stats since 8e came out. Necrons have consistently performed worse at placing in the TOP 3 at GT's and Majors. That is a pretty decent sample set, and a fair way to observe army strength in a competitive scene I think.

Suggestion to new players...

Play knights. Easy, forgiving, cheap (can field 2k for under 500$) and encourage small groups of allies as expansion forces.

Downside, you'll stomp all your friends who start with you and don't play knights and the meta has enough knights at the moment but as far as an easy to play/start army you could do a lot worse...

valdier wrote:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
There's no way to "prove" any army is better than any other. Theoretically any army can beat any other army regardless of skill just through dice rolls. On a practical level this isn't really true but the possibility is there.

You can check tournament stats since 8e came out. Necrons have consistently performed worse at placing in the TOP 3 at GT's and Majors. That is a pretty decent sample set, and a fair way to observe army strength in a competitive scene I think.

The problem is army popularity and perceived strength skews those numbers. It's not 40k but when I played WM in Mk2 Convergence of Cyriss was considered an extremely weak faction and it was unpopular... People thought it couldn't win. Then a player came in and won both the Masters and Iron gauntlet in the same weekend (basically the two biggest tournaments formats, at the biggest tournament the PP puts on each year)...It's pretty hard to attribute taking down 2 huge tournaments in the same weekend with all the best players in North America (and lots from overseas in attendance) with a "weak" faction to luck.

So how do we know it's not the same with some 40k faction? where they are just unpopular so people are not experimenting with them/practicing with them in enough volume to get to those top level tables.

valdier wrote:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
There's no way to "prove" any army is better than any other. Theoretically any army can beat any other army regardless of skill just through dice rolls. On a practical level this isn't really true but the possibility is there.

You can check tournament stats since 8e came out. Necrons have consistently performed worse at placing in the TOP 3 at GT's and Majors. That is a pretty decent sample set, and a fair way to observe army strength in a competitive scene I think.

Well if you're looking at top 3 they're the same right, i don't recall Grey Knights dropping into the top 3 in any significant event. At this point we should be looking at the 2018 season, because both GK and Necrons have a codex. The 2017 season, GK got the first codex, AND Custodes didn't exist. So they were inflated by being first to get a codex - this is a fact.

And if we're going by rankings in ITC land, the average of the top-3 Grey Knights players is 337, and the average of the top-3 Necrons is 408, with the top Necrons player being rated ahead of the top Grey Knights player.

Necrons > Grey Knights based on this.

Of course, Grey Knights are also based on soup. And if you soup in Imperial Knights/Imperium right now that's enough to inflate your RTT ratings. Bring enough GK to qualify as "GK" and boom, you're running Imperium Light. That is enough to do reasonably well in a 10-12 man event.

Flamephoenix182 wrote:

valdier wrote:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
There's no way to "prove" any army is better than any other. Theoretically any army can beat any other army regardless of skill just through dice rolls. On a practical level this isn't really true but the possibility is there.

You can check tournament stats since 8e came out. Necrons have consistently performed worse at placing in the TOP 3 at GT's and Majors. That is a pretty decent sample set, and a fair way to observe army strength in a competitive scene I think.

The problem is army popularity and perceived strength skews those numbers. It's not 40k but when I played WM in Mk2 Convergence of Cyriss was considered an extremely weak faction and it was unpopular... People thought it couldn't win. Then a player came in and won both the Masters and Iron gauntlet in the same weekend (basically the two biggest tournaments formats, at the biggest tournament the PP puts on each year)...It's pretty hard to attribute taking down 2 huge tournaments in the same weekend with all the best players in North America (and lots from overseas in attendance) with a "weak" faction to luck.

So how do we know it's not the same with some 40k faction? where they are just unpopular so people are not experimenting with them/practicing with them in enough volume to get to those top level tables.

Because the top level necron players are still playing, and they are placing terribly. They still play every tournament, they are still the top placing players for the faction, they just can't break into the top anything. That and there is only one competitive list for necrons, and it must always use the same units (Lords of War only basically).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Marmatag wrote:

valdier wrote:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
There's no way to "prove" any army is better than any other. Theoretically any army can beat any other army regardless of skill just through dice rolls. On a practical level this isn't really true but the possibility is there.

You can check tournament stats since 8e came out. Necrons have consistently performed worse at placing in the TOP 3 at GT's and Majors. That is a pretty decent sample set, and a fair way to observe army strength in a competitive scene I think.

Well if you're looking at top 3 they're the same right, i don't recall Grey Knights dropping into the top 3 in any significant event. At this point we should be looking at the 2018 season, because both GK and Necrons have a codex. The 2017 season, GK got the first codex, AND Custodes didn't exist. So they were inflated by being first to get a codex - this is a fact.

And if we're going by rankings in ITC land, the average of the top-3 Grey Knights players is 337, and the average of the top-3 Necrons is 408, with the top Necrons player being rated ahead of the top Grey Knights player.

Necrons > Grey Knights based on this.

Of course, Grey Knights are also based on soup. And if you soup in Imperial Knights/Imperium right now that's enough to inflate your RTT ratings. Bring enough GK to qualify as "GK" and boom, you're running Imperium Light. That is enough to do reasonably well in a 10-12 man event.

But that is 8e. Soup is part of it, so GK can soup, and score well, Necrons cannot. At BAO the top necron players were in the ranks for 51+ if I remember right. The play well, run competitive lists for "crons", and place terribly, consistently. There is no soup to help fix them.

Well, I've been excited to drag my Orkz out of retirement to the newly opened Game shop, only to see a Knight Castellan with flamer and harpoon, 2-3 Armigers, and triple Slamguinius Captains looking for a game. I quietly kept to myself. Instead I arranged a game for tomorrow against a Death Watch army of 2+to wound rerollable t-shirt stopping Xenos killers with Stratagems designed to neuter me.

I'm only 1/4 of the way through painting up 185 models (for my 1500 list) and I'm ALREADY discouraged from even finishing.

meleti wrote:
This is not a helpful place to ask that question.

Haha, this^

 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.

Orkz were crushed by the loss of templates, my only ranged option that isn't total trash is my KMK mek gunz, and ONLY if my opponent doesn't have -1 to hit, at -2 I will more often then not hurt myself instead of my enemy, and at $46 per model, mek gunz are just to expensive to spam for most Ork players who want a gun line army.

Prior to the template nerf I could field SAGz and a number of other blast weapons and have a decent chance of actually hitting my opponent, now I know shooting is basically just wasting time.

Orkz are probably the worst starter army right now. You have to invest a lot more money into models to get the minimum number needed to play. For a 500pt starting game I would say Orkz need at least 60 Boyz (360pts worth) and then you need the rest to be characters to keep the boyz from dying or running away, so lets say 3 characters and 60 boyz, thats 9 Boxes of minis to buy and paint before you can play.

Adding to that, if you don't play horde you almost automatically lose which means the new players will lose interest in the game because they keep losing all the time. Furthermore, if they bring a tide out against other armies they still don't really have a good chance because of the way the new codex's have increased power. Hell a Tau gunline can liquidate an entire 30 blob of boyz just in overwatch, let alone shooting naturally.

I would not say orkz are mid tier competitively, we have a single build that lets us be considered passable in the competitive scene, but its never done well in tournaments except when the player cheats by slow playing (London GT).

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
Well, I've been excited to drag my Orkz out of retirement to the newly opened Game shop, only to see a Knight Castellan with flamer and harpoon, 2-3 Armigers, and triple Slamguinius Captains looking for a game. I quietly kept to myself. Instead I arranged a game for tomorrow against a Death Watch army of 2+to wound rerollable t-shirt stopping Xenos killers with Stratagems designed to neuter me.

I'm only 1/4 of the way through painting up 185 models (for my 1500 list) and I'm ALREADY discouraged from even finishing.

Wait for the codex for boyz to get nerfed and killa kanz to be the new hotness.

Hey, a girl can dream...

edit: just for clarity I don't think boyz need to be nerfed, killa kans and deff dreads are just the only models in that army I really like.

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.

Agreed. The numbers are just against you, even in casual settings.

Every other army in the game can be played to compete more or less in some manner.

Honestly, its worst when you are in a rock, paper, scissor match.