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Definitely Slaanesh daemons, Craftworld Eldar, and Space Wolves.

The whole Slaanesh look and S&M vibe just doesn't jive with me.

Craftworlds. . . i just really hate pretty much all regular elf fluff ever. Always presented as haughty and aloof. I can't abide that behavior.

And Space Wolves. . . well, they look ridiculous, have ridiculous names, and their fluff doesn't do them any favors with all the rampant hypocrisy. Space Vikings would be cool, but Space Wolves are dumb.

Orks.cant stand their playstyle for one,but more importantly I really don't like the ramshackle nature of the army.

A mixed god Chaos Daemons army.

Mono-god armies are great, but the mixed armies feel so disjointed. They're appearance is like an incoherent rainbow. Some may like it and even suggest that it's narrative, but it's not for me.

Sister of Battle. "These genocidal fascists are morally pure because they have vaginas!" doesn't do it for me.

Hecaton wrote:
Sister of Battle. "These genocidal fascists are morally pure because they have vaginas!" doesn't do it for me.

ROTFLMAO!!!!!

Imperial Guard.

Kinda missing the point of 40K.

If I wanted to go that way, I'd play Bolt Action or some such.

On thinking upon this a bit more, I'm going to add to my earlier answer and add Tau. Which is odd as I actually have a Tau army, but it's fundamentally a 4E list that I've made work for a few games through the various editions since then, and that kind of list just doesn't work with the current Tau design paradigm. I really liked them as more advanced combined arms mechanized Guard or a slower but longer ranged Mech Eldar, running mechanized hover infantry with skimmer MBTs and single digits worth of what effectively was large but highly mobile power armor. Now they're much more about the robots for everything, and it's just not what I was into the faction for. They're also wayyyyyy more expensive than they used to be to get into.

I wanted to add Space Wolves to the list, for the fluff reasons already mentioned. They're just stupid, hypocritical, contradictory, and confused in the worst ways, the ultimate definition of try-hard, and the Space Wolves end up coming off more as a tween's bad internet fanfic where they want their made up superhero to have all their favorite traits from every other superhero no matter how awkward. That said, they're a faction that I could see myself playing with a much more narrowed and defined lore focus, viewing and playing them mostly as normal Space Marines with culturally nordic iconography and names, but without the "we want to be wolverine! and the punisher! and loki! and thor! all at once!" aspects.

Sunny Side Up wrote:
Imperial Guard.

Kinda missing the point of 40K.

If I wanted to go that way, I'd play Bolt Action or some such.

Hrm, to be fair, that's limited only by how one views the guard. You can take pretty much any non-heavily armored human from almost any setting/culture/etc and have them work as Guard. That said, I can totally understand that feel with the basic main model lines.

1. Tau, I just don’t like their look or their play style.
2. Sisters of Battle, not into the models or religious theme.
3. Knights of any kind, just not fun to play with or against

 l0k1 wrote:
I made a thread the other day about what army everyone wanted to pick up, but never did. The responses were good, so I decided to do another thread. This time name an army that you would NEVER play.

For me it's Tau. I like anime, but I hate the aesthetic on most of their models. I despise the idea of fielding so many drones. Their shooting game is powerful, and a bit attractive, but I would never pick them up no matter how good they are.

Either Daemons, because a bunch of fantasy swords guys is the exact opposite reason why I'm playing 40k and not fantasy, I like the concept of space daemons from space hell but as I've said before, the direct port of generic fantasy daemons is just lame. Space daemons from space hell should have space-daemonic hell guns.

Alternatively, craftworld eldar, because I don't like their aesthetic.

Sunny Side Up wrote:
Imperial Guard.

Kinda missing the point of 40K.

If I wanted to go that way, I'd play Bolt Action or some such.

We are very different people.

To me, Imperial Guard is very much on point for what 40k is, and is the "most 40k" of the 40k factions. The gigantic industrial military of a fascist regime kept in line by propaganda and fear, indoctrinated in the party line, and sent to die to keep masters they will never know or care about in political power. Entirely encapsulating the spirit of the grim darkness of the far future, where the worst timeline has come to pass and all is war fought in vain with no purpose but to continue the fight and no victory even pursued.

The thing with "current" Guard is, the options readily available to us don't really match the wider Guard lore. We've got Cadians, who are relatively well trained and equipped compared to many regiments, and who are the bravest of the brave, keeping on fighting when even their own planet broke...! Or there's Catachans, who are tougher-than-tough and meaner-than-mean, and could kill an ordinary man with a paperclip just for looking at him funny.
They're not exactly the "bodies to the grindstone" example that I think of as typical 40k grimdark.

Death Korps of Krieg is much more like it - if you make them a proper, widely available model range and bring back the Valhallans, and Captain Chenkov? NOW we're talking.

Ynnari... yuck.

Never gonna play Chaos of any stripe. I tried once, in Dawn of War, to make myself play through the Chaos campaign, but I couldn't even get through the tutorial mission.

I just don't Chaos. Had my fling with Chaotic Neutral or Neutral Evil characters in college and I'm done. That's not what RPGs or tabletop games are for. The empire is dark enough, I can't make myself play actual an actual soul-destroyingly evil army.

Dark Angels and Deathwatch. I just don't care.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 dadx6 wrote:
Never gonna play Chaos of any stripe. I tried once, in Dawn of War, to make myself play through the Chaos campaign, but I couldn't even get through the tutorial mission.

I just don't Chaos. Had my fling with Chaotic Neutral or Neutral Evil characters in college and I'm done. That's not what RPGs or tabletop games are for. The empire is dark enough, I can't make myself play actual an actual soul-destroyingly evil army.

The Imperium was founded on the principles of fascism and xenophobia my man, and is a totalitarian dystopia where the value and dignity of a human being's life are not respected or even considered. I don't understand these posts taking some weird moral stance against playing armies like Chaos or Dark Eldar.

 Thousandeyes wrote:
Primaris marines.
Genestealer Cults.

Wow, that's 2/3 of my 40k armies. No commentary on that. Just an observation. From the Tzeentch avatar I am guess my Black Legion army would be more agreeable with you at least.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
Dark Angels and Deathwatch. I just don't care.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 dadx6 wrote:
Never gonna play Chaos of any stripe. I tried once, in Dawn of War, to make myself play through the Chaos campaign, but I couldn't even get through the tutorial mission.

I just don't Chaos. Had my fling with Chaotic Neutral or Neutral Evil characters in college and I'm done. That's not what RPGs or tabletop games are for. The empire is dark enough, I can't make myself play actual an actual soul-destroyingly evil army.

The Imperium was founded on the principles of fascism and xenophobia my man, and is a totalitarian dystopia where the value and dignity of a human being's life are not respected or even considered. I don't understand these posts taking some weird moral stance against playing armies like Chaos or Dark Eldar.

Been feeling this lately; Eventually came to the realization that a vast plain of constant Valhallan slaughter/abyssal maze of non-euclidean L-space/cheerful plague cauldron/continent-wide yiff pit is arguably not a worse place for the average Imperial citizen than being slowly worked to both mental and physical death on a Hive manufactorum, having your personality wiped and made into a Servitor, *not* having your personality wiped when you're made into a Servitor, or having the Inquisition demonstrate the millimeter-precise elasticity of your scrotum because someone in your hab block recited a prayer to the Emperor with a lisp. Rather than, y'know, for fun.

Like, just by playing 40K at all, you're 98% either the bad guy or working for the bad guy.

I've got a force of pretty much everything from 40k, before they started splitting things like deathguard off.

So, basically I have an army or small force of every faction from 5th ed I think.


Don't own any imperial knights as they cost too much.

I have no problem enjoying every faction for its specific identity.

I love marines as the monsters created by humanity to defend it from the monsters out in in the void.

I love the eldar as an ancient race of perfectionists that are tenaciously clinging to existence through pure skill and technology.

I love the guard as the utilitarian answer humanity has for protecting itself from everything, a meatgrinder that is fed perpetually by the endless supply of the Imperium's one main commodity - human lives.

I love the orks as the brutal remnant of a bio weapon created to fight perpetual war, enjoying their lives like no one else and without any restrictive rules on how they live.

I love the tyranids for their cold and alien single-minded desire to consume and evolve.

I love the tau as a race in its own golden age of technology, where humanity was 20,000 years ago, how their hope is slowing being worn away be the terrors of the galaxy.

I love chaos for its intrinsic connection to reality and existence, being an inevitable mirror to the galaxy and inescapable.

I love the necrons as a fallen dynasty attempting to rebuild its glory (even if I'm not a fan of the retcon of the c'tan-necron dynamic).


I love 40k, I love all its factions and own models from all of them.


What I have never liked is GW's insistence on turning some factions into the protagonists and others into the NPC fodder for those protagonists, while trying to sell it as a wargame where you choose your faction and the general represents you on the field.

What I don't like is favouritism of one faction over others and the lack of support for mainly xenos factions.


I don't like how there aren't heroic characters for other factions that aren't marines.

I wouldn't be surprised if you counted up named marine characters across all chapters and found more of them than the total number of units in individual xenos codexes....


So what I don't want to play, is favourites.

 Hellebore wrote:
So what I don't want to play, is favourites.

That's beautiful. I have no idea what exalting actually does if anything, but I'm hitting it on that post.

 oni wrote:
A mixed god Chaos Daemons army.

Mono-god armies are great, but the mixed armies feel so disjointed. They're appearance is like an incoherent rainbow. Some may like it and even suggest that it's narrative, but it's not for me.

I actually wish it was part of the narrative. But the sub-faction hatred is still there. So Khorne + Nurgle or Slaanesh + the one of the other two are the only really viable combinations, and even then it doesn't make much sense, as they have their own goals and mixed on the table they look awful.

But mono-god armies just feel incomplete and really should have mortal elements anyway to justify them being in real-space at all.
Its a crying shame they've never gone in for fixing it in almost 30 years, despite doing exactly what they need to do for AoS.

BrianDavion wrote:

you realize grimnar's sleigh is a referance to norse mythology right?

Yes.
And the piece in your pic looks pretty cool (model/statue wise, what's it from btw?)

Sadly this: https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Logan-Grimnar-on-Stormrider does not look that cool....

Voss wrote:

 oni wrote:
A mixed god Chaos Daemons army.

Mono-god armies are great, but the mixed armies feel so disjointed. They're appearance is like an incoherent rainbow. Some may like it and even suggest that it's narrative, but it's not for me.

I actually wish it was part of the narrative. But the sub-faction hatred is still there. So Khorne + Nurgle or Slaanesh + the one of the other two are the only really viable combinations, and even then it doesn't make much sense, as they have their own goals and mixed on the table they look awful.

But mono-god armies just feel incomplete and really should have mortal elements anyway to justify them being in real-space at all.
Its a crying shame they've never gone in for fixing it in almost 30 years, despite doing exactly what they need to do for AoS.

Khorne is more likely to get along with Tzeentch than Slaanesh.

Really a shift in lore I could get behind is deep 6'ing Khorne's hatred of psykers. Have Khornate blood priests with psychic powers focused around buffs and anti-magic.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
Dark Angels and Deathwatch. I just don't care.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 dadx6 wrote:
Never gonna play Chaos of any stripe. I tried once, in Dawn of War, to make myself play through the Chaos campaign, but I couldn't even get through the tutorial mission.

I just don't Chaos. Had my fling with Chaotic Neutral or Neutral Evil characters in college and I'm done. That's not what RPGs or tabletop games are for. The empire is dark enough, I can't make myself play actual an actual soul-destroyingly evil army.

The Imperium was founded on the principles of fascism and xenophobia my man, and is a totalitarian dystopia where the value and dignity of a human being's life are not respected or even considered. I don't understand these posts taking some weird moral stance against playing armies like Chaos or Dark Eldar.

To some there is a VAST difference between wiping out opposing factions out of necessity and wiping them out because you are aroused by the action, whatever form that arousal takes.

 Just Tony wrote:


To some there is a VAST difference between wiping out opposing factions out of necessity and wiping them out because you are aroused by the action, whatever form that arousal takes.

The fact that you think that what the Imperium does is necessary is already a pro-fascist attitude. People in the Imperium get sick joy out of the horrors they inflict on aliens and nonbelievers.

Hecaton wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:


To some there is a VAST difference between wiping out opposing factions out of necessity and wiping them out because you are aroused by the action, whatever form that arousal takes.

The fact that you think that what the Imperium does is necessary is already a pro-fascist attitude. People in the Imperium get sick joy out of the horrors they inflict on aliens and nonbelievers.

Oh boy here we go again. The last thread that included this topic deteriorated at some point so let's try to not go too deeply into this or start calling people names.
The imperium is horrible by real life standards. Real life fascists exaggerate fears through propaganda to dehumanize and justify atrocities. Never once was this right or justified by the slightest stretch throughout our real life history.
The imperium does the same only that the dangers they face are real. They actually have to face beings that literally eat your soul or murderous space elves that will torture you for fun. So while you can recognize that the imperium are horrible people by real life standards, you are not pro fascist (in the real life sense of the definition) by saying that the flawed ways of the imperium have at least kept them alive for the last 10k years. A good life? No, but there are far worse things in 40k. This is a big part of what makes the imperium interesting in the first place.

After playing csm for two decades I could never play Loyalist Scum. They're only good for casualties to decorate my bases and vehicles.

Tiberias wrote:

Hecaton wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:


To some there is a VAST difference between wiping out opposing factions out of necessity and wiping them out because you are aroused by the action, whatever form that arousal takes.

The fact that you think that what the Imperium does is necessary is already a pro-fascist attitude. People in the Imperium get sick joy out of the horrors they inflict on aliens and nonbelievers.

Oh boy here we go again. The last thread that included this topic deteriorated at some point so let's try to not go too deeply into this or start calling people names.
The imperium is horrible by real life standards. Real life fascists exaggerate fears through propaganda to dehumanize and justify atrocities. Never once was this right or justified by the slightest stretch throughout our real life history.
The imperium does the same only that the dangers they face are real. They actually have to face beings that literally eat your soul or murderous space elves that will torture you for fun. So while you can recognize that the imperium are horrible people by real life standards, you are not pro fascist (in the real life sense of the definition) by saying that the flawed ways of the imperium have at least kept them alive for the last 10k years. A good life? No, but there are far worse things in 40k. This is a big part of what makes the imperium interesting in the first place.

Nope, you're wrong. The Imperium is specifically *senselessly* brutal, corrupt, and backwards. What's more, they feed their biggest enemy (Chaos) with all the gakky things they do; Chaos is just the Imperium reflected back at itself, because the Imperium as a society makes people have screwed-up psyches, and those negative emotions play out in the immaterium and empower demons and the Dark Gods and so on. 40k was initially created as a satire/takedown of the British right-wing; the Imperium is not supposed to be noble, making the hard choice, and so on. It's supposed to be villainous, cruelty for the sake of cruelty, with plenty of self-interested and backstabbing people involved so that it doesn't even have any sort of clarity of purpose.

Space Marines
Grey Knights
SoB
Custodes
Knights
Eldar
Tau

Imperial Guard and AdMech are the only loyalist factions that appeal, and I really like IG but they're going to need a lot of new models to convince me to go down that route.

Every other faction appeals to me. CSM and tyranids are my main two factions, historically. I keep going back to orks and daemons. For a long time the only thing holding me back from necrons was the glowing green rods, now they seem to be gone. Dark Eldar are a little bit dark for me in terms of fluff, but I like everything else about them. General aesthetic, the model range, the play style looks fun.

Hecaton wrote:

Tiberias wrote:

Hecaton wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:


To some there is a VAST difference between wiping out opposing factions out of necessity and wiping them out because you are aroused by the action, whatever form that arousal takes.

The fact that you think that what the Imperium does is necessary is already a pro-fascist attitude. People in the Imperium get sick joy out of the horrors they inflict on aliens and nonbelievers.

Oh boy here we go again. The last thread that included this topic deteriorated at some point so let's try to not go too deeply into this or start calling people names.
The imperium is horrible by real life standards. Real life fascists exaggerate fears through propaganda to dehumanize and justify atrocities. Never once was this right or justified by the slightest stretch throughout our real life history.
The imperium does the same only that the dangers they face are real. They actually have to face beings that literally eat your soul or murderous space elves that will torture you for fun. So while you can recognize that the imperium are horrible people by real life standards, you are not pro fascist (in the real life sense of the definition) by saying that the flawed ways of the imperium have at least kept them alive for the last 10k years. A good life? No, but there are far worse things in 40k. This is a big part of what makes the imperium interesting in the first place.

Nope, you're wrong. The Imperium is specifically *senselessly* brutal, corrupt, and backwards. What's more, they feed their biggest enemy (Chaos) with all the gakky things they do; Chaos is just the Imperium reflected back at itself, because the Imperium as a society makes people have screwed-up psyches, and those negative emotions play out in the immaterium and empower demons and the Dark Gods and so on. 40k was initially created as a satire/takedown of the British right-wing; the Imperium is not supposed to be noble, making the hard choice, and so on. It's supposed to be villainous, cruelty for the sake of cruelty, with plenty of self-interested and backstabbing people involved so that it doesn't even have any sort of clarity of purpose.

I never said the imperium was noble, nor did I imply it...actually far from it. And the dark gods existed in the way they are way before the imperium turned out the way it has been for the last 10000years in the lore. Implying that the threat of chaos got that bad because the imperium is evil and stupid is just not true, chaos always was this way in the lore.

Edit: To stay on topic. Armies I'd never play: Genestealer Cults. Their models are cool to look at if someone else plays and paints them, but I don't like the line enough to buy and paint them on my own. Also grey knight, because I always thought that their sculpts were actually a downgrade to their 3rd ed versions.

 Just Tony wrote:

To some there is a VAST difference between wiping out opposing factions out of necessity and wiping them out because you are aroused by the action, whatever form that arousal takes.

There's no appreciable difference to the victims whether you killed them for pleasure or for "necessity", and make no mistake many in the Imperium take pleasure in the purging of the heretic and the alien, be they benign or not.

The Imperium, even in the days of the Great Crusade, would order the extinction of xeno species and even other humans for the crime of not wanting to join them.

Stop making excuses for a fictional dystopian shithole and acknowledge what it is.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tiberias wrote:

Oh boy here we go again. The last thread that included this topic deteriorated at some point so let's try to not go too deeply into this or start calling people names.
The imperium is horrible by real life standards. Real life fascists exaggerate fears through propaganda to dehumanize and justify atrocities. Never once was this right or justified by the slightest stretch throughout our real life history.
The imperium does the same only that the dangers they face are real. They actually have to face beings that literally eat your soul or murderous space elves that will torture you for fun. So while you can recognize that the imperium are horrible people by real life standards, you are not pro fascist (in the real life sense of the definition) by saying that the flawed ways of the imperium have at least kept them alive for the last 10k years. A good life? No, but there are far worse things in 40k. This is a big part of what makes the imperium interesting in the first place.

They also have faced benign societies of allied humans and xenos and completely destroyed them for the crime of not wanting to join the fascist empire that is aggressively colonizing the galaxy.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

To some there is a VAST difference between wiping out opposing factions out of necessity and wiping them out because you are aroused by the action, whatever form that arousal takes.

There's no appreciable difference to the victims whether you killed them for pleasure or for "necessity", and make no mistake many in the Imperium take pleasure in the purging of the heretic and the alien, be they benign or not.

The Imperium, even in the days of the Great Crusade, would order the extinction of xeno species and even other humans for the crime of not wanting to join them.

Stop making excuses for a fictional dystopian shithole and acknowledge what it is.

TBF, selfdefense is an argument, especially after the great crusade, that beeing said, the great crusade indeed was also war crime galore so the underlined part is still a valid assertion

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

To some there is a VAST difference between wiping out opposing factions out of necessity and wiping them out because you are aroused by the action, whatever form that arousal takes.

There's no appreciable difference to the victims whether you killed them for pleasure or for "necessity", and make no mistake many in the Imperium take pleasure in the purging of the heretic and the alien, be they benign or not.

The Imperium, even in the days of the Great Crusade, would order the extinction of xeno species and even other humans for the crime of not wanting to join them.

Stop making excuses for a fictional dystopian shithole and acknowledge what it is.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tiberias wrote:

Oh boy here we go again. The last thread that included this topic deteriorated at some point so let's try to not go too deeply into this or start calling people names.
The imperium is horrible by real life standards. Real life fascists exaggerate fears through propaganda to dehumanize and justify atrocities. Never once was this right or justified by the slightest stretch throughout our real life history.
The imperium does the same only that the dangers they face are real. They actually have to face beings that literally eat your soul or murderous space elves that will torture you for fun. So while you can recognize that the imperium are horrible people by real life standards, you are not pro fascist (in the real life sense of the definition) by saying that the flawed ways of the imperium have at least kept them alive for the last 10k years. A good life? No, but there are far worse things in 40k. This is a big part of what makes the imperium interesting in the first place.

They also have faced benign societies of allied humans and xenos and completely destroyed them for the crime of not wanting to join the fascist empire that is aggressively colonizing the galaxy.

Urgh...again I even said in the beginning that the imperium is horrible, but there are more horrible things still in this fictional universe, which is part of what makes the imperium interesting. But if you really want to discuss this pm me, because this thread will get locked in no time if this discussion continues, which would be unfair to the OP.