Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I am currently working on my AOS soulblight army, and want to mix it up by working on my first 40k army. However, I am not sure which faction to pick.

I am mostly into wargaming as a painter, so fun to paint models are my main priority. However I also do plan on playing, so I want my first army to also be fun to play and capable of winning a match if played right. My plan is to pick an army, try out a kill team of it, and move to a full army if I enjoy painting that kill team.

I'm currently trying to pick between:

Orks: On one hand I LOVE all the vehicle, mech, and beast-snagga units; even if I don't get an ork army am going to paint a snazzwagon, but on the other hand, I know a competitive ork army is mostly boyz, and the less silly more faux-military orks don't do anything for me.

Eldar: As a painter, I love how much variety the eldar have in their units. Harlequins and dark reapers, in particular, seem like a ton of fun to paint. I also love all the hero units (especially maugen ra and Yvraine). However, I just can't get into the base units, every eldar army I have seen has been full of wraith guards, and guardian defenders, and those do nothing for me. I also don't understand their lore; they seem like dark eldar but less interesting. Dark eldar are worth mentioning, I love their boats and monsters, but the color schemes seem less varied and fun to paint than regular eldar.

Adepta Sororitas: I dig the weirder religious iconography, the mortifiers, the weird flying baby angels; those are super fun. The only army where I don't dislike a single model, but I feel like having to stick to their color scheme would get boring after a while. Every other army I am looking at has been recommended to me by someone in person, but no one I know plays these, so I haven't been able to get any opinions on them.

Knights and chaos knights. I love the lore; I love the models, overall my favorite army. However, I am NOT a good painter yet and am highly intimidated by them! Also way too expensive.

Adeptus mechanus: These look like they would be a ton of fun to paint, all the details, and I love painting raw metals. They also have some incredible models; if I don't get an army of these, I still want one of the ones riding a horse to paint. However, they lack variety in materials; I feel like painting more than 50 would get tedious. I am not sure how it works, but I have heard they can be put in the same army as knights, which would be awesome! Not sure if I should avoid doing that as a new player, though.


Any recommendation for what to pick?

Just note that you can paint your models however you want. You want bright pink Dark Eldar - do it; you want bright orange Craftworld - do it. They are your models you paint them how you like.

If your interest is predominantly as a painter then go totally wild with how you want to paint things. Don't let paint schemes stop you.



As for Knights its important to note that Knights as an army is a newish idea; in general they are units that also form part of Imperial forces.


Honestly it sounds like you've actually done most of the work and you're really down to making a choice yourself. One bonus of the Ad-Mech and Adpeta Soroitas and Knights is that you can run them as allies together. Or you can run them on their own.

Rfkannen wrote:
I am currently working on my AOS soulblight army, and want to mix it up by working on my first 40k army. However, I am not sure which faction to pick.

I am mostly into wargaming as a painter, so fun to paint models are my main priority. However I also do plan on playing, so I want my first army to also be fun to play and capable of winning a match if played right. My plan is to pick an army, try out a kill team of it, and move to a full army if I enjoy painting that kill team.

I'm currently trying to pick between:

Orks: On one hand I LOVE all the vehicle, mech, and beast-snagga units; even if I don't get an ork army am going to paint a snazzwagon, but on the other hand, I know a competitive ork army is mostly boyz, and the less silly more faux-military orks don't do anything for me.

Eldar: As a painter, I love how much variety the eldar have in their units. Harlequins and dark reapers, in particular, seem like a ton of fun to paint. I also love all the hero units (especially maugen ra and Yvraine). However, I just can't get into the base units, every eldar army I have seen has been full of wraith guards, and guardian defenders, and those do nothing for me. I also don't understand their lore; they seem like dark eldar but less interesting. Dark eldar are worth mentioning, I love their boats and monsters, but the color schemes seem less varied and fun to paint than regular eldar.

Adepta Sororitas: I dig the weirder religious iconography, the mortifiers, the weird flying baby angels; those are super fun. The only army where I don't dislike a single model, but I feel like having to stick to their color scheme would get boring after a while. Every other army I am looking at has been recommended to me by someone in person, but no one I know plays these, so I haven't been able to get any opinions on them.

Knights and chaos knights. I love the lore; I love the models, overall my favorite army. However, I am NOT a good painter yet and am highly intimidated by them! Also way too expensive.

Adeptus mechanus: These look like they would be a ton of fun to paint, all the details, and I love painting raw metals. They also have some incredible models; if I don't get an army of these, I still want one of the ones riding a horse to paint. However, they lack variety in materials; I feel like painting more than 50 would get tedious. I am not sure how it works, but I have heard they can be put in the same army as knights, which would be awesome! Not sure if I should avoid doing that as a new player, though.


Any recommendation for what to pick?

If you are into this as a painter first, but you are not that experienced yet, I'd suggest Orks. Their ramshackle style let's you get away with a lot of mistakes and it still fits into the rusty, grimy style of Orks. Because of this, you are maybe even more likely to try new, more daunting techniques, because if something goes wrong, it's not that big of a deal on an Ork model.

Knights provide you with a big canvas to really customize your model. Lots of big surfaces to maybe even try some freehands or apply transfers. But it's rather easy to make a knight look decent without applying any super fancy techniques.

Admech, Sisters of Battle and Harlequins have amazing models, but in my opinion they offer a bigger challenge to the painter. Harlequins often come with complicated patterns on their suits (though those are of course not mandatory). Sisters and Admech models are becautiful sculpts with an abundance of small details, which is cool, but when you have intricate details on even basic troop units, it can get overwhelming pretty fast.

This is my advice with a focus on the painting side of the hobby. Gameplay wise it depends on whether you are playing in a more competitve or casual group. In a casual group anything can be adjusted if you play with decent people, so the faction power level is not that big of a deal. Competitively speaking Admech and Eldar/Harlequins are probably the strongest of these factions, though Knights don't have their 9th edition codex yet.

Hope that helps.

I'll stick with the armies I have experience with.

Rfkannen wrote:

Orks: On one hand I LOVE all the vehicle, mech, and beast-snagga units; even if I don't get an ork army am going to paint a snazzwagon, but on the other hand, I know a competitive ork army is mostly boyz, and the less silly more faux-military orks don't do anything for me.

Luckily for you Ork buggies are currently the strongest way to play Orks. A green tide list of many Boyz was a great way to play in 8th but that has gone by the wayside. That said unless you plan on competing or doing tournaments regularly I suggest you buy and paint what you like, generally you can field a list without using the best things and still have a good time at your local shop.

Eldar: As a painter, I love how much variety the eldar have in their units. Harlequins and dark reapers, in particular, seem like a ton of fun to paint. I also love all the hero units (especially maugen ra and Yvraine). However, I just can't get into the base units, every eldar army I have seen has been full of wraith guards, and guardian defenders, and those do nothing for me. I also don't understand their lore; they seem like dark eldar but less interesting. Dark eldar are worth mentioning, I love their boats and monsters, but the color schemes seem less varied and fun to paint than regular eldar.

The Eldar have just recently gotten a small refresh, the first major one in many, many years. There are likely more to come so I'd caution you against going all-in on Eldar now since most of the range is still at the drinking age. Harlequins are a great way to start, small model count and very intricate painting. They are also compatible with Craftworld Eldar, Dark Eldar, and Ynarri so you can slot them in easily later if you decide to grow your force.

Adepta Sororitas: I dig the weirder religious iconography, the mortifiers, the weird flying baby angels; those are super fun. The only army where I don't dislike a single model, but I feel like having to stick to their color scheme would get boring after a while. Every other army I am looking at has been recommended to me by someone in person, but no one I know plays these, so I haven't been able to get any opinions on them.

There's nothing stopping you from doing your own color scheme. If you want to do an army of green with gold trim or purple and red, go nuts. You can also select a custom order, or you can say they are "Counts as [Insert Order]".

I can give the following insights:

Adepta Sororitas: They're so much fun to paint! Every model feels like such a reward when done up, and nuns with guns is just awesome. I just went with my own colour scheme, so feel free to rip it up yourself!

Chaos Knights: I actually think they're one of the easiest armies to paint! Not only are large models inherently more forgiving, but Knights are mostly metal bodies with some large, flat armoured surfaces. Nothing could be simpler. I imagine that one of the things that you're thinking about here is that lots of people freehand patterns on the big panels, which admittedly both looks great and is the hardest painting thing to do in the hobby. The great thing would be that you can just do a simple paint scheme to begin (which 99+% of Knights will be), and then come back to put the freehand over it when you've practiced and developed your skills.

Rfkannen wrote:
I am currently working on my AOS soulblight army, and want to mix it up by working on my first 40k army. However, I am not sure which faction to pick.

I am mostly into wargaming as a painter, so fun to paint models are my main priority. However I also do plan on playing, so I want my first army to also be fun to play and capable of winning a match if played right. My plan is to pick an army, try out a kill team of it, and move to a full army if I enjoy painting that kill team.

I'm currently trying to pick between:

Orks: On one hand I LOVE all the vehicle, mech, and beast-snagga units; even if I don't get an ork army am going to paint a snazzwagon, but on the other hand, I know a competitive ork army is mostly boyz, and the less silly more faux-military orks don't do anything for me.

Eldar: As a painter, I love how much variety the eldar have in their units. Harlequins and dark reapers, in particular, seem like a ton of fun to paint. I also love all the hero units (especially maugen ra and Yvraine). However, I just can't get into the base units, every eldar army I have seen has been full of wraith guards, and guardian defenders, and those do nothing for me. I also don't understand their lore; they seem like dark eldar but less interesting. Dark eldar are worth mentioning, I love their boats and monsters, but the color schemes seem less varied and fun to paint than regular eldar.

Adepta Sororitas: I dig the weirder religious iconography, the mortifiers, the weird flying baby angels; those are super fun. The only army where I don't dislike a single model, but I feel like having to stick to their color scheme would get boring after a while. Every other army I am looking at has been recommended to me by someone in person, but no one I know plays these, so I haven't been able to get any opinions on them.

Knights and chaos knights. I love the lore; I love the models, overall my favorite army. However, I am NOT a good painter yet and am highly intimidated by them! Also way too expensive.

Adeptus mechanus: These look like they would be a ton of fun to paint, all the details, and I love painting raw metals. They also have some incredible models; if I don't get an army of these, I still want one of the ones riding a horse to paint. However, they lack variety in materials; I feel like painting more than 50 would get tedious. I am not sure how it works, but I have heard they can be put in the same army as knights, which would be awesome! Not sure if I should avoid doing that as a new player, though.


Any recommendation for what to pick?

Most armies are going to end up costing about the same. A half dozen knights compared to 10-15 other boxes might cost about the same. The new Eldar Codex is about to drop. Dire Avengers are a Troop option, as are the Pathfinders. Both were/are/should be decent troop choices in the old/new Dex as well. The new Dex is also introducing a new Troop type that's going to headline a Kill team as well in the Corsairs. This may or may not lock you into the Iyanden Craftworld. Probably not, but probably will push you in that direction. I'm probably going Craftworld Eldar, and potentially Nids for my next armies.

My advice is Eldar, and here's why:

The Eldar dex is written in such a way that its various subfactions have ways to work together.

I like building many small 25 PL forces that can combine to form larger armies rather than a single large 2k army. This is more possible with Eldar (and particularly Dark Eldar) than any other army in the game.

I think that kind of variety would appeal to you.

It also helps you to introduce new players to the game, because they can use one of your 25PL forces in a small game to see if they like it. This can be a great way for your non-gamer friends to try it out- and 25PL games can be fast.

I thought that 40k was pretty strict with faction paint colors? For example: if you painted your space wolves red, you couldn't run them at tournaments?

If that isn't the case, are there any rules for painting tournament legal minis? Could you even paint every mini a different color without a problem?

It sounds like I should avoid Eldar for the moment; if they are getting new models, I want to paint those! Harlequin army WOULD be rad at some point in the future though! Maybe I could wait until the refresh is released? Has GW said when that will happen? I am up for waiting a couple months, the eldar seem really fun from a gameplay perspective and I love the idea of having multiple subfactions in one army!.

I am up for super detailed minis! I like spending a couple of hours per mook, and details are a good chance to practice!

Knights are tempting now! that does sound like fun! Could I use sisters of battle, Admech, AND knights in the same army?

I did NOT know you could run a primarily buggie based ork army! That's awesome!!

I just realized that I forgot to put this in the original post, but does anyone have any recommendations for how to start collecting the army they recommend? Picking out a whole list is a bit much for me at the moment; lol, I picked soulblight gravelords mostly because I could pick up the battleforce, the cursed city, and a necromancer and have a decent army. I would have no idea where to start with something like a buggie ork army!

Eldar range update is happening RIGHT NOW as in the first wave of pre-orders are up on the GW website now and more is expected in the coming weeks.

Some stuff isn't changing but some is.


As for paint - broadly speaking the rule at some major events is if your army is painted in and official theme design then you should use that army. HOWEVER this is mostly a rule aimed at Space Marines - outside of them most people have not got a clue about army official schemes for different subfactions.

Even for marines its super basic "ultramarines are blue; white scars are white etc..".


It's also silly because if you just use your own scheme you'd not be bound to anything.


In general its not an issue for most people and most clubs.


Ad Mech can take knights in their army as normal; so it would be more Ad Mech plus Sisters. The issue you might hit is numbers and point costs and I'm not as hot on the alliance setup for 40K, but it should be possible even if its more of a fun fluffy list than a strict "going to win lots of battles" list.

SoB first, painting is awesome. Models are there.

Orks second, can convert a knight into an orky knight, build a morkanaut, etc.

Don’t worry about competitive meta stuff. Get what you think looks cool and that you want to paint. Do what you love and you never lose.

Rfkannen wrote:
I thought that 40k was pretty strict with faction paint colors?

What I meant about Eldar is that you can pick your Craftworld, and paint a 25 PL force in those colours. Then you could paint a 25 PL force of Harlequins. Both of those are independent armies, but they can combine into one 50PL army as well. If you then decide to do a 25 PL Kabal and a 25 PL Wych Cult, those two armies can also act independently, but can also be combined into a 50PL army.

And then if you add Yvraine, you can combine all 4 armies. It's a little sticky, because you need one CWE unit of the same Battlefield Role as every DE/ Quin unit... but it can be done.

I'm a Crusader, so this is how I build ALL of my armies, since the (IMHO) stupid rule about not mixing subfactions doesn't apply in Crusade. So even my sisters army is 25PL of Bloody Rose (The Penitent Legion), 25 PL of Order of Our Martyred Lady (the Choir of Saints) and 25 PL of Sacred Rose (the guardians of the Schola Progenum).

If you want to play Matched though, only Aeldari factions allow this kind of subfaction mixing, and even with them there are limits.

Knights are actually surprisingly easy so long as you don't go crazy on armor/carapace detail. Just leave the armor bits off the model (i.e. paint them separate) and the skeleton is literally as easy as spray, wash, drybrush in your chosen metallic.

Cost wise, they are less terrible than you might think. Sure on a per knight basis they're not cheap, but one knight is a hell of a lot of points on the table. You average combat patrol box costs pretty close to what a knight does and is roughly the same amount of points. And a box of Arminger Helverins cost around 350 points for less than a Start Collecting. If you want to try out Knights, get a box of Armingers and try them out, you're not throwing a ton of money and you'll find out if you do or don't like painting knights right away, because knights are just bigger Armingers when it comes to painting.

My last Christmas Project was knights, feel free to check it out here: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/802542.page

Sisters are a surprisingly expensive army, what with being new plastics and relatively low point cost per model. They are very satisfying to paint and while they have a goodly amount of detail, they also have clean robes and smooth armor panels. Sisters of Battle have a Combat Patrol box now which helps a little on cost. It's the sisters launch box plus a Rhino, meaning it's mostly monopose minis, which sort of limits the usefulness of buying multiples, but 2 Combat Patrols probably would be all right in the long run, as you'll get lots of other boxes of Battle Sisters to make more Battle Sister Squads and Dominions.

I also did a Christmas Project on Sisters: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/794647.page

I tried painting some Admech and ultimately I didn't like it, but that was probably more the fault of the scheme I chose than anything. Gryphonne IV is not a fun scheme with all the cream robes.

Rfkannen wrote:


Knights and chaos knights. I love the lore; I love the models, overall my favorite army. However, I am NOT a good painter yet and am highly intimidated by them! Also way too expensive.

Expensive is only in terms of individual price for one box which matters only if you have X amount of cash to spend for say 8+ months rather than aiming say 4 months. In the end all armies tend to cost on same ballpark.

Yes it costs more than box of say battle sisters...but then again for points you will buy like 3-4 BSS box.

Also painting wise it's not nearly as scary as it looks as long as you aren't insistent on complex freehands

Gaming wise how you would like them is another thing. Without 9e codex yet I wouldn't dare to suggest them to begin with though. Killyness especially vs solo models that rely on inv saves is going up the roof in new books so will depend a lot on what new codex will do to keep knights from simply being blown off the table in heartbeat.

Alright awesome about knights! They actually sound like my best choice! I can just get 3 big knights and 3 little knights right? that is a good amount of painting!
How do chaos knights compare?

I was looking at dark eldar and realized that with a diffrent paint scheme they would actually be pretty rad, how do they compare?

Rfkannen wrote:
Alright awesome about knights! They actually sound like my best choice! I can just get 3 big knights and 3 little knights right? that is a good amount of painting!
How do chaos knights compare?

I was looking at dark eldar and realized that with a diffrent paint scheme they would actually be pretty rad, how do they compare?

knights are announced to be remade soon

Rfkannen wrote:


Orks: On one hand I LOVE all the vehicle, mech, and beast-snagga units; even if I don't get an ork army am going to paint a snazzwagon, but on the other hand, I know a competitive ork army is mostly boyz, and the less silly more faux-military orks don't do anything for me.

Competitive orks currently field 0 to a couple of min squads of boyz/beastsnagga boyz (20 models in total). Best built, the Army of Renown, can't even have boyz or any infantry model. Even outside Army of Renown no one brings more than a couple squads of trukk boyz or snaggas in kill rigs to tournaments.

Rfkannen wrote:

It sounds like I should avoid Eldar for the moment; if they are getting new models, I want to paint those! Harlequin army WOULD be rad at some point in the future though! Maybe I could wait until the refresh is released? Has GW said when that will happen? I am up for waiting a couple months, the eldar seem really fun from a gameplay perspective and I love the idea of having multiple subfactions in one army!.

Harlequin models are not that old in the grand scheme of things - they were, what, 2015?

There are plenty of models in the GW range that are way older than that. There's a reasonable chance that the current Berzerkers of Khorne came out before you were born - they released in 1998...

You can probably buy any of the current Harlequin range with confidence.

If you like raw metal, diverse models, and undead, Necrons might be a good pick. They are also fairly cheap right now due to all the starters. Hovewer, they aren't that strong on the tabletop.

As people already noted, you're free to completely ignore official paint schemes. In fact, you really should do so with Sisters/Marines as then you can use any chapter/convent rules you want and aren't locked into 'official' ones.

Orks are fun to paint, but a warning - first, the army requires a lot of models to play. Do you like painting like 100+ models to your opponent 40? Also, while they can be quite strong, the army has a lot of bad units so it's something to consider if you want a good force.

Rfkannen wrote:
I thought that 40k was pretty strict with faction paint colors? For example: if you painted your space wolves red, you couldn't run them at tournaments?

If that isn't the case, are there any rules for painting tournament legal minis? Could you even paint every mini a different color without a problem?

...

Knights are tempting now! that does sound like fun! Could I use sisters of battle, Admech, AND knights in the same army?

You got it wrong. The problem with strictness is that people frown at space wolves using say white scars rules. If you paint your space wolves red, and say this is custom 'red wolves' chapter, no one has any basis to tell you whatever chapter rules you want to use are wrong. Maybe they are tough like iron hands, you and no one else decides the fluff.

You can technically paint every mini different color but it won't be seen that well. People like unified forces (now, that that means is debatable, and you can really stretch it, but having overall theme such as main color and/or basing tying it all together is nice). Though, there are forces that use multiple colors by default (Dark Angels, Eldar, Orks, Blood Angels, etc) so it's not really that strict.

As for having Sisters, AM, Knights in one army - you can play it as Imperial allies, you will just lose a couple of optional rules. It's a good way to put bigger force on table until you can afford full army of whatever faction, though.