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As the title says, this might accidentally be a double post and I apologize if so.

I've been hanging out with some old friends who are still into the hobby. I played my friends necrons and caught the bug. Now I love my necrons and that's who I played back in the day as well as Chaos Undivided mortals(Archaons Horde when that was a thing, not sorry.). So I wanna play the "other side" as it were(I know full well there really aren't any "good guys" in 40k. I want a lower model count elite beat rush melee force. Now, Blood Angels are my favorite chapter fluff wise. But I've been told they were supremely neutered, so i decided against it. I've always really liked Grey Knights aswell, think they're cool as hell. But I was shocked, SHOCKED I tell you to learn that the legendary Custodes were in the game now! I'm loving their models and lore so far. Few setbacks though, I'm terrified of getting shredded by swarms armies and swarm shooting, being outnumbered constantly has me..well, trepidatious. I'm hoping they have access to jump packs maybe? They also have no shooting I guess which I thought was weird for this game, I've seen the bikes so thats good. And lastly(I think), they said I'm looking at spending thousands of dollars on the army for some reason? Also discouraging but I'll see if I can find a deal maybe through one of their friends they play with.

Anyway, any and all advice is appreciated. Whether it be composition(do they have terminators? Are they good), rules, price point, painting advice(sorely needed), are special characters still frowned upon like 15 years ago? And really just whether they're viable or should I just not bother. Thanks in advance my 40K gurus!

I don’t play Custodes myself so don’t have specific advice about them. Just to say that I wouldn’t necessarily avoid Blood Angels right now just because their rules aren’t great (personally I don’t know how strong Blood Angels are currently). Especially with the way the game currently works GW can nerf or buff any faction in the space of a couple of months.

If your heart is set on Custodes then sure, go for it. Just beware that the meta can change drastically in a short space of time.

Custodes have good shoting and good melee. They aren't the best army anymore, but aside for the psychi phase, they always do something in the game. They also have more units for them done by FW. They have very nice looking dreadnoughts, golden age smooth looking skimmer tanks etc All in all a very fun and nice army to collect, paint and play with.

It's not just custodes - squats are coming back!

Worth pointing out the 40k 'main' game is as much a mess as its always been. If you have good people it goes a long way towards helping that.

Also consider kill team and the old 'special' games like the revamped necromunda if you're on more of a budget.

Buy the models you love. If you love custodes, then buy their models. Enjoy the lore and have fun with them on the table top.

Thanks all I'll take all of that into consideration, as far as meta and power creep I don't remember it being this rapid. I don't recall editions rules and armies changing in such a rapid pace.

Fell Omen wrote:
Thanks all I'll take all of that into consideration, as far as meta and power creep I don't remember it being this rapid. I don't recall editions rules and armies changing in such a rapid pace.

Indeed...

Gw have upped the release schedule about 4 or 5 years ago. Every week there's something new.

The churn is rapid, the meta is evolving constantly and if you chase it you'll have empty pockets quicker than you can say 'holy throne' along with the usual misery that comes with chasing the bleeding edge of conpetitiveness.

If you can, try and look for more casual players and groups that dont chase and exploit an easily abuseable sustem. It's not that 40k is a 'well designed' casual game - it's not. Like every incarnation its a clunky messy interface. imo the best way of getting anything positive out of it is a collaborative approach and playing it with a 'light touch'. With a bit of homebrewing. Or screw that and just go straight to something like OPR. The game falls down hard if you push it to its competitive extremes or go into it looking for 'blind' match-up pick-up-games.

Fell Omen wrote:
Thanks all I'll take all of that into consideration, as far as meta and power creep I don't remember it being this rapid. I don't recall editions rules and armies changing in such a rapid pace.

Meta and power creep change very frequently, but if you play a reasonably "take all comers" force those changes won't affect you. My orks got multiple changes since their codex dropped but I basically play the same lists. Those changes affect people who max out the best units and combos, which is something I definitely suggest to avoid anyway for those who start or come back.

As a casual player that recently made the jump from 3rd to 9th edition here is my suggestion.

1. Start by buying the updated codex for the models you already have, then look and see which models you can "port" over to 9th. Then print off the free 9th edition core rules. That should be enough to get you started on casual gaming.

After that you can look at getting the core rule book and newer models. I recently did this with Orks and I'm having a great time.

I'm finding the rules to be on average a vast improvement over 3rd edition. Biggest improvement is the objectives and victory point systems for a lot of missions.

"Do I move my unit off the objective to attack?" Wow I'm actually thinking about where to move my models instead of just having everyone stupidly charge the enemy which is all we ever did in 3rd.

There's always stuff that can make the game blatantly unfair. That's been going on in warhammer since the beginning. (I.E. Still remember watching Tyrion mow through 100 ork and goblin models single handedly without taking a single wound in Warhammer Fantasy back in the day)

If you are a casual player, just work with your friends to have a balanced games. Heck with power levels and points. You all know your models. If something is going to be insanely powerful, either don't use it, or give the other side more points.

Fell Omen wrote:
Thanks all I'll take all of that into consideration, as far as meta and power creep I don't remember it being this rapid. I don't recall editions rules and armies changing in such a rapid pace.

I had to wait many, many, many years for triple Wraithlords and Blood Angels Rhino Spam to end.

Nowadays, if GW doesn't update an over powered army in a month, they get lambasted for being too slow.

And if GW updates an over powered army right after a codex release ( like with nids), they get lambasted for being too fast.

These people need to get into a time machine and play 40k in a time when there were no changes for years. If my friend's Warp Spiders could teleport across a battlefield and insta kill my 2nd edition Necrons due to their low Initiative score, OH WELL, that was my life for years...

Play what you value. Have fun and be selfish!

Fell Omen wrote:
As the title says, this might accidentally be a double post and I apologize if so.

I've been hanging out with some old friends who are still into the hobby. I played my friends necrons and caught the bug. Now I love my necrons and that's who I played back in the day as well as Chaos Undivided mortals(Archaons Horde when that was a thing, not sorry.). So I wanna play the "other side" as it were(I know full well there really aren't any "good guys" in 40k. I want a lower model count elite beat rush melee force. Now, Blood Angels are my favorite chapter fluff wise. But I've been told they were supremely neutered, so i decided against it. I've always really liked Grey Knights aswell, think they're cool as hell. But I was shocked, SHOCKED I tell you to learn that the legendary Custodes were in the game now! I'm loving their models and lore so far. Few setbacks though, I'm terrified of getting shredded by swarms armies and swarm shooting, being outnumbered constantly has me..well, trepidatious. I'm hoping they have access to jump packs maybe? They also have no shooting I guess which I thought was weird for this game, I've seen the bikes so thats good. And lastly(I think), they said I'm looking at spending thousands of dollars on the army for some reason? Also discouraging but I'll see if I can find a deal maybe through one of their friends they play with.

Anyway, any and all advice is appreciated. Whether it be composition(do they have terminators? Are they good), rules, price point, painting advice(sorely needed), are special characters still frowned upon like 15 years ago? And really just whether they're viable or should I just not bother. Thanks in advance my 40K gurus!

Blood Angels are fine, basically most things in the game are fine, as some other posters have said, when something is overpowered-broken, it doesn't stay that way for literal years anymore.

Grey knights, also cool. They got plastic terminators and normal guys these days, not sure if that was after your era.

Custodes are also cool! They have jetbikes rather than jump packs typically, but there's a jump pack unit from Forge World. They do in fact have shooting, every spear or axe or sword has a gun built in. Not sure about the thousands of dollars angle, their dreadnoughts and fancy hover vehicles maybe, as those are from Forge World. If you don't buy forge world, custodes are probably the LEAST expensive army possible. They do have terminators, some normal plastic ones and some Forge World ones. The terminators are okay, not broken, not bad.

Special characters are not frowned upon, haven't been so for a good while now.

Welcome back/have fun!

Fell Omen wrote:
Thanks all I'll take all of that into consideration, as far as meta and power creep I don't remember it being this rapid. I don't recall editions rules and armies changing in such a rapid pace.

Why settle for slow pace of profit making when you can speed it up to rake up more profit?

 Dekskull wrote:

I'm finding the rules to be on average a vast improvement over 3rd edition. Biggest improvement is the objectives and victory point systems for a lot of missions.

"Do I move my unit off the objective to attack?" Wow I'm actually thinking about where to move my models instead of just having everyone stupidly charge the enemy which is all we ever did in 3rd.

Not sure what kind of games you were playing in 3rd but objectives and tactical decision making were common place.
Standard games had several bonus victory point conditions. Kill the enemy leader, kill the most expensive enemy unit, who controls the most table quarters, have a unit on the enemies side of the board, have no friendly models left in your own deployment.
Maybe I'm misremembering the thousands and thousands of games I had during that edition?