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I was talking to a couple of players today who seemed to have a seething hatred for the Leagues of Votann and said they wouldn't play even if someone bought them an army box.

Are there any armies that you'll Never play? And why? Is it a story thing, like Imperial Fists players vowing to never play as Iron Warriors... Or is it something else, maybe an intimidation factor, where you can't imagine building and painting a sea of Orks?

Nope. The factions all have cool stuff to them.

For 40k?
No I don't think there is.

For TOW/Fantasy however, I'd be surprised to ever see myself play Lizardmen.
Can't exactly say why, I got nothing against the dinosaurs, I just don't feel like playing them.
Got over 5000 hours in TW2/TW3 combined as well, and have yet to play a Lizardmenfaction there as well.

I think the closest I could come to a "never play" army would be Thousand Sons.

Its not that I'm not against them but they just don't do anything for me. I'm just not motivated to buy/build/paint them.
Maybe this will change someday?

Some people if asked would also tell you that I'll never play Votann, Admech, & GSC.
This is not quite true. I HAVE kits for all of these in storage. I just haven't gotten around to building them. Yet. One of these days....
(I do play Votann in KT!)

Then there's a # of loyalist SM chapters that I doubt I'll ever play:
White Scars, Ravenguard, Iron Hands, Salamanders, Imperial Fists.
Not because I've anything against them (well, Ravenguard- I hate painting predominantly black models), but because I already have 6! Other SM armies (SW, DA, UM, Mentor Legion, Doom Eagles, Generic.) I just have no reason to build MORE marines after all these years.

I can't ever see myself playing Nids. Mostly because I'm a treadhead at heart. My armies are always vehicle heavy, all infantry is just so boring to me. It also helps that I get to make vroom vroom noises as I push plastic models around the battlefield.

I don't see myself ever playing Tau. Back when they first appeared I was in the 'doesn't belong in 40k!' crowd - which isn't an attitude that helps anyone and I've matured past out (I had to mature somehow in all these years, it clearly wasn't in any other way), but even so I'm still very much using the modern game to tap into what 40k was for me in the 90s, and the Tau just aren't part of that mental landscape. Plus I'm not a huge fan of the clean-lines anime mecha aesthetic unless it really jumps out at me, and Tau don't do that - first analogy that comes to mind is the Tau are like cars trying to appeal to me on the basis of their efficient design and good mileage and sensible towing capacity, but I don't drive so if you're not a 1937 T150 or the Tim Burton Batmobile I'm not even going to bother stopping to look if I see you parked on the street.

Astra Militarum


If I wanna go down that road, I'd probably just go straight to Bolt Action or Flames of War or some such.


For 40K, i'd want to go with the more fantastical and zany.

Collecting/ painting would be a lot of factions I'm not interested in, but straight up playing? Don't think so. If you gave me your painted models and said: Here, play my Dark Eldar today, I'd do it. But I'd never collect them.

Ad Mech. Their pseudo-science lore doesn't click with me, I don't think there is a single model in their range I would call "beautiful" and I find their weaponry and units lacking any interesting aspects. If someone would gift me a fully painted army, I'd trade it for literally anything else.

I also never play daemons. Many of their models are outright ugly, the army plays extremely one-dimensionally and there is too much overlap between units. It's not as bad as ad mech though, models like the greater deamons or Be'lakor are some of the most impressive models GW has ever made, and I have a soft spot in my heart for nurglings and soul grinders.

Honorable mentions to Drukhari.
Many beautiful models and a playstyle that has always been similar to orks. BUT. There is no fething way I'm going to build and paint those tiny, flimsy models with their tiny spikes, whips and decorations that snap of if you grab them in the wrong way. My hands are huge, and I struggle to paint and build gretchin, so absolutely won't go anywhere near drukhari.

Never say never, but those I'm least likely to play would probably be Guard and Mechanicus. Guard, as mentioned above, aren't fantastic enough - playing normal humans in a game with 20-odd weird and wonderful different factions feels a bit... unadventurous? That said, if new Catachans rocked up and I could do some sort of airborne jungle soldiers in a Predator stylee then all bets are off.

Mechanicus - the aesthetic just doesn't fit with me...

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
I was talking to a couple of players today who seemed to have a seething hatred for the Leagues of Votann and said they wouldn't play even if someone bought them an army box.

Are there any armies that you'll Never play? And why? Is it a story thing, like Imperial Fists players vowing to never play as Iron Warriors... Or is it something else, maybe an intimidation factor, where you can't imagine building and painting a sea of Orks?

Seeing as how I'm unlikely to play as a Dwarf in anything, I can safely say you won't find me playing Squats.

The general aesthetic and sheer cost put me off of AdMech and GSC. GSC get extra minus points for their lore (*I* already know they're doomed, so why bother?).

And while I'm willing to dip my toes into Khorne and Slaanesh (to support my mortal Chaos leader), I worry that the Changer of the Ways would strike me dead if I ever purchased a Nurgle model. Won't do it. Ever. Sorry. My hatred of Dwarves may be irrational, but my hatred of Nurgle is completely justified.

Also, I see no reason to invest in other Chapters outside the Blood Ravens (any Chapter-specific models I acquire will still get painted as Blood Ravens). I considered Raven Guard initially (I just like Ravens and sneaky-bastard types), but then I discovered the Blood Ravens and went *yoink!*

There are many armies I'd never play 2k points with, but I'll play 500 of almost anything.

The said, the only Marines I really like are the Chambers Militant of the Inquisition... Though I own four units of BA Termies from Deathwatch and 10 scouts from KT which might as well be painted in BA colours to go with the Termies for a small First and Ten army. But that's only because I already have the models.

The only CSM that interest me are EC and then an allied force of CSM with the mark of Slaanesh how aren't EC, but roll with them anyway. I also like (and have) some Ksons.

When it comes to Tau, all take all the Kroot I can get, but I'm not a huge battlesuit guy. I'll get a Fireblade HQ, some Pathfinders and a Stealth suit team to go with my Kroot, but that's likely as far as I'll go with full on Tau.

When it comes to Custodes, I'm primarily interested in them for the SoS... Though I do like Custodes bikes.

I don't have any Crons, or any interest in getting any, but I'd play them. Ditto on Votann.

So I feel like this is a kind of two part question;

On the one hand your title says "play" and honestly if someone hands me any army in a game I enjoy I'd give that army a go at playing them. In the end its rolling dice and having fun and sure you might not get how that army works if its your first time using them; but you can still have all the fun of playing.



HOWEVER I suspect that along with play you also meant collect. As in invest your money and time into buying, building and painting them up (or paying someone to do one or more of those stages for you).

And at that point YES there are armies that I won't buy into.

Perhaps the playstyle isn't want I want; the aesthetics and designs of the models just don't "grab" me. Heck I started with Tyranids because I wanted a proper alien race not humans in armour nor fantasy races; but a proper sci-fi alien race.
Interestingly I can get behind the lore and themes of the Space Marines really well, but I've never wanted to own and build an army of their models.

The flipside is also that its less that those armies "repulse" me and more that other armies are just way more interesting. Money and time are finite resources so when making a choice I'm more likely to go with the cool thing that interests me over ones that don't.



I also don't really meta-play in terms of chasing the statistically best army to win games with at any one time. Sure I aim to build good lists that work with what I have; but I'm not going to sell my Tyranids to buy into Marines for the 6 months that Marines are top tier only to then sell them to buy into Votaan because they got an update and now they are top-tier etc...

It would probably be the ordinary humans. Like others I'm drawn to the fantastical but the setting would feel strangely empty if we didn't have our baseline dudes. Cheers to different tastes!

I generally dislike Chaos Marines, mostly for their lore. They strike me as the sort of macho, self-serious, monologue-spouting bad guys that an edgy 14-year-old would come up with, and aside from the Slaaneshi, they are rarely evil in an extravagant or inventive way. At the end of the day they're just brutes who know nothing but violence for its own sake and aren't even having fun (unlike Orks and Drukhari). That being said, I do like the Thousand Sons' aesthetic.

Anything Nurgle. I see zero appeal in painting and playing an army whose entire thing is being disgusting.

Genestealer cults. An entire faction of losers. Even if they win, they still lose. They cannot have heroic or influential figures, and even their leaders have little in the way of free will. Why would anyone play a faction that is only the mind-controlled tool of another faction? That's a shame, because I otherwise like the whole Mad Max aesthetic of their vehicles and gear, making them look like resourceful underdogs who make use of anything they can get their hands on. I've said it before, but instead of GSC, I think GW should have given us a Chaos cultist army. It's really the only way I would consider playing GSC: as stand-ins for Chaos cultists, and with mutants, Chaos spawns and daemons instead of hybrids and aberrants.

Vanilla Marines. Yawn. The only Marine army I ever collected was bikers-and-aircraft-only White Scars (literally nothing having a Movement of less than 12), back when bikers counted as troops if your warlord was on a bike. Although not especially effective, they were interesting to play and always made an impression on my opponents. Then a new edition came and made them illegal. Sold my army to a 40k dad who wanted to gift it to his son, so I'm glad my bikers were a kid's first army.

.

For me it would be Knights. I'm not a fan of them being in 40k in the first place and I think I'd find the lack of variety a little too restricting from both a list building and playing POV.

Imperial Fists are probably another. I just find their lore dull and their playstyle even worse while also having no desire to ever paint yellow across an entire army.

I like pretty much everything in the setting, but I won't likely ever play most of it because I just don't play enough to bounce around factions all that much. 3 is a lot of game as is.

I feel like there are very few armies I'd categorically refuse to play or collect, but there are definintely armies with a look, lore, and playsttyle combo that leaves me cold.

Custodes: I hate "this army makes no sense given their lore" but this army makes no sense given the lore. The models are... fine, but painting gold that looks good is tough. I don't love the just being super tough on objectives play style.

Black Templars: I already have a space marine army, and with so many options for a melee centered power armor army I'll stick with ones with less... baggage.

Chaos Knights. I'm more of an Imperial Guy, so if I built a knight army it would be Imperial, and the thought of building both seems like the waste, while using one paint scheme for both would box me in too much.

Ad-Mech: First, it's two armies in a trenchcoat, not one army. Second, it's shockingly expensive. Third, they don't seem fun to play. The models are neat, although they don't blow me away.

I am not interested enough in several armies to go through the effort of collecting and painting them, but if I was given the models I would play them.

There are plenty of armies I’d never collect. But there is an aspect of all of them that I could run with if I needed to play them.

Time, money, and space keep the lid on what I collect, but shiny model syndrome is a heck of a drug.

"Never" is a long time, but .. Grey Knights.

If the background, playstyle, rules and models were all redone differently, maybe.....

Leagues of Votan: I loved Squats back in the day and was sad they got removed from the game. But in the intervening years I've come to my own ideas about 40k space dwarves and votan don't match that. They're cool as a lost human civilisation though.

Custodes: Don't like the models or background except for Sisters of Silence who are cool but mad overpriced money wise.

Knights: Just don't fit the scale of 40k. Nice models for a special scenario or display but not an army.

Primaris Space Marines: Just prefer original marines and don't appreciate the scale creep aspect.

Slaanesh and Tzeentch Chaos Marines: Never liked the Rubric Marines as a unit and Noise Marines are more of a campy joke than an army.Siege of Vraks had it right - nurgle and khorne all the way. Slaanesh and Tzeentch make more sense off the battlefield anyway.

Votaan and Space Wolves. The aesthetic and overall playstyle of both bore me.

Custodes or Knights, because neither really fits the scale of the game in my view.

stroller wrote:
"Never" is a long time, but .. Grey Knights.

If the background, playstyle, rules and models were all redone differently, maybe.....

...would they still be Grey Knights at that point?

I think my list would be Thousand Sons, Blood Ravens, Custodes, and Chaos Knights.

I can't imagine why anyone want to would play those armies...

In all seriousness, there's only a couple armies I can't imagine collecting.

1. Nurgle/Death Guard

Hey, I got this medical textbook, lets make a bunch of models based on the most disgusting pictures!


3. Dark Eldar

Ever stepped on a LEGO barefoot? Now replace the LEGO brick with a pewter Dark Eldar model that requires a trip to the hospital to remove.


I think I can be persuaded to play anything else.

If it's about collecting, then:
- anything Slaanesh
- Votann (ugly dwarfs that don’t look anything like dwarfs)
- Primarismarines (HH marines exist and make Primaris look ridiculous, also most Primaris have ugly helmets, are too big and their floaty tanks look crap)
- loyalist Knights (the Chaos models are the only good looking Knights)
- Dark Eldar (very few models I like, basically the warriors and the Raider chassis and nothing else)
- Tyranids (poor man's Giger Aliens with guns in their hands... I bought proper Giger-Aliens from GF9 and they're great)
- loyalist guard with GW models (I'd get either Red army or WGA Damned models if I wanted to play guard)

This is all just personal taste and I do like to play against any of these armies, but investing time and money into models I don’t like is pointless.

@BorderCountess:

...would they still be Grey Knights at that point?

That's kinda the point, but then I also have necrons from when they were soulless unthinking killing automatons, none of this new fangled character nonsense... (tongue only slightly in cheek)

 BorderCountess wrote:

stroller wrote:
"Never" is a long time, but .. Grey Knights.

If the background, playstyle, rules and models were all redone differently, maybe.....

...would they still be Grey Knights at that point?

There are armies I like as units but not armies. Grey Knights, Imperial Knights, LotD, Deathwatch. IMHO they should be wrapped up in the agents/inquisition book and splashed into other imperial lists.

If GK’s got a new terminator kit, had their rules redone to be just allies, and the fluff rolled back to them just sending small forces to deal with demon problems, I’d probably pick up a squad.

Background, playstyle, rules, and models are all important factors to a faction. But so is concept. Old models is one thing that holds people back. GK’s are particularly dated. And I think they are still leaning on dreadknights to make a viable list. Which is a rules/model/playstyle issue. They are also home of some of the worst offenders of fluff, with name carving and blood bathing. Any or all of those might be enough to turn people away from the army. Some people might need all of them fixed. but are still on board with super elite anti-demon psychic knights.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
I think my list would be Thousand Sons, Blood Ravens, Custodes, and Chaos Knights.

I can't imagine why anyone want to would play those armies...

I feel attacked.

stroller wrote:... but then I also have necrons from when they were soulless unthinking killing automatons, none of this new fangled character nonsense... (tongue only slightly in cheek)

To be fair, they were still waking up and apparently hadn't had their coffee yet. [/sarcasm; I kinda liked them better that way, too, instead of just being Tomb Kings... In... SPAAAAAAAAAACE!]