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Im trying to get some friends into the game, and want to get a second army that is user friendly. Right now i have Space Marines (Salamanders) and Tau, but the Tau are not new player friendly (1500 points of farsight) So i was going to build another army that could lure in my friends to play, I'm open to building any kind of army, as long as its easy enough for new players to learn, and not especially hard to paint at a decent level.

shake my head at chaos space marines.

I think necron maybe easy. No psychic. Just march them and shoot. Maybe even orks.

avoid fragile armies. GEq armies. these armies require finesse to play. Elder (non scat bike army), Dark eldar, skitarii, harlequin etc...

stick with space marines...

Well, Tau and Vanilla SM.

Definitely space marines. They look good, are easy to use, and you can win games without much tactical acumen.

If you want to get someone into the game, they need to be making more saving throws than they fail, whilst taking enough of your models off the table to keep it interesting (without deliberately loosing). I'd give them your marines to use with IF tactics (easy for them to remember and immediately beneficial) and you go with your tau (with no huge suits).

Eldar. But not cheese list Eldar, just nice, balanced Eldar with Rangers and Dire Avengers and Wave Serpents and only a couple Bikes and other assorted things that aren't painful. I taught my friend with him using my Eldar and he had a blast, being able to see how powerful mobility and good shooting could be, and an Autarch or Spiritseer means limited or no Psychic phase, using it as a general buff instead of hinging a plan around it. All the tools are there, they're all competent, and it's a nice change from 'don't take Stormboyz/Wyches/Genestealers/Las Centurions/Darkshrouds/Mandrakes and so on because they SUCK' Just build something and play it and have fun and still have a chance at winning.

Voted Nids from the point of view of showing the new players the variety of styles and builds one can do in 40k i.e. for Nids: Nidzilla, gribblies, null deployment, heavy on flyers, reserve/outflank,infilitrate shenanigans, mixed units etc.
Whilst some of those builds arent overly competitive, in a friendly, learning environment it shouldnt matter.
The Nids are also sort of unique in their aesthetic which might grab peoples interest more.

As a tau player-do NOT teach with tau. they can be harsh for someone who doesn't know his things both against and with.

My choices?

Marines-anything not ultras, don't complicate him with extra decision making. Iron hands probably the best as they stick to just "die harder" without much thinking involved. imperial fists also quite decent "better basic guns". alternate marine codcies (DA/SW/BA) also work, each with his own deals.

Chaos marines-there is a reason why the starter is marines VS chaos. thematic, similar units, and easy to acquire a force for teaching (DV, convert the angels to chaos-and you got plenty of chaos dudes to pick and choose from for your teach games.)

Orks-while marines and chaos focused on being similar, orks are on being different. also not very complicated army, and rather fun. gives a thematic feel as well, black reach was a thing for a reason. just be careful not to underpower the ork force, its rather easy given that their codex is meh.


Also voted IG, but now I regret it. its nice contrast and cool, but they really are about picking orders and heaps of rules. too much info for a "demo game" type army.

Nids I'd NEVER recommend. the synapse deal is potentially maddening for a demo.

Necrons are probably one of the most simple and straight forward armies out there. Not a lot of fancy weapon loadouts and their units are fairly dedicated to a particular role. Their durability for the points cost makes them very beginner friendly as mistakes aren't as costly in casualties as say Tau or Orks.

Orks are fairly beginner friendly (more of a good intermediate army really) as their tactics usually come down to "go forward to chop the shooty and shoot the choppy" but Orks are very prone to being shot off the table. Good army to learn close combat and mixed weapons as its common place to have Nobz with PKs leading the squad of boyz. Orks teach the importance of a lot of potentially advanced concepts such as how to manage close combats, multi charging, challenges (and how to avoid unwanted ones), model positioning, etc. Orks can be simple to play (hey diddle diddle, WAAAAGH up the middle) but to really get the most out of Orks you need to incorporate advanced concepts and tactics.

Orks. Very straoghtforward

Vanilla marines.
They scale up well, have multiple build options which should hopefully get a new player's interest, shares multiple weapon profiles with many other factions making them easy to learn.

Marines are generally pretty tough against the standard Joe, so they shouldn't really have to go through the agony of watching most of their army die before they get to do anything (ala Orks/nid and guard horde)
and finally, they have a plethora of formations they can use if they want to go down that route later on.

Just my two cents.

Marines

When I teach people, I always do That Hot Tactical Marine on Tactical Marine Action with a Flamer and a Missile Launcher in each squad and build up with each game, adding new rules and units each game.

It's best to teach with Imperials since they are the majority played. Even if your friend picks Tau or Eldar down the road, just to get the rules down, it's best to do a few practice games with that good ole T4 3+. After they gets the basics down, add a Captain with another tac squad. couple more games and maybe add a Dread/Predator with a Rhino, maybe swap out the Captain for a Libby for a game to show them Psykers.

After that they should pretty much have an idea of what army they want to play and probably bought the basics for said army, depending on how often you play and how often you guys talked about what army they'd be looking at.

Orks are pretty hard to play vs strong armies. Straightforward approaches just don't work. You don't shoot enough, you are not tough to get into melee and you generally aren't too choppy vs other's melee units. Got to play around it. The easiest armies i've played were eldar and marines. Tau are also piece of cake - they basically have just 2 phases. But bad for learning the game cause it generally has 2 more. But i'd suggest the army whose fluff he likes the most using as more variety as possible. For me it was orks and CSM.

I've done this many times, mostly because I have bits and pieces of 6 armies. @500pts most of them are easy. I'd say go cheap, I've had people use Nids, Space Marines, Orks, Eldar, Tau, etc.
I recently got some Nids for $40, a carnifex, some genestealers, and some other pieces. If you can find someone looking to unload some space marines (or something) from a box set they don't play get that. And try to avoid psykers, just get an HQ, some troops, and a heavy. For example, I used the Assault on Black Reach SM with some scouts as a 500pt starter for friends. I'd play against it with Orks (Warboss, some bikes, a battlewagon, and fill the rest with boyz).

Orks. You put your army on the table, then you just sweep half of the models off the table each round.

Now for a serious answer, probably 'Crons. You just get a decurion, point it at something, and watch it die.

This game isn't hard to learn at all. The hard part is finding the time and money to build your army. My guess would be just take the army you like instead of an "easy to learn army".
If you don't now what army you like watch some more battle reports. And go and play some games with your friend using proxxies or vassal

Space Marines. Just pick a CT with passive rules.

Dark angels, cheap to pick up(dark vengeance set/eBay) Two armies to teach with.

Although they can be weak with bad units Orks are a great start. They ate not complicated, it shows the opposite spectrum from SM, and they have lots of boyz, meaning they are more active in dice rolling and moving do they get some fun parts to start. Start at 500 pt with a couple squads of boyz, a Warboss, maybe a trukk or a walker. And your list would be similar with a captain, 2 squads of tacticals, a rhino or dreadnaught. Load out either a few special weapons like a flamer, missile launcher, and powerfist/big shoot a and PK and you can show a lot and both sides have a good shot to win. The biggest issue will be leadership but it will show him how different armies deal with it.

I think the best way to offer new players armies to play with is:

1.) A large space marine force that can be split up into two forces, as in if you're running 1,500pts you should have 3000pts or more. Space Marines are very much a middle ground army that has a little bit of everything and can offer a lot of customization. It's usually best to give newer people a midrange army than one like Tau that is very shooty or something more assaulty, as they might not like that specific aspect of the game, and as such it could turn them off from it. Space Marines on the other hand let them get a feel for both before playing their next game.

2.) Tau, which you already have. This is a good army for players who know they want shooty stuff, you don't need to worry about a lot of things with Tau either, you just need an idea of how the synergies work. This is a great army for people who play their first game with Marines and then decide they want to try to be more shooty with mobility.

3.) I'm sure you guessed it, but this should be a more assault based army. Something like KDK with Gore Packs and the like, where you're using fast units to get into assault and rip the enemy apart. You can probably even find a way to just make one of the Space Marine forces be able to be built in that fashion, without always having to be that way, though having KDK or something would be nicer since it would add more variety. This would be good for people who played with Marines and wanted to be more assault based, this also works for people who played the Tau and Marines, but also want to try the assault based army so that they can get a real feel for the spectrum of the options presented.

More so, having all three choices makes the game feel a lot more dynamic as it makes each game very different for their first few games.

It depends on what you want. But Space Marines are always safe, and Necron are both easy to paint and easy to play.

Thanks for the insight everybody, right now I'm actually getting some space marines ready to paint a different chapter (I'm thinking IF) to use as a second test army, the idea of hot tactical on tactical sounds good, and i think i'll order up some nids after that to show a more horde/assualt side

Space marines seem to have always been the learning army. IF and Ultras probably the best to learn with if making fluffy lists is your thing.

I would say Necrons. Most of their units have very few options and they are forgiving to making mistakes since they have a good chance of getting back up.