New Player Question

[BrandX]

Hello new friends! I joined the other day and have been snooping around at various armies trying to decide what army i like the looks of before i begin to make a purchase. in my last hobby, the play style of my faction is what got me into the game. a bunch of sneaky blind dragons that don't follow the rules and use tricks to make assassination attempts to win the game, who wouldnt want to play that? So i was wondering, if some of you wouldnt mind sharing how your army works and what it does in the building stage to set up for its eventual victory, that would help me in picking the right army for me. honestly they all look great to paint, so im thinking its the signature style of the army that will win me over. Thank you :P

[WarriorFish]

I think it would help if you gave some more to help people out, there are a lot of play styles so it could do with narrowing down Generally speaking 40k armies follow the rules in how fighting works, but there is a lot of difference in the "how". For example my main armies work broadly speaking as follows:

• Space Marines (Iron Hands)
  Flexible and capable, from long ranged fire support and mobility to closing in to finish the job with bolter and chainsword there's always an answer. Lots of Dreadnoughts
• Imperial Guard (Cadian)
  Heavy on combined arms and supporting roles, infantry hold the line and advance it while heavy armour/artillery deliver the hammer blow. Mobility largely provided by armoured and scout elements, Sentinel walkers and Stormtroopers especially (who can drop in to assassinate characters or seize objectives etc).
• Chaos Space Marines (Emperor's Children)
  Assault army that moves up swiftly to engage the enemy and defeat them with superior capabilities, though with some modest shooting to help out on the way. Supported by psykers and daemon engines they might be on the back foot on the way into combat but once this is achieved the game is much different as they build an increasing advantage the more melee there is.
• Daemons (Slaanesh)
  Similar to my Chaos Marines as they're of the same god - it's all about the speed and combat as Slaanesh doesn't have much shooting. Being able to rapidly redeploy and strike where the enemy doesn't expect it (or more accurately can't stop it) is how they win, as similar to my CSM once you've engaged the front in combat you get to dictate more of the game. Not very durable though, it's all about the attacking here - and speed in doing so of course.
• Thousand Sons
  Close range shooting army with psychic support, the Rubrics may be a bit slower but they're tougher and with their special guns they hit quite hard. A bit of a trickier army as they don't have as many options as others so there's a lot of "moving parts" to align but the play style feels quite unique albeit dependent on the predations of GW's rules (but this is true of others too).
• Dark Eldar
  Very fast but more fragile for it, they get to pick their battles more and can cause a lot of damage quickly. Lots of ways to build the army so plenty of options, and they have some nasty tricks and weapons to make use of. Usually described as a bit of a "finesse" army they might not be the best first army without making sure you know what you're getting into.
• Tyranids
  Flexible with options in how you build and play your army, but I like the horde of little critters supported by the larger ones. The swarm descends upon the foe as the heavy hitters advance so your opponent quickly has pressure to deal with them, plus it's quite different to play an army of drones and the like where it is more of a literal exchange of pieces in places.

This is a fairly broad spectrum to get you started, but there are many other ways to play and armies so it's still only the start. I think the best way to approach it is to get a few ideas down on what you'd like. For example you could pick between two "opposites", or how you'd prefer a split such as "a shooty army that is fast", "a combat focused army but still has some good shooting" etc. You could do this over all the ways of playing, e.g: elite/horde to help build a picture, then people can make their recommendations much easier

[BrandX]

yeah that helps a lot thank you. My Legion of Everblight was very combat focused, with a few amazing shooting abilities that i could use selectively to force the opponent to fight on my terms. Then i had a number of supporting abilities i could use to help my heavy hitters clear the way to score the warlord kill. i dont think warlord kills end the game in this, but i was hopping that style would still work. 

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

Warlord Kills don't end the game in 40k. If your looking for armies with good shooting, and support characters force the battle to be fought on your terms than the Eldar fractions may be something you want to look at. Craftworld Eldar are probably the most shooty, and have support characters that are very flexible but they do need an update (which should come soon), Dark Eldar are balanced between shooting and CC but are glass cannons, and Harlequin have the worst shooting but are really strong in CC. All three rely on support characters.

 

That said with 40k you mainly want to choose an army based on what looks cool. You can make several armies play in the style that you want. So my suggestion would be to look for what armies appeal to you first based on how they look than ask us if we think it work with that style.

[BrandX]

im sorry, i meant a close combat army with shooting to force the enemy where i want them.

[MARK0SIAN]

Controlling where an opponent goes with shooting is pretty difficult other than making them hide.

 

The current edition heavily favours going for objectives so you’ll largely be able to predict where the enemy are going anyway and (short of killing the models) you won’t really be able to control that movement with shooting.

 

An army you might want to look at is Custodes. They’re a close combat army but they have some good shooting options if you’re not averse to resin models from Forgeworld. They also have a unit of terminators that have some good stratagems/abilities that make them good character/warlord hunters. As Jorim Helm-Splitter said, killing the warlord won’t win you the game but can still be a good idea as it’ll likely grant you some victory points and they’re generally a big buff for their armies so it will weaken them considerably to lose the warlord. It’s not worth doing at the expense of going for objectives though so try not to get tunnel vision with it and lose the overall game ;)

Edited June 25, 2021 by MARK0SIAN

[WarriorFish]

Indeed, you can make certain choices "less desirable" for your opponent but forcing their hand is a rare ability. Something like a psychic power or Relic that can prevent a character doing anything for a turn for example - not something to build around.

 

Shooting armies can create fire lanes and the like, but much depends on your opponent's needs too for example a combat army might take some detours to reduce incoming fire but you can't stop them from coming (short of killing them all, but that's easier said than done :P ). Combat armies have more say here as opponents may want to pull back forces from impending assault, but the key word is "may" here. I'd say this is a merit to the game overall as choices are what defines playing - agency is too important to restrict to any notable degree.

 

It sounds like you might be after an army/play style where you can have elite units do some heavy lifting, if so that just needs refining into the how. For example you could have an army entirely of elite and dangerous units like Custodes as mentioned, or you could combine them with weaker and more numerous lighter units that may or may not be expendable :lol:

[BrandX]

so the focus is killing, not deterring. got it. elite combined with lighter units sounds good. my favorite thing to do was send in a suicidal shredder like a living missile to force my opponent to deal with on his side of the table. it wasnt the strongest beast but it was worth the points.

[MARK0SIAN]

so the focus is killing, not deterring. got it. elite combined with lighter units sounds good. my favorite thing to do was send in a suicidal shredder like a living missile to force my opponent to deal with on his side of the table. it wasnt the strongest beast but it was worth the points.

The focus is on taking and holding the objectives. Killing is obviously a big part of it but they’re not quite the same thing. Suicidal distractions can be a good thing (in 40k they tend to be referred to as distraction carnifexes after an old Tyranid tactic of sending a carnifex, which is a big monster, charging into the enemy and forcing them to deal with it as a distraction). I don’t know anything about the other game you played but in 40k even tough stuff tends to die horrifyingly quickly so any units you want to fill such a role will need a reasonable investment in them.

 

The other thing to think of is that not all armies have access to both elite and cannon fodder. You can mix and match forces to some degree but you often lose out on powerful special bonuses for each force if you have an army made up of more than one faction.

 

Another thing to consider is cost and time needed to build the army. Custodes are very expensive in terms of points so end up being cheaper to get started with, they have an easy paint scheme and because you need less of them they’re quicker to get ready. Ad Mech on the other are very expensive to play and will require more models and more time to paint.

 

I think the advice earlier about choosing an army you like the look of is a good starting point and going from there. Most (but admittedly not all) can be built in a way that favours a particular playstyle. The only one to totally avoid if you like melee is tau and maybe Astra Militarum.

[BrandX]

ok, so ill be avoiding those two factions it sounds. and i dont really like the looks of custodies or mechanics either. so the list gets shorter!

[WarriorFish]

Yes insofar as destroying a unit is the closest you'll get to controlling it :P The game is quite dangerous currently so things will die a lot, the trick is target priority - killing is a means to an end.

 

Some armies can do the "Death Star" unit better than others, while the game has largely removed the "true" version where that unit also won games you can still have a mean unit that zips up the board demanding attention. You can even do this with more modest means - a weaker unit that is quick can achieve similar results. For example my Hormagaunt hordes for my Tyranids might be rubbish and barely kill a thing, but when they have engaged enemy units in combat to tie them up that is what I wanted :)

[BrandX]

ok. what is an acceptable pricing for a "distraction carnifex"? is a hormagaunt horde cheap enough to have more than one for tying up your enemy?

[BrandX]

one more thing, im not sure if this will make sense. are there any factions that dont play well at certain sized games? in Warmachine i played really well at zero point games, but at 50 points alot of other factions just started to get really difficult for me to play against because of how their mechanics worked. im hoping to start small as i dont have any appropriate models, unless i can use some of my infantry as a proxy. and i would like to not be at a crippling disadvantage because my faction only works good in massive lists. i hope that makes sense enough for someone to answer, but maybe its not a thing in warhammer. 

[MARK0SIAN]

Balance in 40k is a bit of mythical being anyway but the game is generally best balanced at around 2000 points. You can still play at lower values obviously but the rock, paper, scissors effect is more pronounced at lower levels where the opponent doesn’t have enough points to buy the tools necessary to counter a particular type of force. Luckily 2000 points is generally considered the “standard” size for a game.

 

Codex creep is also very real which generally means the armies with the most recently released codexes will be the most powerful at any point level. At the time of writing this means Sisters of battle and Drukhari tend to be top dogs. This obviously does vary and sometimes an army will get an awful codex and so will still be rubbish but generally it works as a rule of thumb. It’s also a case that newer models tend to get more powerful rules so armies with a recent release, again like sisters, will be towards the higher end of the spectrum.

Edited June 26, 2021 by MARK0SIAN

[BrandX]

so 2000 points is good for all. what about at lower games?

[MARK0SIAN]

At lower points it’s not so much a few outright winners. It’s that the Rock Paper Scissors element becomes too pronounced. So an army that would dominate a 1k match against one army would be utterly dominated in turn by another army. Whereas by 2k most armies are able to afford enough stuff so they don’t instantly fold to certain types of opponent.

 

That said, some armies are better, often because they’re simply better at every points level. Sisters, Drukhari, Necrons, ad mech, daemons, Deathguard and to a lesser extent marines can all do well in lower points games.

[BrandX]

oh i see. well thats refreshing to know. i wouldnt say im try hard but i wouldnt want to be laughed off the table with my first purchases and then never want to go any further. i think ive narrowed down what i like to two factions. tyranids, because who doesnt love bugs. i dont, but maybe i can be like batman and impose my fears onto my opponent. and sisters, because they remind me of an order of valkyries in the first rpg i played in.

[MARK0SIAN]

If you want a more detailed breakdown of the factions you can check out goonhammer. They have a series of articles called ‘start competing’ followed by the faction name. They run down how the faction works and what works well in a more competitive environment. I’m not sure if the sisters one has been updated since the new codex came out but they’re worth a read :)