choosing a new main army

[Colonel Voss]

If I pick an army that when losing will make me grumpy, then it is best not to make that army my main.

Why might some armies make you grumpy when losing, but others wouldn't.

Not sure what army would suit you, don't know you well enough,but a good rule is to first pick minis you will enjoy painting. if you can't bear to paint them, playing with them probably won't be much fun either.

I find one dimensional armies to be frustrating. Come up against a rock with your scissors and you are going to lose and sadly your army just isn't going to be doing what it should be. This can actually be cut both ways. I won against Jus just by sitting on the objective the entire game instead of moving in and fighting him up close and personal.

[Spevna]

If I pick an army that when losing will make me grumpy, then it is best not to make that army my main.

Why might some armies make you grumpy when losing, but others wouldn't.

Not sure what army would suit you, don't know you well enough,but a good rule is to first pick minis you will enjoy painting. if you can't bear to paint them, playing with them probably won't be much fun either.

I find one dimensional armies to be frustrating. Come up against a rock with your scissors and you are going to lose and sadly your army just isn't going to be doing what it should be. This can actually be cut both ways. I won against Jus just by sitting on the objective the entire game instead of moving in and fighting him up close and personal.

Fair enough. Go with the most versatile army out there, the one that can be tweaked to take on all comers and all situations. Which army is that? No idea, but Space Marines probably isn't a bad guess.

[Colonel Voss]

I guess I would say do not over analyze this problem... I see you as a necron player because of all the dirty tricks they can pull... I know how you like to pull out a crazy trick.

Now now baddy, who said anything about analyzing anything? The question is simple and hopefully it can generate a few new lines of thought for me.

[Colonel Voss]

i was gonna say IG, but actually, I think 'crons might not be terrible for you. They seeeeeeeem to be fairly forgiving (more so than eldar, fr example), and I think if you really sat down with the dex and planned out what you want the army to do for you it could be a goer. I know you like to make your own fluff, and the crons are a pretty new army, especially if you consider their recent reimagining, so if you read the new dex, work out what kind of army you want, and build it little by little, you should end up with a (reasonably) future proof, easy to paint, not too pricey, and peronalised army for yourself.

Note that I dont know the ins and outs of the new necron dex at all, I'm just basing this off my own personal image of the dudes.

Fairly forgiving? I'm curious why you chose to mention that? And why were you going to say guard?

As for fluff, with most of the armies out there, making fluff you just need a good starting point. I was telling some of my players how I build the NPCs for my Black Crusade game just by using three words and going from there.

Also think you might be a tread-head and no other army outside of the guard is going to give you that hit of fighting steel. (Well, maybe if you can satisfy yourself without treads, the Eldar and Tau can give you dose of tanks, too.)

Now what would give you that idea? Maybe it was the platoon of konigstigers I bought that cost a 1,000 pnts to field just by themselves? Or maybe it was the waves of Leman Russes that I have?

Then again, Necrons are pure fighting steel.

[me_in_japan]

my kneejerk reaction for an army for you is IG because that's the army you had when I first played against you. I've just kinda always pegged you as an IG man. I mean, I daresay people peg me as "that eldar guy" despite the fact that the only fully painted army I have is nurgle CSM, and I also used to have a whole stack of Tau. Labels kinda stick, I think.

With regards the "fairly forgiving" thing that was more my image of 'crons always getting back up and comin' atcha. I kinda see armies that can take some hits and keep fighting as fairly forgiving, as opposed to eldar (or worse, dark eldar) who once they take a few hits the whole army just crumbles. As Baddy has pointed out, with dark eldar either everything goes according to plan and you run rings round the opposition, or it doesnt, and the game's over by turn 2. Necrons, I think, can probably lose a few minis and still be in with a chance of winning.

I'd recommend a fairly forgiving army as you seem to get frustrated by your army not performing as you want it to/expect it to. An army that allows you to try again mid-game might negate that frustration a bit.

I (unsurprisingly ) agree with Spev when he says that painting is a big issue in army choice. Make sure to pick something youd be happy to sit in front of with a paint brush for hours on end, as whatever you choose youre gonna spend more time painting than playing. I kinda get the impression youre not that keen to spend ages at the painting table, so crons might be a goer insasmuch as you can spray em silver (army painter or a/b), then wash em with tamiya smoke (or other tints), paint in the glowy eyes, pick out a coupla shoulder pads in ivory (or egyptian style lapis, whatever), and youre done. Also, there are plenty of nice desert themed bases out there you could buy to speed the basing side of things along (or the ol' sand/glue/spray technique works, too. Do em separate from the mini, remember...)

[dnanoodle]

If you boil it down, 40k is just a collection of data and stats that guide probabilities. Its no different than video games where the stats and formulas are all played out behind the scenes. In 40k fluff, paint and model sculpts are the graphics of video games. In this way, the army is just a skin for the data that wears it. You could choose an army based on the data or the skin or both and any of these can be very satisfying.

I tend to look at both. For gameplay, I care most about movement, I think. Then I look at offense and then at defense. That's how I chose Eldar, though I'll admit I thought they'd be killier when I read the rules on paper. But without liking the concepts behind units, I can't bring myself to convert and paint them. I looooove Warp Spiders. Might be my favorite unit in the game. Awesome data and the skin kicks butt too. Their fluff is weird and they look cool as all get out.

I don't know how I'd go about finding the stuff that intrigues me this way, but generally I say trust your gut. All the armies can do well against casual lists. And almost all of them can put some serious hurt out in competitive environments, though may be limited to a build archetype or two.

[Colonel Voss]

MiJ: Fair enough points. You are right that some armies can be extremely unforgiving. Then again my Minotaurs got their rear handed to them in one turn by Prim, so it can happen to any army . I do see your point however.

The knee jerk reaction is interesting. To me, you seem like such an Eldar player more because of how hard you think and how much emphasis you place on maneuvering in general, even with Cryx. That and how you are good at throwing your entire army into one area at once even like I saw in the Warmachine game last year in Ogaki.

The painting point is one of those hmmmm.... things. I find painting is wonderful when relaxing. That I have been unable to relax in any small way since October speaks of why I haven't painted anything. Well almost. I was feeling relaxed after I got most of my junk packed up and was waiting to move. Really got inspired to paint some rats, sadly there was no way I was unpacking just to paint.

It is too bad you couldn't make it up here during winter break. I do want to improve my painting quality and would love to have had a chance to pick your brain. I am only just beginning to try and base my models and there are lots of painting tricks I would like to learn. I am trying to improve with my demons of chaos and retribution of scryah. But I know I have a long ways to go.

The two main things about painting that can kill me is constant repetative painting (imagine if you could only paint your least liked unit and they only had two or so poses and do it 100+ times) and units that don't interest me painting wise. For the first, I plan to rotate through my new army, my skave, and my FoW armies to keep things fresh instead of mass assembly line. For the second, well there is a reason why I am not going to buy any more cadians, nor will I play certain fantasy armies.

@Spev: You are right, a more rounded army is best. This is why I am getting ride of my Warriors of Chaos in Fantasy. But I do like some lop-sidedness. It can make things fun when you surprise people by doing exactly what they don't expect (my dwarfs use to get more charges in than most of my opponents ).

@dnan: That is always a good point. If a unit screams out to you to choose them, then there is something always good in considering it.

@Admiral Badruckus: You are right, I am tricksy. This makes me want to choose an army completely out of left field like the Orks just to surprise everyone. Then again, I'd have to paint all of them so not this time

[Primarch]

Well.....
Marines are always a good solid all round choice and with plenty of options for paint schemes and what not. I think Nids can be very very good as they can field a wide variety of different units and avoid the usual problem marine armies have where everyone comes loaded for marines.
Necrons look like fun, I am hoping to get some games in with mine once I get back to Japan. Painting the Ghost Ark is a chore, but the rest of the army is easy.
I guess at the end of the day you could always try borrowing a different army off me or the Ruckster when you play and seeing what you think.

[Colonel Voss]

Thanks guys. This has been most fruitful for me. Before I had posted this thread I had narrowed it down to two choices., but I could go no further than that. Both have qualities that I like (and that people have pointed out here) and both have various things that inspire me. I really needed a way to take my thoughts in a different direction which all of you have been able to help me with.

What I have learned is that I need variety. My biggest mistake was focusing on the Imperium and getting rid of all of my alien races. While this cut down on the armies that I played, it also isolated me from a huge section of the universe. That my mind was also focused on how all these armies could play in apoc together even though we don't play that much anymore. Also, the guard is my ideal for playing apoc as the sheer amount of armor that can be brought to bear brings out my treadhead side. The Imperium is huge, and that is what I want to see when I play guard.

But for normal games, guard become bland and generic. Looking through all the armies and pouring over their codexes, I found the Dark Eldar and the Necrons as the most interesting for opposite reasons. Both are good and diverse but they have inherent weaknesses. One could say polar opposites. Now I could try and collect both at the same time and probably drive myself up the wall or I could pick one and at a later date maybe get the other. I am finding that having a few armies seems to be what is best for me both painting and hobby wise. But not too close that they are overlapping heavily.

So in the end, I will be collecting Necrons first and maybe someday in the future, the dark ones might come out to play. This will also give me a chance to improve my painting skills before I tackle a higher quality army.

Thanks everyone for contributing.

[me_in_japan]

*Mij nods in sage approval*

Good call, I reckon. From here on, you know the drill. Start small, get em painted before you get the next batch. Keep things manageable and you won't get swamped. It's probably also be worthwhile planning out an army-wide set of colours (eg the rather obvious boltgun metal main color, bleached bone secondary colour, ultramarine blue tertiary colour (which can be switched out to bleached bone on the vehicles with metal trim wi blue spot colour etc etc)). Anyway - plan your triad and get a test 'cron painted up

(note: might I recommend an airbrush for necrons? Never have I seen an army that'd benefit from this tool more than the crons. Spray em black, then zenithal spray em VMA metallic black, then very tippy top zenithal spray em VMA aluminium, then a quick Tamiya smoke all-over spray. Use your brush to fill in eyes n glowy bits, bob's yet uncle. Gomen, I haven't had much painting time lately, I'm getting paint-frustration...)