For a new Warhammer 40K player, what is the best army to start out with? I like Space Marines, Orks and Tau.?

Question

I am new to Warhammer 40K and am looking for good advice in regards to creating a first army. I'm looking for something stable and forgiving, I really like the idea of Tau, but I also like Space Marines and Orks. I hear Dark Angels can field only terminators, which sounds neat too. Any help would be really appreciated.

Answer 1

Space Marines are very forgiving, both strategically and also for collecting.  They have a special morale rule "...And they shall know no fear.", they tend to shrug off some wounds with their great toughness and saves, and they tend to hit what they shoot/swing at.  For collecting, you don't have to be a Renoir to do a decent paint job on them, and you don't need to be a millionaire to afford a decent sized army.

The Tau are what is considered a "shooty" army.  An army that specializes in shooting, and does poorly in hand to hand assaults.  The Orks are the opposite, their bread and butter is getting into hand to hand with a horde of boyz and killing an enemy.

Answer 2

tau look cool

Answer 3

well, what you heard about dark angels isnt true i can tell you that much, the dark angels arenbt strictley "codex" space marines, so ide give them a miss for now, stick to standard pattern marine armys and youll be ok.

You could launch into either space marines or orks comfortably with the "blacks reach" box, which gives you a good starting core of both. However if your a newbie i would say go the marines, the simple shape and style makes them easy to put together and paint.

the paining is easy as well, a simple matt colour on power aurmor can come through a drybrush or two.

Now, why i say marines to start with is they can lean to either side, you can have an army build for close combat, assaulty squads, dreadnoughts and combat squads (this is a tactical squad that replaces its bolters with chainswords and pistols, or an assault sqaud which remove their packs) mounted in rhino's, with a few landspeeders giving a mobile firebase.

Alternatley you could go the other extreme and have a gunnery force. the bolter packs a lot of punch, plus the space marines can feild one of the most dangerous artillery weapons in the game (vindicators demolisher cannon) and one of the most tactically flexible (whirlwind missile tank). The great thing about using marines like this is even when the enemy does make it to your lines, a marine has a good enough basic profile to rip most standard enemys apart with his bare hands.

You might find tau difficult, because tau operate on a mutual support basis. Because of the tau combat doctrine, each squad and vehicle has to form a link in a chain, so you have to consider all parts orf your force at all times, because if the chain breaks, the whole army falls apart. this tends to happen about turn 3 when a space marine assault squad or a unit of ogryns start tearing into their line.

Orks are just the oppisite to tau. where tau require a tactical finnese to use properley, orks dont need any at all really, just load em all up in a trukk and send em accross the battlefeild straight at the enemy. For what the orks lack in tactical thoughtm they make up for with humor. Its really funny to see a mek with a shokk attack gun teleport himself into the worst possible place.

So, my opinion for a newbie to the game is marines, if you want more of a challenge in composition you could always try chaos marines instead, but thats up to you.