Help - 4 well-balanced and fun/fluffy armies for new group: Eldar, SW, SM, Tau

[Idaho11]

Hey all,

I've been collecting up some Eldar for the past few months in anticipation of having some time off. That time has now come, so I have a few friends who are going to jump in with me. The problem is, we want to start off getting the hang of the game with some armies that we know are decently balanced against each other and will result in some fun games. We enjoyed a few DV games, but they were a bit limited in getting the whole experience. Plus, no one wanted to play CSM.

So I come here for help! I'm trying to get 4 lists, each of ~1500 points, that will allow us to get a feel for each of our armies of choice, have some fun, learn the rules, and get a handle on a decent list before we start building our own. Any advice would be appreciated! We'd prefer to field a larger variety of models. We picked 1500 because it seemed large enough to fit in some fun options but not big enough that we'd get lost keeping track of everything.

Starting point:
I'm playing Eldar. Assume I own enough of anything to field whatever you can throw my way (or will pick it up). I know this army is less beginner-friendly and harder to excel with, but I'm up for the challenge.

Space Marines
We have the battleforce and the contents of a Dark Vengeance. We'll use the DV set to 'count as' Space Marines, so feel free to incorporate them into a list.

Space Wolves
Nothing owned yet (except some SM stuff listed above that we'd be fine with using to count as Space Wolves)

Tau
Nothing owned yet. It would be great if the stuff on this list would also be a good allied force for the Eldar (so I can borrow it!), but that's lower priority than just getting a good list.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

[daboarder]

my advice, stay away from the net lists, build up to say 750 pts and have at it.

Pretty much any codex can stand up to any of the others, in fact at the higher level it is most certainly player skill that determines the win, not list. The caveat is of course that some things are pretty much atrocious but that is not really a problem in beer and pretzels.

[Pendragon38]

What daborder said.... Yay for pints of beer

[Popsical]

If you all buy 1 of each of everything in your codexs then you can make lists that vary from game to game but cant suffer from spam.
Spam is the biggest game fun killer.

[Idaho11]

If you all buy 1 of each of everything in your codexs then you can make lists that vary from game to game but cant suffer from spam.
Spam is the biggest game fun killer.

That seems a bit expensive to get started. I mean, it's what I did. But I don't think they others will jump in like that.

Thanks to the others for advice! Would it be a decent idea to pick up a Battleforce and HQ for each army, or is that not the best way to start them? Can you even make a legal army with the SW/Tau from that?

[Popsical]

I didnt mean all at once lol. Just steadily build up a force that uses 1 of each of the units available in the dex.
Probably the biggest problem faced by "fun" players is the sad ability of some folk to spam the bejeesus out of the best units.
Sure, some units are less optimum than others, but if you just want fun games with variety, avoid spam.

[Power Klawz]

The battleforces are generally... interesting. In my opinion they tend to have weird unit choices and never seem to mesh quite right, and I don't think you save much if any money vs. purchasing the units individually. A good place to start is with a cool looking HQ and a couple of troops, then throw in 2 or 3 other things that you like the look of.

that will put you around 200 or so bucks usually, which can be steep for some people but its a nice starting point. Just having an HQ and two troops will get pretty boring pretty fast, you're going to want some neat toys to start with.

Collecting one of everything in the list is a good goal as was mentioned previously. It gives you a ton of options and fun stuff to paint and model. Then you can go back and fill out more of the units you like for more characterful or "competitive" play... but generally just getting what you think looks cool and trying to fit it into an army is the funnest way to play in my experience.

Space Marines should be next for an updated codex, and their 5th edition dex has aged quite nicely so you should be good to go and not have to worry too much about radical changes in the next few months. I don't see space wolves getting an update any time soon and it seems a bit boring to have 2 space marine armies going at the same time, since you don't have any models purchased for the wolves yet anyways why no go for something different? Tyranids should be up soon for new stuff, And would make a neat contrast to the other armies which are generally more range oriented than assault oriented.

You might also consider Dark Angels instead of vanilla marines, since the dudes in the box set are originally dark angels anyways and you've got a good start there. Angels are a bit more characterful in my opinion with neat special units and an emphasis on blasting the hell out of things with bolter fire. The new deathwing models look amazing, as do the ravenwing. They've got their own flyer now too, which isn't the best thing in the skies or anything but for fun games the bomber is awesome.

[Idaho11]

Space Marines should be next for an updated codex, and their 5th edition dex has aged quite nicely so you should be good to go and not have to worry too much about radical changes in the next few months. I don't see space wolves getting an update any time soon and it seems a bit boring to have 2 space marine armies going at the same time, since you don't have any models purchased for the wolves yet anyways why no go for something different? Tyranids should be up soon for new stuff, And would make a neat contrast to the other armies which are generally more range oriented than assault oriented.

You might also consider Dark Angels instead of vanilla marines, since the dudes in the box set are originally dark angels anyways and you've got a good start there. Angels are a bit more characterful in my opinion with neat special units and an emphasis on blasting the hell out of things with bolter fire. The new deathwing models look amazing, as do the ravenwing. They've got their own flyer now too, which isn't the best thing in the skies or anything but for fun games the bomber is awesome.


I'm constrained by what people want to play; I'd love to kill me some bugs, but no one wants to play them!

The Marines are on the list because I managed to pick up the Battleforce for pretty cheap, so one of the players was going to take that and build off of it. I'll see if he wants to switch it up to a Dark Angels army!

[Xenith]

The best advice has been said before, just pick the units you like the look of, ans background of the most. Keep doing this until you get to 1500pts.

HQ and 2 troops + 1other should get you to 500, pick units you like until 1000, play a few games. The next step to 1500 is either units you like the look of, or units you need to plug strategic holes in the army (long range anti tank, cc specialists, etc)

[chicop76]

I say get space wolves.

Space Marines is about to be updated and Tau is one of those armies that it's not really fun to play against. I get more rage quiting from Tau than my Daemons. With Daemons you are at least killing models. With Tau especially with riptides and broadsides the other person tend to want to quit when they only managed 3 wounds on a riptide and you wiped out 75% of their army. Even worst is when the riptide player is hurting himself more than you are hurting him.

Space wolves is a fun army. Tau is like guard, you have to kill everything before it touch you or you will probably lose.

[Power Klawz]

Tau can be "fun"...

Just spam Vespids and kroot.

[chicop76]

Tau can be "fun"...

Just spam Vespids and kroot.

That can still do well. I did that to be nice and it was ever worst on him. My whole army could fire at him in turn one. you can runlike 33 kroot per squad. That's almost 200 kroot.

[rle68]

one word for space wolves ... Njal always always always.. after that have fun

[GrauGeist]

Theme-wise you're pretty narrow with 2 flavors of Imperial Space Marines vs 2 flavors of "good" Xenos. Pretty limiting.

IMO, as you have Dark Vengeance you should reshuffle:

1. Your Eldar for Xenos

2. DV Dark Angels for the Imperials. Add a Razorback and Devastators.

3. DV Chaos Marines as Chaos. Add a box of Raptors and a Rhino, and consider a MaulerFiend.

At this point you've covered Imps, Chaos, and Xenos. The DA and Eldar can Ally OK, so you need an ally for the Chaos Marines:

4a, Chaos Daemons are the best fit, and permit excellent Eldar v Daemons battles. Chaos is the "hook" for 40k, so doubling down here is just great.

4b. Traitor Guard are your next best choice, but get super-pricey and require a lot of theme work. If you didn't have Eldar, they'd be a great choice to pair with the Dark Angels. Even if you get Daemons, Guard are iconic and fantastic if someone really gets into the game.

The fact that you've mostly got newbies playing DV starter against your Eldar doesn't really help them know what they want to play.

[Deadlift]

Personally my advice would be, buy and use what you like the look of. Painting is as much fun as playing and you should enjoy both equally. When painting models you like its much easier.

Mix in your gaming nights with painting nights. Just not so much beer when painting, what looks amazing on the night can look not quite so much the next day.

[chicop76]

Personally my advice would be, buy and use what you like the look of. Painting is as much fun as playing and you should enjoy both equally. When painting models you like its much easier.

Mix in your gaming nights with painting nights. Just not so much beer when painting, what looks amazing on the night can look not quite so much the next day.

I agree.

I think orcs and nids are fun armies to play with and against.

Daemons can be fun or can cause rage quitting.

The vengence set is actaully a good starter set. As long as you don't add heldrakes both armies will be fun. Also avoid daemon allies which can tip the favor heavily for chaos.

[GrauGeist]

If someone asks the question, then there should be no surprise when an answer comes up. As a "matched" set of armies, I'd like to assume the armies are built for fun vs WAAC play.

[Idaho11]

Thanks for all the advice, guys!

A few things:
1) My Eldar are still in plastic. We've just been playing the DV scenarios using those two armies.
2) I appreciate the recommendations for different armies, but they aren't going to change - people picked the ones they liked the look of, and none of us really care that much about how they play to pick an army that we don't want to build/paint/look at.

I think we're going to pick up a few troop choices, an HQ, and one other unit, and then build from there.