[Tectiviride]

Hello!

I am new to tabletop war games and Can't decide between several armies.
My friend and myself have agreed to an 850 point army; I know he is getting tau.
The armies that I would like to play include:

Chaos Daemons (Mainly Tzeentch, I like the screamer model, the good psychic phase, the invulnerable saves and option of deep striking)
Tyranids (Flying hive tyrants are a nice model, but I don't want to spam them)
Genestelear cults (Very expensive right now, but seem fun to play and have nice models)
Imperial Guard (Nice tanks, lots of people. Hammerhead gunships will be rather annoying.)

I Don't need to win all of the games, but don't want to loose them all either. I don't want to have a completely broken army or have to spam a unit to make the army work.

I have a budget of around 210 GBP; it seems to be enough to get a decent small army.

Thanks for reading, and thanks in advance for the advice!

Edit: I just realised there weren't any questions!
What would you recommend out of these armies? Which would you say is the most beginner friendly? Which would not utterly fail against a tau army?

 

[Fallen]

None of those armies are what I would describe as "beginner friendly" out of all of those I would probably say Imperial Guard...as I think that they would have the least harsh learning curve.

As I posted on the other thread of similar area, Look up the fluff on lexicanum - listen to the Independent Characters podcast episodes 42 and 43. If they have a "Show of Force" episode on any of the armies that interest you, I would highly recommend to listen to those as well.

I would also (steal this idea) recommend to buy/borrow the codex of the army that most interests you and write up lists and see how they "play" on the table without actually buying anything first - nothing would be worse than spending $200 on an army that you do not want to play.

----

I don't know how much $200 GBP is in regards to hobby money (yay America!) to you, but in general I would recommend to get the codex, the starter box for said army, and get a couple of boxes afterwards that interest you.

That being said - I don't know how "good" the $200 will get you of an army. Probably not very good, but decent. If you're looking for a more competitive game Demons I think are the most competitive of those armies, but they will be the absolute hardest to get to work.

 

[Lord of the Night]

Chaos Daemons (Mainly Tzeentch, I like the screamer model, the good psychic phase, the invulnerable saves and option of deep striking)
Tyranids (Flying hive tyrants are a nice model, but I don't want to spam them)
Genestelear cults (Very expensive right now, but seem fun to play and have nice models)
Imperial Guard (Nice tanks, lots of people. Hammerhead gunships will be rather annoying.)

Bearing in mind that I haven't played these armies, I play Mechanicus, I would say:

Chaos Daemons - Fallen is right that these guys have the biggest learning curve in the game. Start off playing the game with them and you WILL lose a lot at first, and while the army-wide invulnerable saves sound good on paper when you actually roll ten dice for a Bloodletter squad under fire, you'll see quickly how easy it is for your guys to be wiped out. And all it takes is a single bad roll on the Warp Storm table to turn a battle you were winning into a rout. A good Daemons player can run roughshot over other factions in my opinion, but it takes time and practice to get there.

Tyranids - These guys might be a good choice, but from what I understand at the moment they are not very competitive due to a lot of their upgrades being useless and currently having the most worthless units in a competitive sense in a single codex. Flyrants armed with Twin-Linked Devourers are the unit you likely refer to there, and I have heard they are baller powerful. I can't really say anymore on them since i've never played against Nids or seen anyone who does play them at my local GW. That said Nids have the best starting set in the game with the Tyranid Swarm boxset (https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Tyranid-Swarm?_requestid=5732399) which will give you a good solid core of Gaunts and Gants with some Gargoyles to support them and the tarpit to end all tarpits, Ripper Swarm models.

Genestealers - These guys have some damn interesting deployment rules if you go for that stuff, and they have a cool amount of variation on them thanks to the looted Guard aspect and the Cult Troops aspect, you can really create a personal force with these guys. To their rules I don't know a great deal, but they can get a good psychic phase with the Magus and Patriarch while having a lot of rending troops and cheap Neophyte fodder.

Imperial Guard - Their tanks are deceptively strong, seriously the armour value on a Leman Russ is insane. Even shooting at it with a AP1 S10 weapon isn't a guarantee of hurting it! But the Guard require you to make a choice early on, at least at the points you've chosen, and stick with them. Do you want infantry or tanks? Do you want a Mechanized force (re, transports) or an army of footsloggers? Do you want battle tanks or artillery? Mix and matching with Guard doesn't seem to work from what i've seen, you need to focus on one aspect early on and as the points climb higher then you can look at adding different wings of force into your army. That said at 850pts troops will likely have to be your choice since the good IG tanks aren't that cheap.


One thing I would say though is do not be discouraged by any advice here. Even if you pick a hard to play army like Daemons or one that is currently underpowered like Tyranids, don't let the fact that you'll probably lose a good deal while learning to play them in comparison to a more beginner-friendly army like the Tau or Space Marines. If you want to play Daemons, play them. Even when losing you'll still have a good time. When I started playing Stormcast Eternals in AoS, which are pretty beginner-friendly army to learn though very hard to master, I still got my ass stomped half a dozen times before I pulled my first win, but even the losses were still fun because none of them were shutouts, each time I learned more and still made some good gains until I finally understood the strengths and weaknesses of the units I had. Every army takes time to learn.


LotN

 

[The Final Frontier]

I know this isn't the best of answers but ask yourself a few questions,

Do I like the fluff of this army?

Do I like the Models of this army?

How easy are they to paint?

How hard are they to play on the tabletop?

Personally just go with the army you like the most, don't worry about losing or winning, you be losing ALOT in the beginning until you get a firm grip on how your army operates. Def don't worry about asking for help or taking it slow at a GW Store or people that play. Unless you goto my GW store, almost everyone you met is extremely friendly.

I play Brettonia and there not the most competitive, hell they haven't been updated in like 20 years so there outdated as hell.

I don't have experience playing the Chaos Daemons ,Tyranids,Genestelear cults since I play a Adeptus Astartes Army(Bring on the haters lol)

Chaos deamons must always deep strike, are not range friendly for the most part, fragile as hell, expensive as hell in point value if I remember correctly. There stats above average slightly though

Tryanids and Genestealers most play the same with swarm tactics, no Transport options I think, suck at shooting unless the new codex fixed that, Armor Saves Shit, you need alot....ALOT!....and GW figures are not cheap.

The Imperial Guard melee pretty bad as the Imperial Guard army basically a swarm army with las guns and tanks,
Armore Vehicles are pretty good, There Artillary is freckin OP sometimes I swear with there damage and range. Imperial Guard tanks are expensive $$$, one Lemon Russ will be like 55$ a pieace so buy alternatives. The IG probably the easiest to learn and cheapest to play.

whatever you do, don't pick Elder,Dark Elder or Sisters of battle, there rather hard to play. Necrons might be hard to play at first so watch out for them too.

 

[Fallen]

Chaos deamons must always deep strike, are not range friendly for the most part, fragile as hell, expensive as hell in point value if I remember correctly. There stats above average slightly though

Demons no longer are required to Deep Strike, they deploy as normal.

They are still very fragile for their points, however.

With the exception of Tzeentch units, the Demon army is almost exclusively a Close Combat army.

Tryanids and Genestealers most play the same with swarm tactics, no Transport options I think, suck at shooting unless the new codex fixed that, Armor Saves Shit, you need alot....ALOT!....and GW figures are not cheap.

For Tyranids the above is indeed true. However for the Genestealer Cult they are more akin to Imperial Guard (Astra Militarum) where they have access to Chimeras, Leman Russes, and their new Goliath vehicle. The army also puts a heavy focus on something called "Ambush" (or whatever it's official title is called) where they have the ability to remove a unit from the table and effectively put it somewhere on your next turn. So it can be said that each unit can effectively "respawn" numerous times in the same game. I would probably say that the Genestealer Cult is the second hardest army to learn because 1st it's new, 2nd There isn't a HUGE selection to the army, so you're going to be somewhat limited to unit choices. Lastly I would not put it past that you would be the only person playing that army, so you're going to unfortunately look for army specific help elsewhere, compared to asking your friends, most likely.

The Imperial Guard melee pretty bad as the Imperial Guard army basically a swarm army with las guns and tanks, Armor Vehicles are pretty good, There Artillery is freckin OP Not necessarily true anymore. sometimes I swear with there damage and range. Imperial Guard tanks are expensive $$$, one Lemon Russ will be like 55$ a piece so buy alternatives. The IG probably the easiest to learn and cheapest to play.

I would recommend to just get the army that speaks to you the most.

It's hard to explain the good vs bad of each army quickly for a "I'm new, I'm interested in X, Y, and Z armies" type of threads. If you have individual questions on a particular army/unit feel free to ask but whole sale facts are hard to explain (I think) in a written form such as forum, I find it is easier to listen to a podcast or watch a video describing such.

 

[MetalHandkerchief]

Do you have playstyle preferences? Because I noticed on one hand you were drawn to the models of the Imperial Guard but on the other towards Chaos Daemons, those are verrrrry different on the tabletop so it might be good for you to further filter down your options by simply deciding what you would enjoy from a gameplay mechanics perspective.

- Imperial Guard - lowish mobility/ protection in footslogging lists, but huge numbers and weight of firepower. Medium mobility and protection in a mechanized infantry list, and limits your firepower on turn 1-2. Very compact and low model count, static-feeling army in pure mech lists, losing 1 tank makes a huge difference on your firepower output.

- Nids - can be configured towards blob character set ups (death star) where you have chunky lists centered around monstrous creatures - you could go the Zoanthrope spamfest route (I think this is a thing now) for a serious psychic phase - a fast horde, shooty horde or glass cannon. Nids are the more versatile of the options you have there but also the least forgiving to beginners, and the hardest to strike a balance with

- Daemons of Tzeentch, I only saw them in action once on an outdated ruleset, but I get the feeling they do only one thing well; flank & spank with the odd psychic beatdown. Which is fine. They seem to be rough to play well, but I'm not an expert.

- Genestealer cult - no comment as these were added back into the game after I was away for a while and I haven't caught up. Nice looking models. Seem to rely on outflank rules a lot.