SorataZ

3 comments by SorataZ on Jan 10th, 2012

I admit I am a rather new player, but from what I know and heard of, I think I can say what the (dis-)advantages of the various 40k factions are.

First word on starting:
A good idea is the Black Reach box, it contains a bunch of Space Marines (10 Tactical Marines including flamethrower and Rocket Launcher, 5 Terminators, Captain and Dreadnought) and Orkz (20 Boys, 5 Nobs, Waaaghboss and 3 Deff Koptas), along with the rule book in smallsize (complete, only lacks some info about the various faction's backgrounds but you can read that up elsewhere). Whatever of the stuff you don't need you can easily sell on Ebay.

For starters, most people play Space Marines. They're a good beginner army, quite capable in both shooting and close combat and very forgiving if you do something wrong. They also have by far the most heroes and wargear options, plus they are easy to paint and not very numerous so getting a handful of them ready to play is comparativly easy.

Orkz on the other hand are mainly good in close combat and they are numerous enough so only weapons with massive strength and/or area of damage can really get them down, though painting them to look good is a bit of work. Though they are hilarious in various ways.

Of course, it depends on what kind of style you want to play. The main differences between the factions are the amount of troops usually fielded (many -> weak individually, few -> elite units) and wether they are better in high range (artillery, Imperial Guard and Tau for example), mid-range (Space Marines and most of their sub factions) or melee (Orkz, Chaos Marines to some degree) and wargear.

And of course style is always an important point. If you care more about style, then everything above is less than important for your choices.

I'll try to summarize what the factions usually can and cannot do:

Space Marines:
- elite army, all-rounder, very forgiving, lots of wargear and heroes for customisation, build around blitzkrieg tactics
- infantry are usually comparable to what other factions have as elite, but they severely lack in numbers, every fallen Marine is a major loss
- vehicles are cheap, mostly transporters and act as support, Dreadnoughts are an exception, they can be bought onto the field via droppod and are great at mid-range and in melee
- Space Marines lack weapons with very high ranges, make up for this by disabling enemy stuff before the main army strikes

Chaos Space Marines:
- similar to Marines, but a little more close combat oriented
Differences:
- similar decent weapon options and can better horde than Marines
- possess powerful magic and can summon demons
- vehicles are similar to loyal Marines and have similar stats
- magic can heavily go wrong
- Chaos God blessings offer some individuality

Blood Angels:
- very much better and more expensive Space Marines
- you roll for a bonus at the beginning for each unit
- many units are equivalents to Marine units, main differences are prices
- Land Raiders can be dropped

Space Wolves:
- Vikings in space
- many weapon options and have squads that can be filled with heavy gear
- more heroes you can take per battle

Black Templars:
- melee, melee and melee
- non-character HQs are actually useful
- they look very awesome
- however right now outdated, better wait for a new codex
- because of that they're more expensive as you buy Marines with conversion kits for extra price

Dark Angels:
- wait for a new codex, they're all you do not want: not enough firepower, not enough manpower and they're worse at everything

Grey Knights:
- elite of the elite, even fewer units than Space Marines will field
- Terminators are standard (but cannot teleport)
- great HQs and wonderful against demon armies due to wargear
- look very awesome (if you're into Chrome)

Imperial Guard:
- normal humans, weak but very numerous
- awesome tanks and many variations for all sorts of situations
- artillery!
- order logic, which allows buffs to units when successful
- many different army styles, from Prussians and Kosacks to World War I and II to Vietnam to futuristic (think Halo's Space Marines)

Adeptus Sororitas:
- bleh, codex is only in White Dwarf magazine and afaik very underpowered
- however, space nuns with flamethrowers in power armour do look badass

Eldar:
- space elves, nuff said
- quicker, stronger and all around better than humans in every way, most units excel in something
- however, they severely suck in every other way then
- very fast, good in magic and great HQs
- arrogant (:P)

Dark Eldar:
- torture fanatic dark space elves
- awesome wargear options, the only faction that can mount anti-vehicle guns on jump infantry
- very fast without speed penalties in cover (which is what you want, cover, shoot, cover, repeat)
- very new and good looking model-wise
- can swap around bonusses like feel no pain with the pain marker system, which is great against shooty armies

Orkz:
- space hooligans, fighting for fighting's sake
- good in numbers, very agressive with bonuses in close combat should they attack first
- bad at aiming because they don't care about that so not good at range
- sturdy, and useful HQs with good abilities

Tyranids:
- even stronger in numbers but hideously weak alone
- best tactic is to drown the enemy in units while the bigger commandeers do the killing blows

Tau:
- THE togo faction if you love to blast the enemy away from high ranges
- very good when individualising, can chuck out buffs with the Ethereals
- hard to kill when in cover (mostly)
- mecha

Chaos Demons:
- sadly outdated, but offer individuality, and the whole army teleports in for battle
- several units ignore armour throws, which is useful against those walking tanks that are the Space Marines