Army Overviews

Several months ago, I and some other friends put together overview descriptions of most of the 40k armies. A friend suggested I put the descriptions up here for the use of n00bs interested in learning about 40k. Please keep in mind much of this was not written by me (i.e., I don't have a guard army). Most of these entries were written by friends of mine who own such armies. Some of them are pretty amusing. If you're reading this and you want to amend the list with some additional army overviews, send me an email (rampsputant at yahoo.com) or post a reply to this message. Without further ado:
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Imperial Guard

Imperial Guard have the newest codex, and people are frightened of mech guard. It is entirely possible to cover your field with vehicles. In fact, anything not in a vehicle won't even have the chance to cry out in pain it'll die so fast. They have some fun options and a neat order system, but don't let that suck you in. If you like to win, and most people do, there are far fewer competitive options. I don't play the most competitive list possible, but it's good enough to cause issues. The only thing tough about the IG are the vehicles.

Play style - Tanks tanks tanks transports transport transports. Melta heavy squads. Shoot things with your tanks, pull up with your chimeras and melta your enemy's brains. Did I mention the vehicles?

Strength - Well in case I didn't, vehicles. You have 1 dedicated transport option, 3 tank fast options (which can field 3 per slot), 2 sentinel/walker options (which can field 3 per slot), 2 flying gunship options (which can field 3 per slot). Moving onto the heavy support slots you have like 10 different leman russ variants (3 per slot), 3 different artillery tank options (3 per slot)... shall I go on? There are still a lot more now that we're at the heavies.

Weakness - The men. Once those tanks go up, so does the army. Low leadership, low BS (3 on everything but vets), low strength, bad weapons.Synposis - Fun as hell if you like vehicles. Everything is up to date. But you will get frustrated if you just want to field troops. Gunline armies aren't cutting it that much any more.

Daemonhunters

Daemonhunters have a very outdated codex. Their assault cannons have nothing on "real" Space Marine assault cannons. Their teleport homers don't work. Their land raiders don't have machine spirits AND they are not assault vehicles. Dreads take up heavy slots, which I guess is fine because the only other real choice is land raiders at a minimum of 250 points. The standard Grey Knights have only 2 weapon options, which are good, but at 25 or so points per weapon I'd rather have a missile launcher or lascannon.

What they do have is some pretty decent all around abilities. As a Daemonhunters player, you really need to be able to control the battle, which is difficult because of the lack of dedicated transports (Grey Knights don't get any). Your basic troop (25 points) is WS5 S6 A2, which is nice. They don't get a bonus on the charge, which is not nice. They all come with storm bolters, 24" assault 2 weapons. In summary, if you can manage to do a bit of damage in shoorting you will win in assaults vs non-power weapons.

Play style - You probably want to field some Inquisition storm troopers in dedicated transports with meltas for tank busting and trying to take some fire of the Knights. The Knights can be used as great objective holders (decent shooting, decent charge, need to roll to see them w/ average sight being 33"). They can also provide you a decent punch in the terminators, but their low initiative really bogs them down.

Strengths - everything, but not nearly as good in anything as a specialized army. In short, you need to shoot the assault armies and assault the shooting armies.

Weaknesses - points cost and outdated codex. You pay out the ass for everything to not work as well as it does in newer codices.

Synopsis - don't bother. If you like the army, use it as an allied force.

Tau

Tau have the best base troop gun in the game. They have a very standard BS3 but you can amp that up to BS5 for whole squads. The two basic types of play are static gun line and suit rush. The suits have a 3+SV and a HUGE variety of weapons. Easy to kit out and make wound allocation a breeze. Kroot suck. They are only ok in a few rare instances. They are cheap, but they have no save, hit like a kitten, and can't stand up in melee. 5th ED is very much an assault based system. Assault armies are very powerful along with Mech armies that can stand up to assault armies. Kroot can stand up to neither. Honestly they are only better in melee against Tau and Guard. And the guard can quickly become better then Kroot if you want them too. They are a speed bump.

Theme- Greater Good. They are Communists.

Play style- Gun line or mobile suit. Either way they are not made for taking objectives in a rush. Good at D and moving in at the last minute.

Strenghts- Awesome guns. S5 AP5 30" rapid fire. Awesome. Rail guns S10 AP1 72" even better. Markerlight 36" and does a grip of usefull things including, improving balistic skill, REMOVING cover, and negating night fire. I <3>

Weaknesses- Melee. I have sneezed into kleenex that was tougher. Kroot are no worth it. Vespids are too squishy for their point cost.

Synopsis- They can shoot. Everyone knows it. They will try to keep you from doing it. And with first round assault and deep strike assault you will be hard press to stop it.

Space Marines

Theme: Space Marines are the elite super-soldiers of the Imperium. The finest warriors of the Imperium are implanted with the Emperor's gene seed in order to make them the Emperor's finest - the Space Marines. Armed with the holy Bolter and their sacred Power Armor, the Space Marine is sent to the darkest, deadliest places in the galaxy. Outnumbered 1000 to 1, the Space Marine will fight to the death, and take his enemies with him.

Army Playstyle: Because their warriors are "elite," Space Marines tend towards fewer models on the table. They are definitely not a "horde" army like some others. Marines are good at everything, but they are the best at nothing. In a way, Space Marines are the jack of all trades of 40k. Their strength is their flexibility - high survivability (3+ armor save, 4 toughness), above average WS and BS (4 and 4), and a quality array of weaponry. Basic tactical marines (your primary troop choice) are tough but not particularly good at killing things.

The army's strengths lie in its elite, fast attack, and heavy choices. With options like terminators, sternguard and vanguard veterans, dreadnaughts, and land raiders, Space Marines can dish out some carnage that makes even the most battle-hardened player start to sweat. The recent codex allows for some real flexibility in the army. Synergy is your friend, but synergy is less important in this army than say, Eldar, which rely on it. One nice feature is that many of the named independent characters actually substantially change how the army plays, changing one or more of the special abilities of basic marines. Also, a huge selection of available units in the army list means that you can quite easily field two different marine forces with completely different units. In some ways, its hard to play marines the wrong way, because they're just inherently tough and overall pretty good. However, once you face someone that knows how to play against marines, you will get just as stomped as the next guy unless you really know how to exploit the army's strengths while minimizing its weaknesses.

Strengths: Tough troops, deadly elite and heavy choices, great fast attack and mechanized options for infantry (rhino, drop pod, land raider), mean that board control is key and marines can do it.Weaknesses: Troop choices are tough to kill but less than stellar on the offense. Models are high cost points-wise, so fewer models on the table often means you're getting ganged up on. Also means that loss of one or two important units early on can be crippling to your game.

Other considerations: Lots of plastic options available, so kitbashing is an option, and models are on average cheaper than metal. Also, because of their popularity, Marines tend to be less expensive when you're finding them used, particularly if you're willing to accept less than stellar paint jobs or models from older editions. Though I'm the only basic Marine player (I think - who knows what army Aaron my have next week) in our group, Marines are extremely common and you will see them everywhere. There is a vast amount of fluff for all of the "named" chapters that GW has created. Of course you are also free to create your own chapter (as I have done). There are a number of offshoot Space Marine armies that have their own codices. They also have some of their own models, though all of these offshoot choices share at least a few of the same models and very similar stats to basic marines. These armies are Space Wolves, Dark Angels, and Black Templars.

Tyranids ('Nids)

Theme: Tyranids are a nomadic alien race comprising many genetically engineered forms created from harvested bio-mass. They are known as the "Great Devourer" and seek to consume all in their path, draining all planets of any possible resource with horrific speed and power.

Army Playstyles: Tyranids are typically a close-combat army and rely on overwhelming their enemies through superior numbers, although they may be bio-morphed to rely heavily on ranged combat. Tyranids supplement their massive swarm with an array of monstrous creatures. 'Nids can be played either as a ranged or CC army with different pairs of units being brought to bear against an enemy.

Strength: Numbers! Numbers! Numbers! and monstrous creatures. Swarms of endless gaunts can easily overwhelm with groups of 30 units and tie up big command squads for large portions of the game. Nids have deadly big bugs that can pulverize armor in CC. Genesteaslers, Lictors, and Raveners can outflank, deepstrike, and hit behind enemy lines to force confusion on the battlefield and turn the momentum of the game to your favor.

Weaknesses: Many scoring Nid units require a “synapse unit” to be within 12 inches of them at all times or they become nigh unusable until a synapse unit is near. This makes your synapse units big targets and gives priority to your opponent from the start. Nids are also “glass cannons” and have crap armor. Armor upgrades are cost prohibitive and the heavy hitting squads (Genestealers, Hive Tyrants) are expensive comparitively to other Nids and require attention to the game board and opponents strategies in order to get them into combat before a single round of bolter fire turns 300 of your points into pulp.

Other considerations: Kit bashing and green-stuffing are great with nids. If you are a modeler who favors a bio-morphic.H.E. Giger look, then you can go far making nids all rotten and twisty.