help getting into the game

[garibaldi]

Greetings all,

I'm looking at starting in 40K. However, I was hoping that I could get brief rundown on the major factions strengths/weaknesses. Any help in this matter would be appreciated. Thank you all in advance

Patrick

[Cypher 102]

Space Marines tend to be your well rounded army being well balanced at shooting and assault. Due to points cost they're a smaller army but have better armor than the other armies. Different flavors of space marines include Blood Angels (an emphasis on assault and speed), Dark Angels (an emphasis on terminators and bikers), Black Templars (another assault based chapter with a knightly feel), Space Wolves (more assault with a viking feel), Grey Knights (demon hunting knights that I've heard are better at shooting but can handle themselves at assault) and Chaos Marines (the evil marines)

Chaos Demons are unique army that pop up all over the field getting into the enemies face immediately.

Eldar and Dark Eldar are armies that focus on maneuverability. They aren't very tough and are killed easily but are fast and cause a lot of damage where and when they strike.

Imperial Guard are the conventional army of 40K with lots of soldiers and tanks. The troops aren't very tough but they make up for it in numbers.

Necrons are basically the futuristic version of undead and they're models tend to not stay down. They're rules are the next to be released so are going to be getting a lot of changes.

Orks are aliens that live for combat. They're assault bases and have a large number of troops and vehicles.

Sisters of Battle are like space marines but have lower stats and higher numbers. They just got new rules but the models are all metal and it's a very expensive army to play.

Tau Empire are based around shooting the enemy and suck in close combat. They also have a good emphasis on maneuver.

Tyranids are the opposite of Tau in that they are an assault army and not that good at long range shooting. They're armies tend to have lots of models covering the board.

If you want to play a long range shooting game then go with Tau and Imperial Guard. If you want a short range firefight army Space Marines (any variety but especially Grey Knights), Sisters of Battle, Necrons, if you want a maneuver game try Eldar or Dark Eldar, or Blood Angels. If you want to run across the board and beat face then run Orks, Tyranids, Blood Angels, or Space Wolves.

The best way to pick an army though is to find one you like the looks of and go with that. If you don't like how the army looks you'll never make any progress in putting together and painting the army.