Which 40K race do you side with?

[TurboPanda]

I've always liked the Tau as they are the the least flawed of all the races.

My favourite has to be chaos though. Who needs Baneblades when you have demonic creatures of the warp?

 

[Triangulon]

I have always been a staunch supporter of the Iron Warriors. Great backstory and a good niche too. Stuck with them through thick and thin. I could even paint them! I also liked the fact that they had a legitimate reason for loosing it and falling to chaos. I also made a kick ass vindicator/leman russ hybrid which suited them down to the ground.

Iron within. Iron without!

I take it that you've read that Iron Warriors novel, "Storm of Iron" by McNeill?

Great book. One of my favourites of the black library. I keep hoping for a Horus Herasy Iron Warriors book.

 

[Triangulon]

I have always been a staunch supporter of the Iron Warriors. Great backstory and a good niche too. Stuck with them through thick and thin. I could even paint them! I also liked the fact that they had a legitimate reason for loosing it and falling to chaos. I also made a kick ass vindicator/leman russ hybrid which suited them down to the ground.

Iron within. Iron without!

Hm... what reason would that be, other than "No fair, the Imperial Fists get all the glory while we get none, boo-hoo"!

The only guys with a valid reason to turn to Chaos are the Alpha Legion (destroy Chaos from within) and maybe the Thousand Sons (warn the Emperor of the Heresy while accidentaly destroying his way into the Eldar webway).

They didn't just want glory! Also recognition for the lives lost slumming it in the trenches while the Fists sat and polished their horrible yellow armour The seige of the emperor's palace proved who was better at siege warfare anyway.

I agree about the Alpha Legion and Thousand Sons. Have you read Legion? Kick ass.

 

[Mcface]

Crush the Heretics with our righteous assault rifles!

 

[SuccessAndBiscuts]

The Dark Angels Chapter of Space Marines
'Never rest until the last of the fallen is slain'
My tabletop army fought a shit load of chaos, never did find any fallen though

Spoiler

They were my first 40k army and ive always had a soft spot for them.

Really I think all the races are interesting, that being said if I ever get back into the tabletop game I might well end up going Tau.

 

[Iwata]

Eldar.
While they're overlooked, or at least in this thread, I absolutely adore the Seer Council. They'd rip apart infantry.

Of course, W40k wasn't an infantry game, really. It was a vehicle one, and it made me sad to see such elite forces ripped apart by Land Raiders |:

Try playing it now. 5th edition is all about the troops.

 

[Legend of J]

Space wolves lol but mainly the eye of terror ones i loved there armour where it was pieced together from chaos and there own. But i did like the nurgle hords.

 

[Joos]

Tau. I just love the 70ies inspired scifi style. Second to that, the egypt/inca inspired necrons.

 

[KarumaK]

The winners.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Eldar is the only race I can really root for. Chaos, Orks, Tyranids, Necrons and Dark Eldar all represent the "bad guys" in my mind seeing as they are the races that fight for a cause other than simple survival. The Imperium has long since lost any shred of humanity they once sought to protect and persist simply through sheer weight in firepower. The Tau clearly guard some dark secret because NOBODY in the 40K universe can be as nice as they appear to be (my bet lies in Chaos influence at the highest ranks). This leaves the Eldar.

While any of the non "bad guy" races stares utter doom in the face from day to day, for the Eldar it is more or less a reality offset only through millenia of machinations. They never fight a war for any reason save prolonging their own species and the end they forsee is almost certainly worse than that in store for any of the rest. They fight a hopeless battle not for their mortal lives but for the very survival of their souls against chaos. Unlike the imperium, Eldar aren't given the privledge of simply being enslaved by the Dark Gods and face metaphysical extinction. In spite of a truly desperate struggle, their warrior still stand resolute, knowing that if they fall to any of their more hated enemies even their souls will be spent.

 

[Jesus Phish]

On the table top I play Necrons, same for DOW 1.

DoW2 I play space marines and orks.

If I was to play any branch of the Imperium of Man, it would be Imperial Guard. They're the true heros of man, not those wussy space marines running around on steriods in their mega armour of wuss.

I wouldn't touch chaos, just because from reading books, they're too religious and zealot for my liking.

wait, chaos is too religious? while the spess mehreens purge entire planets because the emperor decreed the planet had turned to heresy?

OT: necrons ^^ the whole undead-but-robots appeals to me, and i love the monolith in dawn of war.

I agree with you about the spaz marines too, but read Dark Apostle and you'd see what I mean about Chaos being too religious.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Imperial guard .... something uplifting about siding with regular humans. Trained barely, given little support, equipped poorly .... yet expected to take on the worst of the worst across the galaxy.

A single guardsman may be poorly equipped (per the standards of the galalaxy - in modern terms a guardsman is better equipped and trained than any other infantryman on the planet), but he has LOTS of friends. The strength of the Guard lies not in the individual but in the crushing weight in firepower at their disposal.

And, what is often forgotten when the space marines around is that any given chapter of the Emperor's Finest is utterly incapable of winning a large scale war on it's own. With only a thousand men and a few dozen vehicles at their disposal, the best they can do is play the deciding factor in critical battles. At the end of the day, winning a war in the 40k Universe means someone has to hold the line, some unlucky bastard has to play anvil to the hammer and that duty falls almost entirely to the men and women of the guard.

Honestly, they are the only part of the Imperium armies that are even the least bit interesting. The Space Marines have surpassed virtually all human limitation - they are far stronger, faster, more resliant and fear nothing (even terrible, terrible death). The Guard consists of nothing but men and women, unaugmented with all the flaws and failings of the human condition. All they have to carry them through another day is firepower and the simple courage born from utter desperation. While I would never intentionally join the guard (not that it would be a choice), you must at least respect them. Even though you have billions of comrads at your back, you are still utterly alone on the battlefield of the far future. And the future is a very scary place.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Submunition shot from a rail gun = large template blast, versus guardsmen that equals about a whole squad dead in one shot. GG

But there are more where those came from. And Emperor forbid I'm taking Col. Chenkov with his "Human Wave" rule.

What's that? You just killed an entire platoon of guardsmen? Well, here's another at no extra cost.

Oh, you killed those too?

Well, here's another.

And so on, and so on...

I call this technique "Hyper-Sniping" Just get 1 Long Range guy 2 or 3 vehicles and a few mid-range squads, just attack from afar until you're winner.

You know that the Guard can sling just as much firepower RIGHT back don't you? And you are aware there are MORE of them to lose? Really, the ONE army you DON'T want to slug it out with at range IS the guard - it's what they do and they're damn good at it.

 

[Arashiofordo3]

Eldar is the only race I can really root for. Chaos, Orks, Tyranids, Necrons and Dark Eldar all represent the "bad guys" in my mind seeing as they are the races that fight for a cause other than simple survival. The Imperium has long since lost any shred of humanity they once sought to protect and persist simply through sheer weight in firepower. The Tau clearly guard some dark secret because NOBODY in the 40K universe can be as nice as they appear to be (my bet lies in Chaos influence at the highest ranks). This leaves the Eldar.

While any of the non "bad guy" races stares utter doom in the face from day to day, for the Eldar it is more or less a reality offset only through millenia of machinations. They never fight a war for any reason save prolonging their own species and the end they forsee is almost certainly worse than that in store for any of the rest. They fight a hopeless battle not for their mortal lives but for the very survival of their souls against chaos. Unlike the imperium, Eldar aren't given the privledge of simply being enslaved by the Dark Gods and face metaphysical extinction. In spite of a truly desperate struggle, their warrior still stand resolute, knowing that if they fall to any of their more hated enemies even their souls will be spent.

And let's not forget that they're growing a new god in the Infinity Circuit. The Eldar where always among my favorite races in 40K. However despite them being referred to as the ultimate psychics GW has ignored that and given that title to the Space Vikings. I look forward to the day when they'll re-address the balance and re-write the Eldar Psychic powers list.

 

[ChaosReaver]

I think it's rather obvious in my case.

Actually I'm torn between Black Templars and the World Eaters. Night lords come in a close third.

Orks are fun to listen too, but they're not that exciting too me. Imperial Guard is synonymous with "glorified speed bump" in my humble opinion, and the Tau /eldar just seem kinda wimpy physically to me. Although I will admit the necron are pretty bamf.

 

[Darkdestra]

Necrons i use them in the table top along with daemons and eldar

 

[The Forces of Chaos]

What About the Daemons of Chaos? The warp will consume all!

 

[Death_Korps_Kommissar]

Snip

Wow....
That's so insanly implausable it's most likely true!
Hmm this has given me much to ponder over.
I shall debate it with the fine gentlemen at my local gamesworkshop!
Thank you good sir for opening my eyes!

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

snip

Besides, why would you arm your soldiers with flashlights unless you had more flashlight troopers than enemies?

Because those "flashlights" are complex laser weaponry that's easy to manufacture and extremely cheap and pretty much impossible to destroy by wear and tear. They're not the space marines and they can't go lugging around big guns that shoot rockets. They're just humans and they can be outnumbered.

Particularly by Tyranids.

And that complex laser weaponry is S3 AP-.

The Guard can and do get outnumbered by Tyranids and Orks, but that's pretty much it. Plus, neiter of those armies have the kinds of heavy vehicles like the Guard do, so numbers are their biggest strength. The Guard have plenty of options in their armies, but the most common ones I've played against with my Tau use about twice as many troops as I have.

Numbers may not be all the Guard have going for them, but they outnumber enemies more often than not.

The reality of the guard is most of those models are just there as a buffer. The real strength tends to lie in the heavy weapons. This obviously does not include Karskins and the like, who are adequate enough to be used as something other than fodder. It is not weight in numbers that wins the day - sure you CAN have gobs and gobs of troops, but to do so sacrifices all those wonderful heavy weapons you know and love. Morters, autocannons, lascannons, tanks and the like - these are what win the battles. I don't know about anyone else, but I pretty much look at guard squads as extra armor for my tanks unless I desperately need to exploit an opening and don't want to risk my armor to do so.

 

[kiwi_poo]

Necrons, with their guns that provide terrible deaths by de-molecurisation. they're just awesome in every way