40K - Should I .... or not? Where to start?

Well, look at psychic power users this way.

Regular Human: Volatile Tomahawk missile.

Elder: Nuke, without a disarming mechanism.

Ork: Hydrogen bomb with a broken timer.

 

It was definitely quite powerful. One of the most defensively sound tanks in the game. It also allowed you to teleport your troops, and when doing so, you'd get a second "We'll be back" roll, meaning you had a second 50% chance of bringing your fallen troops back from the dead.

 

Tyranid Hive Tyrant: The meteorite that supposedly destroyed the dinosaurs.

Wow - it was better than it is now then. It can still teleport but doesn't give you a second Reanimation Protocols roll. However, there is the Portal of Exile that can suck enemies that attempt to assault it into the portal forever!

 

People say Space Marines are OP basically because of Guilliman at the moment. He's an overpowered/underpriced unit that provides way too many buffs. When you stack those buffs with other units bringing buffs you get a pretty potent spanking platform.

However, you are right. The lists do need a lot of work to get there, most of them need Goldyman... They do have a unit for every situation though, so can get expensive/annoying if you want to change tactics completely or tackle a different type of enemy. They are all rounders and your list generally needs to play to that...

 

Space Marines are an incredibly adaptable army because they have been given the most models by GW...

Dark Eldar have a strong list only on the attack. The trick is to hit them back whenever they hit you so that they die like flies. I played with my Tyranids against my dad's Dark Eldar and although most people say Tyranids always get smashed by DE, that isn't true if you use the right units for the right job. Every time his Kabalites riddles a Carnifex with splinter fire or a unit of Wyches massacres a unit of Hormagaunts in melee, that unit of Kabalites gets eaten by a Hive Tyrant and his Tyrant Guard and the Wyches get blasted apart by a Heavy Venom Cannon. Dark Eldar units are very specialised, like their Craftworld cousins, so you need to hit each unit in a place where it is rubbish, and you can keep the game in the balance. Take Kabalites - they have fearsome shooting but are bad in close combat, while Wyches are fearsome in melee but die very easily even to Tyranid shooting - Termagants are not up to the job here because they have short-ranged weapons but Warriors, Carnifexes with ranged weapons, Tyrannofexes and Exocrines are all very useful against Wyches. Their vehicles are also very lightly armoured, so a Tyrannofex with a Rupture cannon can reliably take one out every turn.

All armies do have a weakness in 40K, although I still play 6th Ed so my view may be a bit outdated. Space Marines' main weakness I believe is that they can be outclassed by units that are better at their chosen field than they are, see @Killer Angel 's "Jack of all Trades" anecdote. For instance, a unit of Terminators can be butchered by a Hive Tyrant if you use the proper AP 2 Bonesword rules because the Tyrant is much faster, although if any survive they can hammer the Tyrant afterwards (but then Tyranids don't fight fairly anyway...). However, where SM do well is that they are reliable - they are decent in everything and can allow players to make mistakes and recover from them. That's probably why GW market them as the beginner's army.

 

Seems pretty accurate, yup.

 

No, from the closest point of the model... I believe there was an FAQ that said the models hull, but could be wrong.

 

In older editions range was measured from the weapon, not the model.

 

Well now a model can shoot behind it that doesn't make sense anymore... Welcome to the future...

 

I saw an ork conversion (must have been an older edition) where the barrel of the weapon was about double the length of the vehicle

Rule shennanigans!

 

Now that Adeptus Custodes are their own army, I wonder if we shall see more Emperor conversions? I saw this one the other day on spikey bits.



Would make a glorious terrain piece.