8th Ed. Which 40K army do you enjoy collecting and why?

Imperial Guard. Main reason is tanks. I love tanks and they have lots, and big ones. Also big guns like the Basilisk. Back in my day these used to require range estimates to fire. I got pretty good at doing these estimates. It was about the only thing I was good at when it came to actually playing the game

 

Yes I missed this thread too! It's funny because I'm having very similar thoughts. Old world games are hard to get in my area and I might need to jump to 40K at some point. I agree with scalenex nearly 100% on his takes on lore. White scars are also my favourite. Comments around Eldar are accurate although I'd add that the Ynarri look very unique and interesting and I'd love GW to flesh them out more. Not as big of a fan of necrons but they are alright.

I'm glad KA just mentioned the Grey Knights, they are up there for me. And scalenex (and me) have pointed out how cool psychic armies are, although I understand 10th has cut down on the enjoyment of this.

However after spending a month or so reading lore and battle reports and generally thinking, I'm leaning towards Thousand Sons. They are unique in my meta, apparently no one plays them as a first army. Psychic heavy and I like the sculpts. And I really like the Lore. Magnus was arrogant, not evil. The emperor failed him many times over. Then he made bad choices, but even now the imperium treats their psykers like slave garbage, so how could they be loyal even if they wanted to. (I studied for 6 months in Latvia and I remember their history museums talking about how they initially loved the Nazis for invading their country in WW2 because of how bad it was under the Soviets who invaded a few years beforehand.) And tzeentch is the most interesting of the chaos gods.

My biggest issue is apparently the army book is really outdated and narrow in meta, but they are due a new one mid 2025 so the guessing goes. So I'll keep painting my lizardmen and see what happens. Could also be tempted by Ynarri but seems unlikely GW will go all out on them.

 

40K is how much money you spend if you collect Orks or Imperial Guard

...and I have both.

I have been playing my Skaviir Dominion army (Imperial Guard rules for a Xenos or Traitor Guard army) in some way, shape, or form, since 1992. They were Skaven in the Rogue Trader rulebook back in the day, then basic Imperial Guard in 2nd/3rd edition, then Lost and the Damned when the Eye of Terror codex came out, then a Vraks Traitor army when Forge World bought that out. When 8th edition came out, the Vraks Traitors weren't viable anymore, as they never got Objective Secured. If you don't know what that means, you're not missing anything. Let's just say it was very hard to win anything at the time. I got fed up, and a friend pointed out that I was playing them more like loyalist Guard than Traitor Guard, so I went back to using those rules. I love tanks, I love Sentinels, I love the feel of a massed infantry gunline. I love that they're not superhumans, but normal people trying to survive in a harsh, unforgiving future. Also tanks. Did I mention tanks? TAAAAAAAAAANKS.


RATGURLS UNZ PANZER!!!

The problem is, Orks? Honestly, that is probably what I SHOULD have been running, all along. I ran my space rat-guard for 30+ years, I've been using Orks for, hmm, 6 or so, but my win record with Orks is about 40% vs my 15% win record with my spess rats.

Orks are simple. You yell WAAAAGH!!! and charge them into melee. Orks die? You don't care, throw more orks into the melee. Orks don't shoot well, but grots do, and I love me some kitbashed/scratchbashed Grot Tanks:



I like my rats, but there is something simple and fun about Orks. You know what is awesome about Orks? Pretty much every vehicle kit GW makes is an Ork kit with a little bit of kitbashing. Seriously, EVERY. ONE. OF. THEM.

I've got about 2500 points of Skaviir, and if I combine my three Ork sub-armies, I'm sitting closer to 4000 points of Orks. I love both. Guard are fun to make up lore and stories for. Orks are just fun to play. I've tried almost every 40K army GW makes over the years (except 'nids and the new Votann), and I keep going back to Guard and Orks. That should tell you something, but I'm not sure what.

 

When I got into 40k back in 2002, I pretty much jumped into playing Space Marines and Imperial Guard, the former because it was my first army and the latter because I was a bit of a "tread-head" at the time (I was already building and painting scale model tanks and aircraft long before I got into Warhammer). I still retain models to those two starting collections as relics of sorts, including a Baneblade and a couple of Leman Russ hulls (one's done up with a Stygies-Pattern Vanquisher cannon, the other is an Exterminator converted using a turret from a LAV-AT kit).

After a bit of a hiatus following the release of 6th Ed, I got back into 40k near the end of 7th Ed, at which point I considered picking up IG again, this time actually working on an army project for a change. Unfortunately, rules updates going into 8th Ed pretty much neutered the idea of doing anything vehicle-related in that system, and as such I wound up picking up Horus Heresy instead back in 2015.

Since then, I've been building up a Salamanders army that in the context of the game is about 5000pts total (inflated to possibly 6000pts in 40k equivalent, even after accounting for Vulkan and a Fellglaive super-heavy tank). Not to be outdone, I also recently got to working on a Luna Wolves army for the same game, currently amounting to about 3250-3500pts worth of models (including a Xiphon interceptor and Fire Raptor gunship). The goal with both armies is to reflect different playstyles within the same general range - my Salamanders are a mechanized army first and foremost, while my Luna Wolves are more or less light infantry commandos with air support.

I still dabble in 40k from time to time to test the waters for army ideas, but I haven't really bothered playing with anything since moving over to Heresy. The last time I did though, it was 2022, and I ported as much of my Salamanders to a legal firstborn-only 2000pt list in 9th that gave a prospective Aeldari tournament player a run for their money.

 

I've always wanted to kit bash an ork tank. I'd get an Eldar fire prism and a cigarette lighter, then carefully burn a massive chunk out of the side. Get some of my kids LEGO wheels and glue them on, and paint orky. So it looks like a salvage job. Haha