Welcome to Gaia! ::

I almost quit as soon as i started, my first purchase ever all those years ago was a box of gaurdians. And I have shakey hands. Me and the glue had quite a few words between eachother after that.

And actually that more than anything is why i switched to Alaitoc...all pewter.

The eldar arent very hard to use at all. Maybe if youre focusing on a heavy theme like an all wraith Iyanden army or something extreme, but otherwise theyre pretty well rounded. I thought they were a very good starting army.

That really applies to any army. Not just the eldar. Anyways, the eldar are very mobile, letting someone new control when and where they involve themselves. Theyre fragile, but no more so than the IG, and the dark eldar are even worse. Also they have a good balance of large infantry, specialist infantry, both shooting and close combat. They have a good range of vehicles to toy with. And hell they even have some very forgiving units like wrathgaurd and wraithlords, high toughness mixed with a 3+ armor.

In general theyre a well runded army allowing for all kinds of play styles and giving their player a good deal of control which will prevent some types of people from getting frustrated.

The only armies I sort of cringe at seeing first timers use are dark eldar and demon hunters. Necrons i think are a bit of a problem too, but in an entirely different way.

I'd also say Necrons since they're easy to build, paint, and play with.

They aren't very complicated, just take them out of the blister pack using clippers or surgical scissors. Then you glue it together and wait a day for it to dry.

As for painting, here's a simple reference chart.

Are your Necron Units....
Are your Necron Units.... Black? Then they're regular Necrons.
Are your Necron Units.... Not Black? Then they're rouge Necrons.
Are your Necron Units.... Damaged horribly from poor removal from the blister pack? Battle damaged Necrons?
Are your Necron Units.... OH GOD WHAT HAPPENED I AM NOT GOOD WITH GLUE AND PAINT? Then they're custom Necrons.

To paint, put the model in black paint with a string and add green dots for eyes. Then put the little green plastic Guass Rifle Rod in.

On the battlefield, even if your Necron warrior dies it has a 25% chance of coming back to life. If you have a resurrection orb with a Necron Lord, the number that can come back and percentage goes up.

If you want to have a rape party, bring a Necron Monolith along ( See above reference on how to paint ). Anything short of Imperial Basilisk Artillery won't stop it, and even then it won't die - it will just land and still be able to fire it's Guass cannons. Don't forget that Necron units can teleport using the Monolith's portal doorway and the Monolith itself can teleport/deepstrike.

That's basically Necrons for you.

If you feel up to the challenge later, you can use a C'Tan to kill all units within a 6" template of the unit, use a flayed one to deep strike and force a morale check wherever it pops up, or a scarab to bring any fallen units back to life and produce swarm upon swarm of scarabs.

Enjoy playing as Necrons.

I never got to choose what my starting army was crying

Necrons from blisters? Are we talking old school metal 'Crons here or do you not know that blisters are the cardboard things with the metal models in them and that plastic models come from sprues?

But I agree, marines are hands down the best starter army, to quote an old red shirt friend: "even retards can win with them" Marines are pretty low on rules, have great stats, need almost zero tactics to be used and can take a severe beating. Necrons are just in need of a codex rewrite, now that Andy is gone the others are cleaning up behind him.

I'm also however leaning toward the orks as a FUN starter army. They also need zero tactics and have a more simple view on the game.

I was referring to the older, ugly Necrons.

The problem with Marines is that they're so mediocre. They're a starter army and for the most part just that. While you could go on to build up your army and add vehicles, etc.. I find that Space Marines tend to lose a lot against non-Space Marine adversaries like Tau and Eldar. You have to start to diversify with your Space Marines and pick a Chapter that you like if you want to start playing against skilled opponents.

Orks are better for later on, simply because you'll have more of other units from different races and can get your loot and kustomizing on better.

I know they're the glory boys, they'll never be obsolete, etc...


BUT

The problem is that so many people play against them that you know what to expect. As a Dark Eldar player, you probably take a few people by surprise.

I find that Marines can't become too diverse as other races such as Eldar do. While you can put a jump pack on them, give Scout Marines a sniper rifle, or get a few Landspeeders going on - Marines have the problem of remaining an assault oriented army.

I know that at least half the people who play probably had a 1,000 or 2,500 Space Marine army at one point and when I go to tournaments the older players usually have them and their pimped out Terminator armor and whatnot.

For me, too many people play them and most of the time I see them being played it's the same old tactics being used. I've seen a cool Dark Angels and Raven Guard strike team, and a guy with a giant Space Wolves attack force in which every squad had a Rhino but they always seem...limited?