Topic: Help me decide!

[Drakehound]

So...been reading into Chaos. Iv scrapped up 2000 pts of IG and that is enough for now because of where I play. Now it on to the dark side. (evil laugh here)

Now, looking at the codex, I have decided to take one of the specialized legions (because I hardly use the default. It was a tough choice to go 'nilla Guard >_<) but I am not decided yet. So far I am down too...

Khorn...Reason: Easy paint jobs, awesome models, stupid powerful.
Tzzench...Reason: Easy paint jobs, pychers, challenging.
World Bearers...Reason: Easy pain jobs (see a pattern here? =P), daemons! access to ALL daemons!, the corrupted chaplain is a nice touch.

So...can anyone give me some advice on what I should pick up?

EDIT: spelling

[Just Charles]

Welcome to the Realms of Chaos!

I'll give you a brief overview on all the legions, but be advised that one of the stickies already contains a significant amount of information on this topic. And BTW: If you like easy paintable models, Iron Warriors with their flat surfaces might be interesting.

Black Legion: All options open, and even ancient enemies will fight side by side under the command of an Undivided General.
-Strengh: Versatility
-Weakness: Versatility (with so many options, it's often hard to decided what you want to field)

Alpha Legion: Shooty, Infiltration experts, adept at attacking from multiple directions
-Strengh: Infiltration, Cultists, numbers
-Weaknesses: Icons only for cultists, no specialist marks

Iron Warriors: shooty, Siege Specialists, Heavy weapon freaks
-Strengh: additional Siege weaponry, firepower, easy paint job
-Weaknesses: no specialist marks, no daemons

Night Lords: Shooty, nightfight and assault specialists
-Strengh: Stealth Adept, Night fight, additional assault choices
-Weaknesses: no Daemons (except furies), (IMHO) no clear differences to Black Legion

Word Bearers: Demagogues commanding masses of troops
-Strengh: additional troop choices, specialist wargear for HQ
-Weaknesses: no clear advantages over Black Legion

Now to the Armies of the Gods. All of them have, in addition to the specified weaknesses, the following disadvantages:
-Restricted Units (Obliterators, Raptors, etc.)
-Expensive pointwise (19+ Pts for a basic trooper)

World Eaters: Choppy, crazed maniacs
-Strengh: Strong in melee
-Weaknesses: Weak at shooting, not that much superior in assaults, difficult to control units (blood frenzy)

Death Guard: rotten, diseased Plague Marines
-Strengh: Resilience, Strong at close-medium ranges
-Weaknesses: No heavy weapons for troopers

Emperor's children: Hedonistic perfectionists
-Strengh: Shooty and choppy, Sonic Weaponry
-Weaknesses: expensive pointwise (when specialised)

Thousand Sons: Powerful sorcerers accompanied by powerful grunts
-Strengh: Strong psykers, Resilient Grunts,
-Weaknesses: lack of weapon options, expensive pointwise

Ok, that's it. Just pick whatever Legion you like, but make sure you'll take a look at the stickied post about the Legions, so you'll get a second opinion.

[CD]

Well, of the three you listed, you first misconception is about Khorne. Khorne is not stupid powerful as many people seem to think. World Eaters players themselves tend to trick themselves into thinking that Khorne is powerful, in denial that they spent so much money on it. In reality they can be pretty easily destroyed against any opponent who knows what they're doing, and their close combat capability isn't nearly as good as you'd think. Plaguemarines are a few percent off for close combat efficiency (assuming no post-combat casualties, which the zerks will more likely have), and plaguemarines have bolters. And they can control where they walk, and use special weapons. True Grit helps too. I'm not saying that you should use Nurgle, I'm just saying that for the most part, Khorne is very hard to play well. Anyone can throw together a bunch of berzerkers and a daemon prince/bloodthirster, but I've beaten back armies like that too many times to mistake them as powerful.

Just thought I'd clear that up before you got started.

As per usual, anyone heavily opposed to my ideas on Khorne can PM me, unless you're so passionate about it that you want this young fellow to start a khornate army as well, in which case post, by all means.

Word Bearers and Tzeentch are nice choices though. Thousand Sons are slowly becoming a more popular choice due to their close combat capability, though if you want to make a more traditional shooty, sorceror based thousand son army, you might be able to surprise people and throw them off (most 1K sons win through the use of hidden powerfists, though such a tactic tends to be widely expected these days). Word Bearers are very fluffy, and if you like daemons they're certainly good with that. The tainted Chaplain is a really appealing fluff feature of them, which makes it a very enticing choice.

Unless you've started considering other legions since you first posted, I suggest keeping realms of thought to Word Bearers and Thousand Sons. WBs are very underplayed, so it would be fun and slightly more original to do an army with them, though Thousand Sons are a tough and rewarding force to field as well.

[Drakehound]

So, if I was thinking of Khrone because of CC ability, would Nurgle be a better choice?

[CD]

I find Nurgle and Slaanesh to be the best in terms of overall power. Both have great shooting capability and close combat-related abilities, with slightly different orientations. They're not "sit-and-shoot" armies like Tau or certain kinds of Imperial Guard/Iron Warriors, but they're also not "I run at you and shoot into the air, ug ug ug" armies like World Eaters or Orks. Nurgle and Slaanesh run at you to kill you in close combat, but they shoot on the way. They also make excellent defenders against such "ug ug ug" armies, since they can just sit back and shoot, and once the close combat starts, they've got pretty good CC ability, and the other army is worn down by fire.

So yeah, if you wanted to do something for close combat, I'd say Nurgle or Slaanesh over Khorne. Slaanesh requires more versatile troop selection to work (which is why comparing a noisemarine to a berzerker or plaguemarine doesn't work out so well), but Nurgle is very horde-based unless you want to make use of transports for your shooty squads, so lots of basic plaguemarines does it. I find Death Guard close combats to be quite humorous actually. Against defensive force,s I tend to lose 25-50% of my force on the run up there, and then get locked in close combat for one to as many as ten turns (ten's my endurance record). Your forces are so tough that people have a hard time eating through them, while your Aspiring Champions rip them apart, nurglings biting at your opponent's shins the whole time.