Narrowed down to 4 choices.

[Virus49]

Hi there, im looking to start collecting an army. Both for a hobby and some competition.

Forgive me as I havent narrowed it down much...

I like armies that look smooth on the battlefield. First leading me to armies like space marines, tau, eldar and to an extent the imperial guard and necrons (still smooth and quite easy to paint by my standards)

I dislike armies full of skin such as the orks, the chaos daemons and the kroot section of the tau. It just doesnt have the look I like about it. And is more difficult to paint at the moment.

As for tactics in battle. It would be nice to crush the enemy quickly. To take down enemy units before they can even touch me. Accuracy therefore is high priority. Is it true that the tau have HORRIBLE shooting skills?

Variety is also nice to have. Not in the look of the army, because I like a bit of uniform about it. But strategy, necrons here fall down a bit. Not much unit variety therefore there isnt much you can do that deviates from standard. Whereas with other armies there are masses of different units to use/change through. However I prefer ranged combat to close combat.

I have completely ruled out daemonhunters, orks, witch hunters, dark eldar, tyranids and the forces of chaos. And would rather not go for space marines unless I was convinced by a fantastic argument. As for eldar... dawn of war managed to single handedly put me off them. Just the whole farseer future stuff amongst other parts of the story make me unimpressed. Nothing like the hammer of the emperor. The angels of death. The armies of death and the expansion (join us or die policy) of the greater good.

This leaves me with

Necrons
Tau
Imperial Guard
and possibly the space marines.

Can anybody offer advice and a suggested race?

[Orkbert]

Well, the Tau are not exactly bad at shooting: With BS3 for most of the Units they are as good (or bad ) as regular Imperial Guard, it's more the equipment that makes the difference: The regular Lasgun looks a bit bleak against the Pulse Rifle which has more punch than a Bolter (and better range, too! Which is quite a boon).
Furthermore, some Tau units can move after shooting, thus enforcing your aspect of whittling down your Opponent before he can close in.

My two cents would be: Do the Greater Good and choose Tau! Since yer dun wanna take propa Orks anyways

[Typhoon Jetson]

You said you were considering an army that you can use for competition?

Imperial Guard (love them or hate them) just got a new codex and it was solid. but with all the flesh you would have to paint (they dont really wear masks too much) and just the sheer(?) number of models you need to paint could be a consideration.

Necrons are not particularly competitive at the moment (my oppinion) but can look really nice with a legion of gleaming warriors on the board

Tau are still competitive, and have a nice look but they only play half the battle. They are a ranged exclusive race and have serious problems with melee.

My suggestion (its not worth much, i cant seem to sell them ) Is perhaps a Space Marine chapter? the Dark Angels or Black Templars might be an idea!

Welcome to the hobby btw