PLEASE NOTE: Blue Text (for sarcasm) is typically not in play in this thread, because pretty much all of it is sarcasm and/or petty whining about toy soldiers. It's all meant in good humour and none of it should be taken seriously, so please feel free to join in with the banter. :smallsmile:Quote:
Warhammer 40,000 in the Playground
I'm new to the hobby. How do I start?
SpoilerThe best and most obvious way to start is either the Elite- or Command Editions of the starter set. This will get you a solid and relatively cheap start on either an Adeptus Astartes* army, or a Necrons army. If you aren't starting the game with a friend, you can almost always offload the 'other side' that you don't want to recoup some of your money back. If you don't want to play Adeptus Astartes or Necrons, you will almost definitely want to look into Combat Patrol boxes - with a few exceptions.
*Due to how GW uses the same Astartes models across several different Chapters that all play very differently, some of the models will not be suited to the Chapter of Space Marines that you might want to play. Be wary. When buying the starter sets, they really lend themselves towards playing:
- White ScarsAnd are non-specifically 'just okay' when playing with:
- Space Wolves
- Black Templars
- Blood Angels / Flesh Tearers
- Iron HandsGenerally, you'll want to outright avoid buying the starter sets if you play:
- Salamanders
- Raven Guard
- Deathwatch
- Dark Angels
- Imperial- or Crimson Fists
- Ultramarines (yes really)
However, just having models, isn't really enough to play the game. The Core Rules are free and/or downloadable. But the 'main game' is found outside the Core Rules, which means that you're likely going to need to pick up a Rulebook at some point. Unfortunately, only the Command Edition starter comes stock with a Rulebook. So, if you don't end up getting the Command Edition, you'll probably want to spend even more money grabbing a Rulebook, too.
Also, you'll need Terrain. If you don't have terrain on the board, the game vastly swings to playing a certain way, and all other units that don't play that way, are terrible... You don't want that. The Command Edition comes with some not-very-good terrain - but at least it's a start to making your board not just a flat surface.
Additional Resources that you will want:
Battlescribe. Battlescribe is a free App for Mobile and PC (however, you can pay for it to remove ads). It's incredibly useful as it contains all the rules for all your units - including points costs. This greatly increases your ability to play the Matched Play version of 40K, as all's you need to do is plug the units you have, into the App, and you get given an army list complete with rules. However, do be aware that in the real world, when playing a real game, most people don't want to read rules from your phone - however, running it from a tablet, or printing it out, is almost always accepted. Battlescribe is for you, not for your opponents.
[Faction] Datacards. If you don't have a Codex, well, Battlescribe doesn't have rules for Stratagems. Your Faction's Datacards provide all the rules you need to run your chosen Factions' Stratagems and Psychic Powers. However, do be aware that it's really simple to just make your own, as well as print out cards with reminders for all your Characters' abilities that you might forget.
Open War Mission Pack. Open War is exceptionally useful for newer players as it gives you rules for Missions you can play, without having to buy the rulebook. Because of the random nature of the cards - like Maelstrom - you can have a variety of experiences depending on how the cards draw. The rules for Open War also allow for what happens when player has more Points or higher Power Rating than their opponent. Which can sometimes act as a balancing factor. However, those 'extra rules' can be very swingy depending on the units or army you have, so the better idea is to simply try and even out the points costs and ignore those rules. :smallamused:
While Open War cards aren't required to play the game (GW offers the Core Rules for free), they will give you a decent experience of the game until you can get your hands on the rulebook and/or the most current edition of Chapter Approved.
Spin-down Dice. What? :smallconfused: Okay, Magic: The Gathering (and others, but M:TG is the most obvious) produces spin-down d20s. These are d20s where the numbered sides are consecutively next to each other, which makes them incredibly useful as Wound counters, Victory Point and Command Point trackers, additionally, they can't be accidentally picked up when you need more d6s to roll. They come in several different colours, just in case. GW themselves, sells 'Wound Trackers', but, they are in fact, just regular d10s and not quite what you want.
...Points? ...Power Rating? What's the difference?
SpoilerBoth units of measurement are ways of keeping the game balanced. If one player's army is vastly superior to their opponent's, that's not a very fair game, is it? If you think that you're just going to 'put down everything you have on the table', well, that might work for smaller games. But once you get larger collections, what you have, and what your opponent has, may be very different collections and just...No.
Power Rating. Power Rating is the easiest method to play the game. Your unit is always Rated the same, regardless of what wargear it has. Whether your model has a Chainsword, or Thunder Hammer, still costs the same. This makes it incredibly easy to make army lists because you just put down your unit without regards to wargear. However, if everything costs the same, then the Good Stuff, costs exactly the same as the Bad Stuff, so why isn't everyone taking the Good Stuff all the time? Power Rating is incredibly abusable and all's it takes it a slight desire to start winning games and then the whole thing is ruined.
Points.; Points are exclusively found in your Factions' Codecies, Chapter Approveds (and Battlescribe). The way this works, is that everything has a points cost - even wargear. This means that Bad Stuff costs less points, whilst Good Stuff, costs more points. So, if you - or your opponents - want to start winning games, they're even further limited in what they can take. This is vastly more fair than using Power Rating to decide how to build your army. You're going to want to pick up the most recent edition of Chapter Approved, which GW releases annually. Which is the downside. In order to keep it fair, points need to keep being re-balanced. :smallfrown:
So, what's a good start then?
SpoilerStater Editions
[INDENT]- Recruit Edition.
- Elite/Command Edition.
[COLOR="#B22222"]Start Collecting!s and Combat Patrols
To be updated.
SC! - Astra Militarum. Not good.
SC! - Militarum Tempestus. Good.
SC! - Adeptus Mechanicus. Fine.
CP - Blood Angels. Good. Even for non-Blood Angels.
CP - Deathwatch. Decent...But not for Deathwatch.
CP - Space Wolves. Decent...Even for non Space Wolves.
SC! - Space Marines. Very bad.
SC! - Vanguard Space Marines. Decent.
SC! - Chaos Space Marines. Decent.
SC! - Daemons of Khorne. Fine.
SC! - Daemons of Nurgle. Good.
SC! - Daemons of Slaanesh. Good.
SC! - Daemons of Tzeentch. Fine.
SC! - Thousand Sons. Good.
SC! - Craftworlds. Bad.
SC! - Drukharii. Not good.
SC! - Genestealer Cults. Fine.
SC! - Orks. Fine.
SC! - T'au Empire. Good...For T'au.
SC! - Tyranids. Good.
Terrain - you mentioned it before. Talk about it, now.
SpoilerTerrain...Is good. It slows down Melee armies from destroying you on Turn 1 or 2, and it increases your defense against Shooting attacks so you don't automatically lose on Turn 1 against a gunline. Wargaming terrain is an extremely fun hobby project where you can find hundreds of tutorials online to scratch-build almost anything you want. If you want to be even more creative than that, you can even theme your terrain to your army!
A good rule of thumb is that anywhere between 33% and 50% of your table space should be covered in terrain.
Not only that, but you'll also want (trust us) terrain with the Obscuring and Dense terrain rules (in the Core Rulebook). It's also a good idea to create terrain that partially blocks Line of Sight. That is, some of the terrain, you can't see through, but other parts, you can. A good example of this might be a shelled-out Ruin. Where the foundations of the Building are intact, and thus, built like a wall. While the upper levels of the Building have been hit by explosive attacks like an air raid, and thus the walls are not so intact and you can see through them.
If your community has a gaming hub (such as a gaming store, or club), if those places are any good, they should have enough terrain for all of their gaming tables, and you don't really need to worry about this. If your local hub doesn't have enough terrain for its tables - or its terrain is just...Bad, and for example, doesn't block LoS - see if you can get involved in your community and organise a terrain building hobby day, or a challenge month or something, where terrain made is donated to the hub. More, better and diverse terrain in your hub benefits everybody, and your community manager should be on board for such an idea.
Obviously, you can simply just buy Games Workshop terrain. But then you kind of only get to use what they can sell you, and it gets very expensive. If that's what you want, well, it's less work than making your own terrain, that's for sure.
I've heard about Crusade. What's that about?
SpoilerCrusade is a way of 'gamifying' how you build and progress your army, as you play more and more games. This keeps you invested in the idea of playing games, and staying in the hobby. The idea that you have or will develop a personal stake in your army and your collection, will make it less likely for you to abandon the hobby, as opposed to playing a few games and then quitting once you get bored and/or lose your first few games and realise that the game/hobby isn't for you.
Pros. You develop a personal attachment to your army, as the Crusade format uses RPG-like mechanics to drive the impression that you are collecting and building your army.
Cons. There are strict zero-sum rules in how you can build your collection. Sometimes this might feel like you have no control over what you buy, because you'll only be allowed to use what the format lets you use.
This is so expensive!
Spoiler...It is. You'll be wanting to make sure that you get a lot of games and get the most out of your hobby that you possibly can. Sorry. There's just no way around it.
Wait...So you weren't kidding, there actually is 'Bad Stuff' in the game?
SpoilerUnfortunately...Yes. The good news is, what's bad or good, depends on your meta. It's always useful to check out what other players are playing, and build to your meta.
Build to my meta?
SpoilerWhat works for someone on the other side of the world, or Hell, just 200kms north of you, might not work for you, because their local meta, is different to yours. The only person who truly knows what you need to buy for your army, is you, and you only learn that, by talking and engaging with your other local players. Of course, you can build to the meta, and run some or all of the best units in the game. But, if your meta is even slightly reasonable, there's a good chance that you don't need - or probably even want - to run the best units in the game because your opponents don't play their armies that way.
...But, of course, they might, too.
So what am I here for?
SpoilerOther perspectives and opinions. A lot of people play the game a certain way that they enjoy - it's a hobby, after all. That means that even if you talk to people in your meta, the advice you get given will only be relevant to their skill ceiling and knowledge base. If no-one in your meta plays Necrons, it's probably fair to say that not many people in your meta have experience playing with or against Necrons, and thus, their advice will be limited. There's a chance that you could ask everyone in your meta for advice, and get no helpful directions.
It's also pretty fair that if you ask your opponents how to beat them, they're not going to tell you - why would they? It's also pretty fair that if you're asking your local store manager how to build an army, that your manager will make recommendations that end up with you spending the most money possible. It's a ****ty thing to do, but it is realistic.
Mostly, the internet is for looking for competitive advice. If you are looking to win games, the internet will tell you how. Mostly, the internet will talk about the meta. That is, objectively, there are units in the game that are more suited to playing to the win conditions of the game, than other units. Internet discussion usually revolves around either taking those units, or taking units that counter those units, sometimes with a third 'meta-buster' build that is reasonably good against the unit and counter-unit.
Now, if your meta, doesn't have people running those units, then talking about the meta, only goes so far. However, even taking 'sub-optimal' units, can still win games. A unit that's rated 8/10 is still pretty good, even if it's not 'the best' and will still cause problems given the chance.
If you're having fun, playing what you want to play...Then talk about that.
So can I take sub-optimal units that I like the look of, and still win games?
SpoilerThat's the elephant in the room...And the answer, at best, is only 'Maybe.'
If having fun and doing hobby is what you care about, no-one can tell you how to have fun. No-one can tell you not to have fun - especially if you don't know them 'cause they're some dude on the internet and who cares what they think anyway? If you're having fun doing whatever it is you're doing, then you keep doing it. If, by some miracle, you're winning games while also taking like, units rated 5/10, 4/10 or worse, then who cares? You're playing with models you want, and you're winning games. Keep doing exactly what you're doing.
If the units or models you like are Not Good, and potentially contributing to you losing every game - and that matters to you. Well, that sucks. The units you like, are bad, they don't perform, and you have to buy new models. What you have doesn't work, you should probably replace it. Or, at the very least start cutting up the models you do have and start giving them new wargear. Everyone understands that this feeling sucks, and it sucks even harder that you've potentially wasted a lot of money. That's why making sure you know what you want to buy, before you buy it, is so important. That being said, GW can just nerf what you like into the ground and then what do you do?
At the end of the day, the important point you should know is that 'I want to have fun,' and 'I want to have fun...And win games,' are quite often different conversations.
So, are some Factions are better overall than others?
SpoilerAgain, the answer is 'maybe', or 'kind of' or 'it depends'. Any Faction can win games, provided that the player takes the right units, in the right combination, and then makes the right choices during the game. No matter who your opponents are, the rules and win conditions of the game, are still the same. Any given unit is be more- or less-suited to winning games than any other unit. Which means there are definitely some sub-optimal and outright wrong choices you can make, when making your army.
Factions aren't bad. Units are bad. Many bad units in combination, make a bad army. But that doesn't mean the Faction is bad, necessarily. It just means that in any given Codex or Supplement, the Faction might have less 'good units' in it, than another Faction, which means that in order to win games - or sometimes even play games to a reasonable standard - your army must include a number of specific options and choices.
The more 'must-have' and 'auto-include' units your Faction has, the worse it is, as you - the player - are given less choices and less agency in what goes into your army. If your meta is full of people who are playing cutting edge, top of the meta lists, there's a pretty good chance that you wont be able to just put down any unit you like and still have a good game...And that sucks.
I can't paint.
SpoilerLike any skill worth having, you get better if you practice. 90% of a good paint job is just brush control - how much paint you put on your brush and where you put it. The other 10% is just colour theory (yeah, it's a thing). The most important tool this author has is a $5 Colour Wheel. :smallwink:
Wraith has put together how you can go about Painting your army without losing your mind.
WarhammerTV (YouTube) has several beginner guides on how to paint almost any model that GW sells. Other YouTube channels also do painting tutorials, there are a whole bunch of blogs that also occasionally talk about how they painted their models. If you want to learn how to paint something specific, there's almost definitely a guide for it, somewhere.
If you want to get better at painting, full stop:
a) Make sure you have different sized paint brushes for different tasks - not every brush is useful, all the time.
b) Develop your fine motor skills. It takes practice. You wont be good at it for a while. Don't worry about bad paint jobs. When you get better, just strip them.
GW also has a Contrast Paint range, which is very helpful for getting people who don't want to paint, to paint. If painting for you is too hard, or too time-consuming, then make sure to look those up. Though, there are a number of stories where at the higher end of the painting scale, when you start getting good, Contrast Paints don't actually save you time, and are harder to use than normal paints (e.g; Once you learn drybrushing, it is both quicker and easier than Contrast).
Here are a number of Guides put together by the GitP 40K Community...
Helpful Army Building Guides
SpoilerGuides to Space Marines (Adeptus Astartes):
Detachment and Army Abilities - Core Units and Characters - Non-Core Units
- Ultramarines - Rapid Fire and Assault weapons
- White Scars - Melee and Assault weapons, favours Bikes, but not really.
- Iron Hands - Heavy weapons, favours Vehicles, but not really.
- Deathwatch - Anything you want
- Blood Angels - Melee weapons, favours Jump Packs.
Crusade Guides
All of the following use 8th Ed. books, but are currently out of date.
Adeptus Custodes Out of date
Adeptus Mechanicus Out of date
Astra Militarum by LeSwordfish Out of date
Chaos Space Marines by LeSwordfish Out of date
Craftworlds by Forum Explorer Out of date
Dark Angels Out of date
Death Guard by LeSwordfish Out of date
Drukhari by Gauntlet Out of date
Grey Knights Out of date
Necrons by Requizen Out of date
Thousand Sons by Wraith Out of date
Index: Inquisition (White Dwarf, Nov '19) Out of date
Index: Officio Assassinorum (White Dwarf, Mar '19) Out of date
Index: Sisters of Silence (White Dwarf, Oct '19) Out of date
Previous conversations to search through...
Previous Threads
Spoiler* Warhammer 40K Tactics
* II: Tactics for the Tactics God
* III: Hats for the Hat Throne
* IV: The Enemy of Your Enemy is Still Your Enemy.
* V: Everyone Is On Fire. Some Moreso Than Others.
* VI: Chaos Bringing Eternal Darkness? I brought my flashlight.
* VII: Common Sense is not RAW.
* VIII: You're Gonna have To Face It, You're Addicted To Maths
* IX: "Mech Is King? I Never Voted For It!"
* X: "Everybody expects the Inquisition!"
* XI: "More Threads than your Tactical Squad has Room for!"
* XII: "Now in Rapid Fire range!"
* XIII: "Ironclads, Furiosos and Soul Grinders, oh my!"
* XIV: "Pray for 6s!"
* XV: "More People Should Be Punched In The Head."
* XV: "Terminator? I hardly know 'er!"
* XVII: "Tyranids Don't Have Friends."
* XVIII: "Fortune Favours the Careless!"
* XIX: Understand the Gravity of the Situation
* XX: Barrage is the new Precision Shot
* XXI: Preferred Enemy (Dice)
* XXII: I C'Tan Has Cheese?
* XXIII: I Do Not Like Green Tides and 'Hann
* XXIV: ...And They Shall Know No Fluff.
* XXV: Friends Are Better Than Wraithknights
* XXVI: Frequently Asked, Frequently Ignored
* XXVII: Tyranids Finally Found a Friend
* XXVIII: Drasius Can't Have Nice Things
* XXIX: Ro, Ro, Ro Your Boute
* XXX: Imperium After Dark
* XXXI: Haters Gonna Burn
* XXXII: I Got 99 Guardsmen and Morale Killed One
* XXXIII: Only in Nerf Does Duty End
* XXXIV: Situation Normal, All FAQ'd Up
* XXXV: 4 Pages of Rules, 46 Pages of Pointless Bickering
* XXXVI: If it Ain't Broke, Nerf It
* XXXVII: Highlighting the Contrasts
* XXXVIII: toy soldiers r srs bsns
* XXXIX: Miracle on 39th Thread
* XL: Bloated Rules
* XLI: Secondary Opinions
* Thread XLII: The Dice Makes Fools of Us All
* Warhammer 40K Tabletop Thread XLIII: "This Is A New LoW For Us All"
Here's a bunch of Battle Reports for you to read. Plenty of army lists in there.
Last time on 40k-in-the-Playground
- In the grim-darkness of the... immediate... future, there is only culture war! By which we mean, Custodes have ruined everything, for everyone, forever. Or like, a month for some jerks on Twitter, maybe?
- The revenge of the Squats! What is YOUR favourite model that got crushed into obsolescence beneath the ruthless heel of capitalism?
- ACTUAL painting projects! In a 40k Thread! Who'da thunk it?
We now return to your regularly scheduled grim-darkness.
