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I was wondering today how long it takes on average from when someone first says "I think I will buy into this game" to the point where they actually play their first game with their own army.
I just bought my first troops about two weeks ago, thinking "I'll be able to play in two weeks".
Well that passed by and all I have to show for it is one unit of troops assembled and painted.

How long did it take y'all?

a couple of weeks, but that was time spent assembling and painting my first dudes.

Of course I played the LotR SBG before I started 40k so I got hopping pretty quickly.

Well, I first encoutered this hobby in the 90's. I remember seeing a tyrannid screamer killer and genesteeler army versus... someone, I can't remember. I was in love, the bugs were awesome and I always wanted to know more and play, but never had the opportunity until my first game in 2003.

Four months.

Two days

i ve been reading these forums for 4 months and still dont have a thing

It often depends on whether you've got someone to help you and start getting easy learning games against. Even once you've got a two squads assembled you can start with little skirmish games.

I started by reading a TON of battle reports and army building advice online, then bought a bunch of models secondhard online via Bartertown and eBay. It was probably four to five months before I actually arranged to play a game with a friend who had an army, but I jumped right in from there. I think I played maybe three 1000pt skirmishes with him and another friend, then leaped headfirst into a local competitive league at 1500pts (May of '99). I wasn't completely painted or WYSIWYG when I joined, but I worked on that over time. And I've pretty much been playing leagues and tournaments as much as I can ever since.

Around a year.

I learned about the game througha friend who was starting. I started slowly ordering my models, learning about the game, painting and so on. Didn't have a steady group yet.

Got a bit sidetracked due to lack of money and relationship issues, but kept slowly adding to my army, reading reports and other codices. By the time I finally found a large hobby group to have a proper match, all 1500 points of my first army were painted.

I can't even remember my literal first game. But with my orks, it took a month or two. For some people, it takes years and they play one game and that's it.

The first time, when my brother and I started way back in 1993, we were playing pretty much as soon as we got home and put together the armies in the box, bumbling through the rules.

When I got back into the hobby about 2 years ago, it took about a year before I started having games again, mostly due to buying my army a lot slower and wanting to get to 1000pts before I played.

It took me about 1 1/2 to 2 months to get an actual game in. I spent most of that time converting, building and painting my army, while watching the others at the shop play. Jumped right into a tourny and got smeared! I have come a ways since then, still building and painting and learning. I dont get smeared anymore. I actually am scaring some of the others with my growing army.

About 3 months. Somehow I got the idea into my head that I needed to have my entire army painted before I could play. Eventually I got impatient (tyranids can take a while to paint 2000 pts worth) and went to watch a game, and realized that my army was more painted than most of the other local players.

I bought my first Leman Russ in November of last year. I still need about a IG battle force box, a Vendetta and another Russ. That and the paints. I estimate my army will be ready by mid summer.

two days

A week, got marine from the 3rd edition box set and the next weekend we where playing a game.

It took about a month actually. I bought my codex first and then got some stuff for Christmas 2 weeks later. After doing that I read up on everything and finished some models here and there. I played my first game about a week after Christmas. It was awesome. Can't believe that was over a year ago now.

Squidmanlolz wrote:two days

I can't even imagine two days.


It's starting to sink in if I want to play a game before 6th Edition renders my brb obsolete my boyz will have to be an unpainted mob. It took me two weeks of casual painting just to get 20 done.
I guess that's what I get for selecting Orks.

Two days. First we got the assault on black reach box. Second we assembled, glued, and played an ork boyz versus tactical marines game. Accidentally mistook the boyz sluggas for shootas, and my marines dropped like flies against the silly amounts of fire power.

I just finished theorycrafting after the past month or so and I think I will be done nailbiting over the cost of entry and scrounging up the cash to actually purchase an army in another month or two

Then I'll be painting for a while

About an hour.

Back in the day (RT) they had these funky looking beaky marines and punk-hairdo'd orks, and you got a huge number of them in a box (30 for the orks?)

You could also get 3 rhinos in a box, and 2 LR in a box, for not horribly obscene prices.

My brother had been given RT for christmas and we both had christmas money, so we wheedled dad into hitting the GW store, as we happened to live nearby and he was in an indulgent mood due to turkey and wine

I got my punker orks and 2 LR (yes, they could take LR back then as there were only about 4 vehicles. PROPPA looted wagonz, not rhino wannabes), and my brother got a box of beakies, a space marine jetbike medic and 3 rhinos.

The rest is history. He eventually lost interest and dropped out of 40K to do more boring hobbies. I'm still playing orks, though i've tried almost all the other armies at some point.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

wheresmypulitzer wrote:

Squidmanlolz wrote:two days

I can't even imagine two days.


It's starting to sink in if I want to play a game before 6th Edition renders my brb obsolete my boyz will have to be an unpainted mob. It took me two weeks of casual painting just to get 20 done.
I guess that's what I get for selecting Orks.

Bruvva I know yer pain!

I have a huge number of orks to paint. Horde armies like Orks and Nids take forever :(

I was playing before i started my own army. I learned by watching my friend play/playing with his units. 2 months later I had 30 Marines of my own to play as a small force along side his army in 2v2's. From there it grew..

My cousin got me into 40k years before i began because he had these awesome looking floaty tanks (eldar)and scaly blue guys. (lizardmen)

a few after that me and another began looking into it seriously and checking out the stuff available. he got given an army of SMurfs along with a 2nd ed codex for them (this was in 4th) and I waited for a few more months before being a bulk load of tau andthose began my legacy of loss.

Nom

A week perhaps.

About a year. A buddy and I split assault on Black reach. We quite enjoyed some of the fluff of 40k and Fan made stories (Primarily from /tg/)

Our mistake was we had no emotional attachment to the armies supplied, he wants to play Tau and I wanted 'Crons
So we followed the little insert tried to learn and went "Why is this no fun?" So it got shelved. A buddy got back into 40k we both collectively went "Sweet!" and tried to play again. Once again No fun. We attributed this to our friend playing Blood Angels and Grey Knights when we still basically have no idea and are kinda like "what do" the phrase "Read the rule book" popped up a lot. So neither of us Tried to PLAY for some time, We still talked about it and how we want to play the game seems fun we are just missing something.

RECENTLY I picked up a monolith and the old Battleforce from a friend for 100$ total (I also get to rummage his bits boxes for stuff when I go over to his apartment), Got myself the new dex and Trazyn and resolved "One last time if it doesn't work this time I Have neat mini's for my DnD games".

So about a week ago after assembling and painting my crons up (about a 2 week process) A friend I made this year through Magic the Gathering at my request fielded 750pts of his army (Deamons) and I fielded my small list. He proceeded to PROPERLY teach me how to play the game when something happened I didn't understand he explained in conjunction to the rule book (As oppose to "Lol read rulebook") We are going to cover vehicles and cover saves next time I play, but I now truly "Get" the game, and I had fun. Won my Tutorial game due to a deepstrike mishap and apparently playing my army well (for a nooby).

Armed with this knowledge I have convinced the buddy to give it a final shot realizing I have found the secret to enjoyment of this game. Play the army that makes you happy.

I almost binned out of towards the end of fourth because despite having never seen the rulebook my cousin assumed i knew how to play and would rage at my when i questioned it so i just gave up.

It was only when a mate took the time to actually teach me the rules that i began to enjoy the game. lol

nom

I've never played more than a quick skirmish with a friend about three years ago using his blood angels against his emperors children noise marines. I've been looking at the models in the various hobby stores since they first came out (been into RPGs and such for thirty years) and always thought they were cool. I bought a black reach box and (here is my mistake) traded the SM for more orks. I got overwhelmed with the paint que and could not bring myself out of the shell enough to play with guys I was not on close terms with and the original friend moved away. It also was at a bad financial time and I managed to torque off my wife. So I sold off the lot (amazingly only losing shipping costs). This was a couple years ago.

Now I'm back to sniffing around the edges of the hobby and 40k in particular.

The Ninth Silent King wrote:Armed with this knowledge I have convinced the buddy to give it a final shot realizing I have found the secret to enjoyment of this game. Play the army that makes you happy.

1000x this.

Whenever I see people recommend a type of Space Marine for their first army, I cringe. Not because it means there's another Space Marine player, but because it's not going to help keep them in the game. The best thing to do is read about thea rmies, look at the models, and figure out what one appeals the most.

If you're playign in a casual environment, you can make any army work. You can't make yourself enjoy an army you don't want.

Took about 6 months to field a 1500 sm army

Even with a local hobby shop that nominally has a bunch of players I have yet to play my first game. I've collected nearly 2,000 points of marines in the past month and assembled them but still no one to play. At least I can practice painting in the meantime.

I had already been playing Warhammer Fantasy Battles for a couple of years when I saw the starter boxed set for second edition Warhammer 40,000 on the shelf and so I bought it and took it over to a friend's house, We spent a day looking at the rules and putting the miniatures together and played a couple of games over the next few days. Then he bought his own and we traded miniatures, he got the space marines and I got the Orks. We kept playing increasingly larger battles with those armies, gradually buying more different vehicles and troops. It wasn't any sort of a threshold, it was more of an evolving process.