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Hi people i was wondering if any of you can help me. Im a complete nob at 40k but I have the 6th edition rulebook and have been reading it for about a week now. Iv narrowed it down to some kind of space marine armoured army but cant make my mind up yet lol. Any help you cam give would be greatly received

My vote goes for vanilla Space Marines; generally easy to use and forgiving if mistakes are made.

Oh, and they're Games Workshop favorite, so they're always up to date.

Yeah. Marines are widely considered the starter army for 40k.

Space Marines are considered the best, but the best IMO seems like whatever you prefer. It may be difficult to decide, but it's worth it to avoid realising you don't like an army after you have a good few of them!

Marines are the obvious answer, they're decent on the table top and forgiving. As an added bonus they are easy to assemble, convert and paint.

However I would like to suggest two alternatives, guard and tyranids. Why? Because they will teach you skills you'll need to be a successful commander on the table. Guard teach you target priority, how to sacrifice units for overall victory and how to do "damage control" when an enemy is assaulting you. Too often I see longtime marine players fall to pieces once they start to take casualties or things don't go to plan. Nids will teach you synergies, how to correctly use units for their roles and how to be an aggressive player.

Necrons are very easy to start out with plus they are very strong. for example when thy die they have a chance to come back to life. all you really do is paint a coat of nuln oil on then some leadbelcher. then do some detail if you want <----

ORKS! Get yourself a crap ton of Ork boys and charge your enemy!

I think the cheapest is said to be orks with the battleforce.

Necrons can be very forgiving and are simple for starting out since you dont have to worry about upgrades for your units since they have pretty much no upgrades on most of the basic things you will be using for starting out.

Every army has its own feel.

Space Marines have a 3+ save and good weapons, while being the all around most balanced army IMO. Plus there are many chapters with their own qurks to choose from depending on your personal preference. (Dark Angels, Space Wolves, Blood Angels, Imperial Fist, so on and so forth)

Chaos Space Marines are like Marines, but with Chaosy extras that can run them more expensive points wise. Our Chaos player generally fields less units than most of the other guys, but most everyone is challenged by his army.

Imperial guard have a great variety of vehicles and big platoons of infantry that aren't awful in the shooting phase, though the army in general lacks some melee oomph, but then, I've always figured that is why IG mounted so many heavy bolters and flamers on their vehicles.

Orks. Orks make up for bad weapons skill and poor initiative with numbers. They have an older codex and aren't technically the best army around, but have great flavor, and some good units (Lootas for example). They excel in lower point games, but lack the oomph to compete with some of the fancy toys in larger games with armies like Eldar and Tau. My personal favorite though, I like to bury my enemy under a pile of dead orks. If nothing else, the really shooty armies love playing me because I have a lot of units for them to blow up and it's great fun for everyone.

Tyranids (sp?) are IMO dumb based on fluff, but two of my closest buddies are life long 'Nids players and they love them. The definition of a horde army, they require some thought because of their synapse function, and while there is a lot of hate on their 6th ed. codex as being crap, I've been seeing some good games out of 'Nids lately. Their big creatures and fire support units are great (Bio Spores ate my army recently from the back of the map).

Necrons get back up when you shoot them. Possibly the most annoying thing on earth. Good army, though the only army with lower inititive than Orks. No one in my group plays them anymore, so my experience with them is pretty dated, but as I recall they have pretty good weapons/anti tank capability, and like was pointed out, the last battle I recall fighting Necrons, he resurrected something like 25 units over the course of the fight.

Sisters of Battle. Expensive as hell to collect, though we have a player in our group who does, but because of cost her army is pretty small atm. Their vehicles and special units are pretty cool, but I wouldn't start with them as your first army.

Eldar. My wife has Eldar and they are great right now. Their troop choices are a bit limited, but they have amazing pyskers, elites and heavy support. I've always thought they were a pretty good army and 6th edition has been kind to them, but generally your army will be filled with specialized troops who do whatever they are meant to do very well, while being buffed by great pyskers. Sometimes though, my wife thinks they are a bit stodgy and she longs for the freedom to scream Waaaaagh! at the top of her lungs and laugh as the enemy kills dozens of your troops.

Tau. From what I've seen they are a great shooting army and 6th edition is about shooting, so they tend to work well. I'm not a fan of them personally and my gaming group never really embraced them, so I am just going on games I've seen at the local shop. They have some great big guns (Broadsides and Riptides) and have a kind of high tech mecha feel to them.

Daemons. Do you like wierd warp creatures? Do you like Daemon warlords with crazy stats? Do you like cutting things? Then Daemons are for you. I've never really been into chaos, but I recently played a Daemon army that whooped me off the table. His Daemon Prince was a beast, and he had some great pysker powers that just melted a couple units. That being said, near as I can tell there are a couple good ways to play a daemon army and way more ways to gimp yourself accidently.


Dark Eldar! Just remembered they exist. Yeah...so I've never played against them, saw one guy with them as an army once. I've heard good things, but that they require a bit more understanding of the game and a keen awareness of where/how you move their stuff because it can a bit fragile (in game toughness, not the models themselves).

Can't think of anything else off the top of my head, trying to think of all the armies I've seen or played with in my area. So that is my take on those armies.......my biggest advice to anyone who wants to play 40k is....first and foremost, find someone to play with. Find a local store, ask around see where players are hanging out. Every town has some place guys are hanging out, but you can't play by yourself. Secondly, pick an army you will love. The game changes, editions come and go, overpowered stuff is here then gone, but if you acutally like your army, none of that will matter.


Cheers.

Definitely Dark Eldar!

Thanks for all your help people, iv just had a scan of rulebook to see which army i like look of and iv narrowed it down to SM, SW, GK, DA. Can any of you help me pick which one? Any tips or insight to how they play would help alot

Based on your 4 choices, I would say the Space Marine Codex is the best choice. Its newer and more flexible given the chapter tactics.

Specifically DA are the easiest.

Their rules don't break the game mechanics but instead streamline them well. I.e. Stubborn (no Ld mod.) and Death Wing Assault (no scatter)

They have mutiple easy builds: Power Armor, Terminator heavy, and all-bikes.

They do not have a ton of wargear to choose from.

C:SM is a stronger and more tactile dex. There are more choices and it requires a better understanding of the game to exploit the codex. DA is straightforward and easy to play albeit weaker when you play at a higher level.

Space Marines or Chaos Space Marines

All depends on what you want

Space Marines - Nobel genetically altered super humans fighting to save the Imperium of man. Have more up to date tech then their evil cousins.

Chaos Space Marines - Evil genetically altered super humans who want to see the Galaxy burn. Have a more demonic feel not to mention a dragon as a flyer.

I'll also say go with Dark Angels, mostly because the current starter set has one of each kind of unit you can base an army on (the aforementioned bikes, terminators, and tactical marines). Get a couple of vehicles, rhinos, a couple of devastator boxes, and you should be good to go!

CSM are not easy to play, really...

Grey Knights are going to be a bit harder to master due to a generally lower model count.

Space Marines, Dark Angels, and Space Wolves are generally reasonable new army books.

Marines have more capacity to kit out than Dark Angels, but does not have the specialist builds Dark Angels do. Meaning you can make your army more diverse easier, but less ability to focus on one thing very well.

Space Wolves will probably be a bit different to play, but they can do everything pretty well (not unlike regular space marines). They tend to be more assault focused, but this also comes into play in that they handle getting assault pretty well. Space Wolves will mean a lot more options and a lot more understanding on what works and what doesn't. Meaning that your options go up significantly in terms of breadth, but can get you into trouble if you don't understand them.

I myself would recommend 'Vanillia' marines and using your own army color scheme. This way you can eventually shift them into playing Dark Angels or Space Wolves (using their rules anyways) without a lot of problems.

Although, if on a budget DA may be a good choice as you can pick up starter marines through ebay fairly cheaply to bulk your force up with quickly (not saying they have to be Dark Angels, but the models do have aspects to them focused on Dark Angel iconography, and if just starting out converting them probably isn't something you are ready for).

Well, I guess you should have added ''cheapest''.

Building a new army can become very expensive these days. A good starting point are the battle forces or the starter set if you still can find one.

I'd stay away from horde armies like Tyranids, Orks or infantry-heavy IG.

Space Marines are rather forgiving to play in opposition to Eldar or Dark Eldar. Chaos Space Marines and Daemons are a bit special to play. The same holds for Necrons but they work quite well and are forgiving too.

bigdave22 wrote:
Thanks for all your help people, iv just had a scan of rulebook to see which army i like look of and iv narrowed it down to SM, SW, GK, DA. Can any of you help me pick which one? Any tips or insight to how they play would help alot

DA by a landslide.

Want an army that's cheap? Starting a deathwing army from eBay can get you a 1,000 point army for ~$30. No army is cheaper by a long shot. Want an army that's easy to paint? Space marines are generally only a few models and they're usually not THAT detailed either. In the case of deathwing, you can accomplish 80% of your painting with a pot of ushtabi bone and a bottle of agrax earthshade. Plus, with deathwing in specific you're painting like 16 models, and none of them are vehicles. You want an army that's easy to play? Deathwing is a pretty point-and-click army. Plus, a bunch of assault cannon powerfist terminators are reasonably forgiving if your opponent doesn't have hard counters.

GK can also do well if you're going heavy on units with force weapons and storm bolters, but they're not quite as straightforward, and the strongest GK builds are mech hench lists, which will require more models and more painting. SM are also pretty good, as, as mentioned, they always get up-to-date codices, and there's a LOT of stuff you can do in the SM codex (A lot more room to grow, while DA only has a few builds). I'd hold off on SW at the moment, though. Specialized bitz and iconography make them somewhat more expensive, and their codex is old right now, and so will be more difficult to play with and less forgiving.

Space Marines are perfect!

Instead of deciding on an existing chapter, create your own! That way you'll never get bored of who they are.

As for rules, the sky is the limit. Play as DA. Play as BA. Play as vanilla with any chapter tactics you'd like! After playing around with the different space marine styles, decide which one suits you, then keep building!

This is how I approached my army, and 12 years later I'm still not bored. I ended up choosing DA, but I have tons of fun (and surprise my frequent opponents) by switching things up.

Enjoy!

Thanks for all your help people. Im going to go with......DA. I like the look of them and i have seen alot of them on ebay so it would be cheaper i think, which is always a good point lol. Can any of you tell me if there is a thread i can go to and learn about the dark angels

bigdave22 wrote:
Thanks for all your help people. Im going to go with......DA. I like the look of them and i have seen alot of them on ebay so it would be cheaper i think, which is always a good point lol. Can any of you tell me if there is a thread i can go to and learn about the dark angels

It's an older thread but it checks out.

Also, this.

Honestly I would believe Space marines or orks the reason I say this is because orks can be a lot of fun to mess with and make your own custom stuff without spending a whole lot on models I believe they are more play for casual matches though whereas the vanilla space marines are less customizable but can still be fun to play and fit the sixth edition play style plus less models to carry around and mess with and you can play casual and competitive

bigdave22 wrote:
Thanks for all your help people. Im going to go with......DA. I like the look of them and i have seen alot of them on ebay so it would be cheaper i think, which is always a good point lol. Can any of you tell me if there is a thread i can go to and learn about the dark angels

May I suggest you try the Bolter and Chainsword?

It is a forum devoted to all things Marine, and one of the sub forums is dedicated entirely to Dark Angels.

I'm not saying you can't find good stuff here, you can, it's just that you can find a lot of stuff in one spot without searching at the B&C.

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/forum/6-dark-angels/

 EmilCrane wrote:
Marines are the obvious answer, they're decent on the table top and forgiving. As an added bonus they are easy to assemble, convert and paint.

However I would like to suggest two alternatives, guard and tyranids. Why? Because they will teach you skills you'll need to be a successful commander on the table. Guard teach you target priority, how to sacrifice units for overall victory and how to do "damage control" when an enemy is assaulting you. Too often I see longtime marine players fall to pieces once they start to take casualties or things don't go to plan. Nids will teach you synergies, how to correctly use units for their roles and how to be an aggressive player.

^ This. A thousand times this.

While marines are indeed a lot of fun, and very forgiving - I too have seen players that got into a "comfort zone" fall apart when facing stronger challenges. A "stronger" codex can easily help cover up sloppy or inexperienced play (which is a good thing, in the beginning) but it can also help maintain bad habits in the long run.

I love my marines, and this is not a "astartes hate" rant or anything like that - but if you do pick up marines (they are cool!) make sure you constantly challenge yourself, and seek out better players and always try to understand why you might not do as well as you would expect.

For example, I have two friends who started with marines, and (a while ago) they almost never bothered with cover - the marine save and morale gives the units great resiliency.

I remember both of the players when they faced plasma (weapons that defeat armor) the first time.

The first player said "wow, I need to learn to use cover....how often will I run into that".
The second player said "man, those guys are OP, marines suck now....." etc.
Guess which player is much better now, and the other still blames dice/mission/codex when he loses?

You get the idea.

Regarding army choice, watch a lot of games, read some codexes, see what play style you might like the best. Or go with the models you think look the coolest.
DA is a great choice. They have a lot of the best features of marines, but a lot of things making up their own style (I have a deathwing army myself, that I play just for fun....).

Best of luck!

bigdave22 wrote:
Thanks for all your help people. Im going to go with......DA. I like the look of them and i have seen alot of them on ebay so it would be cheaper i think, which is always a good point lol. Can any of you tell me if there is a thread i can go to and learn about the dark angels

Yeah. This is a good choice. DA have decent models and you can get them from ebay for rather cheap.

Space Marines. The poster child of GW. The fact that they have good weapons, a 3+ save, and some decent rules. They survive enough to keep new players playing.

I also agree with marines. You get this great rule, And They Shall Know No Fear. Basically makes you immune to half of the special rules out there. Which is great for a beginner. Even as an experience player I forget about fear tests from time to time.

The new SM book has enough variety with chapter tactics that you should be able to find a play style you like.

Super elite armies with low model counts tend to be cheaper and easier to get involved with.

EBay is your friend. So are trades.

A few good examples are Space Wolves, who can have a VERY small model count, with Njal, and the larger pool of characters allowed in that codex. Allies can even help further reduce your cost. Orks and Space wolves together?

....or perhaps Chaos Marines where you can buy various boxed sets and a few side items and have 1500 points at $350. The Dark Vengeance Boxed set and such can be a valuable way to get that rolling and it gives you trade bait.

Anyways, that's the two that come to mind.