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So you probably get like a billion of these threads a day, but I guess this is a billion and one.

I'm just getting into wargaming, i've been a hobbyist for about a year and decided to do something with my little toy soldiers and tanks.
I've decided to start a wargame hobby, and I chose 40k because it is so diverse, and it is the most popular in my area. I've been considering a few armies.
The theme for almost all my minis is "winter", I have some scratch-built urban terrain, a snowy gameboard, some trees, a couple vehicles with snow on them, and some winter infantry.

Aesthetics is the most important thing to me. Second is fluff and theme, third is power on the tabletop.

Necrons, Chaos Space Marines, and Imperial Guard are the armies I considered.

Necrons, because I thought a lord leading a legion of necron warriors, all painted icy blue with white highlights, would look great on the battlefield. Necrons also provide a great opporotunity for ice sickles.

Chaos Marines because I have an idea for a slaaneshi legion dedicated to perfection in the force of permanence, and permanence through beautiful frost.

And imperial guard because of that one regiment or whatever with the russian fur hats and the longcoats, vostroyans I think they are.

I also briefly considered tau, but I don't like painting them. Too clean and finicky.

I like the idea,
I have seen this pulled off very effectively with Chaos Marines (Marines are easy to paint different colors so never really a problem there).

I also wouldn't avoid loyalist,
Ice Blue Marines would look fantastic.

Also Space Wolves,
all those cloaks of fur go really well with the ice theme (and some of the special characters would be perfect of ice bases.

Necrons,
Not sold on the idea, the paint scheme is nice, but in terms of aesthetics I can't say that they appeal to me (But I might be an exception)

Agree with Tau,
the vehicles are nice, but some of there stuff doesn't lead to something easy in this space.

Good luck with this,
and post pics when done.

I'd go with Guard, but its a balance. Massing a guard army takes ALOT of time, and its a more expensive army to play. But they have the newest codex to date, and it makes them kick ass. theres the Vostroyans, which are all metal (thus twice as expensive and heavy), and theres the Vahallans. I prefer the Valhallans because of Captain Chenkov, hes badass. Marines are prolly the second easiest in terms of looks and fluff, because they populate harsh worlds. Look at the UltraSmurfs, their planet sucks. The Space Wolves get a new codex next week accually, and Space marines are cheaper to buy, so you can get more. Tau are prolly the only other army I'd consider, but its still a long shot with fluff and tabletop power. The rest... I'm not sure would work.

I would avoid Necrons - they've got a new codex coming out before too long, and frankly, I think they'd get really boring really fast.

I think a flavor of Marines would do well, especially as a starting army. Marines are really easy to play for beginning players, and still have plenty of expansion for tactics and models. They also look fantastic and have a huge range of plastic models.

Tau would be a cool army with your color scheme, and I like the ice Guard army. Guard just takes up a lot of time and money (even for a 40k army) as has been mentioned. Welcome to the fold!

It depends on your tactical experience really. If you are very new to tactic-based games in general, I would go with space marines, overall a good starter army, very tactically flexible, and they only get more interesting as time goes on.

However if you feel you could perfect mobility and tactics I would advise tau, Though a hard army to play, and nearly useless unless played right, they can be the best army in the game if played correctly, or so I understand.

If you simply want to play for kicks and giggles, I would suggest looking into orks, a very fun army to play, and can be competitive if you go a little less creative with your lists. Orks have a lot of humorous special rules and always prove an interesting game.

I like your Necron and CSM ideas.

And snow fighter IG is a neat idea as well, there were some conversions over in another part of the forum where someone did Imperial Snow Stormtroopers (Starwars) and someone else did Rebel Hoth Troopers with IG

Edit: Oh oh oh! Noise Marines with ice cannons! I donno how much sense it makes but I bet you could make it look awesome!

By far i'd say chaos, and not just because im obviously bias.
the fluff for the IG is pretty average in my opinion, and the Miniature-Range of the Necrons is minute. one troop choice, compared to Chaos' 5 troom choices. they have 1 tank, chaos has rino, predator, land raider, vindicator, defiler, ect. Chaos by far.
Oh, and Lucious the Eternal is the most awsome slaanesh special charachter ever.
I made the right choice, now you should too.

and the Miniature-Range of the Necrons is minute. one troop choice, compared to Chaos' 5 troom choices. they have 1 tank, chaos has rino, predator, land raider, vindicator, defiler, ect. Chaos by far.

It depends on your tactical experience really. If you are very new to tactic-based games in general, I would go with space marines, overall a good starter army, very tactically flexible, and they only get more interesting as time goes on.

they've got a new codex coming out before too long, and frankly, I think they'd get really boring really fast.

Like I said, power on the tabletop isn't too important to me.

Aestically speaking it really depends on your tastes. You need to sit on GWs website and look at all the models for 40k you already like and go from there. Do you like evil space marines, my army, terminator army, or the humans who are like roaches and never die because there are so damn many of them?

Vindicator#9 wrote:Aestically speaking it really depends on your tastes. You need to sit on GWs website and look at all the models for 40k you already like and go from there. Do you like evil space marines, my army, terminator army, or the humans who are like roaches and never die because there are so damn many of them?

None of those things sound appealing D:

Guard is lame. Sit back and shoot and hope you kill enough in time for CC.

Necrons look awesome, have a really bland book.

Chaos has the best models imo (which is why I picked them), can be excellent in CC and shooting (at the same time even). Versatile, evil, and badass.

IVe seen a few ICE Necrons pulled off and it looks awesome. You can even buy blue see through tubes for the guns.
I also love the CSM idea. Im actually a bit stuck on which I like more with that ice idea. Personally, I like the Necrons. Their codex is pretty broken (tho supposedly they are getting a new one) but still can be a serious ass kicker of an army, and fairly easy to use.
The fluff on them is pretty damn good IMO. But the Chaos might have better fluff between the two. Right now, I hate Chaos because the dex was so poorly written I stopped playing my chaos army all together.


Id say, google some images of the two, and goto www.lexicanum.com to learn about the fluff of them. And Necrons with icicles sounds pretty friggin cool

I'm with night up there, CSM's.

I started with nids due to asthetics, but honestly, painting them is boring. Paint skin, carapace, few details, done. They look great, don't get me wrong, but I didn't feel accomplished or challanged even with my newb skills.

So I saw a guy playing chaos one day and was amazed at how awesome Defilers, Chaos Spawn, even Possessed looked. So i picked up a battleforce... a few months later I'm selling my nids in favor of playing Chaos always lol. They're fantastic models, you can convert em to anything, and any paint scheme will work for em. Heck, I did silver, gold, green, and black for mine, and I think they look sick

I hate how to have an effective Chaos army, you pretty much have to take everything. When in the fluff it says that the Chaos gods are fickle, and do not work together. But I guess every Chaos player has a silver tongue like Abaddon, and con talk them into letting them work together?? Thats just weird and dumb to me.

Regular Chaos Marines do fine. I play with a 100% fluffy Night Lords list and I still wipe people off the board. In a tourny environment I add a mark of nurgle on the prince, but that's it.

Note: Im not saying the codex book is great, just that it is possible to play fluffy armies that dont get smashed.

KingCracker wrote:I hate how to have an effective Chaos army, you pretty much have to take everything. When in the fluff it says that the Chaos gods are fickle, and do not work together. But I guess every Chaos player has a silver tongue like Abaddon, and con talk them into letting them work together?? Thats just weird and dumb to me.

This is true, but even the Demons army works that way, which I honestly would expect to be far more restrictive. I.E. khorne and tzeech could not be fielded together, or slanesh and nurgle.

On a personal note, I normally run Khorne and Nurgle specifically. I stick away from Tzeech for the most part, tho I will dabble with a Slanesh sorc here or there (or termi lord). While I'm not a fluff player, it makes more sense lol.

Night Lords wrote:Regular Chaos Marines do fine. I play with a 100% fluffy Night Lords list and I still wipe people off the board. In a tourny environment I add a mark of nurgle on the prince, but that's it.

Note: Im not saying the codex book is great, just that it is possible to play fluffy armies that dont get smashed.

FLuffy armies? Im going to guess you forgot about the Iron Warriors. To play them FLUFFY, is like slicing yours wrists and neck at the same time, and them jumping into a starving lion display at the zoo.

I would say give eldar a look see...

Vibrant colors, countless themes and entertaining fluff...



Its what put my ork army on hold.

Actually the Vendetta might put my orks on hold, fortunately for my Waaagh it costs too much .

On a side note, guard is more expensive, especially if you armor overload (which is what most competitive guard armies do). Because necrons all look the same pretty much you could probably paint them faster and cheaper, but this could lead to a boring looking army if you aren't careful.

CSM you can go slightly crazy with, converting regular marines or buying spiky marines, but it might take you longer.

Hey, guys, the good lady wants a WNTERIZED army, were straying from the subject slightly

The Imperial Guard offer a lot of modeling opportunities. We more easily recognise other humans struggling against the cold, while fighting for their lives and it leaves a deeper impact on us. Then again, "struggle" may not be the right word, as the Vostroyan's Commander Squad Standard Bearer is a shirtless badass in the midst of a blizzard of frozen water and flaming lead.

I like the idea of a Necron army that has woken up in a frozen wasteland. You'd have some great opportunities with Flayed Ones, clawing their way out of the snow covered in pelts from whatever furry natives lived on the planet.

If you went with the Necrons, you'd have to give up a lot more in terms of gameplay, because a lot of their cooler units are some what... ineffective? My money is on Guard. The only other thing I could see being very appealing are the Space Wolves, but they are the current band wagon.

It depends on who you talk to and how you play them. Pretty much EVERYONE agrees that pariahs are useless. But Everything Else Ive seen people debate on with a + or - in success

While you are more into looks and fluff than competitive, at this point I would table the necrons. They just have a few problems game-wise that would make them either frustrating to play and/or boring because there are limited choices that really are effecive in play.

Right now the IG is probably the best competitive choice but for fluff and modeling I like your concept of ice chaos marines. I think you would have a lot of fun modeling them and have an army you could add to and still be competitive with without just spamming the best of the best.

One thing to add to this.

If you go CSMs: summoned lesser daemons that look like snowmen. Oh god..

Brother SRM wrote:I would avoid Necrons - they've got a new codex coming out before too long, and frankly, I think they'd get really boring really fast.]

sure they do...since about 2004

starbomber109 wrote:I like your Necron and CSM ideas.

And snow fighter IG is a neat idea as well, there were some conversions over in another part of the forum where someone did Imperial Snow Stormtroopers (Starwars) and someone else did Rebel Hoth Troopers with IG

Woo I got a mention!

But on a serious note...

It honestly depends what attracts you, the imagery, play style or finnacial conditions required to collect the army. Judging by the snow concept most of the armies available can look amazing in a snow setting, as it isnt necessarily done all the time. Thus, my advice is to have a hanker around these forums, GW website and Lexicanum, find something you really like the look/feel of, and collect that regardless of when everyone says 'it plays the best/is the most powerful'.

My two cents.

I think the idea of making some frigid CSMs is cool, (can't believe I'm suggesting heritcs! yuck) I'm kinda picturing death knights from warcraft, like how the scourge are cold themed. You could make nurgle marines that are covered in ice and snow and dont feel it, or do night lords, they're the coolest CSM IMO. Powerswords that look like they're made of ice would be a nice touch, or if you could figure out how to do it, making a foggy breath effect would be awesome, no idea how to pull that off though. Hope that gets your innovation wheels turnin.

I personally would go with a veteran guard army. Relatively few models (certainly compared to regular guard armies), plus lots of conversion potential, along with the fact that they are very easy to convert and theme to pretty much anything you want.

Plus they have lots of cool fluff, lots of cool models and vehicles and they are pretty good on the table too.

Ice Princess wrote:The theme for almost all my minis is "winter",
Necrons, Chaos Space Marines, and Imperial Guard are the armies I considered.

- I'd avoid Necrons, as they're a rules mess and not so much fun to play against.
- Slannesh is a very strong choice, as you can do a lot with modeling.
- Winter Guard (Vostroyan or OOP Valhallan) is also good, but has been done many, many times already.

So of your choices, I'd suggest you go with a strongly-themed Slannesh CSM army. It will play pretty well and look great, and hasn't been done so much before. Have fun!

Iron warriors are described as cold and emotionless. They might be a good choice for ya.