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No i wont direct people aways from Marines.

I'll explain all the faction equally to the new player.
Because the point is to unbiasedly show him whats available , not to be anti Marines.

If he chooses something else , great.
If he ends up choosing Marines , well what can i say , no wonder its GW's main army.

meh, my marines were my 4th army... and honestly, they are far and away my favorite. its just that you can do anything with a marine army.. its not like guard, where you only shoot... or like orks, where you only assault. a marine army can do anything.

Never. I've told my friends who are interested about some of the strengths and weaknesses I've observed about the different armies. I let people who are interested watch my games, and I'll narrate what I'm doing to the enemy, and what they're doing to me. In the end, it's a good feeling to share what you enjoy with others, and bringing new people in to the hobby means more people to potentially have a good time with and to make friends with. doesn't matter what army they play.

I don't care.

People can play whatever they want.

All of this is just more Tall Poppy Syndrome.

Im fairly blessed at my local store, as im the guy selling the stuff. However within our circle of players, we are all kinda spread out, most of us have multiple armys, with one huge one being of course the main army, and the list goes as such
3 Ork players
2 Nid players
1 space wolf player
2 Ultra's
1 Blood Angel
1 Salamander
1 Ravengaurd
5 Eldar players
4 Tau Players
1 Sisters player
2 Gaurd players
1 guy who plays like. Everything, has like only 900 points of every army though (he likes ta pain)
3 Necron Players

So its a pretty detailed list, and i garuntee you i forgot a few armys, thats what just mostly shows up on the weekends here and there. But when a "new" player shows up, i go threw tactics and unit order of each army, and i stress, and i will -always- stress "Choose the Army you think is the coolest, and that you will enjoy painting, customizing, fielding and playing, Don't go for the "Easiest" or the "Fastest" to learn or play, go with what you like, not what you think is easist to munchkin" (with that line, i have personally sold 2 full Eldar armys, 2 Necron Armys, 2 Ork armys, and 1 gaurd army. I have -yet- to get a new person playing space marines, not because i downplay it, but because people tend to like the other armys for looks, and its functionality that turns them off, but they just need some friendly games to get it right)


So i guess i always just tell people to choose what they like, not what is stressed by others.


btw, my whole 40k sales pitch and army talk goes on for...well. Hours if you let me

I personally wouldn't dissuade them from buying marines but would tell them about other armies and some of their history or w/e, I wouldnt actually tell them dont play marines because its there choice.

Well personality i would try to stray them off for i too have recruited a number of marines.
I say its really your choice and i have no problem with them starting marines. I just have a problem
when those said marines are ultra marines.

Marines are really the ideal choice for a trainie, and the more the merrier i say. Eather way those marines are dead with the first wave of orks hit.
Most marines vets end up selling or trading their marines for other armies once they get bored of the whole
knights in space concept. I for one could never think of selling my marines all the blood sweat and tears put in to them. more so on the blood.

I'll explain all the races but I won't try and push someone. If they like marines they like marines. Hell, I like marines, I would just prefer it if they didn't take up so much of the release schedule.
IG and Orks are very expensive armies for a newbie to start, and Eldar are a bit tricky to learn to play. Nids lack some of the aspects of the game (vehicles and transports), tau are quite hard to win with, and the inquisitorial armies and necrons are badly dated these days.So unless someone is enthusiastic about them, I don't see any reason to point them at one of those armies. Sadly.

Henners91 wrote:Hey guys,

This isn't an anti-Marine post, I appreciate all that Marines do for the franchise, how cool they are, and how they earn the money... But I was wondering, just for the sake of trying to introduce some variety to the game, if you see some new kid in a store who doesn't know what to get, would you perhaps gently nudge him away from the Marines?

No, I wouldn't try to disuade a player from a particular race, I would instead show the person what they looked like and go through the strengths and weaknesses of each race and the style of play you can use with them. The person can then make an informed choice using the above information to pick the army that best suites them all round.

I myself picked Marines because I loved the armoured robot look they had. Years later I picked Tau for the same reasons. And latest is the orks as i wanted an army that was very different from what I've had before. For myself, Marines were a brilliant starter army being fairly simple rules and models. Had i started with Tau it may have taken me slighter longer to get into it as the models have varying stats all over and a few odd special rules that have caused confusion in how they work in the field.

The most I'd do would probably be to say something pointing out both strengths and weaknesses of SM, to make sure they know what those strengths and weaknesses are, and maybe do the same for a xeno race or two. "Yeah, there are lots of Space Marines around. On the bright side, I understand they're relatively easy to paint and play, but on the other hand everybody knows what to do against them, and you'll mostly be fighting other Space Marines, which may or may not bug you. Up to you."

(I've never played SM myself. Just always found them kind of... bland.)

I told my one friend to "Pick any color but blue"

Sure, from a metagame perspective it would be wise to steer someone away from Marines, but as a practical matter it's best to start them off with marines.

Marines

- have low model count
- are the most flexible army
- are resilient

Those things make them perfect to start with and I think it's important to get someone firmly established in the hobby before trying to make the metagame more diverse.

Da Boss wrote:IG and Orks are very expensive armies for a newbie to start, and Eldar are a bit tricky to learn to play. Nids lack some of the aspects of the game (vehicles and transports), tau are quite hard to win with, and the inquisitorial armies and necrons are badly dated these days.So unless someone is enthusiastic about them, I don't see any reason to point them at one of those armies. Sadly.

This is all true, and makes me think that the best thing to tell the new player is "Come back in 5 years. Hopefully GW has its gak together by then."

Of cource not I'd say for them to find an army they like read up about it and buy the battleforce.

My friend told me they were nazis when he showed me them on the website,I like them but I went for nids.

Wow, I almost feel bad for starting Space Marines...
But no, I wouldn't steer them away. It is a good army that can cover most of the rules, so you can get a taste of everything. I know more veteran players who started Marine and because of their experience, they say they were able to choose their next army better or they just stuck with Marines.
I, for example, am planning on either staying loyal and going IG next, or starting Necrons after I get more of my Dark Angels done.
Also, I am blessed to be in an area where not everyone plays Space Marines, and very few of the Marines play Smurfs. There's me doing DA, there is a BT, a longtime SW, and then people with custom chapters.

On the net? maybe

in person, well i dont actually know any 'new' players

in my group/s marines usually appear in younger players armies, the 'vets' tend to go for xenos + have multiple races

i think marines are a great start, but if your older and wiser maybe give the aliens a shout.

Give them a ten second synopsis of each of the major players and let them decide.

Space Marines - Power armored genetically engineered super soldiers that do it all but don't really specialize.
Orks - Drunken soccer hooligans who love to hit things with their axes.
Eldar - Space elves who are highly specialized.
Dark Eldar - Emo space elves who have to go fast to survive, sadly going fast doesn't make them more survivable.
Imperial Guard - In soviet Imperium Commissar shoot you. Human wave of lasers, PEWPEW, and tank.
Tau - Weeaboos in space, very shooty.
Necrons - Robot zombies, tough but with weaknesses.
Tyranids - Mutating bugs on cocaine, bury your opponent in chitin and walking insect tanks.
Witch Hunters - Nuns with guns, a fire fetish, and poor impulse control.

See what peaks their interest and go to town. I tend not to encourage power gamers with the "which army is best mentality", I just let them wander off to find another of their ilk. I try to encourage newbies to find an army with a style, fluff, and appearance they love and learn how to play it.

Id say well how you prefer to kill your enemy? do you want get up close and bash their faces in or do you want to shoot them or you prefer lil bit both?

Because I have armies mostly split based on how i seen them played in a way that works well for them.

Shooty armies : obviously: Tau,Ig,Dark Eldar,Sob

Melee armies: Nids,Orks,Daemons,Daemon Hunters

Armies I consider balanced: Space marines,chaos space marines,Necrons and eldar (by balance i mean they do bit both well)

Bleh to the anti marine guys and a second bleh to the ones claiming don't paint them blue. Whiners the lot of you

I'd do as others said and let them look at the armies, explain how they work and the ones they show interest in explain a bit of background (In the case of marines i'd tell them how black templars, codex marines etc differ).

Bleh again to all the kid like anti Ultramarine ranting.

I have Orcs, Chaos and SM and Play them all but for a serrious game I break out the Blood Angels and drop them from they sky right in your face especily aginst Tau and IG me no like shooties! So if someone wants to play SM's then by all means go for it but just remember always have fun or what is the point!

Marines are a good starting army. They are forgiving of minor mistakes made during play -- unlike an eldar unit which can be wiped out if deployed incorrectly.

That being said, let the play what they think looks cool. As your friend will spend countless hours painting and modeling, its important that he thinks they look really cool.

I would steer them to what they wanted to play, Orks and Space marines are both forgiving.

In fact I have chaos, and at my local store I won the tournament and the prize was a space wolf battleforce.

Hell marines are fun, no one cannot deny an army that is well rounded and friendly to get into.

I would want whoever is getting into warhammer to pick the race that suits them, whether its to their personality or to their own play style.

I tend to agree with this. The major problem I see with alot of 14- space marine players, is they don't use their squads to their full potential. they make up their moves on a turn to turn basis, and they don't read up on other sides.
For a kid who's brand new, I'd suggest either Orks or Imperial guard, because they only use rush and weight tactics, and any idiot could be taught how to push models into the grinder.

Yes

First, SMs are easy to start with.

Second that.

I would at least show him/ her (okay, optimist I am ) how to play the game by using SMs. They are very forgiving to mistakes, pack a lot of punch and can even deal with "fluffy" listwriting.
Nonetheless I will make it clear, there are many, many more armies that play different and just as exciting. I successfully turned a new player towards Eldar and it seems to fit

Friends don't let friends start MEQ armies.

Dashofpepper wrote:Friends help friends start MEQ armies.

This.

Friends don't let friends start MEQ armies.

Agreed. What most people don't realize is that deployment is just a important to the SM player as it is to the Eldar player... If not more so since SMs aren't as mobile. For SMs, Eldar and Tau, perfect deployment is 90% of winning. IG, Orks, Tyranids don't depend so much on forethought. Theirs is a reactionary game and reaction is all a new player has to go on.

Dashofpepper wrote:Friends don't let friends start MEQ armies.

I might agree on principle, but if they were going to make an angry marines army, I would be hard pressed to stop them.