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So I am curious and I thought to ask my fellow SM players for some advice and this is general 40k so I figured it fit here well enough.

I have been painting for over a year now, and I have managed to play 2 games against live opponents and 3 practice games in that same said time. (This is not a discussion about painting, I picked Imperial Fists, they take a while to do right and look good.)

At what point were you comfortable with the status of your army to start playing games at tourneys? Did you wait until you had an HQ and troops painted or did you play your grays right away?

Also how big is your army, and I don't mean points wise? Is there an real reason to build a full company with all it's support equipment? By this I mean the various vehicles and support equipment such as thunder-fire cannons (unless these are actually good and worth running in the HS slot), tech-marines and servitors?

I ask this because I have found myself with a companies worth of marines, (and a few extra, which is okay so I can alter the special weapon load-outs in my tactical squads and in 1 of my devastator squads, but not enough rides for them, and I just have to ask is there point to buying 4 more rhino/razorback kits?? Are there any games where a full company and all it's tanks can be fielded?

I have one Landraider that a buddy gave me to go with my Lysander and the Terminators that came in the AoBR set, but I don't plan on getting anymore of those because my army isn't first company.

Is this reasonable or do I need more than one Landraider for a decent army? And at what point did you say that you have enough for your army?

wtf it dissappeared!

My first RTT was back in 1999or 2000. I was playing Salamanders so the Armeggeddon codex was out. I played a good amount at the LFGS. I was still pretty fresh though. I do remember I could play a game without looking up basic rules and knowing the to hit and wound charts. I think I won one game and lost 2 but had fun. I picked up Best Sportsman to my surprise.

As far as collecting armies, they are a different. My Salamanders grew to be huge, and later I sold off half of the marines I never used. Have not added to them since 3rd edition.

My Sisters of Battle army keeps growing. Started in 2000, I am still adding stuff to it to stay competative. I tend to add stuff when ever they get new rules, or the edition changes the play style. I had to change when Chapter Approved came out, and later Witchhunters. I did not play in 4th but had to add 4 Immolators when 5th edition came out. More changes are on the way, so for now they are shelved.

My Crimson Fists were bought and built with a tournament list in mind (2010). There was some extra stuff I had in storage for Salamanders that got built as CF. Later my playstyle with them has changed and I'm still adding new units and Characters to them. In the end they look like they will get fleshed out with alot of the unit choices. SM will always be around, so they are a good collection army.

The future sees me building a Khorne army. It will be built to 2000 only and will not have many options. I have a bunch of orks too, 750 points all foot. These will be painted slowly and are there only to fight my Crimson Fists. They are being built to be the force that assaulted Rynn's World. They are my fluffy bunny.

I also have a 4 year old son. My armys will change in 3-4 years if he plays. He could pick one I have or we may sell one to build his.

I think having a list in mind to start helps you in the beginning. It gives you focus. It gets you on the table faster. Collecting it out after gives your list options, and I recomend it. Hope this helps some.

Well, I hope your son wants to play too!

Tourney rules vary. Some local will allow unpainted figs, most offical will not let you play with unpainted greys.

As for the rest of your post, you can start playing tournies as soon as you have enough minis to do so based on the points level of the tourney. If it is a small tourney then you can get by with an HQ and a couple of basic marine squads. For larger tournies and most GW sponsored tournies you need a lot more of a force.

Force building and *when you stop* is a very personal choice. I have a khorne chaos army I have been building and adding figures to for almost as long as I have been playing 40k. It has a lot of original WFB chaos champions of khorne and generic chaos champions converted to chaos marines in it and some of the newest Forge world figures. For me done is when I feel I have enough of the various options to field the army however I like. Of course if some cool new minis comes out for an army I have and I like it the force is instantly taken off the "done" list and I add the new unit/model to it.

Best bet overall is to find a local escalation league. This is a league that starts with, say, 500 points at the beginning and works its way up to 2000 points. This enables you to slowly buy, build and paint your force as you go along and by the end you have a full sized army that you can use for whatever. I, unfortunately, tend to go the "I want army X and plonk down $600 and buy a whole new army" route and then find myself way bag logged...

On the unrelated painting subject, I agree that Imperial Fists take a while to get to that perfect yellow color! Ultimately I sold my Imperial Fists army to get away from the pain!

Skriker

Force building is up to you. I tend to build amy to around 2000 points before I start the next. However I still pick up models for all my armies so they keep growing

Skriker wrote:Tourney rules vary. Some local will allow unpainted figs, most offical will not let you play with unpainted greys....

Best bet overall is to find a local escalation league. This is a league that starts with, say, 500 points at the beginning and works its way up to 2000 points. This enables you to slowly buy, build and paint your force as you go along and by the end you have a full sized army that you can use for whatever. I, unfortunately, tend to go the "I want army X and plonk down $600 and buy a whole new army" route and then find myself way bag logged...

Skriker

I have heard of an escalation league; I think one of the stores near by did one but I didn't understand what it meant and I was too stupid/or timid to ask at the time.

I have my army primed and ready for the hard work. But I agree that I bough high at first and then needed to back up and assess. I haven't bought a model in two months now and plan to wait until I am finished with I have.

If you're new to 40k you may not know what works well. IMO, before you buy anything, you should be posting in- and reading the Army Lists section for inspiration. Look at what people are running, then look at what the unit can do and how you would use it.

The best way to buy minis, IMO, is to buy an "army". Whatever points value you want to play, say 1,850 for example, you should buy what you need to expand to that points level. From there you can tweak, then you end up with a larger force from where you can mix or match. For example, my IG started as an 1,850 army. I made some tweaks, and picked up a few more items. Between the stuff I started with, and my tweaks, I had 2,500 to play in 'Ard Boyz.

My Crimson Fists grew organically; I was at a flea market at Historicon in 2008 and I picked up a bunch of RT era minis and a squad of assault Marines with Crimson Fist shoulderpads. I really liked the old RT cover art, so I went with Crimson Fists from there. The army has grown to be probably about a company's worth of Marines, but I'm short one devastator squad and one assault squad to make a true company-strength force, with support elements and lots of veterans.

My Fists are an army I've always kept around since I'd often get bored painting Orks or Imperial Guard and knock out a squad of Marines here and there. As a result, the army's got some of my best, most recent paintjobs as well as cruder ones from years back. Between that and the mix of modern models and ones from 24 years ago, it's a motley army!

I'm yet to take them to a tournament, but I might soon. I'm really feeling the Crimson Fists these days as opposed to my Guard. I haven't played my Space Wolves much since the new codex, as my old army was very heavy on bloodclaws and Terminators, neither of which are quite as good as they used to be. I love my Iron Warriors, but all that pinning due to their metal bodies, heads, and shoulderpads puts me off a bit. On top of that I have Dark Angels and Ultramarine armies I painted years and years ago that I don't reallly play with anymore, on account of them not looking so great.

I own entirely too much power armor.

dalsiandon wrote: I haven't bought a model in two months now and plan to wait until I am finished with I have.

Good luck with that. I can't say how many times I've said that to myself in the last 30+ years of gaming. Hahahahahahaha

Skriker

Skriker wrote:

dalsiandon wrote: I haven't bought a model in two months now and plan to wait until I am finished with I have.

Good luck with that. I can't say how many times I've said that to myself in the last 30+ years of gaming. Hahahahahahaha

Skriker

Thanks for the support. I just hope there isn't another price increase between now and then.

Personally, I bought my army off of a cab driver, and I started playing in tournaments as soon as I had enough painted minis to do so.

My current armies, both classified as "Nilla Marines" top out at @100 models. Points wise, it gives me options for most tourneys and pick-up games, somewhere between 3000 and 3500.
I started with a box force with one and the starter set with the other and built them up from there. Never played with grays.... not been playing lately due to redoing the paint scheme on both.

dalsiandon wrote:At what point were you comfortable with the status of your army to start playing games at tourneys? Did you wait until you had an HQ and troops painted or did you play your grays right away?

My Ultramarines were my first 40K force (since nobody played them back then) and I started them after joining the Marines and spending some time in Twenty-nine Palms, CA with little to do in my free time besides paint. Thus, when I began playing in tournaments, I had a pretty big collection to make a list from. Plus, all my models were painted by then.

dalsiandon wrote:Also how big is your army, and I don't mean points wise? Is there an real reason to build a full company with all it's support equipment? By this I mean the various vehicles and support equipment such as thunder-fire cannons (unless these are actually good and worth running in the HS slot), tech-marines and servitors?

This one is up to you personally. Myself, I have an entire 2nd company, half of the 7th, almost half the first and a couple dozen scouts with plenty of Dreads and other vehicles. I just keep adding to it despite whatever other project I'm working on.

dalsiandon wrote:I ask this because I have found myself with a companies worth of marines, (and a few extra, which is okay so I can alter the special weapon load-outs in my tactical squads and in 1 of my devastator squads, but not enough rides for them, and I just have to ask is there point to buying 4 more rhino/razorback kits?? Are there any games where a full company and all it's tanks can be fielded?

Apocalypse games

dalsiandon wrote:Is this reasonable or do I need more than one Landraider for a decent army? And at what point did you say that you have enough for your army?

I don't think you can ever have enough Land Raiders

I typically buy a codex, read it, pick up 1 hq and 2 troops and go from there. when I first started playing back in 1992. It was 2nd ed 40k and tournaments were 1500 points, but basic marine squads were 300 for 10 marines so It didn't take nearly as many models. I always aim for 3k points to be in an army. Assuming normal 1500 point tournaments you have a decent amount of stuff to swap around to make playable armies.

Now I quickly decided to paint my own paint shceme and would buy any and all marine models to include in that army. This allowed me when the Angels of Death Codex came out to play my custom chatper ( which I had self named Death Angels, lol the originality of an 18 year old) to be vanilla, Dark or Blood Angel depending on which of the special models I swapped out. face it pretty much every marin army and use a squad or 2 of bolter armed troops. I built this up over 15 years to be ~800 marines nearly a full chapter all together, but it had a mix of all the special models mixed in. Meaning If I wanted to play Space Wolves, add in my painted Wolf Guard and taking out my Death Company from when I was playing them as Blood Angels. It is having my cake and eating it to, but it kept the army exciting and meant I didn't have Codex envy. And once 3rd came around. You really never need more than 6 full Tactical Squads, 6 Scout squads, or 6 assault marine squads without jump packs to make any of the standard Troops Choices. You do pick up additional heavy/special weapons to put into those core squads, since sometimes flamers are better than melta/plasma if you are building a custom taylored list as opposed to an All comers list.

Eventually I did spread out and over 15 years acquire pretty much every army up to 3k points. until I stopped playing 5 years ago and now I'm back trying to adjust to 5th and redoing/selling stuff off. I'm planning on restricting myself to 2 active armies and hopefully only 1 in progress army at a time. Instead of maintainin 8+ armies. and not even going over into WFB or the other specialist stuff. At least ebay has been kind and I'm almost sold off all my 4 epic armies, just a squat army left to selll now.

As for when to play in a tournament. As soon as you have enough points for the tournament and feel confident in the rules go for it. But remember just consider it 3+ games that you are going to get in 1 day, under a time restriction. Don't go to win, go to play and have fun. I find myself having more fun at most tournaments just becasue I can get in a full day and 3 games. It beats the heck out of showing up at my local games store and maybe getting in 1 game if I'm lucky.

dalsiandon wrote:So I am curious and I thought to ask my fellow SM players for some advice and this is general 40k so I figured it fit here well enough.

At what point were you comfortable with the status of your army to start playing games at tourneys? Did you wait until you had an HQ and troops painted or did you play your grays right away?

Two years after I started 40k was my first tourney. It was a painted army (I refuse to play with even a single unpainted model in my army. I have unpainted models, but they do NOT hit the table until they are painted).

dalsiandon wrote:Also how big is your army, and I don't mean points wise? Is there an real reason to build a full company with all it's support equipment? By this I mean the various vehicles and support equipment such as thunder-fire cannons (unless these are actually good and worth running in the HS slot), tech-marines and servitors?

I ask this because I have found myself with a companies worth of marines, (and a few extra, which is okay so I can alter the special weapon load-outs in my tactical squads and in 1 of my devastator squads, but not enough rides for them, and I just have to ask is there point to buying 4 more rhino/razorback kits?? Are there any games where a full company and all it's tanks can be fielded?

My SM army numbers in at around 200 figures ( Full battle company plus terminator and scout support infantry) plus 15 drop pods, 5 dreadnoughts, 10 rhinos, 2 predators, 3 land raiders, two whirlwinds, three vindicators and a single thunderfire cannon. Yes, it is all painted. It took me around 17 years to get to here. Does it get played often? No. Maybe once every few years. Weekend long Apoc games (Space marine company is a datasheet formation). Various 1750-2000pt unit combinations get used every few months though.

Skriker wrote:

dalsiandon wrote: I haven't bought a model in two months now and plan to wait until I am finished with I have.

Good luck with that. I can't say how many times I've said that to myself in the last 30+ years of gaming. Hahahahahahaha

Skriker

Everyone knows that if you paint your last unpainted model, you die.

I have a nilla marine(Blood Raven) army.It contains

2 Ten man Tac squads
a 5 man assault squad
5 man Dev Squad
5 man Termy Squad
Termy Libby
Calgar in Termy Armour
Sicarius
a Captain with combi-melta,relic blade,Atrificer amrour,hellfire rounds,digital weapons
a captain with LC,PP,Atrficer,Hellfire rounds,bike
an Iroclad Dreadnought
5 man Sternguard
5 man Scout Squad
Land Speeder storm
Predator AC/LC
Vindicator
LRR
LRC
Storm raven,which I can use in my FLGS becuase of House Rules
5 man command squad
Calgar's Honour Guard
a rhino
a razorback,that I sometimes remover the turrert and use as a rhino
a Drop Pod

I also have a nid army

Hive Tyrant
2 tryant guard
2 hive Guard
a scratch built lictor,made from Genestealer and Mawloc parts
a Zoanthrope
3 warriors
20 Genestealers
a broodlord
30 Termagants
8 Hormagaunts(stupid codex came out after I bought these,so now I am 2 short of a brood)
4 ripper bases
a Carnifex
a Trygon Prime
a Mycetic Spore,which is a count as Drop Pod

GK
Draigo
Vindicare Assassin



I haven't ebntered any competitions yet,but plan to next year.

Kaldor wrote:

Skriker wrote:

dalsiandon wrote: I haven't bought a model in two months now and plan to wait until I am finished with I have.

Good luck with that. I can't say how many times I've said that to myself in the last 30+ years of gaming. Hahahahahahaha

Skriker

Everyone knows that if you paint your last unpainted model, you die.

Well we can't have that now can we.