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I just started to teach my Dad the game and, as I had hoped, he is really enjoying the game. I borrowed my friends Space Marine half built army to teach him the basics and to get a feel for 40k. My friend and I figured SM would be a good place to start as they are pretty straightforward to play and have more room for error than other armies (like my Tau, for example). This was indeed the case and he said he would like to stick to SM going forward. Now that I have confirmation that he would like to continue playing, I am going to buy him an army, specifically one of the SM chapters (Blood Angels, Grey Knights, Space Wolves or Dark Angels).

Which one of these would you recommend to a beginning player? I figure I could also use the army while we aren't playing so I would like it to be reasonably competitive (ie not Tau), so a good balance of being easy to play and strong would be my preferred choice (which is why I'm picking one of the chapters rather than SM on their own).

Any help on the differences between the chapters (in terms of gameplay), as well as an overview of competativeness, would be very helpful. Any considerations would be great, even factors such as time to paint (we are both busy people).

Thanks in advance!

I personally play GK and love it but there are already a massive amount of GK players. SW are a very fun and straightforward army to play with. Thats going to be my next army.

Black Templars and Vanilla Marines exist too, so don't miss them in your assessment.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:Black Templars and Vanilla Marines exist too, so don't miss them in your assessment.

I was picking between the four aforementioned chapters because (and please correct me if I am wrong) because they are generally better than Vanilla Marines and I want to be able to play with them when we aren't playing each other. The DA choice was purely speculation on the codex that (should) be coming out soon and new codex are generally powerful.

I haven't heard of Black Templars before, how do they play? Are they reasonably competative?

Thanks for the response!

But if tha DA codex doesnt come out your screwed. Id go SW or BA

It depends if he's more of a painter of player and how much rules know how he has.

GK are small, good for painters but have a feth tonne of special rules.

BA can be vehicle based or assault based and so on.

I would see what fluff appeals most and then work from there.

Spyral wrote:It depends if he's more of a painter of player and how much rules know how he has.

GK are small, good for painters but have a feth tonne of special rules.

BA can be vehicle based or assault based and so on.

I would see what fluff appeals most and then work from there.

Couldnt have said it better myself

I'm going to debunk all of these... Let him pick the army. My dad is a history geek so he's having a lot of fun building his "red army" imperial guard army. have your dad look over and learn a little about each army and let him pick for him self. Don't worry about competition level for someone just starting. As odd as it sounds the more you like the look of your army the more your going to stick with the game.

DarkWind wrote:I'm going to debunk all of these... Let him pick the army. My dad is a history geek so he's having a lot of fun building his "red army" imperial guard army. have your dad look over and learn a little about each army and let him pick for him self. Don't worry about competition level for someone just starting. As odd as it sounds the more you like the look of your army the more your going to stick with the game.

This a few times over. It's really important to collect an army you enjoy rather than an army you win with. I'm personally in love with the Eldar army, but I very, very, rarely win since my playing style is either extremely cautious or extremely bold and not the boldly cautious you need to be with Eldar.

Mahtamori wrote:

DarkWind wrote:I'm going to debunk all of these... Let him pick the army. My dad is a history geek so he's having a lot of fun building his "red army" imperial guard army. have your dad look over and learn a little about each army and let him pick for him self. Don't worry about competition level for someone just starting. As odd as it sounds the more you like the look of your army the more your going to stick with the game.

This a few times over. It's really important to collect an army you enjoy rather than an army you win with. I'm personally in love with the Eldar army, but I very, very, rarely win since my playing style is either extremely cautious or extremely bold and not the boldly cautious you need to be with Eldar.

I'll third this. the only reason my wife to be is willing to play is that she loves Tau battlesuits.

Good suggestions from everyone, thank you. For those of you wanting him to pick an army, he more or less did when he said he wanted to play Space Marines. I was just thinking if we are going to go for SM, we may as well go for one of the competative chapters so I can bust it out at my local game store if I am feeling frisky. That said ill go over the different armies and see which one he likes the most. I think he wanted to stick with SM because that was what he was familiar with.

More importantly, does anyone have an recommendations for where to go to find out more about each army? Something less complex than the various 40kWikis and more in depth when it comes to play style than the rule book (pictures are sweet and all but they don't describe how they play).

Battles wrote:Good suggestions from everyone, thank you. For those of you wanting him to pick an army, he more or less did when he said he wanted to play Space Marines. That said ill go over the different armies and see which one he likes the most. I think he wanted to stick with SM because that was what he was familiar with.

More importantly, does anyone have an recommendations for where to go to find out more about each army? Something less complex than the various 40kWikis and more in depth when it comes to play style than the rule book (pictures are sweet and all but they don't describe how they play).

This is gonna sound basic, but the individual army codex are probably your best bet.

Horst wrote:

Battles wrote:Good suggestions from everyone, thank you. For those of you wanting him to pick an army, he more or less did when he said he wanted to play Space Marines. That said ill go over the different armies and see which one he likes the most. I think he wanted to stick with SM because that was what he was familiar with.

More importantly, does anyone have an recommendations for where to go to find out more about each army? Something less complex than the various 40kWikis and more in depth when it comes to play style than the rule book (pictures are sweet and all but they don't describe how they play).

This is gonna sound basic, but the individual army codex are probably your best bet.

So maybe find a PDF online if we dont have access to them?

I don't like to advocate piracy in public, but to just feel out the codex fluff, yea thats a good idea.

Alternatively the articles on the Gw webstore for each army are ok a they give some basic detail, there are also youtube vids called 40k history: (then army name) which give a good overview, I think they are by miniwargaming.

DarkWind wrote:I'm going to debunk all of these... Let him pick the army. My dad is a history geek so he's having a lot of fun building his "red army" imperial guard army. have your dad look over and learn a little about each army and let him pick for him self. Don't worry about competition level for someone just starting. As odd as it sounds the more you like the look of your army the more your going to stick with the game.

I think this is the best bit of advice let him look through the armie himself he may find something he likes way more than marines or he may find he likes marines, let him research he will know the army when he finds it.

Id agree, you should take him to the shop with you and let him choose. Visually standing there checking out boxes of miniatures will help him pick also id like to mention Chaos space marines as a choice. The bad guys are just as fun to play with as the rest.

you can find info on the other armies almost anywhere online. Wikipedia or even Lexicanum are great places

Uhh... I guess it kind of depends what your goal is, here. Are you looking for the cheapest army to get him? That would probably be GK. Are you looking for the easiest army for him to play? That would probably be BA. Are you looking for the army that will help him become a better player faster? That would be vanilla marines.

You know, one of the things you could do is sit down and have a chat with him to try and figure out more precisely what he's looking for in a 40k army. I know he's new, so he probably won't have a really great idea, but every army has some sort of generic pull to it. Perhaps if you can tease a little prompting out of him, your decision will be a little easier.

Id say let him pick, pretty much any of the armies you listed can be played by a noobie. They just are different play styles.

As a SM player I am deeply offended by your remarks on SM not being as good as the others .

The thing with C:SM is that they may not be quite as straight forward as the other "specialist" codices but they are great all rounders with an answer to almost anything. Not to mention the changes to leadership rules means that combat tactics went from being pretty good to awesome as you don't have to worry about being escorted off the table anymore.

Ultimately he should choose but I would tip him toward SM. SM are fairly easy to play but are hard to master! I think you'll find he'll become a better player with them.

+1 to all of those people saying that he should pick. After all, even though you may field it from time to time, it is intended to be his army, right? And having fun - which some people get out of "identifying" with their army - is way more important than just winning.
Just for the sake of completion, also let him take a look at the other armies, maybe give him the 6E rulebook so that he can get a quick idea of what else is out there.

A suggestion I would throw in would be Vanilla Marines, though. Easiest to learn the game with, plus your dad can really make this army his own, maybe can even come up with his own idea of a Chapter or play one of the lesser known ones. Not sure if you ever want to take him around for games in your region, but I think he might feel "cooler" fielding an army that is somewhat less omnipresent than, say, GK and SW. Granted, Vanilla Marines are still Marines, but at least they can be unique Marines.

Ask him yourself what he likes?

DarkWind wrote:I'm going to debunk all of these... Let him pick the army. My dad is a history geek so he's having a lot of fun building his "red army" imperial guard army. have your dad look over and learn a little about each army and let him pick for him self. Don't worry about competition level for someone just starting. As odd as it sounds the more you like the look of your army the more your going to stick with the game.

This a hundred times this.

I really appreciate the input and I will go over the different armies again to get a feel for what he wants to do.

I just want to point out to everyone saying that I should let him pick which army he wants to play is that I did do that (as indicated in the OP), and he wanted to stick to SM. I just figured it would be better to pick one of the chapters because they are more "competitive," though this isn't that big of a concern because concerns about competitiveness will rarely come up. I realize the most important factor in this decision is what he enjoy flavor/play style wise, but all things equal, why not pick the chapter that is perhaps a little stronger?

Well, personally, I'm going to have to say that if you want a MEQ army, go with Blood Angels they are reasonably competitive, have a wide range of units and they are good. You can go assault against more sedentary armies and mechanized for other armies. If you want xenos, Necrons are great as they are resilient and are awesome. I play them. PICK NECRONS

AlmightyWalrus wrote:Black Templars and Vanilla Marines exist too, so don't miss them in your assessment.

Yup. Think outside the realm of the fanboi.