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But failed. Got back into table-top gaming a year ago (after a 25 year absence) when I suddenly found myself with a 12 year old step-son. We played some D&D adventure games with miniatures and a few others. I kept seeing all the Warhammer stuff at my FLGS and about a month ago bought the Dark Vengeance set. We are having a blast with it. Started painting some miniatures a year ago and decided I really like the Army Painter QuickShade Dip though my game shop guy thinks it's heresy. Makes me feel comfortable that I'll get a nice result while I paint more and gain confidence.
The one thing I'm not sure I get is the army building process, if I'm going for Chaos Space Marines is there a wrong box of models to buy? Or can you buy anything and custom it to your faction? Same thing with Space Marines, I see some boxes listed as Dark Angels others as just Space Marines. For example, if I buy a box of Berzerkers can I add them to the units that came with DV? (I know it doesn't matter when it's just me and my son, but I'd like to make the jump to playing at my FLGS).

Hello everyone :-)

Here's my first few 40K paint jobs.

Hello and welcome to Dakka Dakka!

You can pretty much get anything for Chaos, it all works together.
With the loyalist scum, its a bit more complex, generally all the Space Marine kits work with the 'named' Chapters (wolves, blood angels, dark angels), but the 'named' chapters can't be mixed and matched in one army (unless you're using allies).....

The Best bet is to get the codex to see which units you can use.

Oh, and welcome to Dakka!!!

The space marines are basically all the same. As long as the box says "space marine" or "dark angel" on it, he can use it in his dark angels army. With chaos space marines, make sure the box says "chaos space marines" on it. Besides that, you can get mostly any unit because dark vengeance fills the 2 troop 1 HQ rule. I would suggest getting the codexes before you go farther because they give you a lot of helpful tips.

DV doesn't have 2 troops for space marines (methinks)..... If I were you I would first decide what kind of space marines you would like to play. there are chapters that get they're own dfferent codexes with different rules and units, for example dark angels. regular space marines encompass the 750 something loyalist codex astartes folowing chapters, and also have their own codex C:SM. for chaos space marines you may want to look into what kind of csm army you want. there are four variants based on the four gods of chaos. anyway i would ask around at your flgs about things like fluff and different kinds of the same things mentioned above. best bet is to playtest all the appealing codii and pick one you like.

Chaos Space Marines

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440206a&prodId=prod1710081a

Dark Angels

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat860006a&prodId=prod1830070a

Normal Space Marines

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440270a&prodId=prod1550002

These tell you what you can and cannot field in a game. If I was you i'd hold off getting the Space Marine one as it is likely to be updated soon (probably the end of the year).

Note you don't need the Space Marines codex if you are playing Dark Angels but any of them are worth looking through thoroughly as they all have the same format and are really needed if you are looking at expanding your forces.

Largeblastmarker: It does fill the two troops for Marines as you can take squads of 5 and each squad can have a special and/or heavy weapon (one plascannon, one plasgun). Granted, that's not a very reliable troops loadout, but it will work for small games just fine. Additionally, you can run the company master as Azrael and then the terminators, TAC squad and Ravenwing bikers are all troops and can capture objectives. A bit pricey for a small list like that, but it could make for a fun game or three.

As far as the Dark Angels units, as long as they're in power armor, they'll work fine. I wouldn't be terribly concerned as far as this goes as it would be a while before any tournaments or the like, and I find people are happier to have more new players with new strategies and tactics than an army that perfectly fits into the correct model and paint theme. I play with 5 IG troops with lasguns as my scouts w/sniper rifles as they had the snap-together box for $10 and I felt like I might want to paint them somewhere down the line. I get more positive feedback on the idea than I do anything else.

EDIT: Welcome to Dakka, by the way!

What you want to buy are the Army Books (Codexes) for the armies that you are interested in playing. That would be Chaos Space Marines, and Dark Angels, or Space Marines. Those books will tell you all the details about the armies that you are hoping to field. For instance, when building a force of miniatures, you need to fill certain 'slots' to have a legal army. It is good to build and buy model kits that build towards your ideal army. Some of those army 'slots' have limits on how many units you can use. For instance, you can only have three Hellbrutes in any Chaos Marine force. So while there is no real 'wrong' kit to buy, you may end up buying models that may sit out of every battle because your Force Organzation Chart is full.

@rollawaythestone: Seconded. I bought a couple of extra pieces because they were so cheap, but went over by 1 on my Heavy slots for my Dark Eldar. I do like the unit I bought on the cheap, but I prefer the units I bought at full price and built (obviously, I was willing to buy them at full price and build them). Now it sits on my shelf reminding me of the $20 that could have been a pizza....

@embracethechaos oh ok i'm not super informed about the dark angels rules. (cant wait for new sm codex!!!)

Hello, and Welcome to DakkaDakka!

Hi,

Welcome to Dakka

Welcome.