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Howdy everyone!

I have been getting back to my analog gaming roots. I really enjoy the human interaction you get playing with people In Person! My backstory, I have been playing Magic on and off since about 1999, I mainly enjoy Legacy and EDH. Back around 2001 my friend tried to get me into tabletop gaming. I played with some of his armies, Eldar, and Blood Angels mostly. I never ended up getting serious into it as I was still young and it was expensive. Eventually my friend quit and gave me some of his miniatures, I still have some rattle canned Blood Angels sitting somewhere in my house.
So I recently ran into a few people playing 40K at my LGS, and being a HUGE SciFi nerd I of course got that twinkle in my eye. I want to give the game a shot, I remember it being fun over a decade ago the building/painting aspect seems very enticing.

So I had a few questions I wanted to ask.

I am not trying to be hyper competitive, I leave that to playing Legacy. Just looking for some fun games, not loosing constantly wouldn't be so bad though haha.
I was looking at two different races that intrigue me. The Eldar seem really cool, and I totally love the silliness of the Orcs.
Which would be a better first army to pick up?
I was also curious as to what a starter sized army would cost?
I remember most of the Eldar miniatures being pewter, I checked the GW site and they seem to be plastic now. Are the old pewter models better, or has the quality come along on the plastic ones?

Any other info would be awesome! Really looking forward to getting into the game.

Eldar have been updated to the current ruleset recently- Orks are about 2 editions behind. Eldar are also currently very competitive, so that's a plus as well. A lot of their aspect warriors and special characters use the same sculpts as the metals but in a different material- it just comes down to what you like best to work with.

A quick note- just get the army you think you will enjoy painting and playing the most. It takes a lot of time to get a fully painted army ready for the tabletop.

Eldar have a recent codex, plastic kits (no more pewter unless you play SoB), and are considered the most competitive army out there due to their transports being harder to kill than MBTs and the fact they can shoot their shields at you after they shoot all their guns (!!!)

Ork dex is 2 editions old now.

As a fellow magic player (playing for two decades now), I want to warn you about a couple of things:
- Unlike Magic, Warhammer 40k has a terrible rules-set. Discussing and even arguing how rules work will be part of every single game you play, and a lot of situations are not covered by the rules at all. Sometimes updates break other rules and they never get fixed. Sometimes rules make no sense at all and there is no official help. Check the YMDC part of this forum to get a picture. This is what ultimately made me stop playing and hoping for better days to come.
- GamesWorkshop doesn't give two cents about balance. Currently we have a couple of codices literally curb-stomping everyone else out there, a couple of decent ones and another slew of codices which have no real chance of competing with the top tier. On top of that you get an expansion that enables models which are able to one-shot entire armies. There will be no ban list, no additions to the game to handle the situation, no "sorry, we made a mistake".
- Games of 40k take a lot longer than comparable games of Magic. You'll probably not get any more than one game in on a week day evening, and multi-player games tend to take most of your day.

I'm an ork player, and one of my best friends (also magic player) has started with eldar, so I've also got some advice on that:

Eldar are based around mobility, specialized units and psykers. Their signature vehicles are fast skimmers with high firepower. Their infantry units usually are comparably fragile, but have a lot of damage output due to good offensive stats. Eldar units always specialize in one aspect of the game, you'll be hard-pressed to find any jack-of-all-trades units. They also have access to some of the best psykers in the game, which are able to improve your own units or make your enemy's units worse. Eldar characters tend to fill supporting roles, the real powerful ones (in terms of killing strength) are ether inefficient or just plain bad. The eldar army is rather complex to build and play, but considering that you play Legacy competitively, complexity shouldn't be an issue to you. In comparison, list building is a lot easier than deck building.
Eldar armies don't have a lot of models, but the single models are quite flimsy and take some skill to assemble and paint properly. If you have huge hands like me, you might want to take this into consideration

Orks are based around close combat, low accuracy but high rate of fire shooting and large units. Ork units almost always outnumber similar units from other codices and survive solely due to numbers, rather good saves. When playing orks, be prepared to remove a lot of models from the table. Every ork has close combat as a plan B, no matter what its primary roles is, making the a bit more versatile than an eldar, though less good at the aspect they focused on (unless that was meele in the first place). Orks can be very fast if they want, though the direction tends to be straight at the enemy, since most rides are pretty fragile and get blown up somewhere on the way. This is different from the eldar, who can count on their vehicles being around most of the game. Ork characters are usually huge beatsticks, who are extremely killy in close combat, but there are some good support options as well in form of big meks (KFF or SAG). There also is a psyker, but it should only be used if you want to see an ork spectacularly killing itself. Orks play a lot like red-centered agro decks in magic.
Ork armies have tons of models, but most of them are easily assembled and painted. However, painting will take a lot of time due to the sheer number of models. I'd seriously advice against orks if you don't like painting 100+ models (not hyperbole), or have an issue with playing a large part of your army in grey.

I'd also like to point out that eldar are currently at the very pinnacle of gaming power, while orks are pretty much on the other side of the spectrum. Rumors have it that orks are getting their new codex in summer, however the current edition of rules puts a huge damper on close combat, so it remains to be seen whether the new codex can offset this problem. On the other hand, build the "wrong" army with eldar might cause you to mercilessly slaughter any and every opponent you face in your uncompetitive environment.

If you're still undecided, just borrow the either codex from someone and read up the fluff part. Then pick whatever you like best

I hope this helps

Wow, thanks for such a detailed response Jidmah! Very insightful and helpful, I am grateful.
It might be a bit off topic, but what format do you and your friends typically play in magic?

I can understand balance, Wizards is pretty sensitive to that issue and often does ban cards. That, along with self regulation, the legacy metagame is currently super diverse and thriving.

I am not to worried about competing or being top tier. I just want to play, have fun. and try my hand at learning to build and paint models. Fortunately I have long and dextrous hands! Unfortunately I am not very artistic or skilled with painting. Hopefully with practice I can change that.

I think I will start out with the Eldar and pickup some Orcs this summer when the codex gets updated. I am not to worried about them being underpowered, the fluff makes them seem like a blast to play.

Could you give me an idea on a 500-1000 point elder army? I am a bit unfamiliar with what units I should pickup first and how to structure a squad.

40k>Magic
Everything>magic

Arksz wrote:
Wow, thanks for such a detailed response Jidmah! Very insightful and helpful, I am grateful.
It might be a bit off topic, but what format do you and your friends typically play in magic?

I used to play standard tournaments, but dropped out somewhere during the timeshift block when everyone started playing "5 color, best 40 cards available + 200€ landbase"-style decks. Currently we are playing classic kitchen table magic, basically no one plays any cards more expensive than 2€ unless drawn from booster, plus drafts whenever someone buys a box. Also occasional games of planeshift or archenemy, but no EDH, the others just aren't interested in it.

I can understand balance, Wizards is pretty sensitive to that issue and often does ban cards. That, along with self regulation, the legacy metagame is currently super diverse and thriving.

I am not to worried about competing or being top tier. I just want to play, have fun. and try my hand at learning to build and paint models. Fortunately I have long and dextrous hands! Unfortunately I am not very artistic or skilled with painting. Hopefully with practice I can change that.

I think I will start out with the Eldar and pickup some Orcs this summer when the codex gets updated. I am not to worried about them being underpowered, the fluff makes them seem like a blast to play.

Could you give me an idea on a 500-1000 point elder army? I am a bit unfamiliar with what units I should pickup first and how to structure a squad.

I think wave serpents and some dire avengers lead by a farseer are a good place to start, none of them is going to be useless anytime soon. Maybe pick up a pair of battleforces, though I'm unsure on the efficiency of the viper in there, maybe a real eldar player can help you out more. If you create a new thread called "Help with starting eldar" you'll probably be bombarded with info

Vypers are actually surprisingly good. Kinda like a fast war walker in some regards, but not as good as a war walker. A battle force is definitely a good starter, then add a HQ far seer or something. I'd avoid spamming wave serpents, or you'll quickly become 'that guy' because they are frankly one of the best units right now. The benefit of Eldar is that no unit in your book is bad, except banshees. They suck and have done for about 10 years

Von Chogg

In terms of conversions, I'd say Eldar play most like Blue, and Orks most like Green, inasmuch as comparisons between the 2 games allow.

So I did some digging and managed to find the army my friend gifted to me over a decade ago, happened to be sitting in my parents shed tucked away in the corner. Well.... lets just say it seems he was in a rush to play haha. So my plan is to fix these up, get some practice and get some Orcs action when the new codex is released this summer!
For now I guess I will be playing blood angels. So it seems I have the following:

Death company
An assassin looking thing
Some hideously painted terminators
Really poorly put together squads
A Rhino
2 Furioso Dreadnaughts
Some other kind of Dreadnaught?
And a Not sure what the tank is called

I wanted to strip and repaint them, is there a way to dissolve the super glue? The plastic models are very poorly put together.


Jidmah, if you only play casually with your friends I can not recommend commander enough, it is an incredibly fun format.

Sometimes you can leave models in the freezer for a bit to let the super glue get brittle, then pop them apart. Simple Green is good for stripping paint. Let them soak, then hit them with an old toothbrush.

Jidmah, if you only play casually with your friends I can not recommend commander enough, it is an incredibly fun format.

I believe so, I have a finished Niv-Mizzet deck sitting around waiting to be played. The others are just reluctant to built their own decks.