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Hello. I was considering getting into Warhammer 40,000, but I had a ton of questions.

1. I was wondering how necessary it would be to get the main rulebook for 7th edition? I bought a rulebook from Amazon. but it turns out it's not for the current 7th edition. It's for 6th edition. Are the rules much different, or can I just use the 6th edition book?

2. I play Magic The Gathering at my local game store and about 9-10 months ago there seemed to be people playing Warhammer often. But, I never see anyone playing anymore. Is there some sort of medium for playing online?

3. I'm sort of torn between trying to play as Chaos Marines, Blood Angel Marines or Imperial Guard. I'm kind of limited on money, so the thought of paying for lots of little Imperial Guard guys is not very appealing.. even though I think I like the style of army they have. So, I'm leaning more towards Chaos Marines and Angel Marines. What is the most newcomer-friendly choice?

1. Not very different, but different enough. You'll need the 7th ed book unless you know folks willing to play 6th ed.

2. Vassal, but that's not official.

3. Probably chaos since they have an updated codex. BA are rumored to be upcoming.

 SneakyTheDragon wrote:
Hello. I was considering getting into Warhammer 40,000, but I had a ton of questions.

1. I was wondering how necessary it would be to get the main rulebook for 7th edition? I bought a rulebook from Amazon. but it turns out it's not for the current 7th edition. It's for 6th edition. Are the rules much different, or can I just use the 6th edition book?

2. I play Magic The Gathering at my local game store and about 9-10 months ago there seemed to be people playing Warhammer often. But, I never see anyone playing anymore. Is there some sort of medium for playing online?

3. I'm sort of torn between trying to play as Chaos Marines, Blood Angel Marines or Imperial Guard. I'm kind of limited on money, so the thought of paying for lots of little Imperial Guard guys is not very appealing.. even though I think I like the style of army they have. So, I'm leaning more towards Chaos Marines and Angel Marines. What is the most newcomer-friendly choice?

1. Different enough that you'll need the new book.
2. No legal ones. There's a program called Vassal, but it's not sanctioned and is pretty different from the real thing.
3. Out of the armies you're looking at, they are most newbie-friendly in this order: Guard, Chaos, Blood Angels. Although the Anglels will be getting a new codex soon, which will likely make them easier to learn.

If you don't have a good group to play with in person , you won't enjoy 40k.

As for 1, no, you probably need to pick up the 7th ed rules if you want to play seventh. Vehicles, psychics and missions work completely differently in seventh though basic things like the stats of troops and moving/shooting/assault are the same from 6th to 7th.

And as for 3, Chaos is definitely the noob-friendliest. There's actually a starter kit for the game that includes Chaos and Dark Angel marines (not to be confused with the bloody sort, entirely different goofily enough) and getting that set of chaos guys would be a breeze with ebay. A quick search and I'm seeing the entire set (Helbrute, 20X cultists, 5X chaos space marines, 1X Chaos Lord) of gorgeous models for 35-50 bucks. And, if you're feeling extra sneaky, you can go for a Chaos and Guard allied force, using the Cultists eventually as traitorous Guardsmen. Because I'm seeing about 20 bucks for 20 models on those gorgeous cultist sculpts on ebay, which is damn cheap for 40k.

Thank you all very much for answering my questions, it's appreciated. I have a lot to consider.

well, i'd say hold off for a bit, when the BA codex gets released, read the reviews and make up your mind. CSM are widely regarded to have a crappy codex and guard are... noob friendly (certain builds) but cost a fething TON of money. Almost £40 for twenty BS2 WS2 guys...

1) I don't spend money on books. They are always changing and have no resale. I use reference sheets found online, and read a lot on forums to learn rules. With experience, you won't even use the book. (Do get your codex though).

2) as others stated.

3) Do not collect an army because the price tag isn't what you want. This is a hobby you grow over time, and you don't need a huge army to play in games. Besides, right now you think you know what you want, but you have no idea. Because you're a beginner.

Start an army that seems most appealing to you. Guard can run lists with only 20 infantry men if desired. I'd save up $125, get the battle force for guard (if that what interests you), build em, paint em, play a handful of games. If you want to battle on a larger scale, team up with someone to take down someone else with a big army.

Once you play a few games and have an actual bearing on the mechanics of the game, you can think about slowly expanding your army over time.

-DB

I dont think many people play games under 1k points and most games are 1500 or up. That is at least two battle forces and additional boxs with tanks and one needs to buy all the needed special weapons from bitz sites.

Something Ive done while trying to be cheap is getting those $10 dollar boxes of minis for armies. For IG I think they come with 4 or 5 normal guardsmen. Then you can get a command squad and the 10 model guard box to make sergeants and special weapons guys. Same thing can be done with chaos marines.

 SneakyTheDragon wrote:
Hello. I was considering getting into Warhammer 40,000, but I had a ton of questions.

1. I was wondering how necessary it would be to get the main rulebook for 7th edition? I bought a rulebook from Amazon. but it turns out it's not for the current 7th edition. It's for 6th edition. Are the rules much different, or can I just use the 6th edition book?

2. I play Magic The Gathering at my local game store and about 9-10 months ago there seemed to be people playing Warhammer often. But, I never see anyone playing anymore. Is there some sort of medium for playing online?

3. I'm sort of torn between trying to play as Chaos Marines, Blood Angel Marines or Imperial Guard. I'm kind of limited on money, so the thought of paying for lots of little Imperial Guard guys is not very appealing.. even though I think I like the style of army they have. So, I'm leaning more towards Chaos Marines and Angel Marines. What is the most newcomer-friendly choice?

1. Important unless you can find people willing to play 6th. There's enough changes you can play 7th with a 6th rulebook, but flat out playing 6th or using someone else's rulebook would be easier to learn to play.

2. Not really. Does your game store have a forum or a special night for 40k?

3. Eh. BA have a new codex coming soon, and Chaos aren't as model heavy, but I would play what army most intrigues you. That's how I think you have the most fun. IG are very tank and big blob army style, while codex is a lot of fun and mutation. BA is very in your face assault marines, but some of that may change with the new codex.

You should be able to score a free mini book from someone. They came with DV and StormClaw, so many players have them and don't need them.

If you're just starting, with a small fund to begin with, I'd say to go with wither Chaos Marines or Blood Angels.
But, try to get some generic-looking models off ebay or similar, and customise them when you get going. Chaos use more spikes, but all loyalist SM armies use basic Bolter models.
Grab a couple of Rhinos, and maybe bikes or Dreadnoughts, and you've a generic army you can use as a proxy for any Power Armour army.

IG is the same. If you need to, look for a box of Green Army Men or else that has a vaguely similar scale as IG models, and pad out the table to build up the points.

The codex is the only real thing you need, if you have 6th to work off. Download a 6th-to-7th changes list, and grab diice, a tape measure and templates.

Then, you can phase out the proxies, and get 'proper' models when you can.

You can always play regular marines painted as blood angels until BA gets a proper codex. Regular SM is pretty top tier currently, while BA is really low.

I really appreciate all of the advice and help. I'm taking every reply into consideration.

I was checking ebay for some Power Marine models and tank models, and they seem to be as expensive 2nd hand as they are to buy new.. kind of discouraging.

I'm also very worried that 40K is dead in my area and I'll be wasting my money.

 SneakyTheDragon wrote:
I really appreciate all of the advice and help. I'm taking every reply into consideration.

I was checking ebay for some Power Marine models and tank models, and they seem to be as expensive 2nd hand as they are to buy new.. kind of discouraging.

I'm also very worried that 40K is dead in my area and I'll be wasting my money.

Having opponents is a pretty essential part of any wargame. Have you gone and had a look at your local gaming stores/clubs/ect?

 SneakyTheDragon wrote:
I really appreciate all of the advice and help. I'm taking every reply into consideration.

I was checking ebay for some Power Marine models and tank models, and they seem to be as expensive 2nd hand as they are to buy new.. kind of discouraging.

I'm also very worried that 40K is dead in my area and I'll be wasting my money.

I can say from personal experience that trying to 40K with people you don't know, or with too few people are a pretty unstable idea - I tried. If no one is playing with you and you can't get anyone to play with you (which is hard with an expensive game like this in the first place), maybe you should hold off right now. 40K is a bit in decline too, as the rules are shwoing their age and the worth of the game is debatable to many of the people who have used lots of money on playing a fun game they aren't satisfied with. Most of the players in my area has jumped back to Fantasy, as the game is more fun to them, the End Times are on us and the rules better balanced.

Not that 40K isn't a good game, it can still be plenty fun, but if other people are playing something else and you are willing to try something else, there are many better balanced, designed and priced games out there.

If nothing else, you could try and play Kill Team - Lesser models, balanced for the most parts and requires less effort to get going with some new friends, so there's that.

First of all, you need to find people to play against. Social networks like facebook will help you out easilly.

I'd suggest you picking the army based entirely on the background. Rules come and go making one stuff better and other worse. But every army has ways of being run effectively.

If you're short on money, you could find people willing to sell the models which will most likely be allready assempled and sometimes painted, so will be a quick start and will cost you less than half of what you'd spend before painting on the new ones.

The Dark Vengeance starter will set you up with the rulebook and a fairly barebones Chaos Space Marine force, flog off the Dark Angels that come with it (possibly to a friend) and reinvest the $$$ into more Chaos goodies. That's how I got started.