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Hey guys, I am new to 40K and table-top wargames in general. Completely new. So, two questions:

Can I paint my minis as I like or do I need to follow how the minis are painted on the box?

And, I am thinking of starting a 'nid army ('cause they look cool ). How do I proceed, and what do I buy first?

Thanks!

First, welcome to Dakka and wargaming!

Your minis, paint them how you want. That said, some things have set rules based on certain assumptions. IE if it looks like an Ultramarine, it should probably use their rules.

I don’t think any nid units have anything close to that though.

I don’t play bugs, so will leave army specific advice to others.

Look up some basic painting tips for painting 40k minis and minis in general. Like thin your paints and multiple layers of it to get the look you want. Play Tau they're awesome and have lots of giant shooty robots.

I mean, Nids sorta do, but it's nothing as dramatic. I personally hate seeing new models painted in the Behemoth (red skin/blue carapace) and Kraken (tan skin/red carapace) color schemes. Kraken was 3rd Edition which had completely different looking models, and Behemoth shouldn't (according to fluff timeline) be represented on the table at all since even RT or 2nd Edition models weren't legitimately part of Behemoth. It throws me to see a modern Carnifex that they call Old One Eye since that bug has a name and is very specifically a different body style... But that's just the colors that were featured in the codex at certain times and has since been retconned away many times over.

The current boxes show Leviathan (white skin/purple carapace), who is the current hotness when it comes to Nid fleets but there are dozens of canon Splinter Fleets in the game with all sorts of color schemes and NONE of the colors affect gameplay in any way, shape or form. Paint them however you like.

Should start with an idea of what you want to build. Tyranids have a problem that if you try to do multiple things in your swarm, like a bunch of little bugs supported by mid sized and a few big ones, you will get trampled often. If you go full big bugs, you can do pretty well. Same if you go full swarms. Or full flyers. But, a Flying Hive Tyrant is in every list. Multiples of them.

So what unit or units specifically look the coolest to you? What really got you into Nids as a race and you MUST HAVE? From there, we can tell you some ways to build around it. Unless you like Hive Guard and Pyrovores...

Well...if you pick an existing paint scheme, you can actually buy pre painted additions on ebay, or sell your army without absolutely giving it away.

I suggest watching youtube painters for tips and tricks. I was painting at a very low level for years before deciding to take it more seriously, and the knowledge you can glean from watching videos is downright amazing.

There's a simple rule in mini games, and that's "The Rule of Cool", if your conversions to the models or paint scheme looks cool, it doesn't matter if it's unconventional. Even most tournaments are ok with awesome conversions of models as long as others can tell what's what in your army.

As for 40k, while it's fun to a degree, I'd suggest looking into the local area and seeing if there's even a community. The game isn't that big, and honestly GW is kind of scummy as a company, so just do some research into what you're getting into. Also, try to figure out what format people play if there's a local community of players, since things like the ITC can change what you want in your list for example.

The tyranids came out with a Starter set that is very good for the price it's at. I would highly recommend picking one up. After that, if you can spend a large chunk, go for a Swarm Box. That should give you a bit of everything you'd want for the time being.

There's a vibrant community in my area with lots of events and free painting/game tables in the local store (UK). I was really attracted by Behemoth (but with a pure abaddon black carapace) Termagants, and I really like how they look. I like the small and mid sized units, like Termagants and Warriors.

You might wanna check out Hive Fleet Moloch then. It was a fan-made Tyranid hive fleet made by someone who was close with a lot of the old GW sculptors and designers. Color-wise, it was basically Behemoth's color with black carapace.

While most of Hive Fleet Moloch has been taken off the web, a quick google search should turn up some archived pics. The creator was VERY creative with a lot of it, and it was basically the bible of Tyranid conversions back when we still considered a weapon swap to be "converted".

Welcome!

I wrote this article on how to choose and start an army, it might help you

You can paint them exactly how you wish - you can even use Ultramarine tactics with someone painted as White Scars and vice versa; all you need to do is inform your opponent beforehand and write it in your army list. If you want a fluffy excuse for using another Chapter's tactics, it can be it's simply a different company with different tactics! It is not uncommon for players to even use different codices to better portray what they believe is "their guys'" way of fighting.

Moloch had some friggin awesome minis in there. If I remember right, they also debuted Kill Team way back when with their Genestealers. VERY impressive models. But, as said everywhere, paint has no affect on gameplay. You won't get a bonus for calling your fleet Hive Fleet Moloch.

If you're looking at mid sized, then I suggest starting off with the Begin Collecting box for Nids. Gargoyles will be a pretty important move and it'll get you started on Warriors as well. Make sure all the Warriors match unless you give one a big gun. One big gun is fine in a Shooty squad. Just don't put a Shooty Warrior in a stabby unit of them. Keep them all Shooty or all stabby at all times.

From there, you want to get your troops lined up. Get as many boxes of them as you like. The Wrath of the Hive Mind box has a nice combination of more Warriors, a Tervigon and a handful of Termagants. But you'd need more Termagants. Like, 30 more to do a good combination of two Flyrants, one with Hive Commander, thirty Termagants to make a Tervigon with E-shock Grubs and Crushing Claws a Troop choice, outflanking the Tervigon with Hive Commander and letting it poop out more Termagants during the game. The downside is you need about 50+ Termagant models for that combo. But, it's a good combo to start off with. Your Warriors and Gargoyles just play normally however you choose to do them.

Now, that's taking your primary interests in mind. It's not a 'winning' build. But it's good enough to get on the table and have some fun with. Warriors are not good in games right now because of their low toughness. Anything S8+ just removes them from the table. I've found that anything that can kill three in a game can easily kill all the way up to nine. Anything that can't handle five can't even handle three. They either die horribly or do something decent, but it's a 50:50 gamble and depends entirely on your opponent.

So, after those couple boxes, you need a Venomthrope or two. These will give a big bonus to your swarm. So the Gargoyles give a 5+ Cover save to anyone behind them because they take up so much space they make a good screen unit, and then the Venomthrope improves that to a 3+ cover with a Shrouded bubble around it. That's not easy to shoot through, and might give your Warriors some much needed survivability.

By the time you have all that built, painted and played a few games, you'll prolly have a decent handle on what you need next and be able to build towards what else you want. You're going to want BIG numbers when you don't have big bugs. Keep that in mind.

Hallo hallo!

Most importantly, paint your minis any way that makes you happy The only expectation, generally, is that there's some effort made to paint them, and that they have gear (mostly weapons) that correctly identify the model.

A couple of years ago (end of 2014), GW had a really good box set with Blood Angels and Tyranids. As a result, there's an awful lot of Carnifexes and Tyranid warriors out there (as well as Genestealers, but nobody wants those). You may want to check eBay -- there may still be a great deal on those two models, brand new on sprue.

For buying Tyranids, I would recommend the Tyranid Swarm box and the Tyranid get started box. (buy them from a retailer who will give you a discount).
That will get you plenty of bugs big and small to paint, form a nice core on which you can build, and enough to play small games with.

One way I got a feel for the dark eldar army I'm currently in the process of painting is that me and a few of my friends played some test games on the website Roll20 using it's RPG map editor asa virtual table. The only problems with this is that you need another person in order to test your lists, and that the games can get a little tedious after awhile.