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Here's the deal

Played my first game of 40k last night, and now I'm obsessed. I want to build an army of my own. I want it to be Chaos. Only problem is.... I have no idea where the hell to start. Can someone help guide me to at least a starting point, that would be much appreciated before I waste tons of cash on unimportant models. Thanks in advance. =)

spoiler no one has at the moment. The game is expected to change radically in a few months. Best advice is to only buy models you like and not to buy more than you paint. So dont buy new stuff until it all is painted


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A good start might be to search the net for parts of the dark vengeance set those chaos mini's look good ( in my opinion) and aren't that expensive. However if you like other choas models you should buy those other models..

Chaos is also slated to get yet another set of new minis in the form of Plague Marines and possibly Plague Terminators, so this is probably not the best of time to start a Chaos Army.

Nonetheless, if you must have your chaos models now, then I would get the Start Collecting! Chaos Space Marine set.

It comes with 10 chaos space marines, a Terminator Lord and a Chaos Dreadnought/Hellbrute. While none of these units have ever been gamebreaking, they've often been the core of many chaos armies. Chaos Space Marines in particular are very adaptable as they're compatible with normal Space Marine parts, can be converted to Plague Marines with some minimal conversion work, can work as Noise Marines straight out of the box, and so forth. The Chaos Terminator Lord model has a lot of options too and can be assembled as a Sorceror Lord in Terminator Armor. It's parts are also somewhat compatible with the normal Marines you'd get, so there's some conversion possibilities there too.

yeah best advice I can give to an aspiring 40k player rtight now is WAIT

na don't wait have fun painting and building the models you love. There is no need to just wait and do nothing. However do not build an army based on what is good today, unless you like to play and enjoy the heck out of it the next few months.

As the others have stated hold off on buying anything you don't love.

What I mean is, do you think Chaos terminators or Rubric Marines looks awesome? Go ahead and buy those and paint them up, but don't buy anything based on rules or requirements. Just get what you think looks cool and maybe fun to play.

Luckily, that is always the best advice for any edition. But if you want stuff meow and intend to play it. You can't go wrong with EBAY. You can nab some cultists, Chaos Space Marines, Rhinos and probably Termies for dirt cheap.

I think Sackpanda on ebay currently has 22 chaos cultists for $30 and Chaos Chosen for like $8 bucks. A good place to start due to good looking models and dirt cheap price.

Read up on free fluff on the internet and figure out what paint scheme looks best and what models look best as a starting point. Get a Chaos Space Marine squad and test out your paint scheme painting one marine.

Dark Vengeance all day. Most of the models in there should be pretty much universal no matter what happens, and they are by far the cheapest way to get started. If you peruse Ebay you can probably get all of the Chaos models from DV for around $60. However, as we get closer to the release of 8th edition I can see everyone trying to dump their stock of DV sets, so I would expect them to get even cheaper sometime in the near future.

I recently started 40 with Chaos Space Marines myself. There is a lot of good suggestions in this thread.

I started 40K with Dark Vengeance. I use the whole box set as CSM with the Dark Angel models being Fallen and count as their Chaos equivalents which almost everything works (just not the Plasma Cannon).

I don't think their is a cheaper way to get a good chunk of models right away. From their I went with the 10 CSM and a Rhino box which also works out pretty good.

With the new edition coming out being fairly likely, I would get the models you like as has already been suggested with an idea of covering basic opposing unit types (infantry, tanks, fast attack, etc.). If you like the models and army you have you will weather edition changes better than the latest rule exploiting unit.

Yeah had a mate who started Chaos recently.. got Dark vengeance.. minor conversions on the DA side of things and there is basically a Chaos war band off the bat

You probably can't go wrong with either a box of Start Collecting: Chaos Space Marines, or one or two of those Desolator Squad boxes (10 Chaos Marines and a Rhino), just for a basic body count. Not a lot of people know how the new edition will affect your models, but basic troop types and a character model or two will probably always be useful. A good tip you got earlier, is to buy something, then assemble it, and paint it before buying the next box. One minor complaint I could have about that tip now, though, is the fact that we know very little of what is to come.

For example, some older Space Marine codices had the Tactical Squad. At less than 10 Marines, you could equip one with a special weapon. Only at 10 could one get a heavy weapon. That was changed so now you can have either a special or a heavy weapon, unless your squad numbers 10, in which case the quad can have both a special and a heavy weapon. In the current (yet old) Chaos Space Marines codex I believe the heavy weapon still only unlocks at 10 or more Chaos Marines to the squad. Who knows what the new edition might bring? If you assemble the miniatures now, and actually glue the weapons to them as opposed to magnetizing optional special and heavy weapons, you might have to break them apart again, or replace them, by the time the new edition hits.
Unless, of course, you already clearly know what you want. A five-man Chaos Marine squad with a champion, a flamer Marine and three or four with chainsword and bolt pistol will likely never go out of style.

I remember that. Remember that one edition where Chaos Terminators got merged with the Chosen entry (and thus were subjected to the limit on how many Chosen in total you could have in your army depending on points?) and also could take an Autocannon at every 3rd member instead of 5?

I bought my terminators then, and they didn't come with alternate arms...Now 3 of them are completely useless because their heavy weapons are no longer legal and I have no metal replacements that don't look goofy on them.

Remember the edition where you could add Chaos Marks and one mutation after another to your most elite unit, including terminator armour, Strength upgrades, Wounds extra, what not?
I still have a bunch of special Terminators from that time. Metal Dragon-Ogre bodies for the Strength, Wounds, and Speed update, Terminator torsos for them being Terminator armoured, head swaps, red paint jobs and the spikey racks on the shoulders to convey the Khornate allegiance... Then the codex changed, and all the upgradeability and mutability vanished.