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Hi all!

I'm a long time Necron player (long live the C'tan!), and after coming back to 8th, my wife and some friends are showing interest.

Since we're not focused on tournaments or organized type stuff, not care too much about the quagmire that is the FAQ pile, how viable is it to grab all the indexes, the FW ones and the corebook, then we'd have rules for everything and could play whatever army we want, proxying as needed until we find the right ones for people?

If you’re playing each other, the index lists will be on par with each other (playing index versus codex makes it difficult on the index list, due to all the free extra stuff like Chapter Tactics, Relics and Stratagems), so the only thing you’ll be missing out on are any new models that get released from now or that are missing from the indexes (but they might come with their rules in the box anyway).

Would getting the card sets for each army be viable? It would give us access to stratagems, yes?

Doing that then introduces the imbalance between units that have a codex and those that don't. You'll also then see the various chapter/regiment/etc. specific stuff but not have the rules that go with that.

I'd suggest either sticking with just the indexes or going properly into the codexes.

It certianly sounds like a decent way to get started but remember the indecies are far more unbalanced than the codecies are. Playing index Necrons against quite a few other armies an be a very painful experience.

I'm not saying the codecies are perfectly balanced but anything released from last November onwards is close enough to get good games out of.

definitely start with the indexes. theyre far cheaper, simpler, provide good rough balance, and if one player has trouble you can introduce the codex rules for them, but i would absolutely get started with just indexes.

 Blndmage wrote:
Hi all!

I'm a long time Necron player (long live the C'tan!), and after coming back to 8th, my wife and some friends are showing interest.

Since we're not focused on tournaments or organized type stuff, not care too much about the quagmire that is the FAQ pile, how viable is it to grab all the indexes, the FW ones and the corebook, then we'd have rules for everything and could play whatever army we want, proxying as needed until we find the right ones for people?

Don't bother with the index. It will be obsolete soon and there's less in the index than there is in the codex.

I much prefered the Indexes to the Codexes. There are a lot of fun things in the Codexes, but a lot of gak, too. The Indexes kept things in check (mostly), and made things much more even (mostly).

Even if I had to pay 17ppm for a Dire Avenger, I wasn't going up against things like Alpha Legion - which is good, because I didn't have Alaitoc.

Codexes allow for more flavorful or special snowflake rules ("Forewarned", "Fire and Fade"), but it also gives your opponent access to the same.

If you two want to try a bunch of different armies, Indexes will let you do that. If you eventually settle into one or two each, then you could move to the Codex.

But if you start playing other people, they'll prefer you have the Codex - and are almost certainly using the Codex themselves.

 Blndmage wrote:
Hi all!

I'm a long time Necron player (long live the C'tan!), and after coming back to 8th, my wife and some friends are showing interest.

Since we're not focused on tournaments or organized type stuff, not care too much about the quagmire that is the FAQ pile, how viable is it to grab all the indexes, the FW ones and the corebook, then we'd have rules for everything and could play whatever army we want, proxying as needed until we find the right ones for people?

Indexes were intended as temporary rules, so don't have the same attention to balance as in the Codexes. However, with a group of friends, you should be able to paper over that and make your own points adjustments to fix some of the more glaring discrepancies and things like Conscript/Commissar blobs are unlikely to appear. The game will play faster as there are fewer special rules and strategems to keep track of.

(Generally, when introducing players, I leave out Chapter traits and non-generic strategems for the first few games anyway.)

one thing to note with the indexes is that some armies still make extensive use of their Indexes. So if you are interested in those types of armies, picking up an index will be helpful even if everyone wants to move onto the codex.

Chaos especially can often want to field several index exclusive models. The big ones that come to mind are Renegade Knights which are still exclusively in the Chaos Index, and Daemonic Mounts for Characters. I've played with a converted Chaos Lord on a Steed of Slaanesh since 6th edition. You can still field these models, and converted lords on Juggernauts, etc are very flavorful. These models are also really easy to convert as the Age of Sigmar models of the Lord on Juggernaut and Lord on Steed of Slaanesh are basically power armored already.

Craftworld Eldar players often will take the index wargear options for Autarchs which make them significantly better, but otherwise they've moved on.

Orks are still index only. Same with Genestealer Cults and Space Wolves, although those codexes are on the horizon.

etc. Knowing what people are playing may make the indexes a good purchase regardless of whether there is a move to Codexes.

For home beer and pretzel fare, the Indexes are possibly one of the best things ever released for 40k. There are imbalances for sure, so be willing to put a softban on things you and your wife/mates find to be a little unfun, but it's a hell of a lot better than other editions (and especially cross-codex stuff. Some codexes still heavily rely on indexes due to removing units or unit options).

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
For home beer and pretzel fare, the Indexes are possibly one of the best things ever released for 40k. There are imbalances for sure, so be willing to put a softban on things you and your wife/mates find to be a little unfun, but it's a hell of a lot better than other editions (and especially cross-codex stuff. Some codexes still heavily rely on indexes due to removing units or unit options).

This is exactly our plan. Use the indexes until we each find the army that we like, then save for their codexes.

Just keep in mind that the Index lists are basically "quick and dirty" army lists, hurriedly converted to the new edition, play them with that understood and you should be fine.

I do this at home with the small collection of Marines, Chaos Maines and Necrons I have as I am not interesting in getting the codices for armies I have less than ~700pts each.
The Indexes (using power levels) are perfect for me and my sons (11 & 13) to get in some quick games while they learn.
They also go months without being interesting in playing, so why would I spend the money on books I'm rarely gonna use?

I do use the Codex for my Eldar in these games, but I specifically use sub-par units and we never use <Chapter Tactic> like attributes or codex stratagems. We actually only use the re-rol stratagem.

It works out pretty well, but neither son has gotten to the point where we can play longer than 1 hour before they get bored or frustrated.

-

 Vaktathi wrote:
Just keep in mind that the Index lists are basically "quick and dirty" army lists, hurriedly converted to the new edition, play them with that understood and you should be fine.

I actually see this as sort of bonus for indexes, since they strip away a lot of the finicky rules. You get less flavour, but for starting out it makes the game a lot easier to understand.

 Blndmage wrote:
Would getting the card sets for each army be viable? It would give us access to stratagems, yes?

This is the way my son and I are playing; the 8 page rules, indexes and strategy cards. We do only ply at about 1,000 points, but we haven’t had any lop-sided games.

We play Space Marines, Tau, Tyranids, Necrons, and Chaos Space Marines. I haven’t tried my Imperial guard or my “guest” Eldar army yet.

 Stormonu wrote:

 Blndmage wrote:
Would getting the card sets for each army be viable? It would give us access to stratagems, yes?

This is the way my son and I are playing; the 8 page rules, indexes and strategy cards. We do only ply at about 1,000 points, but we haven’t had any lop-sided games.

To keep things simple I'm starting out with the core rules and codexes.

Get the codices and read the FAQs. There's a reason for them, and for each codex, it's generally a 2-3 pages of stuff that will rarely have any effect. The "Big" FAQ for the BRB is also just 2-3 pages, which are highly advisable.

I would suggest points and Battlescribe (an app that's also available on PCs) to calculate the points.