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Hello all,

I'm looking to get back into miniature gaming and i'm trying to pull a group of 3 other people from work with me. I used to play 40k but I think i sold off my GK/IG army. If i didn't i can't find it (too bad because it would be work 4x the amount i bought it for).

I was pushing the group into trying 40k or WHFB with me but i'm almost embarrassed to suggest it looking at the prices. We are all highly paid tech employees but it's pretty hard to convince new people to drop $300-500 on "toy soldiers."

Also the rules for 40k seem to have compounded greatly since I played last, or i don't remember it being as complex as before. How is WHFB? I need something i can teach in a quick sitting and get them started playing instead of explaining rules for 45 minutes.

What do you guys think? Should i get a small starter set of 40k or WHFB and teach them how to play or should I look at something else?

Whatever you are most familiar with and you think they will enjoy the aesthetics of...

Are they more fantasy or sci-fi?

It's about a 50/50 mix on what they like more, i can't get a good idea from them.

I'm getting a yea we'll try it but not a lot of enthusiasm behind the idea. All they know about it is it has a lot of rules.

Is your goal to get them to 'game' or get them to 'hobby'?

I play with people who 'game' specific games because I provide the game, minis and painted models. They are willing to 'game' because at most they have to purchase a book or two and maybe a handful of models.

Those same people are not interested in buying 500$ of minis, painting minis or starting a hobby.

So for people who want to game, usually 'boardgames with minis which can be painted' is a good transition game to get people exposed to 'hobby related'.

I find Bloodbowl and Super Dungeon Explore as well as 'RPG based dungeon games good for people testing the water with mini-based play. If they like it, they can buy their own minis, if they enjoy it but don't like minis then no need to push them further, and they can use mine.

You may find something like dreadball/Bloodbowl or SDE/Decent/heroquest may be good as you can all play with one or two sets.

Warmachine or Hordes can be a pretty good fairly inexpensive game to start out with $100 for a 2 player starter set with rules. I would say Malifaux but the rules are a bit tricky.

Yeah, I agree with nkelsch. If they aren't enthusiastic, they aren't going to drop the kind of cash just to play the game.

Get them started on the gateway drugs.

Talisman. I just tried it, and it was good. Not too fiddly with the rules, the minis could be painted as a gateway into a hobby. too.


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Or Infinity, you get all the intro rules in video format.

I would say take a look at Warmachine or Hordes. You can pick up a starter set for 100 dollars that gives you a full copy of the rules and two armies, or single starter boxes with quick start rules for 50.

The quick start rules can be found here:
http://privateerpress.com/warmachine/the-game

http://privateerpress.com/hordes/the-game

Mordheim. Low initial expense, rulebook is a free PDF, excellent fluff, inspirational coolness factor and you can play more than one game in an evening.
I got several WHFB gamers started with it, most still play and they still talk about some of the epic games we had.

Mattman154 wrote:
I would say take a look at Warmachine or Hordes. You can pick up a starter set for 100 dollars that gives you a full copy of the rules and two armies, or single starter boxes with quick start rules for 50.

The quick start rules can be found here:
http://privateerpress.com/warmachine/the-game

http://privateerpress.com/hordes/the-game

The same can be said for dark vengeance but they both require more of an investment to play the 'real' game.

I would go talisman or one of the standalone miniature games.


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Mordheim or necro are great ideas! You can use pretty much any models or it and the rules are free. As mentioned earlier blood or dread bowl are good if you can find the minis since they suck in sports folks too.

Are you kidding me, the 2 player starter boxes have forces that are game legal and are balanced. The Forces in Dark vengeance like IoB are unbalanced and are not game legal forces.

 pretre wrote:

Mattman154 wrote:
I would say take a look at Warmachine or Hordes. You can pick up a starter set for 100 dollars that gives you a full copy of the rules and two armies, or single starter boxes with quick start rules for 50.

The quick start rules can be found here:
http://privateerpress.com/warmachine/the-game

http://privateerpress.com/hordes/the-game

The same can be said for dark vengeance but they both require more of an investment to play the 'real' game.

I would go talisman or one of the standalone miniature games.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mordheim or necro are great ideas! You can use pretty much any models or it and the rules are free. As mentioned earlier blood or dread bowl are good if you can find the minis since they suck in sports folks too.

But again they are starter forces for a larger game. With 2 boxes of any infantry you can run multiple teams of necromunda or mordheim without feeling like you're playing the starter.

Same with talisman or descent. You have a whole game there.

Not trying to get into PP vs GW just give the guy options for games.

If they're into 50/50 fantasy and science fiction, Warmachine and Hordes may appeal to them the most. It's Victorian fantasy/steampunk but with enough big stompy robot elements to appeal too.

Plus, you can pick up two start kits for around the same price as DV/IoB for WH40k and WHFB respectively. The models are chunky, robust and will be quick to paint since there's less of them, so they can get to game quicker. But thats just my two cents/pence/lowest denomination of currency in your respective area.

Yeah, I'd say a multiplayer boardgame instead of any real, in-depth miniature wargame.

That being said, I haven't ever met anyone who didn't think cowboys and gunslingers weren't cool. Any thoughts on Malifaux or Blackwater Gulch? Both offer their base rules for free, and essentially 5 figures are needed per person to play. Malifaux's a little more established than BWG so picking a faction and crew would be much easier, but BWG seems to be much more customizable than Malifaux. Then again, Malifaux has magic and steampunk elements, so maybe that's a better deal>

Ooh, yeah. I haven't seen gulch much but malifaux is quirky and looks fun.

When people ask me what Malifaux's about, I tell them it's Victorian-horror-steampunk-weird-wild-west. And then tell them one of the gangs is zombie showgirls led by Jack the Ripper. That's usually enough to generate interest.

Necromunda was the Marijuana to 40K's Crack back in my day. Pretty soon we were full blooded 40K junkies.

So errr... +1 on the less full on games to begin

Kings of War from Mantic Games.

- Miniatures are extremely affordable.
- Rules are extremely easy to learn, and make for quick games.

- Rules and army lists are free to download, so you can print off a copy and give them to your friends for free.
- There are 1-player starter sets that have 50 miniatures for $50 in them, as well as a mini-rulebook and dice.
- $75 gets you either a 2-player starter or a larger army box containing around 100 miniatures.

If you want a much more affordable, much more newbie-friendly game than 40k or Warhammer, then KoW and Warpath are the way to go.

I can explain the KoW rules to someone in 5-10 minutes, it's basically "move stuff, shoot stuff, melee stuff" and there are no charts involved or other complex stuff like combat res. All the numbers you need to roll can be found on your unit's statline.

Anyway, give the rules a download and a read through and see what you think.

split dark vengeance with them play a few games and let them choose which army they like more. and give them the rule book.

I would play board games with them.

I'll recommend Infinity.

You can have a full 300 point force for little more than $100, and you can buy starter army boxes for around $40, which is enough to have a very enjoyable game.
The rules are available for free online. They're fairly complex, but they're well written and very direct, which makes them easy to follow and leaves little in the way of questions.

For a ruleset that you can teach in a quick sitting, I second Kings of War. The rules are designed to be heavily streamlined, which makes for a much smaller list of rules (as scarletsquig mentioned, they are on Mantic's site, and run to about 25 pages).

I would start out on a skirmish game before dragging them into a full blown wargame such as Kings of War/Warhammer Fantasy/40k.

Personally I think the best gateway is boardgames followed by Something like Infinity or MAlifax.

Song of Blades and Heroes.
http://www.ganeshagames.net/product_info.php?cPath=1_6&products_id=7&osCsid=1sldfgofn1e31e86ir6pcu3up7

-An affordable set of rules that are really well written and fun to play.

-Each game usually takes a bit less than an hour, so you can play more than once in an evening.

-It's a warband skirmish game so you only need 8-14 minis to play.

-If you really like it, there are some really cool expansions. If you like it, but not enough to focus on it, it's a great game to come back to when you want a quick game. If you hate it, you've not invested much.

-You can stat up any figure, so each member can use whatever minis appeal to them most. That makes buy-in as low as 25 bucks, (though if some folks want really high-end figs the sky is the limit) depending on what figures you buy. No need to quibble about which game has the best figures!

My club ran a campaign this summer and even folks who weren't particularly interested in fantasy gaming had a really good time.

Combine that Song of Blades & Heroes game with Reaper Bones miniatures. They're already at 29 released with a ton more coming later in the year.

If you want the 40k aesthetic, I'd recommend doing an ebay search for "40k single figure"-- you'll find you can get many things as individual figures rather than having to buy a whole box. You can use the Song of Blades & Heroes to do sci-fi if you want, just give everyone shooting and then once you're more familiar with the rules, you'll be able to hammer extra stuff out.

I also recommend Infinity. Its got a great rule set you can get for free and you can pick up a whole army brand new for around $100. Theres great opportunity for everyone to chip in and make terrain to make your games even better as its a terrain heavy game.

Malifaux is also a low barrier of entry game.

If they like Fantasy, why not Lord of the Rings? You'll be putting up with GW prices, sure, but you'll need about 40 minis max on each side to have a very decent game.

agustin wrote:
Combine that Song of Blades & Heroes game with Reaper Bones miniatures. They're already at 29 released with a ton more coming later in the year.

If you want the 40k aesthetic, I'd recommend doing an ebay search for "40k single figure"-- you'll find you can get many things as individual figures rather than having to buy a whole box. You can use the Song of Blades & Heroes to do sci-fi if you want, just give everyone shooting and then once you're more familiar with the rules, you'll be able to hammer extra stuff out.

If you want to do the 40k universe, but want warband sized games and more streamlined rules, try In The Emperor's Name:
http://thegamesshed.wordpress.com/2011/07/02/in-the-emperors-name/
It's a free, but very nicely done modification of the FUBAR rules engine. It's a very different game from Song of Blades, but a similar level of complexity and fast gameflow.

It was so successful, that Osprey publishing is going to release a for-sale Steampunk version this year called "In Her Majesty's Name".

Karnophage wrote:
Are you kidding me, the 2 player starter boxes have forces that are game legal and are balanced. The Forces in Dark vengeance like IoB are unbalanced and are not game legal forces.

I would like to point out that Dark Vengeance does contain 2 legal forces... They're just not really balanced forces. You have an HQ on each side (2 for the DA), you have 2 troops (two 10 man cultist squads, or one 20 man cultist squad and then 10 Chosen used as regular CSM, which it says on the box). And then you have 2 tac squads, deathwing, ravenwing, and the hellbrute... Legal? yes. Balanced? no.

Thank you everyone for the replies. There is a lot of ideas in there.

I'm going to look at infinity and song of blades and heroes first and then go down the line from there .

I'd like to mainly focus on a war type game to get them started with the idea of this type of game vs starting with a board game.

I'm also trying to stay away from malifluex and games with similar models because the models are not wife friendly. Mostly naked miniatures do not go over well when the wife already thinks your crazy for playing with toys.