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Incredibly new and i've only spent roughly 100 bucks on a model set of CSM and some paint. (I liked the models and after painting them realized I need practice )
Now I'm playing for cool factor/fun MOSTLY but I also wouldn't mind going to local tournaments and things and win a game or two. My army atm is pretty much just ON PAPER only, but i've watched a few games at my LGS and on YT, so i think i have a decent-ish grasp of things. That being said I'm still confused on somethings and hope to get some help/answers!

1. What are the top 5 armies CURRENTLY in the U.S. /U.K.? I'm pretty sure it's Astra Militarium at spot 1, but after that it doesn't seem clear?

2. I've been reading through the Tyranid book and watching Tyranid games, they seem to clean up and almost wreck every game I see and are great at holding points. Why don't I see more of them in competetive lists?

3. I keep seeing FAQ things and from what I understand it's kind of like a patch they randomly add to balance out things? Where can I find this list and how often do they put out FAQs?

4. I have a CSM list i'm building (lots of cultists), but Orkz just look like a total fething blast to play and I love them lore wise, how good/competetive/fun are orkz?

5. How does deep striking work? Can I move that unit AFTER deep striking or does that count as it's move? Can I shoot/charge/fight? Or are they just sitting ducks?

6. I'm not great at painting, but practice makes perfect, but so does having good equipment. I feel like I need finer brushes for detailing, but almost everywhere i read reviews on brushes its always like 1 star "brush dries too quickly" or "fine point my ass bristles were poking out everywhere". Any idea where I can get a good brush set?

7. What is something I should avoid doing being a new player and all?

Thanks for reading and thanks for any answers coming my way!

3. You can find them on the warhammer community website under the faq & useful things tab. They don't usually come out very often and if you check the forums semi-regularly you should see posts whenever a new one is up.

4.They're getting a codex next month so any responses atm will be invalid soon. Best to wait for the codex to drop then see how things look.

5. Deep strike happens at the end of the movement phase and they count as having moved. You can still shoot and charge.

6. Honestly brushes aren't terribly important as a beginner. More expensive brushes will flow better and hold their tip better but something like the GW or army painter brushes is fine for starting out. Best thing when starting out is to work on thinning your paint to the right consistency and getting good coverage. Plenty of videos are out there that elaborate on thinning paints.

7. Avoid getting too wrapped up in winning. Focus on making fewer mistakes each game, memorising your units profiles so the games run smoother, etc. Don't get wrapped up in buying a ton of models straight away because something is powerful. Nerfs can happen and it's better to make sure you have a solid understanding of the game and what you want out of your army before dropping too much money. It may turn out that powerful unit isn't as good as you thought it was or you don't like it's playstyle.

1. Currently the consensus is that soup armies are at the top. 8th edition has an ally mecanic where you can field armies as long all your units have one faction keyword in common. So you can field an imperium army with guard, imperial knights, space marines, etc. Or a chaos force with chaos demons, chaos space marines, etc. As far as top codexs go I think the eldar codexs (craftworld, dark eldar), Guard, and tyranids are at the top.

2. Tyranids have one of the better codexs, but they don't really have a lot of "ally" options. So people often opt to field soup lists instead. They still are really good army.

3. I would read this article from GW. It should answer your questions. https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/12/15/the-future-of-faqs-and-chapter-approved-dec-15gw-homepage-post-2/

4. Currently Orkz are struggling but they are receiving an updated codex next month. So we don't know how orkz will be doing after the update.

5. There is no generic deep strike rule anymore. Individual units may have rules that allow you to put them reserve. They then arrive following the rules on their datasheet. Most units with reserve rules arrive at the end of the movement phase more than 9 inches away from the enemy. They can't move after this but can still shoot, charge and fight.

6. I am not the best painter so I will let others answer that one.

7. This is a pretty open ended question. Do you mean playing the game? Painting? Or collecting? etc.

These work fine for me for brushes. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01EUMQ7U0/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Thank you all This has cleared up a LOT and Blood Hawk #7, was more of a "just give advice" thing so I know the short falls and what to avoid.

Like don't buy a gak load of miniatures. I'm planning on buying a set painting them, detailing them then repeat. Not buy 12 sets and drop them in a corner somewhere.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
What is "soup armies"? From the name I would guess it means a lot of little guys with few big hitters making a sort of gunline?

"Soup" refers to cherry-picking units from different sub-factions rather than running a single faction army. For example Astra Militarum, Adeptus Mechanicus, and Adeptus Astartes are all Imperial, so an imperial soup army might have some cheap militarum infantry for camping objectives and generating command points, a Knight for putting out damage and some marine characters for buff auras.

Chaos can do the same with mixing and matching the CSM and daemons codexes, but not to as great an extent.

7 - don't be afraid to ask your opponent to show you a rule in his codex, especially if what he's saying he can do sounds too good to be true...

CSM (now Heretic Astartes) plus Daemons plus Renegade Guard equals soup.

Get yourself some Daemonettes.

Crispy78 wrote:
7 - don't be afraid to ask your opponent to show you a rule in his codex, especially if what he's saying he can do sounds too good to be true...

A small addum to this, do not be discouraged to read that the rule you thought could never ever work the way your opponent say it works, does end up exactly working like he says it does.

Generally try to have fun in the first few games you have. If your codex are or is good, your game play should smooth out after some time, even if your list is not the best lists at the given time. If your codex is bad, then the first few games is probablly going to be the most fun your going to have when playing, later on when you start to see paterns oin how fast stuff dies, games can practicly end by the end of turn 2, if your opponent starts.

Rahdok wrote:
Thank you all This has cleared up a LOT and Blood Hawk #7, was more of a "just give advice" thing so I know the short falls and what to avoid.

Like don't buy a gak load of miniatures. I'm planning on buying a set painting them, detailing them then repeat. Not buy 12 sets and drop them in a corner somewhere.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
What is "soup armies"? From the name I would guess it means a lot of little guys with few big hitters making a sort of gunline?

For collecting I always find researching armies online for tactics guides can help a lot of for planning out your purchases. Also for friendly games most people in my experience are ok with you using proxies. This can help you test out units before you commit to any purchases.

Also don't get discouraged if you lose badly for first few games. I got tabled in my first game of 40k, and lost badly my second game. Once you learn the rules things will get better.

As others have pointed out "soup armies" mean armies that are pulling units from multiple codexs or index armies. As long as all your units have one faction keyword in common it is a legal army. So I can field an army that pulls units from different factions as long as they are all "imperium" or "chaos" etc.

I really don't expect to win my first game. 40k seems like a game that REALLY requires you to know your army/opponents army. I plan on making a 1-2k point army heading to a local area and getting my ass kicked a few times to learn rules. I've watched enough games to have a good idea of what i'm doing, but things are always different when your in the driver's seat, so to speak.

 Blood Hawk wrote:
1. Currently the consensus is that soup armies are at the top. 8th edition has an ally mecanic where you can field armies as long all your units have one faction keyword in common. So you can field an imperium army with guard, imperial knights, space marines, etc. Or a chaos force with chaos demons, chaos space marines, etc. As far as top codexs go I think the eldar codexs (craftworld, dark eldar), Guard, and tyranids are at the top.

2. Tyranids have one of the better codexs, but they don't really have a lot of "ally" options. So people often opt to field soup lists instead. They still are really good army.

3. I would read this article from GW. It should answer your questions. https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/12/15/the-future-of-faqs-and-chapter-approved-dec-15gw-homepage-post-2/

4. Currently Orkz are struggling but they are receiving an updated codex next month. So we don't know how orkz will be doing after the update.

5. There is no generic deep strike rule anymore. Individual units may have rules that allow you to put them reserve. They then arrive following the rules on their datasheet. Most units with reserve rules arrive at the end of the movement phase more than 9 inches away from the enemy. They can't move after this but can still shoot, charge and fight.

6. I am not the best painter so I will let others answer that one.

7. This is a pretty open ended question. Do you mean playing the game? Painting? Or collecting? etc.

Tyranids...really? I play them and they're still just as much garbage as they were in 6th and 7th. Sure, they're better now, than what they originally were, but they still lack anti-tank, and their suitability is non-existent. They rarely make it to CC, especially with the bigger monsters (even less now with the nerf to DS) and their stratagems are decent, but I've not been able to break the bank with the army thus far. When playing bugs up against any optimized CP farm list, optimized Eldar list, or Guard list, my loss rate has been 90%. :(

Tyranids are way better than 6th and 7th. I can use them without feeling I lost when I picked the faction.

Rahdok wrote:
Incredibly new and i've only spent roughly 100 bucks on a model set of CSM and some paint. (I liked the models and after painting them realized I need practice )
Now I'm playing for cool factor/fun MOSTLY but I also wouldn't mind going to local tournaments and things and win a game or two. My army atm is pretty much just ON PAPER only, but i've watched a few games at my LGS and on YT, so i think i have a decent-ish grasp of things. That being said I'm still confused on somethings and hope to get some help/answers!

1. What are the top 5 armies CURRENTLY in the U.S. /U.K.? I'm pretty sure it's Astra Militarium at spot 1, but after that it doesn't seem clear?

2. I've been reading through the Tyranid book and watching Tyranid games, they seem to clean up and almost wreck every game I see and are great at holding points. Why don't I see more of them in competetive lists?

3. I keep seeing FAQ things and from what I understand it's kind of like a patch they randomly add to balance out things? Where can I find this list and how often do they put out FAQs?

4. I have a CSM list i'm building (lots of cultists), but Orkz just look like a total fething blast to play and I love them lore wise, how good/competetive/fun are orkz?

5. How does deep striking work? Can I move that unit AFTER deep striking or does that count as it's move? Can I shoot/charge/fight? Or are they just sitting ducks?

6. I'm not great at painting, but practice makes perfect, but so does having good equipment. I feel like I need finer brushes for detailing, but almost everywhere i read reviews on brushes its always like 1 star "brush dries too quickly" or "fine point my ass bristles were poking out everywhere". Any idea where I can get a good brush set?

7. What is something I should avoid doing being a new player and all?

Thanks for reading and thanks for any answers coming my way!

1: depends on standard, tournament or APOC games.

7. Don't trust players you are playing against. If you are new they'll lie about their codex rules 'opps, I forget they have a 6++ not a 3++', familiarise yourself with other armies. You get great stuff from tactics wiki.

6. everyone is gak when they start painting no matter how talented you are as an artist. Anyone can paint amazingly, all it takes is a steady hand and patience. If you are a bad painter you just aren't spending enough time on your models or you don't know enough techniques etc. like WATER your paints, best advice I can give for a newbee. When I first started painting I never watered my paints, thought it was what people would say just for the sake of sounding knowledgeable, but holy gak when I started watering my paints I couldn't believe the difference. I'm no slouch myself.

Everyone else has answered the rest perfectly.

Beautiful work. Yeah i think where i struggle is I want to rush the work and just get it done. I am trying to think of it less as work and more as "make it look pretty, because pretty looks awesome." Like I REALLY REALLY like the Adeptus Custodes, but I REALLY don't want to spend the money/points on em f or a (20?) ish unit army and have them look like crap.

I think i might switch up my approach and play orkz (love them too) when the new codex comes out next month.

Rahdok wrote:
Beautiful work. Yeah i think where i struggle is I want to rush the work and just get it done. I am trying to think of it less as work and more as "make it look pretty, because pretty looks awesome." Like I REALLY REALLY like the Adeptus Custodes, but I REALLY don't want to spend the money/points on em f or a (20?) ish unit army and have them look like crap.

I think i might switch up my approach and play orkz (love them too) when the new codex comes out next month.

Well you are lucky because it will take time to become proficiant as a painter, so if you rush them now its fine because even if you spend a lot of time with them, you'll end up producing much better work in the future, so just have fun at the moment. As a beginning painter, learn how to dry brush you can get decent results and takes no time or effort to do. Layering and edge work is what takes the most time. I collect orks, so much fun.

pm713 wrote:
Tyranids are way better than 6th and 7th. I can use them without feeling I lost when I picked the faction.

To a degree yes, we're better off than we were, but it's still an uphill struggle against most competitive armies unless you want to spam Termagaunts and/or flying hive tyrants.

 Togusa wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Tyranids are way better than 6th and 7th. I can use them without feeling I lost when I picked the faction.

To a degree yes, we're better off than we were, but it's still an uphill struggle against most competitive armies unless you want to spam Termagaunts and/or flying hive tyrants.

Termagants?
While I don't disagree with your overall sentiment, they're not one of the usual suspects brought up when discussing powerful units. If you'd said something like Hive Guard, then sure.
Has gaunt spam been doing particularly well recently or something?