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Hi all.

First fell in love with 40k when as a child in approx. 1983 I blundered into a strange shop(games workshop Sheffield) and saw a rudimentary game of 40k being played out. OMG what is this! I really should have walked away.

Anyway, I collected for many years, till maybe 2000. I havnt played since but I now feel the urge to buy some stuff for it again.

I wondered what is the best starter set that gives you the most stuff? Price isn't too important, want the most stuff in one go.


One more thing...where is the game in terms of its cycle of new armies/rules etc. If I buy stuff now is it likely to be outdated any time soon for example or is this a newish version now?

EDIT to ask, will there be another big box released before Xmas?

Thanks and if any time travellers are in that store in 1983 watching plastic space marines advance on an ork city, tell the young lad with wide eyes to get out!!

Firstly, I guess it depends on what sort of army you're after? Most (but not all) of the start collecting boxes give you a decent start at a good discount. The Astra Militarum, tau, daemons of tzeentch and adeptus mechanicus ones all offer particularly good value in terms of pounds to cool models.

I'd be a little hesitant of truly committing to an army of non-primaris space marines right now. They're still fully playable, but I honestly expect they'll be fully phased out within 5 years. In particular, Space marines, genestealer cult, chaos space marines and chaos knights have all just had rules updates so are likely to stay the same as long as anything will.

They usually have big box sets that offer a decent discount around christmas time (I believe there were no less than 8 for 40k last year). They sold for £100 each or there abouts.

Finally I'd recommend buying from 3rd party retailers (not from GW). 3rd party retailers sell the same stuff but for 20% less (a significant saving if you're making a big purchase) There's a good store in Sheffield called the Outpost that has a decent stock of 40K stuff, and most anything they don't have can be ordered in. It's just direct-only stuff that can only be ordered through GW

 DoomMouse wrote:
Firstly, I guess it depends on what sort of army you're after? Most (but not all) of the start collecting boxes give you a decent start at a good discount. The Astra Militarum, tau, daemons of tzeentch and adeptus mechanicus ones all offer particularly good value in terms of pounds to cool models.

I'd be a little hesitant of truly committing to an army of non-primaris space marines right now. They're still fully playable, but I honestly expect they'll be fully phased out within 5 years. In particular, Space marines, genestealer cult, chaos space marines and chaos knights have all just had rules updates so are likely to stay the same as long as anything will.

They usually have big box sets that offer a decent discount around christmas time (I believe there were no less than 8 for 40k last year). They sold for £100 each or there abouts.

Finally I'd recommend buying from 3rd party retailers (not from GW). 3rd party retailers sell the same stuff but for 20% less (a significant saving if you're making a big purchase) There's a good store in Sheffield called the Outpost that has a decent stock of 40K stuff, and most anything they don't have can be ordered in. It's just direct-only stuff that can only be ordered through GW

Thanks for the info. So if space marines, try go with primaris? I noticed a box with those I but it's not a term I recognise (read plenty of early BL books such as galaxy in flames etc.

Yeah, it's basically GW updating the space marine range, but instead of just replacing minis with new ones they're creating new units alongside the old that are new and improved in the background.

I think they're trying to walk a fine line between updating stuff and not making peoples large collections of space marines instantly obsolete (as replacing individual units could have done). It does come at the cost of the 'new special' units being shoehorned into the lore a bit though which has annoyed some people.

From a new player's perspective though, the primaris stuff looks pretty great and should be good for a LONG time into the future.

Yeah if you want Space Marines, oh boy do you have a lot of options.

I think the "most stuff least money" choice is Know No Fear. 80 dollars for 31 minis is pretty solid. They will all be mono-pose starter box minis, though, if you go for one of the "Start Collecting" boxes you get the full kits for a discount. So if you want the nostalgia of clipping the models from the sprues and assembling them etc then you want "Start Collecting" boxes of whatever faction you want.

Thanks all, great info. What I'd love is 1big box with 2 forces and as much stuff in there as possible. Might also get one of these start collecting boxes for modellings sake.

VAYASEN wrote:
Thanks all, great info. What I'd love is 1big box with 2 forces and as much stuff in there as possible. Might also get one of these start collecting boxes for modellings sake.

Well, either Know no Fear (which is I believe most of the models in the starter box, with no base game rules) or the starter box (which has the main game rules in it) are your best bets.

some people think Prtimaris will completely replace old Marines but a lotta people expect GW to continue to double dip until the old Marine molds start to wear out (and given that the tactical assault and devesatator marine kits where all updated about 5 years ago, they'll likely be around for a looong time to come) if you wanna start with loyalist marines of one stripe or another, hands down the best bang for your buck is Dark Imperium or Know no Fear. Know no Fear is about the cost of a start collecting box, and includes essentially two start collecting boxes worth of stuff in terms of primaris space marines and deathguard, Dark Imperium has a little more and a copy of the hard cover rulebook.

if you don't want space marines (or deathguard as those sets are also excellent for death guard) take a look at the various start collecting boxes

Thanks. One thing that puzzled me... In the blacklubrary books, the astartes always were described as hulking monsters who tower over humans.... But they look same size for 40k?

VAYASEN wrote:
Thanks. One thing that puzzled me... In the blacklubrary books, the astartes always were described as hulking monsters who tower over humans.... But they look same size for 40k?

This is part of the main draw of the "Primaris" space marines. They are now very much bigger and taller than human models.

The way Games Workshop has done the Primaris release is very interesting to me from a market strategy standpoint.

Space Marines have always been the Starter Army, far and away the most popular first army for people to buy. The biggest problem with them, however, was that if you were a new player who didn't know anything there were many ways to assemble your space marines "Wrong". Either illegal (someone builds the flamer, the plasma, the melta, and the missile launcher in the box because they're cool, not realizing that's not how the game works) or just simply bad (here's my 10-man space marine squad with missile launcher flamer and powerfist/Plasma pistol, not in a rhino).

Primaris units solve this by being based on squad-level weapon swaps rather than having special and heavy weapon attachments to squads. They are also much, much less reliant on transport, and honestly their transports are more "tanks that happen to transport dudes" than "an extra thing you have to buy to get your squad to perform any kind of usefully".

The other problem is one of branding. When enforcing intellectual property law against someone who makes a knock-off, generally you're required to prove that there are certain distinctive characteristics in apperance that make a certain IP "your thing" and prove someone has made a knockoff of "Your thing." notice how all Stormtroopers across all the star wars designs are recognizably wearing the same patterns of armor/similar helmet designs. The old range of space marines had 3 very different apperances - Terminators, Marines and Scouts.

Scouts have been at this point wholly subsumed by Primaris Marines: Reivers, Infiltrators and Eliminators have all three main scout builds. Except for shotguns I suppose, but nobody uses shotgun scouts.

Terminators have been "Soft replaced" by the Gravis armor units, notably Aggressors. All these replacements have the space marine helmet/head design mostly unchanged despite their different armor.

For new players, they either don't notice these things or they make life much easier. You can build a primaris space marine army that functions at a baseline level with zero game knowledge WAY more easily than an old space marine army. For older players, the reduction in options makes Primaris marines a bitter pill to swallow, and many don't like the aesthetics of the brand unification (myself included). I see Primaris as a mixed blessing personally - as someone who helps run a large club, they're awesome to get people in the door. I really like not having to tell new players they've fethed up their 50$ model kit, I REALLY REALLY like that. For myself, though, it means I'll basically never be tempted to build loyalist space marines.

 DoomMouse wrote:
Firstly, I guess it depends on what sort of army you're after? Most (but not all) of the start collecting boxes give you a decent start at a good discount. The Astra Militarum, tau, daemons of tzeentch and adeptus mechanicus ones all offer particularly good value in terms of pounds to cool models.

I'd be a little hesitant of truly committing to an army of non-primaris space marines right now. They're still fully playable, but I honestly expect they'll be fully phased out within 5 years. In particular, Space marines, genestealer cult, chaos space marines and chaos knights have all just had rules updates so are likely to stay the same as long as anything will.

They usually have big box sets that offer a decent discount around christmas time (I believe there were no less than 8 for 40k last year). They sold for £100 each or there abouts.

Finally I'd recommend buying from 3rd party retailers (not from GW). 3rd party retailers sell the same stuff but for 20% less (a significant saving if you're making a big purchase) There's a good store in Sheffield called the Outpost that has a decent stock of 40K stuff, and most anything they don't have can be ordered in. It's just direct-only stuff that can only be ordered through GW

I wouldn't go with the IG starter box, since it's neither a deal [I think is has the worst value rate both in $$ and in points of any start collecting, excepting maybe the stormtrooper one [which is also IG]] nor it it a playable army.

If you want IG, they had [I don't know if they still do] a Cadian Defense Force Box. They might have had a Catachan version too, but I don't remember. It's also not a deal, but you can make a points level where somebody might play with you with it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

the_scotsman wrote:

VAYASEN wrote:
Thanks. One thing that puzzled me... In the blacklubrary books, the astartes always were described as hulking monsters who tower over humans.... But they look same size for 40k?

This is part of the main draw of the "Primaris" space marines. They are now very much bigger and taller than human models.

The way Games Workshop has done the Primaris release is very interesting to me from a market strategy standpoint.

Space Marines have always been the Starter Army, far and away the most popular first army for people to buy. The biggest problem with them, however, was that if you were a new player who didn't know anything there were many ways to assemble your space marines "Wrong". Either illegal (someone builds the flamer, the plasma, the melta, and the missile launcher in the box because they're cool, not realizing that's not how the game works) or just simply bad (here's my 10-man space marine squad with missile launcher flamer and powerfist/Plasma pistol, not in a rhino).

Primaris units solve this by being based on squad-level weapon swaps rather than having special and heavy weapon attachments to squads. They are also much, much less reliant on transport, and honestly their transports are more "tanks that happen to transport dudes" than "an extra thing you have to buy to get your squad to perform any kind of usefully".

The other problem is one of branding. When enforcing intellectual property law against someone who makes a knock-off, generally you're required to prove that there are certain distinctive characteristics in apperance that make a certain IP "your thing" and prove someone has made a knockoff of "Your thing." notice how all Stormtroopers across all the star wars designs are recognizably wearing the same patterns of armor/similar helmet designs. The old range of space marines had 3 very different apperances - Terminators, Marines and Scouts.

Scouts have been at this point wholly subsumed by Primaris Marines: Reivers, Infiltrators and Eliminators have all three main scout builds. Except for shotguns I suppose, but nobody uses shotgun scouts.

Terminators have been "Soft replaced" by the Gravis armor units, notably Aggressors. All these replacements have the space marine helmet/head design mostly unchanged despite their different armor.

For new players, they either don't notice these things or they make life much easier. You can build a primaris space marine army that functions at a baseline level with zero game knowledge WAY more easily than an old space marine army. For older players, the reduction in options makes Primaris marines a bitter pill to swallow, and many don't like the aesthetics of the brand unification (myself included). I see Primaris as a mixed blessing personally - as someone who helps run a large club, they're awesome to get people in the door. I really like not having to tell new players they've fethed up their 50$ model kit, I REALLY REALLY like that. For myself, though, it means I'll basically never be tempted to build loyalist space marines.

To be fair, I think they can prove that Terminators are distinctively theirs; since they're incredibly distinctive. Also, maintaining control over 3 likenesses shouldn't be hard when they maintain control over like at least 9 unique factions worth of likenesses.

Also as for replacing scouts; I A: think Eliminators are cool models that embody what I wish space marines had been with their silly tacticool guns and too many pockets, B: are you really playing Space Marines to have guys-who-aren't-space-marines as your line infantry, and C: Recon and Snipers have a modern reputation as being the best, not the new guys. From a factor of cool; the Primaris Vanguard are way cooler than scouts.

VAYASEN wrote:
Thanks. One thing that puzzled me... In the blacklubrary books, the astartes always were described as hulking monsters who tower over humans.... But they look same size for 40k?

At the time you left the hobby, Space Marines were still bigger than normal humans in the miniatures.

The Cadian plastics, released in '03 IIRC, increased the scale of human models, and other ranges followed suit. But GW wanted to keep Space Marines in roughly the same scale, so we've had Guardsmen and Space Marines being roughly the same height for a decade and a half.

Primaris are slightly taller in the fluff, but in modeling terms they're now significantly larger, fitting the new scale.

VAYASEN wrote:
Hi all.

First fell in love with 40k when as a child in approx. 1983 I blundered into a strange shop(games workshop Sheffield) and saw a rudimentary game of 40k being played out. OMG what is this! I really should have walked away.


Thanks and if any time travellers are in that store in 1983 watching plastic space marines advance on an ork city, tell the young lad with wide eyes to get out!!

Oh, there's time travelers in this tale alright.
Given that 40k wasn't released until 1987 with Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, who do you think were pushing those Orks & Space Marines about?

Anyways, welcome back to the game.

If you want bang for your buck then the 2 main options are Death Guard and Chaos Daemons.

Death Guard are abundantly available with all their good units available cheap either broken up from the main box game, it's smaller versions or the Warhammer Conquest series. Marines are a relatively close second but their greater range of models mean that many fall into the "extortionate" price bracket.

Daemons on the other hand allow you to use the same army, woth minor tweaks, in Age of Sigmar. 2 armies for the price of 1.

Longevity wise however - always Primaris Marines. They'll still be used 20 years from now. Not to say Death Guard or Daemons won't - but the Primaris will get a lot more support and updates.

If you want excellent bang for your buck in terms of mini quality, quantity, and flexibility, the Betrayal at Calth box set gets you a great starting army with some fantastic looking Mkiii marines and Terminators for a good price. 2 HQs, a Dreadnought, Terminators, and 30 marines for 150$, all (except the characters) with flexible multipart kits. It's not going to sweep tournaments, but if you want to play any flavor of Marine it'll form a great core to your army.

No one mentions Shadowspear?

Waaaghpower wrote:
If you want excellent bang for your buck in terms of mini quality, quantity, and flexibility, the Betrayal at Calth box set gets you a great starting army with some fantastic looking Mkiii marines and Terminators for a good price. 2 HQs, a Dreadnought, Terminators, and 30 marines for 150$, all (except the characters) with flexible multipart kits. It's not going to sweep tournaments, but if you want to play any flavor of Marine it'll form a great core to your army.

It's also out of production alas. My HH armies stopped getting new infantry due to that little issue :-/

Cinderspirit wrote:
No one mentions Shadowspear?

may not be avaliable depending on where you are, it's sold out in the UK for example.

ccs wrote:

VAYASEN wrote:
Hi all.

First fell in love with 40k when as a child in approx. 1983 I blundered into a strange shop(games workshop Sheffield) and saw a rudimentary game of 40k being played out. OMG what is this! I really should have walked away.


Thanks and if any time travellers are in that store in 1983 watching plastic space marines advance on an ork city, tell the young lad with wide eyes to get out!!

Oh, there's time travelers in this tale alright.
Given that 40k wasn't released until 1987 with Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, who do you think were pushing those Orks & Space Marines about?

Anyways, welcome back to the game.

Hehe, aye, that's why I said approx...I was just a young un. Coulda sworn It was before that but you are right no doubt.

Unless you people think it might be an idea to wait till xmas and buy one of these deals you mention(when do they come out?) I will buy Know no Fear or Dark Imperium. Might buy a start collecting box too but I want all the stuff to play first in one box

Thanks for all the good info.

VAYASEN wrote:
Hi all.

First fell in love with 40k when as a child in approx. 1983 I blundered into a strange shop(games workshop Sheffield) and saw a rudimentary game of 40k being played out. OMG what is this! I really should have walked away.

Anyway, I collected for many years, till maybe 2000. I havnt played since but I now feel the urge to buy some stuff for it again.

I wondered what is the best starter set that gives you the most stuff? Price isn't too important, want the most stuff in one go.

What kind of stuff do you want? There's about 3-5 starter sets out right now depending on which flavor of marine/xenos/chaos you want.

Dark Imperium has Vanilla Primaris (New Bigger Better) Space Marines and Death Guard - Easy to Build.
Wake the Dead has vanilla/any Primaris Marines plus some Eldar Wraith-stuff, Full Model Kit.
Shadowspear has Vanilla/Ultramarine Primaris Phobos (something akin to Scouts for Primaris Marines but the normal stat line and armor save) and Vanilla/Black Legion Chaos.
Tooth and Claw has Space Wolves and Genestealer Cults - Not exactly what you might remember from 2nd Ed but similar - Easy to Build or Full Kit I don't know.

Easy to Build kids are frequently several monopose models without other weapon options i.e. the Inceptors (Primaris Jump Infantry with a gun in each hand) only have their bolter based option, not their two fisted plasma guns. Easy to Build Aggressors only have their Flamer Fists not their Bolter Fists and grenade shoulder packs. Neither the Easy to Build or the Full kit will be especially pose-able. But the Easy to Build kits more so. Flip side, Easy to Build are usually much cheaper. And about 50/50 on having the weapon choice you'd want if you had a choice.

One more thing...where is the game in terms of its cycle of new armies/rules etc. If I buy stuff now is it likely to be outdated any time soon for example or is this a newish version now?

I'd guess we're a little over halfway through 8th edition. One caveat to the starter sets with the easy to build - they were usually the ONLY place to get many of the new models. Most have since been released in a new full kit with options not even announced in the starter set. So it might be worth getting the book(s) first (Assuming you're going marines) to decide if you want the easy to build models in a set for their "default" load, or if you want the Full Kit for the option.
I ended up mixing and matching, I picked up a couple Dark Millenium for the default Intercessors (Primaris Tactical Squads) and bolter Inceptors, then picked up a couple Wake The Deads for a Stalker Intercessor, and Plasma Inceptor. I didn't want a bunch of the same Eldar models over and over or I would have gotten the Wake the Dead multiple times because the Full Kit inceptors are better/sharper on the details (like the voids around the grav plates on their boots) than the easy to builds.

EDIT to ask, will there be another big box released before Xmas?

Thanks and if any time travellers are in that store in 1983 watching plastic space marines advance on an ork city, tell the young lad with wide eyes to get out!!

I would totally expect some big boxes released at Christmas.

As for the state of the game:

There are three Primarchs with models for the tabletop right now. Magnus(Thousand Sons), Mortarion (Death Guard), and Guilliman (Ultramarines). Most of us expect more will be released. They've dropped some strong to middling hints at Johnson (Dark Angels), Corax (Raven Guard) Lorgar (Word Bearers), Angron (World Eaters). Even armies without Primarchs or Greater Daemons have been getting some sort of big bad centerpiece model. Imperial Knights, Super Heavy Tanks, Giant three person gun suits for Tau, etc.

They did a fairly major revamp of the rules for 8th, and Close Combat for most armies did not come out of the process very well, but they're slowly adjusting that back.

They've been teasing/gearing up for a reintroduction of Sisters of Battle for a while now, I'd expect to (finally) see that a little before Christmas, maybe Thanksgiving.

The Vigilus Campaign Books are pretty much stick a fork in them, but probably still worth it if you're not playing Marines. Guard especially did well in Vigilus.

Many of the names have changed, Eldar are now Eldari and they're getting new aspect warriors, supposedly. Dark Eldar are now Drukhari, and they got... a new name. Necrons are kind of hurting too. Orks are good, people keep trying to turn Ghazkhull into a Prime Ork to go with all the new Primarchs. I wouldn't rule it out, and I wouldn't hold my breath. Nids are kind of pained by the general issues with close combat. As mentioned Tau have their giant mecha suit, and they're happy its harder to punch them in the face today.

One last question, I noticed some Apocalypse big detachment boxes. Are these worth looking at as an addition to a starter set such as Dark Imperium or are these catered more for the Apoc version of the game with Apoc cards etc in them or something?

Thanks

@TC

If you want Astartes now is a great time. They are possibly the best faction in the game.
Focus on Primaris Marines, on top of being exceptional models and future proof, they are very good to play with in the game.

The Dark Imperim starter set is a good place to start, from there look to add more Intercessors, Aggressors, Repulsor, etc

If not Astartes, what faction are you interested in?

 Ishagu wrote:
@TC

If you want Astartes now is a great time. They are possibly the best faction in the game.
Focus on Primaris Marines, on top of being exceptional models and future proof, they are very good to play with in the game.

The Dark Imperim starter set is a good place to start, from there look to add more Intercessors, Aggressors, Repulsor, etc

If not Astartes, what faction are you interested in?

I am not exactly too fussed about the factions, I havnt played in so long(but long time familiar with the universe etc read quite a lot of the Horus Heresy series for example ) I just want a starter set to get everything needed to play with the most models you can get in it (so biggest box....sound like Dark imperium form the above) and from there I will get start collecting box too maybe.

If people say better to wait till Xmas for the deals, that's fine.

I wont be playing seriously but my wife will have a game or too. Not after the most powerful or anything Astartes always fun but im not set on them as such.

My advise to you is to pick the faction you like best. everything else is secondary. It costs money and time to put an army together, and people don't generally commit that energy to a faction they don't care about.

If you really don't care about a faction you shouldn't be asking for advice here. GW have outlined the starter sets on their website, and any store employee can point you towards them.

VAYASEN wrote:

I am not exactly too fussed about the factions, I havnt played in so long(but long time familiar with the universe etc read quite a lot of the Horus Heresy series for example ) I just want a starter set to get everything needed to play with the most models you can get in it (so biggest box....sound like Dark imperium form the above) and from there I will get start collecting box too maybe.

If people say better to wait till Xmas for the deals, that's fine.

I wont be playing seriously but my wife will have a game or too. Not after the most powerful or anything Astartes always fun but im not set on them as such.

Go browse though all the factions on the GW site & look at all the pretty models. Pick whichever faction looks coolest to you. Maybe read up on how each plays. Afterall, your the one going to be buying/building/painting them & ALL of them work just fine in casual games where you're not simply trying to crush one another.

VAYASEN wrote:
One last question, I noticed some Apocalypse big detachment boxes. Are these worth looking at as an addition to a starter set such as Dark Imperium or are these catered more for the Apoc version of the game with Apoc cards etc in them or something?

Thanks

If you want the models absolutely. They offer quite decent savings. Models are 100% usable in 40k and without doubt they offer discount. Only issue is if some models you don't want. Some boxes are better and others worse in this regard. Orks for example is rather bad one. Dreandnoughts and in particular killa kans are rather poor and the mek many have already and isn't that good anyway...Meanwhile necron one is quite decent having tomb blades(good), dda(staple of competive lists), wraiths(decent if not most popular in most optimized lists) and only meh being the HQ(for one it's not something you want many making buying multiples less optimal. Also many already HAVE one. And since more than 1 is not common...).

So really you just need to think how much of each box you want to your collection. For necrons I can fit 2 boxes myself still(more than that no. If I get 2 necron apoc boxes that's 18 wraiths for me which is maximum I can field anyway) and the HQ tax isn't too bad(I could literally throw the model to garbage bin and still have saving). For orks I would not touch it with mile long pole and couldn't recommend to new ork player with any sense of integrity. Chaos one isn't that likely to be popular(there's reason why it's still not sold out...). For marines I don't recall what they had but again check what it has and think do you need them.

Moneywise great savings. Necrons get 147.5£ worth of stuff for 100£ BEFORE adding that 20£ HQ "tax".

My advice is to buy the new sisters of battle release whatever it is. All of it. Twice.
I want one, because i have some older stuff to add together with whatever comes in November-sh this year.

regarding dark imperium. someone said the primaris in it are vanilla marines but they can be made into anything, the set is still viable if you want blood angerls, dark angels, space wolves etc.

BrianDavion wrote:
regarding dark imperium. someone said the primaris in it are vanilla marines but they can be made into anything, the set is still viable if you want blood angerls, dark angels, space wolves etc.

I was - and maybe should have been clearer - when I say the Tooth and Claw marines are Space Wolves, they come with a Space Wolves transfer sheet, and iconography/bits. When I say the Dark Imperium are Vanilla - they don't have a chapter specific bit. They don't have blood drops, sword wings, or wolf pelts. Any vanilla (non character) box can be turned into any chapter.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

VAYASEN wrote:
One last question, I noticed some Apocalypse big detachment boxes. Are these worth looking at as an addition to a starter set such as Dark Imperium or are these catered more for the Apoc version of the game with Apoc cards etc in them or something?

Thanks

The Apoc boxes are usually going to be extremely thematic, repetitive, and limited. i.e. the SM Apoc Box is 3 Intercessor squads if I remember right, and you're going to have Intercessor Squads coming out of your ears already from the starter sets if you go that route - and I assume you're going to do that at least once - as the Dark Imperium starter set comes with models and the rule book for a tidy bit of savings.


If I had it to do over again, I probably would have gotten one Dark Imperium, One Wake The Dead, and One Shadowspear, and then filled in with boxes. Of course I was also a bit rusty on the painting and assembling, so I may have ended up getting two anyway, as I screwed up some of the first ones.