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If you could do it over again, would you not get into 40k? Or what would you have done differently?

Probably not. If I did I'd hope I could stick to one faction.

wouldnt change a thing, I took a big break from the game during 2nd-7th but kept up w lore & such. Got back into it in 8th and have enjoyed it immensely. Luckily my flgs has a healthy casual element so it was fun coming back and finding people I played against 25 plus years ago to enjoy the game with.

if my meta was hypercompetitive, I wouldnt have.

I have no regrets about the whole of 2nd, no regrets about leaving in 3rd or returning in 5th.

The thing I would have done different is get out sooner once the game wasn't fun for me anymore.

I would have started with Deamons.

If I could go back and time, I’d not tell younger me not to get into 40k, but to pick up more of the classic stuff while it was still in print.

There is small stuff, like not bothering to pick up a unit I never really use, but nothing big. Most of the stuff I picked up was because I liked it. And generally still do. Or got my use out of it. Not everything, but most things. When you play at a more friendly level, few things don’t work.

I might have started with a different army or made different choices with my collection, but I'm so thankful I've had this hobby in my life. I don't regret any of it.

100% yes. I started in 1989 and have met so many great friends through the years and have had countless hours enjoying modeling, painting, and gaming.

I wish I had not sold as many armies over the years. To continue in the hobby I'd sell armies and put the money back into a new army. Money was tighter years ago, so I don't feel I had a lot of options, but it would have been kinda cool to have more of my older collection.

The only thing I would have liked to do differently is not start with a second hand army.

No, I'd still get into 40k.
The two underlying reasons I got into this game would still be there.

1) I was already a miniature wargamer. I've always liked this stuff - wether it's ancient Romans, 15mm WWII, fantasy stuff, mecha, space ships....Space Marines.... It's building/painting models, playing with toys with your friends, and getting to do it all your life as an adult by calling it a "hobby".

2) My friend Dan would've still been annoying me by running his mouth about how he was going to completely dominate this local tourney & about how unbeatable his army (Eldar)/he was. Challenge Accepted.


Would I do anything different? Yes.

1) I'd jump in sooner than I did.
Divert some funds from whatever I was building WHFB wise at the time. My friend Bill kept trying to get me into this game he'd discovered WH40K: Rogue Trader. I was vaguely familiar it as at the time I was most heavily into WHFB & the fantasy stuff. I resisted, though I'd occasionally borrow some of another friends Squats - until near what was the closing days of RT my friend Dan's boating eventually spurred me to give him that smackdown tourney-wise. I could've been playing this game several years longer than I have been.

2) There's some FW stuff I really should've picked up over the years before it went oop on me. Not impossible to get today, just more expensive/have to deal with re-casters....
And it's not like I didn't have the funds. I was just building other things/procrastinating. Then I took a break from 40k during much of 6th, all of 7th, & when I returned some of the FW stuff was gone. :(

3) I'd pour alot more $ into GW stock.
That'd have been a very nice return these past few years....

 Eldarain wrote:
Probably not. If I did I'd hope I could stick to one faction.

yeah, that is my current conundrum as well. Wish I had stuck to my guns about one faction.


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ccs wrote:
No, I'd still get into 40k.
The two underlying reasons I got into this game would still be there.

1) I was already a miniature wargamer. I've always liked this stuff - wether it's ancient Romans, 15mm WWII, fantasy stuff, mecha, space ships....Space Marines.... It's building/painting models, playing with toys with your friends, and getting to do it all your life as an adult by calling it a "hobby".

2) My friend Dan would've still been annoying me by running his mouth about how he was going to completely dominate this local tourney & about how unbeatable his army (Eldar)/he was. Challenge Accepted.


Would I do anything different? Yes.

1) I'd jump in sooner than I did.
Divert some funds from whatever I was building WHFB wise at the time. My friend Bill kept trying to get me into this game he'd discovered WH40K: Rogue Trader. I was vaguely familiar it as at the time I was most heavily into WHFB & the fantasy stuff. I resisted, though I'd occasionally borrow some of another friends Squats - until near what was the closing days of RT my friend Dan's boating eventually spurred me to give him that smackdown tourney-wise. I could've been playing this game several years longer than I have been.

2) There's some FW stuff I really should've picked up over the years before it went oop on me. Not impossible to get today, just more expensive/have to deal with re-casters....
And it's not like I didn't have the funds. I was just building other things/procrastinating. Then I took a break from 40k during much of 6th, all of 7th, & when I returned some of the FW stuff was gone. :(

3) I'd pour alot more $ into GW stock.
That'd have been a very nice return these past few years....

Yeah I started buying GW stock last week and i already made back the broker fee lol


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 Sarigar wrote:
100% yes. I started in 1989 and have met so many great friends through the years and have had countless hours enjoying modeling, painting, and gaming.

I wish I had not sold as many armies over the years. To continue in the hobby I'd sell armies and put the money back into a new army. Money was tighter years ago, so I don't feel I had a lot of options, but it would have been kinda cool to have more of my older collection.

yeah I have 4 armies that I built myself and 2 that I commissioned. I wish I had realized how long the hobby part takes since I would have just stuck with one army I am painting myself and the 2 commissioned armies. I commissioned detailed armies to paint like ad mech/tsons

Yeah I reckon I'd still get into 40K. I've enjoyed the hobby so at, made some good friends through the game and stores. Sure it's been frustrating here and there, having an army that's weaker in the meta.

I'm happy i got into 40k. I love the miniatures that I have painted, the skills I've gained, the friends I've met and the social confidence necessary to engage with strangers.

The game as of right now is terrible though. Good thing there are plenty of good games out there!

I'd probably coach my younger self how to paint and then tell him to not pick less difficult paint schemes

The one thing I'd change would be not buying any of the 7th edition gak. None of the games were fun and all of the books were a colossal waste of money.

As far as settings go, I have no regrets. 40K gave me a love of all things bombastic and overdramatic, as well as an enjoyment in exploring settings with as much or even more depth to them (including our own history).
The weird way in which there is a consistent “core” of a setting with wildly inconsistent and contradictory details (ex. Captain Titus and Captain Sicarius somehow both commanding the 2nd Ultramaines Company) has also helped me lower my bar for the enjoyment of other media. By consequence, I can still enjoy a story with a convoluted and inconsistent plot.

That being said, I should not have spread out miniature purchases across multiple armies with the intent of playing alone. I love these models a lot, but getting full 2000 point armies across five armies would have lead to an enormous price tag. Thankfully, this was far from fully realized. Hoping to use paper minis to cover the rest.

I would definitely get more into 40k lore and art even earlier, but would have collected 2000s 28mm Inquisition retinues, more Vostroyans, and finally AdMech releases instead of Mantic Forgefathers for Squat conversions. I would in other words have splashed out more on 40k minis. Not much different. Warhammer has given my life a lot. A great lot.

Death Korps of Krieg are so expensive, that I wouldn't have collected them even when given a second chance. Not much changes.

The setting is absolutely glorious. Head and shoulders above any competition, including settings 40k itself copied. Long live Warhammer 40'000!

 Sledgehammer wrote:
I'm happy i got into 40k. I love the miniatures that I have painted, the skills I've gained, the friends I've met and the social confidence necessary to engage with strangers.

The game as of right now is terrible though. Good thing there are plenty of good games out there!

I m new with 9th but it seems the game is better now being more objective based rather than a shoot them off dice chucker

Despite 8th killing my ability to have fun with the hobby, I still would opt to go through the experiences I had with 6th and 7th. Had quite a few years of fun with the hobby and I still have all those models that I've painted to look at and think back upon better times. Maybe one day things will be improve with a more complex rule set and game mechanics returns to 40k instead of whatever you want to call the current simplified rendition of the table top game.

I've very much enjoyed it - a lot of quality time sharing my hobby with my son.

I'd do a few things differently, but nothing major.

I started the hobby around the year 2000, during 3rd edition, when orks were getting a new line of models to replace Gorkamorka miniatures. I started playing 10 years later.

So yeah, I'd do 40k again, I picked up that hobby mostly for the models not for gaming.

What I regret is not spending enough time to learn how to properly paint models when I was a kid. Years later stripping a full army of its paint was a real pain . In my defense at that time there was no internet at home, the only sources of learning how to paint were White Dwarf, Codexes and older hobbysts and I was like 12-15yo old.

I started when RT become 2nd ed. I played 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th, and am now back for 9th. I would tell my younger self to dive right in, and that it would be a fantastic hobby, both playing but also painting and tinkering. Most crucially, I would also caution myself to relax, and not be TFG. Things look different when you're twenty years older and wiser. I think I've mostly been an ok opponent, but I remember some games where I definitely felt much too engaged, and games where I took it too much to be a competitive sport instead of a casual immersive tabletop game. I guess, to me at least, it was very intoxicating to discover I had a knack for something. (I won many tournaments, and FWIW I was a big fish in a small pond) My regrets are that I've obliterated both casual veterans and new comers to the hobby, by either just playing to my best or by bringing a gun to a knife fight. Neither party really had any good games out of that.

If I could do it all over, I'd rather be the guy everyone was looking forward to playing at the tournament because I was so fun and easy to hang out with, than be the guy people would fear to meet, because I brought a hard list and a very competitive game. I would also know who the cheaters and bullies were, and just shake their hands and congratulate them on their victories before even starting playing. In the past, I'd meet them head on and give as good as I got. Then, a few unpleasant hours later, both he and I would emerge bruised. But why spend time so poorly? What, really, is at stake? No one cares if play better with your dolls than another nerd? At the most, you can win more toy soldiers at the cost of denigrating yourself. Pfft.

SK

I would buy myself a tablet. Just like my sister did, much smarter move then buying an w40k army. To an incomperable degree.

Looking back there are only some unit choices I probably should not have bought, i.e. most of the things that were outsourced to CSM when the DG codex came around.
And maybe I should not have started Daemons, but knowing me if I wouldn't have started them I'd probably always had thrown an eye on them because their connection to DG is just too obvious. The army just has never been as much fun as CSM/DG.

I'd do it all again for sure. All in all, the 40K hobby has been a huge positive for my life. If I were to give advice to my younger self, it'd probably be: learn to magnetize, gain a better analytical understanding of the rules, get those Tallarn and Elysian minis while you can, and don't get distracted by other tabletop games so much. The last point is not strictly 40K, but it is a definite hobby regret - over the years, I spent so much time and money on various other TT games, only for them to die and me learning that I'd been better off with 40K in the first place.

The only thing I regret is not getting further into things like painting much earlier. And reading BL novels which I suspect would have wound up with my doing fantasy a lot lot sooner than I did (and actually getting to play Old World fantasy).

I'd try to be more disciplined in my purchasing & probably spend less time worrying about when something is going to come out/not let future releases dictate what armies I play

stroller wrote:
I've very much enjoyed it - a lot of quality time sharing my hobby with my son.

I'd do a few things differently, but nothing major.

Like What


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Karol wrote:
I would buy myself a tablet. Just like my sister did, much smarter move then buying an w40k army. To an incomperable degree.

how many units did you end up buying

If I had it to do all over again, I would skip the side ventures I took like Battletech, Vor, Chronopia, Starship Troopers and Warzone. I would tell myself to just focus on 40k, and I'd have gotten into painting in a more serious manner much sooner, but yeah, I would do 40k again if I had a second run at it.

It's not always the best game, but it's the one where you know you will have opponents, the company isn't likely to go under tomorrow (or to stay in business but drop 40k), and at times when the game is not fun for me (3rd ed, 7th ed, possibly 9th ed - still on the fence on that), it still has the best models, so I can enjoy it from that aspect, and I do enjoy the lore. So there's something to like even if I'm taking a break from the game itself.

 AceXT wrote:
I'd do it all again for sure. All in all, the 40K hobby has been a huge positive for my life. If I were to give advice to my younger self, it'd probably be: learn to magnetize, gain a better analytical understanding of the rules, get those Tallarn and Elysian minis while you can, and don't get distracted by other tabletop games so much. The last point is not strictly 40K, but it is a definite hobby regret - over the years, I spent so much time and money on various other TT games, only for them to die and me learning that I'd been better off with 40K in the first place.

I have learned the value of magnetizing and thankfully, that had been irrelevant in the armies I had chosen due to the lack of weapons or design/lower price vs work required simply not worth magnetizing. But I have been using that whenever it makes sense to do so


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Tycho wrote:
If I had it to do all over again, I would skip the side ventures I took like Battletech, Vor, Chronopia, Starship Troopers and Warzone. I would tell myself to just focus on 40k, and I'd have gotten into painting in a more serious manner much sooner, but yeah, I would do 40k again if I had a second run at it.

It's not always the best game, but it's the one where you know you will have opponents, the company isn't likely to go under tomorrow (or to stay in business but drop 40k), and at times when the game is not fun for me (3rd ed, 7th ed, possibly 9th ed - still on the fence on that), it still has the best models, so I can enjoy it from that aspect, and I do enjoy the lore. So there's something to like even if I'm taking a break from the game itself.

thats true, there are so many things to fall to. I probably have enough minis to last 2 or 3 years worth of painting projects


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 Marshal Loss wrote:
I'd try to be more disciplined in my purchasing & probably spend less time worrying about when something is going to come out/not let future releases dictate what armies I play

Facts, I wish i had spent more time looking into all of the armies. I got started with some that I liked but then realized there were others that I liked way better and now I havent thought much about the armies that got me started in this hobby


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 AceXT wrote:
I'd do it all again for sure. All in all, the 40K hobby has been a huge positive for my life. If I were to give advice to my younger self, it'd probably be: learn to magnetize, gain a better analytical understanding of the rules, get those Tallarn and Elysian minis while you can, and don't get distracted by other tabletop games so much. The last point is not strictly 40K, but it is a definite hobby regret - over the years, I spent so much time and money on various other TT games, only for them to die and me learning that I'd been better off with 40K in the first place.

yeah I had initially gotten into a different TT game to then realize I would be the only one playing it in my area


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 sierrakiloph wrote:


If I could do it all over, I'd rather be the guy everyone was looking forward to playing at the tournament because I was so fun and easy to hang out with, than be the guy people would fear to meet, because I brought a hard list and a very competitive game. I would also know who the cheaters and bullies were, and just shake their hands and congratulate them on their victories before even starting playing. In the past, I'd meet them head on and give as good as I got. Then, a few unpleasant hours later, both he and I would emerge bruised. But why spend time so poorly?

What, really, is at stake? Does anyone care if you play better with your dolls than another nerd? At most, you can win more toy soldiers at the cost of denigrating yourself. Pfft.

SK

famous last words. And true, it is better to enjoy your toy soldiers without being an ass

 Marshal Loss wrote:
I'd try to be more disciplined in my purchasing & probably spend less time worrying about when something is going to come out/not let future releases dictate what armies I play

Well the good news is that you can still do all (or at least some) of that.