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How do!

So the game is a couple of years or so old now. And as the range has expanded, so have the options for people looking to dive in. And this thread is intended as a Collaborative attempt to offer a product guide, so said folk can weigh up their options.

Your first option of course is the basic boxed set.

This gives you two modest forces, and a hunting pack of Warhound Titans. So, enough to give you the rulebook, and sufficient models for very small games to help you get your head round it.

The rulebook does include all the rules for the units that come in the box. But, those rules have been superseded. For starting out, they’ll see you right. But before long you will be needing Liber Strategia. This collects and updates the unit rules previously spread out across various hardback expansions. Which is, at the time of writing, the vast majority of available units.

But, be aware that like most of GW’s specialist games, each wave comes with a now softback book, which will include further unit rules.

The most important wisdom I can bestow right now is that if shopping in person in a FLGS? The rulebook and Liber Strategia are the ONLY Hardbacks you need. The others contain fluff and missions, but the units and formations within are superseded.

So, you’re now replete with rules. Hurrah! And maybe some models. Double hurrah!

But…how to go about expanding?

First, I’d counsel that infantry is really good in the game. But, its points cheap, cash intensive. Whilst you don’t necessarily want or need to deploy Maximum Strength Units? A single box of infantry is just not going to cut it.

Tanks are more favourable. Again I’m not gonna call anything cheap here. But a box of Tanks typically gives you a viable unit in a single purchase. Again you can field them in larger numbers, but I’d say it’s less essential to buy two or three compared to Infantry.

So how do you spend your money wisely? Well, the three Combat Forces are pretty nice, and offer a discount on buying the constituent kits separately. Importantly? I’d say the contents in each are all useful units. The Astartes and Solar Auxilia in particular go very nicely with the starter box contents as a cash efficient way to get a flexible core army.

Overall? If you and friend were to split the core box and share a Liber Strategia, the each buy the respective Combat Force? You’ll have the rules you need, and enough of an army for satisfying games for a fairly modest £200 each direct from GW, or around £170.00 each.

The nice thing about LI is then expanding is, for GW standards, fairly cost effective. See my comment above about A Single Box Of Tanks being a viable unit.

You can also find seasonal or splash release boxed sets, which again offer a discount. Which is great, provided of course your budget stretches to the higher single outlay. As with many splash releases for GW’s specialist games? Having a trawl of your local FLGS shelves can lead to such treasure!

So, that’s my thinks. Not massively costed as GW games go, but still not a Chump Change experience.

It’s also a super fun scale to paint.

Anyone else want to chip in?

To add to that I would say finding a like minded group is very much key to a good time, if you want to play for fun and have a fluffy list but your opponent is going hard it will not be fun times. And terrain is very much your friend, though most people seem to play on very dense cityscapes (a hold over from the kits GW sells) a mix of terrain types makes for a much better game. Also 3000ptsthough being the recommended game size from GW is not a good place to either start or play the game, it plays much better at 1500-2000.

Similar to this, Knight and Titan lists are cool, fantastic models, fun to paint and look awesome but they are not great in game, you may expect your Warlord to smite all before it but it likely will not so temper expectations when taking either as a full army or as an ally.

Speaking of allies, there is a 30% limit to taking them but all 5 armies have the option of taking Mechanicum forces that are baked into their army lists, these are mostly great fun and fluffy as well as being awesome for modelling and they do not use up the allied points!

Another point to add to MDG's getting started list is that there is no easy starter combat force for Dark Mechanicum currently but they are very easy to start, 2-3 boxes of the smaller construct boxes gets you very useful formations of the base infantry (Harpax, that can infiltrate in their formation), terrifying Butchers that can charge 20" and mulch must things they come across and with a box of the heavy stalkers you get the shooty formation... which exists... most of these formations can also take knights and titans as integral parts of them which is cool. Expanding past the stalkers the DM can make use of the other Mech boxes too in either a combined arms Taghma or the construct heavy Ironbound ruinhost. The only lack for the faction is airpower and AA though this can be worked around with allied forces.

 ingtaer wrote:
To add to that I would say finding a like minded group is very much key to a good time, if you want to play for fun and have a fluffy list but your opponent is going hard it will not be fun times. And terrain is very much your friend, though most people seem to play on very dense cityscapes (a hold over from the kits GW sells) a mix of terrain types makes for a much better game. Also 3000ptsthough being the recommended game size from GW is not a good place to either start or play the game, it plays much better at 1500-2000.

I was just going to add this.

The nice spot of the game is at 2000 points (like many other GW games). It works extremely well in the range 1500-2500 points. The designers had no idea what they were doing, 3000 as standard is nonsense.

It’s also surprising just how quickly you can fill out a 1,500 point list. Like…really surprising.

Which of course helps with start up costs. And, as I noted above it’s oddly cheap to expand a collection? Will hopefully add to the overall appeal.

As an example? An absolute, bare bones, minimum sized compulsory units only Astartes Demi-Legion…

Legion Command - 25 points
Legion Tactical Detachment - 35 points
Legion Tactical Detachment - 35 points
Legion Contemptor Dreadnought Talon - 70 points.

So, 165 points. And when you start adding in unit expansions and tanks? It rapidly adds up.


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Also also?

Basing.

From what I’ve seen? Outside of official events, people are pretty chill about exactly how many tiny dudes you put on each base. Because outside of easy visual recognition? It really doesn’t matter a whole lot.

But, before you make any firm plans, do suss out your local scene, if you’ve got one. Because whilst I’m cool with three to a base (any lower and you impact the Visual Cool of a battle*), the standard remains however GW portrays it. And you just know that if TFG sees moaning about model count per base as their path to victory? They’re not gonna let that go.

So…discuss it! Find out, before you do the earlier half of that famous saying.

*Arbitrary, yes. But perhaps not as arbitrary as it sounds. A fully painted game of Epic, with in-scale terrain and scenery is a visual feast beyond compare.

This thread is pretty timely. I was just looking (drooling) over the epic scale models, and trying to figure out where I should start for Astartes. Good info. Thanks gents!

Also keep an eye on the big boxes GW does - they can get you a really solid chunk of models in one go.

Eg the Combined Arms Battle Group for SA and Marines are still out there in the 3rd party stores in good stocks and get you a huge chunk of models

I'd probably only go with one of either (depending on the army you want) as they do include air units of which you don't need a huge number for the game. So one and done of those for a really solid core. But in general a lot of the boxed sets will double up fairly well - the only risk is ending up with a LOT of infantry as they often feature and there are only currently 2 infantry sprue per faction

Risking having a lot of infantry is no risk at all, it is most definitely king in LI and the big boxes only give you the minimum amount needed to run a support formation.
For someone starting out with SA or SM I would definitely recommend getting at least two boxes of infantry (and basing the support ones in three or fours to stretch them out further) as a base point and then working out where you want to go from there.

The upside of infantry is that it’s an absolute doddle to paint. Contrast and Equivalent are absolutely your best friend for that job.

I will echo it being a good idea to only put two or three of the fancy infantry per base. You do not get many in a set (12 Assault, 12 Terminators, 12 Support, 12 Missile) which, officially, gives you just two bases of each. Do them as 4 to a base? That’s three per box. A much more pleasing ratio.

And so from two boxes? You get reasonably sized independent units of each. So you don’t have to be nutty like me, and buy 8 boxes worth

I have updated the pinned "New players guide to Epic 40k" thread with a link to this thread, as think it will be really useful
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/120/751316.page#11805499

One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet, and that I found to be absolutely essential both when starting with the game and learning, and also as a quick reference when you are playing to look up special rules, formation break points and things like that, is the Legion Builder app.
Very handy for army list building, quick export/print and things like that too.

https://legionbuilder.app/

What are good (1500p?) starter army lists for each faction that are cost efficient?

High cost is often brought up as a negative when starting LI is discussed which is not surpring as some boxes only comprise a handful of tiny tanks.

Thus, having starter army lists with corresponding lists of cost effective boxes to build each army would be great to show that LI can be started for a reasonable price.

1500 points can be filled out pretty quickly when you start including armour.

I’d definitely say pick your preferred faction (Marines, Solar Auxilia, Mechanicum), and start with their Combat Force. And usually a second box of basic infantry to flesh out the more specialist units into a usable size.

Oh, and Astartes Command Squads? You rarely need more than a single Stand. So you can use the spare Apothecaries to upgrade some Tactical Squads. If not? Just paint a regular Tactical Marine white. It’s important that the base with the upgrade stands out, rather than the model doing the standing out is an Apothecary.

Taking the contents of this https://www.warhammer.com/en-GB/shop/legions-imperialis-legiones-astartes-combat-force-2025?queryID=86b4c796ee6dc555e5df905ff914d9fc

And using the Legion Builder app? With judicious application of upgrades, but not including the Kratos? I can get a 723 points force.

Add another box of Infantry and second Demi-Company formation, and you’re up to..erm….1,265 points, with no wasted units.

To get to the magic 1,500? I’ll add 4 Scorpius Rocket tanks to the second Demi-Company. Brings us to 1,455 points.

To buy from GW direct, and of course not including rules costs? That’s £170.00. Of course where I can, I’ll buy from an online discounter. Usually Element, where that caps out at a pretty decent £144.00

Not the only way to get there of course. But you get an army with reasonable flexibility, a decent amount of infantry, and importantly a nice jumping off point to expand a collection further. And using as many of the models you’ve just paid for as possible


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Breakdown of which, entitled Mad Doc’s Newbie Sampler, can hopefully be found using the following link.

https://legionbuilder.app/lists/builder?listId=2pPbjhmGIrumaiuFXIl0F


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In the process of this, I did find a small flaw in Legion Builder. Specifically, when I added Apothecaries, it added One Per Base.

The in-game limit is 1 per 4 bases in a Tactical Unit. So had to edit it down. Worth noting for others using it!