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So, I'm thinking of getting into 40k tabletop gaming, I'm aware of the basic rules and whatnot, and I'm sure that is more of a learn as you go type thing anyways, all of the guides and advice I see online however say the same things, find a race/faction thing you like and go with them, taste in the flavor of the faction are way more important than any other factor. And I have it narrowed down to a few but I do have some questions I'm finding hard to get answered from just basic online resources. Help with these questions would be greatly appreciated.


Are Codex editions standalone formats? Can only 7th Edition units battle 7th Edition units or are the Editions more like updates to the races, like a patch to a StarCraft race?
If they aren't updates, and can be used in tandem, will Editions rotate like MTG's Standard?
What Groups/factions can be used together? I've read that there are fixed codecies and only units described there can be part of an army, yet I also see lore bits that make it seem like mixing and matching are utilized. I'm probably most interested in Cult Mechinus, and the Skitarii seem neat too, but I can't tell if they can be used together, how about Necrons? Imperial Knights?
MUST you paint your figures?
What does Competitive 40k look like?
Tyranids are basically zerg right?

Humunculous too?

Yes, definitely.

And yes, welcome aboard the express lane to the end of all things!

Welcome to...

...Dakka Dakka!

thank you, so as to my questions? any answers?

Editions and codex used to rotate like MTG, but currently all older material is void. So the current big rule book, CA 2017 and 2018, the indexes (superseded by codex but still an option), and codex released since 8th edition began are legal. No clue if they will rotate again.

Each unit has a list of faction keywords. An army must have at least 1 faction keyword present across all units. Typically this is IMPERIUM, CHAOS, AELDAR, tau, tyranid, necron, or ork. Armies are made of clusters of units called detachments, each detachment needs to have 1 keyword that isn't listed above throughout it. For example; you could have a battalion of Adeptus Mechanicus (cult mech and skitarii combined) and a super heavy detachment of Imperial Knights working together in an Imperium army. You could not have Necron and Ad Mech together outside of open play (pretty much anything goes). Edit: there are subfactions that can be chosen for fluff or mechanical purposes that make detatchments, like ork clans or necron dynasties.

Painting requirements depend on your opponent. New players and casual players would usually rather play a grey army than none at all. Tournaments typically require some degree of painting (like 3 colors used, no plastic showing). Seasoned players are rumored to be snobby about paint from time to time but usually let a little plastic slide if you are making progress.

I think competitive has unofficial tiers, there's casual competent, friendly tourney, and win at all costs. I like the first one since the game isn't particularly well balanced (or fun imo) when you start using the cheesiest of things. You and the people you play with should be able to figure out what things are just not fun for the game and work around it.

Yeah, iirc zerg are based on nids based on space bugs. Nids are nice because they can fill many roles with just their own codex (can also ally with genestealer cults which can then ally with imperial guard somewhat). They have units with great speed, area denial, CC damage, a mix of ranged sprinkled in or even focused on in some cases. Their somewhat consistent weakness is armor saves and T8 opponents i think, but tend to make up for it in quantity.

So are all of the factions/races updated in the new 8th Edition then or were there some left behind? Should I only look into 8th resources then?

And so as long as everything on your board shares one keyword the army is 'legal'?

Okay, let me break this down:

1) The new editions occasionally change the core rules so much that older codexes are not compatible (8th edition is like this, the basic stats that the models had changed, so new codexes were needed for everybody), and in some editions, all the codexes stay legal (like last edition). The codexes are basically the rules for one major faction. Editions roll over once every couple of years, and often you just need to buy the core rulebook, not re-buy all your codexes for all your factions.

2) Factions that are members of the same big umbrella faction can be used together. The only factions that have no possible allies are Necrons, Tau, and Orks. All the Eldar can be used together, all the Human forces of the imperium, all the Chaos forces, and the Tyranids and Genestealer cultists can be used together. Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus come in the same codex, and the codex also has rules for some Imperial Knights as well.

3) In constructing your list, you organize your models into "Detachments". most of the time, you want your detachments to get special rules, so you choose just a single sub-faction to represent your models. As an example, Space Marine detachments get slightly different rules if they're different Chapters of marines. So someone who decides their marines are Salamanders will make a detachment of only Salamander space marines (this is just something you can choose, usually there's not many models unique to only one subfaction.) If you want to bring allies, they need to be in their own detachment, with troops, commanders, etc - you can't have just one space marine in what is otherwise a full army of Mechanicus.

4) it's not required, but I don't see much point in choosing 40k over another hobby if you're not going to. I would very much not consider the models worth the financial investment if you're not getting the hours of enjoyment out of painting them. To me, and I think most players, the appeal of 40k is the vast diversity of factions making your little army feel unique. A lot of that is the painting/building aspect.

5) Competitive 40k makes a lot more use of allies (because they offer a greater diversity of options to someone looking to maximise power) and above all else competitive 40k is EXPENSIVE. On the scale of "Imagine if every time the meta build changed in starcraft you had to spend 40$ the first time you wanted to use a new unit." Real hardcore competitive 40k players often ebay one or more of their entire armies and buy a new one at a substantial monetary loss every year or so. The good news is, you generally don't have to go anywhere near that nuts if you just want to compete in local tournaments.

6) Try "Zerg are basically tyranids." 40k is pretty damn old - originally the tyranids were inspired by the book "starship troopers' and released alongside the current iteration of the regular human faction, the poorly equipped grunts of the astra militarum. Warcraft was originally supposed to be a video game version of GW's other property, Warhammer Fantasy, and when the deal fell through they changed up the names and formula very slightly to make it their own game. It is heavily speculated that Starcraft was heavily inspired in turn by Warhammer 40k.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

naruhina00 wrote:
So are all of the factions/races updated in the new 8th Edition then or were there some left behind? Should I only look into 8th resources then?

And so as long as everything on your board shares one keyword the army is 'legal'?

Yes, only look to 8th edition resources, and in the vast vast majority of cases, only look to the Codexes and core rules.

Alrighty, so, only go with 8th.

As far as the factions go, if i have a codex, all of the units in that codex will be able to be used together? And as long as they are under the same branch in some way, they can be a detachment of your army. Like because Imperial Knights are Imperial they can be used with all other Imperial units, so long as they have a full detachment that matches their unit type?

Start small then go big

The army factions and allies are a little weird, within a detachment in your army you are kind of limited to 1 codex. A 2000 point army can only have up to 3 detachments in matched play games if you are following GW's recommendations for that stuff, and almost all events will.The detachments in an army only need to share one faction keyword with each other with no restrictions on what it can be. The keywords that separate the different "codex-factions" into big factions of possible allies are: Imperium, Chaos, Aeldari, Tau, Necrons, Orks, and Tyranids.

There is one massive faction called Imperium, that contains a ton of codexes and their factions. Space Marines, Imperial Guard/Astra Militarum, Imperial Knights, and more in there.
The next biggest faction is Chaos, that contains Chaos Space Marines (3 codexes), Daemons (1 codex), and a few other things (Renegade Knights are in here).
Aeldari (used to be called Eldar) have 3 codex factions, Craftworlds, Drukhari/Dark Eldar, and Harlequins.
Tyranids have/will have 2 codexes, the main Tyranids one and Genestealers (coming out soon), but they can also take some Imperial Guard allies with a special rule from Genestealers I think.....
Tau, Necrons, and Orks have 1 codex each.

Outside of codexes there are indexes for old units that didn't make it into the codex and a few units with datasheets provided in other ways (e.g. in a board game like Blackstone Fortress).

The rules for keywords within a detachment are a little weird, but basically it is 1 codex per detachment. Unit's within a detachment must share one keyword just like the army-wide restriction, but there is a list of keywords that cannot be used here, most of the large faction keywords are on the exclusion list. It is possible to combine some codexes in one detachment, but usually you lose some abilities and it is rarely worth it.

I'd recommend using Battlescribe and looking at other online resources to get an idea of what kind of army you can make at a certain points limit, and how that army would work. Once you have an idea for what kind of army you want to buy, eBay can save you a ton of money if you watch and wait for good deals on the units you want.

Hi,

Welcome to Dakka