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Hello all. I've never played Warhammer or owned any figures. Finally going to give it a go and I can't decide which faction to go with for my army! I realise this has probably been done to death on these forums, but hoping for some comments to help me narrow down my choice (at this point, I've already put WAY too much thought into this.)

My shortlist:

Orks - look cool and appeal to me, but I've committed to reading the Horus Heresy books 1 - 5 and I'm told they don't really feature, could be a bit lame.
Imperial Fists - Space marines seem a bit of an obvious choice, but IF and BA stand out for me - I don't know their backgrounds, this is based solely on colour!
Blood Angels
Thousand Sons - look cool, but I've heard they are more complicated to play with
Astra Militarum - I like the Krieg guys, but can't seem to find any starter packs/patrols with them?
Grey Knights - Look cool and seem a bit different from the other space marines, but is it harder to paint them up to a decent standard?

Also, I probably can't paint for s*** so I want to avoid any factions that are particularly tricky or need a good paint job to look good.

I've got the core rules book and the getting started magazine, but have no clue what to do once I've chosen a faction!

Cheers for any input.

I always choose armies in any game based on their background. Minis and rules change, especially in 40k, but if you like the story it will always inspire you to build, convert etc.

I'd look at the models and maybe view some youtube guides on the background (or go and read some books - but this is a bigger investment).

I think if you like the minis - and the story of the faction - you are probably in a good space.

Some factions are undoubtedly easier to paint to a starting standard than others. But consider that painting any army is a reasonable commitment. If you don't have some emotional attachment to a faction, you risk being bored about 10 models in. Or at least that's been my experience.

The other approach is buy one squad of something you think looks good, and paint it. See how you feel after. (In the olden days I'd say basic troops, but that's not as important these days).

Grey Knights are a potential risk, as when GW eventually remember that they exist, they're probably going to get basically their entire range replaced with new Primaris Daemonbanyshors and Terminator Warpannoyors...

So for your list:

Orks - My first 40k army was Orks and they were good fun. If you ever get the converting itch, Orks are the best army to scratch it. Looting vehicles is an extremely fun process IMO and it means you could pick up models you otherwise wouldn't. They've also got quite an up-to-date model range and it's really easy to take units like Boyz and turn them into more specialist units like Lootas, Tankbustas, or Kommandos with a little bit of converting.
Plus with the various Orruk models from Age of Sigmar, you can mix in models from that range as well.

Imperial Fists (Space Marines) - Space Marines are the bread and butter army. There is not much to say tbh. They're good and they're easily customisable.

Blood Angels - Like Space Marines but more for combat.

Thousand Sons - My friend plays them and he's enjoyed them so far. Wizards and all that. They have the Exalted Sorcerers which is a lovely kit.

Astra Militarum - For the Krieg specifically, you won't be able to do them cheaply as the plastic kit was introduced for Kill Team. The rest of the range is also from Forge World so not only is it expensive but also Resin rather than Plastic which can be offputting for some.

Grey Knights - They're Space Marines -5 at this point seeing as they haven't got any meaningful releases since their 5th Edition codex and don't get any Primaris stuff either.

There are several things to consider when starting your first 40k army.

Price and time of completing an army are a very important consideration. Not all 40k factions are equal when it comes to the final cost to get to 2000pts. And I often suggest aiming for 3000 points to allow for options later on down the road. The sam could be said about the hobby time to get that army to play read, and better yet, Battleready (as per GW paint guides).

Orks Can be intensive both in terms of money and time. They can go full horde, and even many of their vehicles are on the bad side of points to cash. Orks also are one of the most kitbash-able factions, which can slow down build time. And while painting Orks can be sloppy to mesh with lore, they also have a lot of detail, too.

Space Marines Are cheap to get into, but can be expensive to maintain. A plethora of models is a double-edged sword. More units means more stuff that can not be good in the game. Though, this can easily be avoided by focusing in on what you want to accomplish. That tends to take a fair amount of experience with the game's broad strokes. However, marines are typically very easy to paint up, and even going with a yellow or white chapter (paint colors that typically more challeging to paing) will get easier with a little know-how, practice and refinement of your process.

Thousand Sons are on the cheaper side to some extent. They also don't have that much of choice currently, and that's not likely to change much in the immediate future. They are a right pain in the butt to paint. And that's coming from a CSM player that has painting 1000s of models with metallic trim. So they are going to want some real gumption (usually fed by excitement of the faction) to get painted up.

Imperial Guard There are few ways to collect this faction that is cheap. Even fewer if you want to theme them as non-Cadians. I also think that the IG are at a cross-roads where GW is moving away from single subfactions (read: Cadians, Kreig, Armageddon) and going more mixed. That way the faction can have the 'greatest hits' of those subfactions while GW doesn't produce kits that are going to be in something like the bottom 10% of purchases (just an example, I don't know how well they'd sell). Painting can be simple, but its going to be a lot. Best if you can enjoy batch painting.

Grey Knights Have been one of the cheapest factions to collect. However, in part, that is due to the relative age of the models. Which are due (maybe not this edition) for an update to GW's current style and size. There are no rumors of this change happening anytime soon or at all. But I think it's a safe bet that one of these years Grey Knights are going to radically updated. So I think caution is warranted that getting this faction may look like old-timers fairly fast. However, they are fairly easy to get painted to a decent standard pretty fast.

***

The next big consideration is the broad strokes of how a faction plays. Because even if rules come and go and power fluctuates, 40k factions tend to still stick to their general play style.

Orks being an original faction have lots of different play styles even if the stereotype is greentide melee. There are few play styles the Ork faction can't accomplish, at least in some way.

Space Marines have the breadth and width of units to also allow for a variety of play styles. Though, they tend to sit on the lower end of elite (read: small amount of models) on the table. With less ability to be at the extremes of anything. Imperial Fists generally like their bolt weapons and tend to have interactions with terrain. Blood Angels tend to be on the more extreme end of melee, especially jump melee, as well as penchant for flamers and psykers.

Thousands Sons tend to be highly restricted into psychic powers as well as generally having a tad bit more durability. Which, for whatever reason, GW has decided is Tzeentch's thing in rules form. They also tend to use fire based weapons a little bit more. Generally, Thousand Sons play style is narrower than most factions.

Imperial Guard also have a fair wide amount of play styles, except they don't have much in the way elite melee. What they can have is hordes of infantry, squadron of tanks and tons of artillery. They are also fair limited in melee, but not completely devoid of options there.

Grey Knights are one of few times GW has recently changed the broad strokes of a faction's general play style. Instead of leaning into psychic powers for buffs, Grey Knights now seem to focused on more of a teleport striking army. Which they've had before, but not nearly as a focus to the faction's 'thing' as much as now. The faction also can be weak against armor, at least at range.

***

Before you get too far down the rabbit hole on any one faction, I definitely recommend trying to play some game of 40k. Just to see which elements you like and want your army to focus on. And once you've don't that, only start with a box of models to see how much fun you have building and painting them. Because it might not matter how much you enjoy how the IG play, if you can't stand to paint more than 20 Guardsmen.

Regarding Orks, there are Black Library books that contain Orks. For example the 12 book series The Beast Arises. I haven't read it so can't say if it's good. My point is that I wouldn't let the fact that The Horus Heresy doesn't focus on Orks put you off.

I collect Astra Militarum, so always happy to embrace more players. If you want an army that focuses on just Krieg models then as you've found the choice is limited and expensive. There are 3rd party Krieg models out there that might reduce the cost, especially when compared to Forgeworld models. Bear in mind that Astra Militarum armies tend to be expensive anyway, regardless of which aesthetic you're interested in.

I don't have much to say about the other armies you're thinking of collecting. Ultimately go with what you like the most and can see yourself painting an entire army of. Different armies appeal to different people for different reasons.

ElTel wrote:
Hello all. I've never played Warhammer or owned any figures. Finally going to give it a go and I can't decide which faction to go with for my army! I realise this has probably been done to death on these forums, but hoping for some comments to help me narrow down my choice (at this point, I've already put WAY too much thought into this.)

My shortlist:

Orks - look cool and appeal to me, but I've committed to reading the Horus Heresy books 1 - 5 and I'm told they don't really feature, could be a bit lame.
Imperial Fists - Space marines seem a bit of an obvious choice, but IF and BA stand out for me - I don't know their backgrounds, this is based solely on colour!
Blood Angels
Thousand Sons - look cool, but I've heard they are more complicated to play with
Astra Militarum - I like the Krieg guys, but can't seem to find any starter packs/patrols with them?
Grey Knights - Look cool and seem a bit different from the other space marines, but is it harder to paint them up to a decent standard?

Also, I probably can't paint for s*** so I want to avoid any factions that are particularly tricky or need a good paint job to look good.

I've got the core rules book and the getting started magazine, but have no clue what to do once I've chosen a faction!

Cheers for any input.

I don't think I'd point at any 40k army as fundamentally unsuited to a beginner (particularly now that GW has admitted that Harlequins shouldn't have been their own Codex); any army you pick is going to be expensive, a lot of work to paint, and at least somewhat difficult to get the rules down for, so it's a lot more important that you're enthusiastic enough about the army to want to build it than that you picked a "beginner" army.

With that said, I do think it's worth pointing out that:

-Guard (Astra Militarum) and Orks are both spammier armies; even basic infantry in 40k lives in a spectrum where (depending on edition) a cheap guy like a Guardsman might be ~5pts and an expensive guy like a Custodian might be ~50pts. The models aren't that much cheaper to reflect that, though, which means in a spammier army you tend to be spending more money and doing more work painting to put an army of a given points value on the table. When you've got a spammier army you also have to get used to putting heart and soul into painting your dudes and then pulling them off the table in huge numbers as they get blown up, which some people are happier with than others.

-Aside on the Kriegers: They're a Kill Team kit; they are absolutely models you can use in 40k, but you won't be able to build a full force of guys that all look like that without doing some conversion work, since there aren't any, e.g., plastic Krieg command squads or artillery crews. I'd only suggest that project if you had a lot of money, and either access to a resin printer or a burning desire to learn to sculpt with greenstuff.

-Grey Knights and Thousand Sons: Both of these forces have some similar problems; they're very small ranges of models without many weapon options, which tends to make them very sensitive to small tweaks to their rules. Both are completely usable and very cool, and both can be played with relatively small model counts, but they're going to involve a lot more paying attention to rules tweaks and figuring out which non-model choices (psychic powers, sub-factions, stratagems, that kind of thing) will make your stuff the most effective.

-Space Marines (BA or IF): I tend to recommend Space Marines to beginners largely because they're in all the starter boxes so they're cheap, and because they don't have a lot of visual variety so you'll be practicing a smaller library of techniques than you would with an army that had a lot of more different-looking units, and because you can get on the table with fewer models than a lot of armies. They are, however, the "obvious" choice, and there are certainly people that would prefer not to do the obvious thing, so it's definitely up to you there.

If you're interested in the Horus Heresy at all you can also look at those rules down the road (there's a sort of 'historical 40k' alternate game that uses some of the same miniatures); it's not as easy to have a dual-purpose army that works in 40k and 30k as it once was, but Imperial Guard, Space Marines, and Thousand Sons can all be built in that direction if you'd like.

Adding some things to consider about these specific factions:

- Orks are usually more of a horde army, so you'll need to paint more models than for the other factions. Which also means they're likely to be more expensive. However, you can do more specialized approaches like Speed Freaks with lots of vehicles which would mean fewer (infantry) models. Orks are fun though and if you like them, go for it!
- Space Marines are the biggest rabbit hole in 40K with a giant unit roster, a new unit every couple of months and new Codizes every 3 years. If you want to go for SM, I'd suggest to specialize by flanderizing the chapter you take. So Blood Angels for example: Concentrate on everything that's fast, wants to be in CC or has a jump pack. Ignore everything else (at first). SM have the benefit of being in every starter and in every campaign box, so there are many ways of getting them rather cheap.

Thousand Sons are pretty nice as a beginner army I'd say as they're the opposite of the Space Marines: Quite limited unit roster so to not lose yourself, an obvious specialisation, a nice centrepiece model with Magnus that you could eventually go for. Their individual models are usually of high quality so they could be cheaper (moneywize) as the others.
- Grey Knights are like the imperial version of Thousand Sons. Damocles is right though, there will eventually be an update to the whole range and when that happens new models are a head taller than the old ones which you might not like.

ElTel wrote:
Hello all. I've never played Warhammer or owned any figures. Finally going to give it a go and I can't decide which faction to go with for my army! I realise this has probably been done to death on these forums, but hoping for some comments to help me narrow down my choice (at this point, I've already put WAY too much thought into this.)

My shortlist:

Orks - look cool and appeal to me, but I've committed to reading the Horus Heresy books 1 - 5 and I'm told they don't really feature, could be a bit lame.
Imperial Fists - Space marines seem a bit of an obvious choice, but IF and BA stand out for me - I don't know their backgrounds, this is based solely on colour!
Blood Angels
Thousand Sons - look cool, but I've heard they are more complicated to play with
Astra Militarum - I like the Krieg guys, but can't seem to find any starter packs/patrols with them?
Grey Knights - Look cool and seem a bit different from the other space marines, but is it harder to paint them up to a decent standard?

Also, I probably can't paint for s*** so I want to avoid any factions that are particularly tricky or need a good paint job to look good.

I've got the core rules book and the getting started magazine, but have no clue what to do once I've chosen a faction!

Cheers for any input.

My advice: To start with Pick Two - at least one of which should be Loyalist Marines (Marines are split between "Chaos" Marines and "Loyalist" Marines) Loyalist Marines are in just about every starter/value set that contains more than one army. They'll be the "cheapest" to collect, and frequently aren't bad. The Armies on the tabletop have a tendency to ebb and flow into good and bad. If you have two, one of them is potentially "good" this time around. I'd also try and pick one that is Imperium, and one that is non-Imperium. That's just for head cannon - if you loan your other army to a friend for a game, might as well be one that makes sense for them to fight.

You mentioned Horus Heresy - that's a different era. Think of Horus Heresy as the Korean War, while 40K is Desert Storm. Orks don't play much of a factor in Horus Heresy because its almost entirely a Marine vs Marine Civil War. Nothing to do with Orks, just THAT setting isn't about them. They're (along with Nids) probalby are the most common Xenos factions in the modern setting for things like books/events.

Massive thanks for all the replies - really appreciate you guys taking the time.

Of course, there's always a budget but I can afford to spend a bit on this, so it's not my main concern. Painting is a bigger one. The thing is, I've seen SMs in the shops that have just had their base coat added and they look quite cool even like that! I don't think that's true of the other models.

So, I'm going to discount Grey Knights (models being out of date soon would really bug me), AM (I don't really like the Cadian models that much) - so thanks all for helping me narrow things down!

A friend (whom I'll be playing with) has also suggested models from a couple of factions to start out with and get a feel. I'm starting to think this might be the best idea. I've already got an SM and a Tyranid from the 'getting started' magazine

I really like the idea of getting behind a particular faction that I can geek out on though!

I've got the core rules and the first HH book to read. Before I buy a codex I think I'm going to just try eBay to get a cheap (maybe even a single) Ork and TS model to see what my painting chops are like.

ElTel wrote:

A friend (whom I'll be playing with) has also suggested models from a couple of factions to start out with and get a feel. I'm starting to think this might be the best idea. I've already got an SM and a Tyranid from the 'getting started' magazine

If you like the idea of multiple factions, you might want to pick up the Core rulebook for Kill Team as well. It's fun to be able to use your models in more than one game, and you can explore a faction more easily when you only need to buy, assemble and paint a single unit to play. A new season of KT will drop soon, and the box will include two complete teams and terrain, as well as expanded rules for using the two teams in the box. One of the rumours was that new Space Marine Scouts would be one of the Kill Teams.

If not, the starter boxes for 40k are good- the Ultimate Starter being the best value; it contains full Combat Patrols for both armies, so they're very playable, plus some decent terrain. This only works if you're interested in exploring Nids, or you know someone you could sell the nids to. The Combat Patrol thing is an interesting option, but please talk more with the community if you build according to the Combat Patrol Guidelines. Combat Patrol has fixed builds, and there are some differences between the two modes of play that make the fixed combat patrol build sub-optimal in regular play.

Remember, though the regular version of 40k isn't designed for forces below 1000 points, you can still play a Combat Patrol force using regular 40k rules if that's your preference, and if you intend to grow the army beyond combat patrol size, it might be the safer way to go. Either way, as a new player/ collector, some combat patrol boxes offer a lot of value.

Finally, because you're building your army as you go, I'd recommend looking into Crusade. It allows you to connect games in an ongoing story which helps integrate new units in a more narrative way. It also makes playing at smaller game sizes more interesting. It isn't everyone's cup of tea, but it's my favourite part of the game. I won't derail the thread to talk about Crusade unless your curious... I tend to go on when it comes to Crusade, and it's a waste of effort if you already know that you're looking for more of a fixed-point stand-alone army for pick-up games.

So regarding choosing between Imperial Fists and Blood angels, 2 or 3 years ago I would have advised you to go with blood angels simply because painting yellow can be hard, however thanks to the, aptly named, Imperial Fists contrast paint, this is less of an issue and even a relative novice can get some nice yellow Marines.
The differances are that the Fists are, tradtionally a very "ranged heavy weapon gunline" type chapter and the blood angels are a fast moving melee chapter.
both are fun, Blood angels DO have a bigger more diverse cast of characters to choose from if you're big into special characters

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
If you want to go for SM, I'd suggest to specialize by flanderizing the chapter you take. So Blood Angels for example: Concentrate on everything that's fast, wants to be in CC or has a jump pack. Ignore everything else (at first). SM have the benefit of being in every starter and in every campaign box, so there are many ways of getting them rather cheap.
/quote]

Great way to get unfluffy armies that are extra vulnerable to becoming bad in one rule change.

Don't really see much of a choice here. Orks are cool and fun and varied, marines are bland and generic - a beige backdrop army to make xenos or chaos armies look even more exciting and unique.

I agree, if anon liked 1ksons enough, he wouldn't be asking questions what to pick. Out of all the the armies orks are the best option. And for a new painter, it is a lot more forgiving army, when one tries to make his army their own.

Shocking news, people like more than one thing.

Cyel wrote:
Don't really see much of a choice here. Orks are cool and fun and varied, marines are bland and generic - a beige backdrop army to make xenos or chaos armies look even more exciting and unique.

We should absolutely yuk new people's yum in our hobby. Stay classy Dakka.

Cyel wrote:
Don't really see much of a choice here. Orks are cool and fun and varied, marines are bland and generic - a beige backdrop army to make xenos or chaos armies look even more exciting and unique.

completely unhelpful. he's clearly got aestetics he likes and doesn't need you to tell him that, give him advice based on the actual army details.

ElTel wrote:
Massive thanks for all the replies - really appreciate you guys taking the time.

Of course, there's always a budget but I can afford to spend a bit on this, so it's not my main concern. Painting is a bigger one. The thing is, I've seen SMs in the shops that have just had their base coat added and they look quite cool even like that! I don't think that's true of the other models.

So, I'm going to discount Grey Knights (models being out of date soon would really bug me), AM (I don't really like the Cadian models that much) - so thanks all for helping me narrow things down!

A friend (whom I'll be playing with) has also suggested models from a couple of factions to start out with and get a feel. I'm starting to think this might be the best idea. I've already got an SM and a Tyranid from the 'getting started' magazine

I really like the idea of getting behind a particular faction that I can geek out on though!

I've got the core rules and the first HH book to read. Before I buy a codex I think I'm going to just try eBay to get a cheap (maybe even a single) Ork and TS model to see what my painting chops are like.

Search Youtube for Contrast Paints from the GW Studio. Nids with Contrast paint up easy. Dark Angels can do well once you get the hang of it. I'm well and truly annoyed the GW Ultramarine contrast paint doesn't match both what I had before, and what I think of when I think UItras - its more of a Crimson Fists blue to me - but might be OK with extra work I'm not willing to do while I've got an airbrush and Vallejo.

ElTel wrote:
Hello all. I've never played Warhammer or owned any figures. Finally going to give it a go and I can't decide which faction to go with for my army! I realise this has probably been done to death on these forums, but hoping for some comments to help me narrow down my choice (at this point, I've already put WAY too much thought into this.)

My shortlist:

Orks - look cool and appeal to me, but I've committed to reading the Horus Heresy books 1 - 5 and I'm told they don't really feature, could be a bit lame.
Imperial Fists - Space marines seem a bit of an obvious choice, but IF and BA stand out for me - I don't know their backgrounds, this is based solely on colour!
Blood Angels
Thousand Sons - look cool, but I've heard they are more complicated to play with
Astra Militarum - I like the Krieg guys, but can't seem to find any starter packs/patrols with them?
Grey Knights - Look cool and seem a bit different from the other space marines, but is it harder to paint them up to a decent standard?

Also, I probably can't paint for s*** so I want to avoid any factions that are particularly tricky or need a good paint job to look good.

I've got the core rules book and the getting started magazine, but have no clue what to do once I've chosen a faction!

Cheers for any input.

Orks are fun but be aware tend to be the comic relief of 40k. So go into this with that knowledge.
Space Marines depends on the background you want.
Blood Angels - Space Vampires
Space Wolves - Space Vikings
Dark Angels - Space Knights
Black Templars - Space Crusaders
Ultramarines - Space Romans
Imperial Fists - Space Marines Phalanx division
Salamanders - Space Flamers

Thousand Sons - Space Egyptians

Krieg - although being released slowly this will be a fun but expensive army right now.

Grey Knight - Good guy space wizards. painting not too bad.

ElTel wrote:
Hello all. I've never played Warhammer or owned any figures. Finally going to give it a go and I can't decide which faction to go with for my army! I realise this has probably been done to death on these forums, but hoping for some comments to help me narrow down my choice (at this point, I've already put WAY too much thought into this.)

My shortlist:

Orks - look cool and appeal to me, but I've committed to reading the Horus Heresy books 1 - 5 and I'm told they don't really feature, could be a bit lame.
Imperial Fists - Space marines seem a bit of an obvious choice, but IF and BA stand out for me - I don't know their backgrounds, this is based solely on colour!
Blood Angels
Thousand Sons - look cool, but I've heard they are more complicated to play with
Astra Militarum - I like the Krieg guys, but can't seem to find any starter packs/patrols with them?
Grey Knights - Look cool and seem a bit different from the other space marines, but is it harder to paint them up to a decent standard?

Also, I probably can't paint for s*** so I want to avoid any factions that are particularly tricky or need a good paint job to look good.

I've got the core rules book and the getting started magazine, but have no clue what to do once I've chosen a faction!

Cheers for any input.

Borrowing some criteria from Vince Venturella, an army's suitability for a beginer can be assessed through its cost, ease of collecting, ease of painting and complexity on the tabletop. Over all of that, though, is your gut feel. So if you are drawn to a faction then its a contender no matter how it scores on those other factors! But those factors are still there. A common pitfall for new players is early frustration leading to quitting.

I started in 1996. I knew I wanted Space Marines, and I picked Dark Angels because they were green. And it still collect and play them today.

I think that Imperial Fists would be a good starter army. You can get the models fairly easily from various starter sets, and the model count can be fairly low keeping costs down and reducing the painting burden. Painting yellow was a barrier before, but Contrast offers a quick way. I wouldn't suggest Imperial Fists to a beginner without using Contrast paints (or some alternative). Space Marines are fairly straight-forward on the tabletop, although with a new book on the horizon there might be some complexities to get through. Lets say you buy the models for your Imperial Fists but then decide you like Marines but not IF. Then its easy to pivot to another Chapter so there is that.

Blood Angels would also be a good starter. A can of Mephiston Red (or just black) and a shade and you are on the tabletop for many of the models. They do have some specific models, so pivoting to another Chapter if you change your mind would be tougher.

Orks and Astra Militarum are fun (I have both), but they will tend to be harder to start with due to their model count. It will be a longer, costlier journey to get them on the tabletop compared to Marines. If you came on and said "I am a new player and I really want to start with Astra Militarum!" then I would say "Go for it. Buy and airbrush!" But since you have other choices then maybe keep those in the back of your mind for later?

Thousand Sons are fairly low model count, but they can be tougher to paint and they have some complexity on the tabletop. But still a contender and there may be some army painting speed hacks for them. They have a very definite model design, though, so they are pretty much always TSons. Truth be told, Grey Knights are similar to TSons in all those regards. Different sides of the same coin perhaps?

So, my advice is Imperial Fists. Start small - aim for 500 points and see if folks at your FLGS will play some intro games.

Having said all that, my advice is free, so it might be worth what you paid for it...

Well only thing that is of concern regarding imperial fist and how it plays are unique units. No other rule regarding imperial fists.

So unless you really want those unique units imperial fists play like marines.

ElTel wrote:
Hello all. I've never played Warhammer or owned any figures. Finally going to give it a go and I can't decide which faction to go with for my army! I realise this has probably been done to death on these forums, but hoping for some comments to help me narrow down my choice (at this point, I've already put WAY too much thought into this.)

My shortlist:

Orks - look cool and appeal to me, but I've committed to reading the Horus Heresy books 1 - 5 and I'm told they don't really feature, could be a bit lame.

Read those books, no matter what army you pick. I'm not a huge fan of Fulgrim, but the first four are great.

If you want to read about orks, I can suggest the following books:
- Ghazghkull Thraka: Prophet of the Waaagh! (the story of the biggest ork alive, told by a grot to an inquisitor. The audiobook is said to be even better than the book itself)
- Warboss by Mike Brooks (A great insight on why orks do the stuff they do, their clan structure and why the imperium fails to stop them as often as they do. Despite many hilarious scenes, it paints a very serious picture of the ork culture)
- Brutal Kunnin by Mike Brooks (By the same author as warboss, but more focused on a single protagonist, so not as good for getting a broad idea about orks)
- Helsreach by Aaron Dembski-Bowden (IMO the books tells a great story about how to be on the receiving end of a large Waaagh!, plus you get insight into one of the most important conflicts for orks: The War of Armageddon)

Even if you don't start with orks (yet), if you have any interest in them at all, you should read those books.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Adding some things to consider about these specific factions:

- Orks are usually more of a horde army, so you'll need to paint more models than for the other factions. Which also means they're likely to be more expensive. However, you can do more specialized approaches like Speed Freaks with lots of vehicles which would mean fewer (infantry) models. Orks are fun though and if you like them, go for it!

Not really as much of an issue anymore. Due to 10th edition's massive reduction of unit sizes, most units now build out of two boxes max just like they would for marines. Green tide has rightfully been killed off, gretchin are limited to 3 units of 20 and any other type of orks is not anywhere near as cheap as boyz used to be. The times when orks would outnumber marines 3:1 are over. Money-wise there are a few outliers (mek gunz), but in general the costs of buying 2000 points of orks has become a lot closer to what 2000 points of marines cost (assuming no discounts).
The combat patrol being a great place to start also helps a lot.

You still need to paint a bit more though, as you still tend to have slightly less than twice as many infantry models than a marine player would have, plus ork vehicles take a lot longer to paint than marine metal bawkses with all their flat surfaces. The good news is that you can often blame gakky painting on the orks just being bad at painting stuff in-lore.
It's nowhere near as bad as GSC or sisters though.

Just one piece of advice - if you don't like painting, avoid bad moons and blood axes themes. Painting yellow is a rabbid squig on rampage and painting camo on everything makes you lose your mind. Deff skulls and evil suns are probably the most forgiving color schemes as red and blue cover up all mistakes

Helsreach was written by Aaron Dembski-Bowden.

 Gert wrote:
Helsreach was written by Aaron Dembski-Bowden.

Thanks, must have taken a wrong turn when googling it... while sitting next to the shelf with the book in it.

Can't say much about the other factions, but orks take to converting and painting really well so you can really do whatever you want on both fronts. A lot of people don't like slap chop on models, but Orks look best when they're grubby and grimy (in my opinion anyway). Chucking on some contrast paint and a brown wash over a drybrushed base lets you get out a lot of decently painted models in a short time frame.

You'll have the most fun with orks. No need for any lore. Great first army; easy to paint.Personally i'd just get the combat patrol box, build them and get playing. Pain't 'em later. You might get inspired to do something else, but yiou can always come back to orks.

There's a huge variety of Imperial Guard regiments. If you have the will and the means, you can easily produce a unique army.

means: meaning 3rd party knowledge, cue Wargames atlantic f.e. or a 3d printer.



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ElTel wrote:
Hello all. I've never played Warhammer or owned any figures. Finally going to give it a go and I can't decide which faction to go with for my army! I realise this has probably been done to death on these forums, but hoping for some comments to help me narrow down my choice (at this point, I've already put WAY too much thought into this.)

Also, I probably can't paint for s*** so I want to avoid any factions that are particularly tricky or need a good paint job to look good.

I've got the core rules book and the getting started magazine, but have no clue what to do once I've chosen a faction!

Cheers for any input.

Painting is mostly a thing of learning to cheat. cue my whole blog

But there are some colours shemes that as a newbie you want to avoid, and a bunch of things that you want to do.

Do not: Some coulours came up, especially yellow... but yellow is comparativly harmless compared to mono black or white shemes. (like BT or HH era WE.)

Do: Washes are liquid cheating.
Speedpaints and or contrast paints achieve marvelous results.
Zenithal priming can help you massivly.
Check youtube.
Plan a sheme and then simplify it.