Wargaming: How to get started playing Warhammer 40k?

Crouton wrote:

I played Space Marine which I believe is now called Epic 40K (6mm plastic figures five per base). I had a huge Eldar army that was painstakingly painted over two years (and won a few awards). A few years later they came out with a new rule set and minis. The old minis were on square bases and were situated like the five dots on a die. The new ones had rectangular bases where the five figures were in one row. As my figures couldn't be re-based, they were officially useless.

I also played epic 40k, and remember when they changed the bases. Pretty much seemed like a ploy to get me to buy more figures just to be official. I forget what their reasoning was for that though.

I would suggest sticking to one of the main games like Warhammer, Warhammer 40k, or Lord of the rings cause all the rest are hyped up and phased out every 6 months or so.

Brizahd wrote:

I also played epic 40k, and remember when they changed the bases. Pretty much seemed like a ploy to get me to buy more figures just to be official. I forget what their reasoning was for that though.

I remember what it was: "Our customer base is so fanatical that we can do something that will require them to buy the same stuff twice."

LockAndLoad wrote:

As far as 40k army selection I was leaning towards a Space Marine or Necron army based on what I've read on the various websites.

Necrons are a very good starting army. There's not much fuzz about options for squads and leaders so you won't get confused about that. They are also quite powerful on the tabletop. But best of all, you can just drybush every model and get an awesome looking army that'll look just great when played. You also won't need to many models to make up a decent army, which will save you some money at first.

HantaXP wrote:

Do any of you play Flames of War. It's a WW2 miniture game, turned out to be alot cheaper for me than my Wh40k army. The best representation of a table top game on the computer was the Combat mission games. If they would make a warhammer game using that style, I would be in Geek heaven.

Flames of War... Never heard of it my but two great latent passions, WWII and miniatures, in one great package?

Place linkage here Hanta --->

rabbit wrote:

Minis games to me are as much about storytelling and the spectacle as they are about the game. Maybe more so.

There's storytelling in these games?

And Edwin: if they made a digital version, they'd probably just charge full price, ala Magic.

The 40K universe seems very cool. Seems strange that they've only just now gotten around to making any kind of strategy game for it. Seems like it would make for an awesome (modern, thank you Space Hulk) FPS or RPG. I tried Dawn of War, but RTS games aren't my thing.

f*ck that. Make a nice DS and PSP version with everything in it like Pokemon Trading Card game or the Marvel Trading card game.

I've never understood why Games Workshop hasn't come out with a turn based computer version of the tabletop games. I am a Warhammer Fantasy Battle whore and a large part of it is collecting the miniatures but from a business perspective and looking at the Magic Online model, I am at a loss as to why they haven't done it yet. I've heard some arguments from the hardcore saying that it would steal business from the tabletop sales but I'm of the feeling that it would be great exposure for them. And for us hobbyists it would be a great way to try out different tactics online.

And Fedaykin, there was Fire Warrior ... http://ps2.ign.com/objects/496/49631...

And Fire Warrior was total ass.

Fire Warrior was truly embarassing. I actually found a great 40K story in this novel.

http://www.amazon.com/Horus-Rising-Heresy-Dan-Abnett/dp/184416294X/ref=p0d_bbs_sr_6/104-2500934-5962344?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173737323&sr=8-6

Give it a try. I'm a little concerned about the other two in the series because they have different authors.

Also, in regard to playing the table top game in a computer atmosphere (which the latest RTS series is not capable of), I found this little gem a few years ago and loved it. I think there's even a multiplayer mode.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/warhammer-40000-chaos-gate

Edit: Wow, there is a multiplayer function. I would love to play this online if someone else has it.

Also, found the Flames of War site. The models look easy to paint, if a little cartoony, but I'll have to see about the ruleset.

http://www.flamesofwar.com/

LockAndLoad wrote:

A small gaming store opened up near my house a few months ago and they have a huge wargaming following. I've been watching the matches for a couple weekends now and I was thinking of trying to get started playing Warhammer 40k but I am a bit overwhelmed. The store owner recommended that I buy the The Battle for Macragge Boxed Set ($50) to get started but I found a couple ebay auctions for a couple 1000+ point armies for not much more money.

So, does anyone have any tips on getting started? I've read how expensive it is to get started with miniature wargaming so I guess I'm trying to find the best deal for my gaming dollar to get started.

Any help or opinions would be greatly appreciated.

OK LL I will admidt I did not read all the responses as was a bit turned off by the negative posts but I am going to impart my 40K wisdom to you.

This is coming from a 38 year old man that has played the game since the rogue trader days (read a very long time). I have $1000 of wrapped up in armies and scenary that I have collected over the years and was connected with some longtime Games Workshop employess so I have a decent insight into the hobby.

First start small.

Most Gamesworkshop stores offer in store demos/teaching sessions of the game. If you have access to a store check the game out that way. Perhaps the local hobby shop has something similiar. This way you do not need anything other then to show up and hopefully have a good time.

Second if you had fun pick something you think looks cool.

A large part of the hobby is fielding something that you like the look of and the modeling of these minatures. You will find that you will enjoy the modeling aspect more if you actually like the look of your guys. Do not start buying minatures yet.

Third buy the 40K rule book and the codex (of the army you picked in step 2 above). Take the time to read up on the rules, enjoy the art and dark gothic background that is the Warhammer 40k universe, and get to know a bit about the game.

Fourth buy yourself a small squad of troops. This will make more sense after step 3 but this way you now have an idea of what you are buying.

Fifth model troops you purchased in step 4.

Sixth grow your army from here on out as you learn more about game and how you like to play.

You are now well on your way to a new hobby.

It is a fun hobby that I have enjoyed for well over 15 years now.

The hobby can be expensive for some people but you do not have to own multiple armies with over 20,000 point forces like some people (aka me). If you buy in small amounts and do so over time while it does add up it is not too much at any one time.

Most gaming clubs will require you to paint and base your models to play. Groups of friends may have different rules on how much a model has to be done to use but for my group of friends if you had assembled the model that was good enough for us.

There are issues with the game as in any sort of game of this type. They are a company and of course want to make money which seems to anger people.

This means every so often they will remake models usually making them cooler but often more expensive then the last group. (not like you have to get the new ones btw)

Every so often they will redo the rule books. Now in almost all cases I do think they improved the game in doing so but I know people who did not like the change. This generally means unless you have a group willing to stick to old rules you have to buy the new rules to keep playing.

When the rules change often something about your army changes the makes you need to buy a few things to make it work in the new army. They will also phase out stuff that is not making them money or deemed no good or what have you at this time too. Depending on what you own this could bad or have little effect on you.

I no longer really play the game to be completely honest. The reasons being that my gaming partners all live an hour away, we all have kids, we are all older, and I just do not have it in me to drive an hour on a weekend night after I have my kids in bed to play a 2 hour game (most games are about 2 hours these days). Also since my very good friend passed away who was one of my big GW friends (he had worked at GW for over 15 years) the game is not the same for me.

Still I would recommend it to anybody as it can be a lot of fun.

If you have specific questions feel free to PM me or post them here and I will answer them as honestly as I can.

Classic BattleTech tabletop. Trust me.

I have friends that were big into the WH40K scene and yeah, they'd customize their miniatures to add the 'right' gun and such onto the model. F-That, let me build a custom mech, and start doing death from aboves!

May I suggest some alternatives? My compaints with the GW games are painting and finding opponents. Below are some options that cut out some of that frustration and get you in the game a lot faster.

Poxnora : Online miniatures game with some CCG aspects.
Advantage: Play anytime, from a browser window. Find opponents fast. Figures gain XP, which you can spend on stat/ability increases.
Disadvantage: Not holding actual little dudes in your hands.

Heroscape : Pre-painted miniatures game from Hasbro with stackable terrain.
Advantage: No painting. 3-D terrain pleases my Lego-trained brain to no end. Lots of expansion packs, lots of good scenarios in the book and online.
Disadvantage: Initial set lacks cohesion of figures. Vikings versus robots, wtf? Slightly dumbed down rules.

Pirates CCG Put-together pirate ships on little plastic cards.
Advantage: No painting. Ships snap together quick (I leave mine assembled for quick play) Cheap(er).
Disadvantage: CCG aspects turn some people off, go to Ebay if you can't stand not knowing.

On a related tangent, the older WizKids games like Mage Knight are easy to get ahold of on Ebay and the rules pdf's are floating around on the net. Pre-painted, stats on bases, straightforward rules. Cut some terrain out of construction paper and you are good to go.

Poxnora would be so perfect if I didn't have to buy runes.

Barbarian wrote:

May I suggest some alternatives? My compaints with the GW games are painting and finding opponents. Below are some options that cut out some of that frustration and get you in the game a lot faster.

Poxnora : Online miniatures game with some CCG aspects.
Advantage: Play anytime, from a browser window. Find opponents fast. Figures gain XP, which you can spend on stat/ability increases.
Disadvantage: Not holding actual little dudes in your hands.

That game looks like a better version of Sanctum. How fast do the games usually take in poxnora?

Poxnora looks good enough that I simply will not allow myself to read past the Gamespy review where they say "you can go broke buying runes." As if Magic weren't bad enough!

As a reformed Mage Knight player (Warhammer 40k Lite) these people speak the truth. If World of Warcraft is digital crack, WH4K is painted miniature crack. Time, money and lack of a personal life outside of the game are all true stories.

What I would suggest, if possible is to observe a tournament setting. The local game store is good, but if you can get to a gaming convention in the area... that will give you the full taste. Watch people play the game, check out the armies they have amassed over long periods of time.

Another wrinkle here is that at gaming conventions people often unload their collections. Pre-painted, pre-formed armies are the way to go.

Also, you could check out other miniature based games. Several have come and gone since I've been involved - but the recent trend for the "lite" versions are pre-painted miniatures. The drawback is that these usually come in blind packs. Mage Knight is gone, but D&D Miniatures and a few others are out there.

Good luck and enjoy.

Anyone want to buy my Mage Knight collection? Cheap!

I too played WH40k for a few years. I've still got a mostly intact almost finished Craftworld Eldar army, as well as a fairly sizeable Dark Elf army for WHFB.

It's a good bit of fun, IMO, but due to my military relocation from Baltimore to Alabama, there's a fairly distinct lack of player base down here for me to get a hold of. I suppose overall, I just got spoiled living less than 20 minutes from the US HQ.

Edwin wrote:

Poxnora would be so perfect if I didn't have to buy runes.

You can get a free account with some training wheel runes. They aren't horribly bad, but anybody with upgraded runes will wipe the map with you.

Brizahd wrote:

How fast do the games usually take in poxnora?

Around 20-30 minutes, although stalemate games take much longer. I think the fastest I beat somebody was 7:30.

rabbit wrote:

Poxnora looks good enough that I simply will not allow myself to read past the Gamespy review where they say "you can go broke buying runes." As if Magic weren't bad enough!

I set myself a limit of $30, and I've pretty much stuck with it. I learned my lesson with M:TG. I've got a whole bin full of cards from the 3rd Edition era gathering dust somewhere.

maladen wrote:

They are a company and of course want to make money which seems to anger people.

If I was a GW shareholder, I'd want them to shorten the duration of relevance for their models and materials even further. But as a gamer and consumer, their business practices lower the value of what I'm buying. Your mileage may vary, but I can get a much better fun-return on my investment elsewhere.

Crouton wrote:
maladen wrote:

They are a company and of course want to make money which seems to anger people.

If I was a GW shareholder, I'd want them to shorten the duration of relevance for their models and materials even further. But as a gamer and consumer, their business practices lower the value of what I'm buying. Your mileage may vary, but I can get a much better fun-return on my investment elsewhere.

That is fine if you find more fun else where but that does not mean that others can not have fun with this product.

What makes me laugh is all the talk on how expensive/time intensive this hobby is and it is really no more expensive then the PC/Console gaming hobby. When you take in to account the total cost of games, platform, fees and so on it easily eclipses the cost of playing 40K. I dropped over $2k for a new PC this year that I will likely start upgrading in less then a year.

People pay $600 for a PS3 and then $50 a game.

Do you know how many modles that would get you? You can easily have an army brand new for less then the cost of a PC or heck almost any new platform Wii included.

Even if I purchased the cheapest $300 PC, got WoW with the expansions $50, and then played for a year of WoW only $180 (12x15) I could easily have an army for under that price.

As for time commitment again that is just so small compared to playing a MMORPG. A lot of us play video games every night for an hour or more a night.

My electronic gaming easily eclipses my 15 years of 40K in both time and money.

So while I buy the argument hey I do not like the game people going off like it some sort of money/time sink that is any worse then the 'approved video gaming hobby' is just wrong and misleading.

My six year old son is very into toy soldiers. He has seen the space marines etc before as we go to the mall and several unpainted sets I have in my vault, err closet. He really wanted some for the holidays.

There is no way to justify this kinda investment for someone his age, and I really dont want it to grow into an ongoing investement. I can see why he is interested, I really enjoy the 40k universe and backstory also.

A part of me (I dont mean to offend anyone I swear), doesnt want him to be one of the guys I see appearing at the GW stores for gaming sessions. I just keeping imagining the worst case scenario of player stereotypes, but I appreciate that all kinds of folks play these games and have great fun together. More fundamentally, I just cant stand the stores anymore and the well-honed sales staff in them always prodding with cross-selling, up-selling questions. I used to enjoy going into the stores, when they were less optimized and included a treasure trove of collateral products (books, slower moving and smaller scale products etc.) The stores near me have a very sterile, optimized feel.

Anyways, Battle of Macragge (25 - 35 bucks I forget) was perfect for this scenario. I bought it for him as the equivalent to a toy soldier playset and the core paint colors for ultramarines etc. Its reasonably priced(the hook), comes with the two teams, some battlefield scenery etc etc.

We've actually had a good deal of fun together painting his guys. He always loves artsncrafts and has really taken pride in painting up his little space marines. He has done a good job with them. We talked about how you paint the different layers, from base coat up to the final details and he does them on his own now. Luckily he is still working on his marines with the tyranid yet to start.

I'm kinda caught though. Even when I had time (before his birth) to paint figures, I never had the time(patience, focus) to sit down and learn the game. It always felt like before I knew it, a new rules revision was coming out.

Per last weeks conference call, if I ever do learn to play, I'm sure my gaming sessions will be so filled of space marine testosterone, that even my dice will grow testicles. You can just imagine them thrown and rolling across the table with a "Umph, Uggh, Grrr" as they bounce along.

I'm a little worried though in having fed his interest a bit with the GW products. His wish list already lists Space Orks. Woe is me. What have I done? I bet he would do a good job with those orks though.

There is no way to justify this kinda investment for someone his age, and I really dont want it to grow into an ongoing investement. I can see why he is interested, I really enjoy the 40k universe and backstory also.

yeah I no clue how some of the younger people play this but I guess it boils down to how much money kids get these days. (man I am old)

A part of me (I dont mean to offend anyone I swear), doesnt want him to be one of the guys I see appearing at the GW stores for gaming sessions. I just keeping imagining the worst case scenario of player stereotypes, but I appreciate that all kinds of folks play these games and have great fun together.

Yeah I understand this feeling. Don't you just love the smell at some of these 'gaming events'. Of course this for me is at any gaming event as I too imagine the worse.

As for your son why not let him get into the hobby in a controlled way and since you seem to have had some fun with it you can play together and help him not become one of the typical smelly gamers.

One of my old playing friends is doing this with his son and it seems to work well.

Two of my nephews have started playing in the last year and to help them, as they are low on disposable income, I gave them each two full cases of minatures including vehicles as the base of an army for them. I get a kick out of having yet another thing we like together and I earned serious brownie points with all involved.

Man, I'm having a good time reading this thread even though painted miniatures are of no interest to me! That PoxNora game sounds vaguely interesting, but I don't really want to get into it.

What the world needs is an Xbox 360 Final Fantasy Tactics game that has a strong multiplayer component and rules/mechanics that make it easy for two opponents to put together teams of equivalent strength using the characters from their single player campaign. From what I've heard, the old Fallout Tactics accomplished that last bit.

maladen wrote:

That is fine if you find more fun else where but that does not mean that others can not have fun with this product.

No doubt. Hell, I drank the GW Kool-Aid for years. The enjoyment-return on hobby expenditures is an entirely personal matter.

Hmm... I never played the Fallout Tactics over the net. You want some, Fed? Come get some! *where's that damned disc at!* (blows dust). Yeah! Come get some!

thewanderer14 wrote:

Hmm... I never played the Fallout Tactics over the net. You want some, Fed? Come get some! *where's that damned disc at!* (blows dust). Yeah! Come get some!

Unfortunately, I can do you one better: I've never played it at all. I do aspire to one of these days, and then to play it against some Goodjers. Until then!

I have it installed.

I have the day off tomorrow Edwin. Send me a PM. It might take me a few minutes to get it installed and patched up. Have you played multi before?

PS: Fed, you've got Aggies on yer six! Bank left!

thewanderer14 wrote:

PS: Fed, you've got Aggies on yer six! Bank left!

Too late, I'm going down!

No can do tomorrow. Paper due at midnight then a anime/WoW party with friends and classmates.