How to start a new army

[zanzibarthefirst]

This is something that affects all gamers, whether beginners or veterans. What is it that makes you pick a certain army.

When I first began 40k, I got the 2nd edition boxset for christmas and immediately began building my orks and space marines. At this point I wasn't really that interested in gaming and jsut liked painting the models. For my the most imponrtant aspect is the potential theme. Granted not every army I have ever build had a strong theme but i do try.

An example. When i first started collecting necrons, the first thing that came to mind was the terminator imagery and this was an obvious image GW used. However in my army I chose to use a colour scheme based on I,Robot.

So what si the most imponrtant aspect for you when choosing an army? is it the rules, the models, the fluff or something else, please share

[Steelbull]

Well, for myself, all of those factors (rules, models, fluff) play an important part, but mostly I want an army that isn't immensely popular or overused. I've always had a soft spot for the underdog and at the time I made my first army, Orks fit the need rather well. I even have a small Dark Eldar army...

[Kall3m0n]

I first started by painting some orks for my buddy.
I'm a painting srtist scince six years so I git the hang of it pretty quick.

He was nagging me about me starting to play, but since I lack the money for it, I alwas said no.

Then he gave me his weirdboy, 'cuz he hated him (lol, he kicks ***!!!)..
Damn him for doing that.
I wanted to try to play with him, off course, so i bowwowed his orks and started playing
It was fun *** hell!
Then he leded me the bible (the rulebook) so I could learn the basic rules, and after that I was hooked. :/

After reading the bible and seeing the awsomeness of the Tau models, I decided to go for Tau first and foremost, and collecting orks when I feel like it.

Now I have 1200+ Tau and something like 400p orks.^^
Almost everything about Tau is sweet; nice, clean models, nice gameplay ('cuz they are so weak, they require A LOT of strategy!! :P) and nice shooting. The fluff is pretty sucky, but i'm not much for fluff anyways. ^^

The orks are sooo sweet because of their lack of need for advanced strategy, basically.
It's almost just run fast as hell, shoot some on the way and kill EVERYTHING in CC.
They are so extremely conversion-friendly as well.
You can do almost anything to/with them and if it looks shifty, just blame it on mad dok Grotsnik. ;)

[zanzibarthefirst]

my next army I'm thinking of getting is purely a collectors army. I simply love the Skaven models but i don't play WFBs at all. I could be tempted to start playing especially if i do end up with a quite large Skaven army. At the moment, all i really is the screaming bell, plague furnace and the doomwheel.

My first Space Marine army was Blood Angels and I only started them because i liked the colour red but have since sold that army. I've been wanting to start them again but since the Black Templar sprue was released I vowed I would wait until Blood Angels got their own sprue before I started Blood Angels again

[Portal-Lord]

I choose an army based on the fluff and the coolness of the army, building a game winning army never really crosses my mind.
My Executioners are a fine example as I started them purely because of the Bols Badab War Minidex.
Blood Angels are still my first and favourite force though.

[zanzibarthefirst]

I must admit I am a bit of a magpie (in more an one sense) but i think thats OK for me because I'm more into the hobby side of things rather than into gaming

[Craftworlds_Voice]

for me all the things are equally important - fluff, playability and nice models. That's why I mainly play eldar :)

[Chumbalaya]

I've stuck by my Dark Angels through thick and thin (mostly thin, bloody poor Codices drive me nuts). I picked up Orks when their new book come out and they are my new favorite army. They aren't the most competitive, but I love the models, conversion opportunities, and background.

Since I had two fun armies, I figured I would need a competitive one for tourneys. So IG came into being, them or Eldar/Tau.

[lobster-overlord]

My first GW purchase was an Eldar Falcon for use with the Star Wars Miniatures Battles/RPG. Seeing that there wasn't much in the way of models for the SWMB, I started visiting my local game/hobby shops and ended up finding that GW models were very cool for this, and got hooked on buying them, and jumping in head first with a 2nd Ed Tyranid boxed army. No idea how to play, no inclination to play really, but wanted the models. Eventually, I picked up the 3rd ed box game and started to play.

I think that for me, finding cool models and enjoying them was first and foremost. Even now, I don't play armies that are good if hte models arn't apealing to me.

John M.

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

usually the way they look and their backround over anything else. dont care if units are weak, if they look cool and I enjoy painting them and like their fluff thats all I care about personally.

[Pedro]

The main reason I choose an army is simply that I like those models, when I got into the hobby I picked bretonia as my first army as I reallly liked knight models, them I picked Eldar as my first 40k models because I thought the Avatar looked amazing..

[eagleboy7259]

I started out with Black Templars back in 3rd ed, built my first "real" army (painted 3000pts+) with Grey Knights because it was just easy already having BT, not needing that many models, and codex creep for them was just AWESOME back in the day. I dabbled in 'Nids during 4th ed. but for me it used to be a mixture of codex creep and fluff

[RocketRollRebel]

The general feel of an army is what gets me interested initially. My first and favorite army is my Vostroyan IG. I went with them because I have a thing about being the good guy and needing to empathize with an army plus I liked the historical look to them. I started my BA to celebrate 5th ed and their fluff is the best out of any SM army hands down.:p

While I do love playing competitively quite a bit, power and the aforementioned "codex creep" don't play a big part in deciding an army for me. If I am just into an army just for the rules or a certain power build I will get tired of them pretty quickly. At the end of the day Fluff is my biggest driving factor in starting a new army. I am currently toying with the idea of building a Slaanesh warband with its own fluff that I'd be making up which is something I haven't done extensively with an army yet.

[Lerra]

I generally find a model or two that looks awesome and get hooked from there. I bought a soul grinder because it's my favorite model ever, and I just started a chaos tau army that is based on the idea of the soul grinder (chaos possessed machines).

I dislike most of the fluff of 40k (at least the Imperium-based fluff), but I love Chaos and all its crazy perverted horror. Pretty much all of Xenos is awesome, too. Humans look pretty boring when you have this (http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/acatalog/guop3store.jpg) sitting on the other side of the table. Even genetically modified humans.

[Schultzhoffen]

I enjoy playing but I'm a fluff nut and painting junkie.

I start by buying a model I like (regardless of rules/gaming possiblities) and I paint it. I may (or not) build an army around that model.

I have 4000 points of Black Templar and 2000 Points of Death Guard (Plague Marines are made of win, by the way). I'm currently building a Codex Marine army modelled on a Roman Legion. Sicarius inspired me. I bought the model and butchered him. My Sgts have Honour Crests and Roman-style kilts (? - unsure of what they're called but the bit in the SM commander box was the inspiration). Each squad has a standard. The units are marked with Latin markings, etc.

Basically, the models inspire me. Gameplay comes later. I've always liked the look of Marines. Also Tau. I think they'll be the next army I build (in a year or so).

[Morgrim]

I started with Dark Eldar, because some friends were into the hobby and pretty much dragged me under. I was told they fitted my personality and when I looked into them, I agreed. I like the sleek and dangerous nature, the glass cannon 'I must kill you before you can react because if you hit me I'll die' manner of fighting and the underlying aura of desperation. The Hellraiser vibe helps too.

I hope to eventually add some kroot allies, because I used to play kroot, love them, and they mesh nicely with the fluff. But that will not occur until I have at least 1500 points painted up.

I'm hoping to eventually start a small (under 1k) Alpha Legion force, as a different style of playing and as a bit of a painting opportunity. Marine conversions also seem a lot simpler. I did consider going up to truescale, since I'd only have ~ 30ish models to begin with, but decided that wasn't worth the effort. I've started by toying with lists and 'what I would convert to do what', so that when I finally get around to assembling I should be able to get the basic troops, at least, done quickly.

[arkfatalis]

I collect Guard because they aren't some super dooper troops or some poncy aliens they are crappy humans with that are scarred in the Grimdark universe (run away alot if they don't have a commissar nearby) and have big *** guns."Oh your a genetically enhanced super being, well I have a basilisk .... FEAR ME!!!!" :eek:

[Lord Azaghul]

The main thing I looked at were the 'core' or 'troops' models, Next is fluff and disposition,

I was a history major in college and have always found warfare interesting, espeically WWII. I've never liked being the bad guy to chaos was out of the question. I started looking at the guard, but people kept tell me how bad they where, how much they sucked...ect. So I look at SM, but have never like to look of the termie models or that stupid 'beak' heads on the normal SM. Then I looked at tau, like most of the models (except the kroot and any non-suit or veh model) But I kept coming back to the guardsmen: the main draw, what do I want to paint. And in the end, my current and only army Guard.

I may someday do SM, but the dang things just seem so fragile.

[Wanderingroue]

Hmm. well as a tourney player i do have to say "rules" quite a bit.. mind you if the armys competetive but it really dont do anything for me model wise then i still wont collect it (see Dark eldar, eldar, nids, space marines ) I generally have to have a good "theme" too, maybe not in the list but at least the look/paint scheme/conversions.

[RocketRollRebel]

The main thing I looked at were the 'core' or 'troops' models, Next is fluff and disposition,

I was a history major in college and have always found warfare interesting, espeically WWII. I've never liked being the bad guy to chaos was out of the question. I started looking at the guard, but people kept tell me how bad they where, how much they sucked...ect. So I look at SM, but have never like to look of the termie models or that stupid 'beak' heads on the normal SM. Then I looked at tau, like most of the models (except the kroot and any non-suit or veh model) But I kept coming back to the guardsmen: the main draw, what do I want to paint. And in the end, my current and only army Guard.

I may someday do SM, but the dang things just seem so fragile.

History majors ftw! Its funny how things have changed. I was talking to another IG player about how weird it felt the other day to be on a forum and to see people whining and hating on IG. Finally getting the respect we deserve :p

[oldone]

depends on which army in got in to the hobby because of lotr but after a while it got boring so i went to my local store and look at 40k and well i was 12 so the guy at the store told me and i believe him that space marines where the best choice for a new player so i went with them but i got tried of the fluff cos it seems so overused "super humans in space kicking alein butt" thats the impersion i got so i went with nids because i saw the warriors models and knew i had to have them

and now with my orks its the fluff

[zanzibarthefirst]

Some of my next projects are linked to a campaign me and a friend are doing some time in the future. We're trying to construct armies from all 18 legions. Since we already ahve a few chapter/legions its simply a case of randomly picking a chapter/legion. I think i ended up with Salamanders, Space Wolves, Blood Angels, Iron Hands, Death Guard, Thousand Sons, Alpha Legions, World Eaters and Iron Warriors. THe next thing to do was to read any fluff about the army and try to make an army out of it

[Brass Scorpion]

So what si the most imponrtant aspect for you when choosing an army? is it the rules, the models, the fluff or something else, please share
The models, always the models.

[zanzibarthefirst]

Have you ever started an army because you though the models looked cool and then once you painted them regret that you got them? I was like that with DA. TThose robes were too nice to pass but after a while they just got boring for me

[archimbald]

those armies that dont have specific models eg fallen DA which i adore, and red corsairs,
the models too, if i think i can give them a nice paint job. :D

[zanzibarthefirst]

im still wondering whether i should start an SW warmy. Since the drop pod came out i've been saying to myself that i should start drop pod pupoies but i do not know if i will get bored of them. Now that Sw are coming out and i could start them, i hear that BA are coming soon so im tempted to pick them up again. BA were my first army though wolves are my favourite animals