Tabletop Warhammer?

[Spuddy]

I'm thinking of getting back into Warhammer, collected and painted them/random ones years ago (12-13yrs) - only really played one or two games, preferred painting them. Didn't really know what I was doing.

Whats the best army to get started with, I'll probably do 40K. I used to have quite a few Ork's, some of which I noticed on the GW website still a few days ago. So I guess I can still use mine, even if they're old now?

I also had quite a few imperial guards, do they still even do them? Couldn't see them on the website.

Either way Im gonna have to get them out the loft and repaint them all cos I sucked big time at it and Im most definitely older and hopefully wiser by now!

 

[lordhughes]

You can use old models not a problem, Imperial Guard got renamed to Astra Militarum (or something stupid like that) due to GW and their obsession with copyright/trademark which ever it is.

 

[JHeaton]

You can use older models no problem. If they don't have a current rules equivalent, you can maybe use them as "counts as" as long as it's clearly stated what they are. Imperial Guard still do exist but they're now under Astra Militarum.

To be fair with that standard of painting you should be looking for at least retail prices when you sell.

Pretty much this, ShadowMan. Your Tau are amazing and that's the least you should get for them, but in reality much more. I always love when you post pictures because they're fantastic, so any you sell should realistically bring in a good amount.

 

[Spuddy]

Ok thanks guys! Are there any clearly advantaged 40K armies which are just 'better'?

And wheres the cheapest place to buy them, unfortunately Im not prepared to pay 100's like my parents did for me when I was little for "another 5 minute wonder" as they referred to it, ha.

 

[Werewolf]

I think all the armies have their ups and downs, which can vary a lot depending on when their current book came out.

Marines tend to be easy to start with, as they don't tend to have millions of different rules if you go with a standard team.
Daemons are hideous as a starter army IMO (why did I go with them?, oh year I liked the models) as they've got/had so many different rules for practically every unit.

Tau are fun, but tend to be very very weak once anything gets into CC with them - although I did have a Tau sergeant who did really well against some "cc heavy" units.

Personally I'd suggest possibly getting the Dark Vengeance set or Shield of Baal set if you can because for about £60ish you get two good basic forces and a mini rule book.

 

[gradyhawks]

Ok thanks guys! Are there any clearly advantaged 40K armies which are just 'better'?

And wheres the cheapest place to buy them, unfortunately Im not prepared to pay 100's like my parents did for me when I was little for "another 5 minute wonder" as they referred to it, ha.

The current best seems to be Eldar, they have recently had a Codex release which buffed almost every single on of their units. A jetbike army with Wraith Knights is very hard to beat unless you tailor exactly for it.

Necrons are right up there as well, they have whats called a "Detachment" which is a select lot of units that gives them the ability to have some crazy "Resurection Protocols". Basically an extra armor save after their armor save.

Space marines have just had an update as well, their "Detachment" gives them free transports for their troops, but overall its not as good as Eldar or Necrons.

One other faction worth mentioning, is that Demons allow you to play both in Fantasy and in 40k.

My suggestion is the same as Werewolf's, get the starter set, which can be had for £50-£60 online and gives you good platforms to build either a Chaos or Dark Angels army. The Shield of Baal will give a smaller Blood Angels army along with a small Tyranid army. I would go with the Dark Vengance set.

EDIT: Best places to get them are either wayland games, elemental games or gifts for geeks IMO.

 

[Spuddy]

Hey guys thanks for the suggestions! I've taken a look at the suggestions, the whole thing confused me somewhat - are dark Angels and chaos angels a small subsection/regiment of the space marine army?

Necrons look really cool, but I think I would get hell'a bored painting them as they all just seem to be a couple of basic colours with no detail as such, or maybe that would make them easier?

I quite like the look of Eldar and that huge Wraith Knight looks awesome. Not managed to see the Shield of Baal on any of the websites recommended but I will keep my eyes peeled for it to compare as Tyranids look pretty cool but again, maybe boring to paint!?

Where is the best place to buy paints from? Also I presume it's not against the rules of the game to paint them different colours to the example armies on the websites. For example if I wanted to get Eldar and paint them blue or purple rather than red!?

If I were to go Eldar, what sort of army/units should I be looking to purchase first?

Sorry for all the questions and thanks again!

 

[Mockingbird]

Colour scheme is 100% up to you - some of the armies have more specific background (usually called 'fluff') but you can pretty much get away with painting any force any colour. There's always a way to back it up (they are a splinter faction, they are fighting on an alien world where pink and green is the best camoflage etc).

Space Marines are divided into multiple 'chapters', each with it's own colour scheme (hence you can paint however you want and say they are from a relatively unknown chapter). In the WH40k story line, some of the chapters went over to chaos (i.e. became bad guys) and others stayed good. Some of the main chapters from the story line have their own special rules and miniatures. Dark Angels are one of the good guy chapters, along with the ultramarines, space wolves, blood angels, crimson fists etc. The bad guys are called chaos space marines and have chapter names like the 1000 sons, emperor's children and so on, and tend to have mutations and skulls everywhere.

Tyranids are great fun, but you're right in that there's a lot of painting involved. As a horde army they tend to (but don't HAVE to) have a large number of miniatures.

I like Vallejo and P3 paints, but I have been hearing very good things about http://www.warcolours.com/index.php?route=common/home
A guy who is a paint tech, started his own line, reportedly very good quality and you get more for your money than a lot of places. Does some starter sets for around 20 Euro.

 

[Werewolf]

Tyranids and any horde army are a pain to paint if you aim for full detail on every model.

I actually found that my "half painted" nids looked pretty good on the table the other week (everything was only done to two base colours, a wash, and bases painted), so much so that I'm tempted for the troops to just do their claws/teeth and pretty much call them done.
With them I found using my airbrush let me do them a lot faster than by brush all the way, it was an average of about 2-3 minutes per model for the base red.

One thing I would suggest is that before you start painting properly you try to decide on a few colour schemes (there are some sites that let you digitally paint "paper"models to see roughly how they'll look), then do a test model or two.
I love the looks of the Salamander Space marines (I think they are, the yellow ones), but actively hate painting yellow - it always seems so hard to get a good even coverage (there are some colours that just seem utterly dreadful and will sapping to paint, either because it's so hard to get them to go on well, or it takes so many coats).

 

[Mockingbird]

I would never paint a yellow army unless I had an airbrush, a very good white primer and an unreasonable amount of patience. As you say, good coverage with yellows is so hard, especially over any other colour. I'd need to basically paint them white with a brownish shading, then glaze everything yellow and hope like heck it didn't go blotchy.

 

[JHeaton]

And here I am sat with a stack of minis to paint in Iyanden colours...

I'll let you know how that works out for me.

 

[Werewolf]

And here I am sat with a stack of minis to paint in Iyanden colours...

I'll let you know how that works out for me.

We'll reserve a nice white room with some bouncy wallpaper for you.

My brother keeps wanting to do various yellow colour schemes, then he remembers the hell he went through trying it in the past.

Orange is almost as bad, when I was doing my Tau I found it was taking about 4-6 thin coats of orange for the markings, although that got a little better when I tried some P3 orange (I think it was).

 

[Tummy]

Just picked up a box of; Centurions, Tactical, 2x Sternguard. Will probably get a couple of Razorbacks too.

Now to get them assembled this evening and have a huge painting day tomorrow.

 

[JHeaton]

We'll reserve a nice white room with some bouncy wallpaper for you.

My brother keeps wanting to do various yellow colour schemes, then he remembers the hell he went through trying it in the past.

Orange is almost as bad, when I was doing my Tau I found it was taking about 4-6 thin coats of orange for the markings, although that got a little better when I tried some P3 orange (I think it was).

Orange... Fire Dragons. ;_;

Yeah, I'm expecting it to be awkward. I really want to practice doing them with a brush, and I have Averland Sunset, Yriel Yellow, Flash Gitz Yellow and the appropriate shade, so I could go down that route. But my head is saying that the only way to avoid tears is for me to airbrush them instead.

Just picked up a box of; Centurions, Tactical, 2x Sternguard. Will probably get a couple of Razorbacks too.

Now to get them assembled this evening and have a huge painting day tomorrow.

Sounds like fun!

 

[gradyhawks]

@ Spuddy - As for colours, its as Mockingbird says, you can paint them however you like. GamesWork shop do paints, but they are £2.50 a pot, http://www.warcolours.com go for £1 a pot and they ahve them in dropper bottles as well which make things slightly easier.

In terms of Eldar starting forces, I would get the Codex first and read it all and see where you want to go with it. There are various ways of playing (jetbikes, foot armies, wraith bone armies etc) so you need to decide what looks the best for you.

EDIT: If you have the urge to "I really want to buy something now!" then get 2 x 5 man Dire Avengers, 2 Wave Serpents and a HQ of your choice (Maybe a Jetbike HQ).

Dire Avengers are your top teir "Troop Choice", have a better save, better weapons and better stat lines than the Guardians. Giving them each a Wave Serpent means they get to where they need to go and the Wave Serpent is no slouch either, has a lot of fire power. The HQ on a jetbike means they can jump around all over the place.

- I don't actually play 40k though... I just watch batreps and paint stuff. Get the codex first and read it through.

 

[Shamikebab]

I love the looks of the Salamander Space marines (I think they are, the yellow ones), but actively hate painting yellow

They're green, I assume you're talking about Imperial Fists

 

[JHeaton]

I finally painted my first mini for quite some time today. Well, I basecoated it with Macragge Blue and shaded with Drakenhof Nightshade, then cleaned it up a bit. It looks like a nice, dark blue base to work from; wondering if my plan to do the other in Vallejo Imperial Blue might result in something that looks a little too much like a Crimson Fist...

I didn't keep my paint thin enough for the whole session though so it's not as smooth as I would have liked and it didn't help that I was using a crappy old brush, but I really forgot just how much fun this could be. Next step will be getting the other areas basecoated and then moving onto the highlights. Will probably get out the wet palette tomorrow for that.

Am I right in thinking that pretty much none of the new Citadel colours are an exact match for the old ones? I have about 15 older colours here which include some of the metallics, but I don't want to use them if they're not close enough to the new ones, in which case I guess I'll need to pick up a new gold paint from somewhere.

 

[Werewolf]

They're green, I assume you're talking about Imperial Fists

You're right.

I've never had a marine force and tend to get the names confused

Jheaton, I think the colours for the new paints vary from close to very close to the old ones, I'm not sure they're an exact match (IIRC the number of colours changed with a few going).
However once you apply a wash to a lot of the colours I suspect the difference between old and new will be minimal.

 

[JHeaton]

Can't hurt to try at least, these are only test models anyway. I decided to try reviving my Vallejo Liquid Gold; the paint settles in such a thick gloop at the bottom, I've mixed it as thoroughly as I can but I'm not convinced that it's worked out quite so well. Turns out I do have a pot of P3 Rhulic Gold, however, that's in great condition and a very rich colour, so I might try just using that instead.

I know you use an airbrush, Werewolf; have you tried any of the Citadel Base range of paints in there? Wondering if I should at least do the basecoat with the airbrush to shave time off before I do the wash stage.

Edit: As suspected, Imperial Blue is too dark and Ultramarine Blue is...well, if you were looking to paint the classic, 2nd edition bright Ultramarines? Absolutely perfect. Not really what I want, though. Mixing them 1:1 gives a nice blue, but still too bright and to be honest, the Macragge blue is the kind of base that I'm looking for, so I guess that's what I'm going to end up going with. Probably going to end up basecoating with the airbrush, but I'll be doing the highlighting the "traditional" way with edge highlighting and such.

 

[Werewolf]

I've only really used the Mephiston red in the airbrush, from my notes I decanted it into a Vallejo style bottle using 2.5mll of Vallejo thinner in the pot then mixed thoroughly before decanting, then another 2ml of thinner to basically rinse the original pot out (and decanted it into the dropper bottle as well).

I tend to use a small ball bearing in pots to assist mixing.