Warhammer 40K: What To Really Buy As A New Player
With the holiday season right around the corner it’s time to think about all those new players joining Warhammer 40,000.
Getting started with Warhammer 40,000 can be pretty daunting. There’s over 20 armies in the game and that’s before we start counting off all the different Space Marine Chapters. So if you’re new and want to take the plunge, what do you actually need to buy? This one’s for all you newbies out there. Welcome to the world of Warhammer 40,000.
Take The Plunge
First off, I’m going to assume you’re at least a little familiar with the setting. Maybe you played Space Marine 2 and wanted to check out the tabletop game. Congratulations — you’ve already taken the first step into the grimdark. Now, where do you go next?
If you follow the GW script, you’ll get a bunch of stuff thrown at you. Here’s a Starter Set. Here’s some paint. Oh and you’ll need hobby supplies! And yeah…that’s all true. But I’m going to stop you right there. Do you actually want anything in the starter sets? Are you wanting to play Space Marines and/or Tyranids? These are important questions to ask yourself! And start with that — What do you want to play?
This goes double for anyone shopping FOR a new player. Please don’t just go buy some random kits from the FLGS or the Warhammer store. Do a little bit of digging and at least buy something from their chosen army first. Again, there are more than 20 to choose from. Don’t guess. The odds are not in your favor.
Army Selected – Now What?
Now, I’m going to assume you picked an army based on their looks and their playstyle. You did check on BOTH of those things, right? Because let me tell you trying to make those T’au Fire Warriors into melee monsters is going to lead you down a long and painful road.
T’au: Our guns are for shooting not for swinging.
Most armies in the game have a Combat Patrol box these days. Honestly these are typically really good deals. Not all of them are created equal though. But there’s typically no harm in purchasing ONE copy for new players. It’s not always a good idea to buy more than one for various reasons. Oh, and as a new player you did get a Codex first, right?
Your army’s respective codex is going to be your first purchase (after you get the core rules). And be sure you’re buying the right codex. For example, the above picture is for the Blood Angels. It’s a Codex Supplement. Anything that’s a supplement means that you need a “parent” book to get the rest of the rules. For Blood Angels that’s going to be Codex Space Marines.
After you get your codex and rules sorted, the Combat Patrols are a good next step. With those things (and the rules) you can actually start playing in Combat Patrol games to get a feel for your army and the core game itself. You can actually download all the Combat Patrol rules for free for all the armies if you want to check those out, too. There’s a ton of handy downloads on the Warhammer Community site.
What’s After Combat Patrol?
So you’ve gotten a few games in with your Combat Patrol — so you’ve got everything at least built! Good. Where do you grow from here? That’s one of the cool things about Warhammer 40,000 as it scales with your collection. The larger the games the longer they take as well.
Most gamers will typically build a 2000 point army for Strike Force sized games. You can go smaller or larger — but 2000 points is kind of the standard tournament size. You might not be playing in a tournament any time soon but that also happens to be the sweet spot for most pick-up games, too.
Here’s where you’re going to have to do some leg work and build your own list. You can actually download the 40k app from either google play or the App Store depending on your phone/preference. And, since you have a codex, you can sign up for a Warhammer+ account to use the official list builder in the app. You’ll need to setup an account first and log in. You don’t actually have to be a subscriber to setup an account or access the army builder. You just need to register your product to get access.
Scroll down on the mywarhammer page to get to this section for a new account.
The app is also useful because it’s a fast way to access rules, too. So yeah, you probably want to get that going as a new player if you haven’t already from your time playing Combat Patrol. You could also just go old school and use a pencil and paper. And maybe a calculator to check your math. The points for units are free online, too.
What To Buy Next?
“You know for an article about what to buy as a new player, you’ve really only suggested the rules, a codex, and a combat patrol…what’s next?” Yes, that’s because the next few purchases are really going to shape your army. And it’s not exactly cheap, either. You want to talk about a “Feels Bad” moment. Try the moment you end up buying a unit you thought was going to be awesome but ends up being terrible because you misread a rule or something. Or the unit just does NOT work with the type of army you want to play.
Unless you’re playing Imperial Knights…then you just buy more Knights.
On the other hand, you can just “net deck” and buy the latest crazy or meta list for your army. Finding good ones isn’t too hard. It just take a little googling and a whole lot of reading. But I actually don’t like this approach because the meta is always changing. The hot list this week could be terrible when a new Balance Dataslate hits and jacks-up their points or erratas the broken rule. This is something you’ll want to know about Warhammer 40,000 — it’s a living and active game. GW changes things. The players react. The cycle continues.
So again, you’re going to want to do some homework for your next purchase. There’s no magic bullet or formula I can tell you that’s going to cover ALL the armies in the game. My best advice is to follow the army construction rules from GW and use those as your guide.
The big ones there are “Select A Detachment” for the rules. But also that’s going to be a BIG determining factor for what you can actually take in your army.
This isn’t a great example but this Detachment does have a Restrictions list. So check that before you buy anything else. Once you’ve got that sorted and a list planned out, you can start buying units to check off your list.
For now, I’d also recommend you stick to just what you want in your list. Get those units, get them built (and hopefully painted), and get some games in. If you’re lucky, you’ll figure out how everything works together and you won’t want to throw your list out the window. If you’re playing in a community ask for feedback and pick the more veteran player’s brains about your list and what you could do better. Advice from them is going to be way more valuable that some rando from the internet — trust me.
It’s Actually A Simple Process
This is also the part of the process where you’re going to be tempted to do impulse buys. “Oh hey, what about this character or that unit?!” And yeah. Welcome to 40k. Sometimes those work. Sometimes they just end up on your shelf. You’re likely going to end up buying things you never use. That’s just a reality of being a 40k player. List building and iteration is part of the game, too. It’s one aspect I don’t think gets talked about enough. Build a list, play some games, tear it apart and use what you learned for the next one. That’s how you should be making your purchases and army building.
As a new player that’s the real lesson I hope you take away from this. Collections grow and there is no perfect next purchase. It’s a hobby for a reason. But you can choose to be smart about it. So try and really think about that next purchase before you buy it.
And if you’re wanting to give the Warhammer player in your life a gift for the holidays, ask them first! And if don’t want to, buy them a gift card. Trust me. It might feel less personal than the “thing” they want but you’ll get over that feeling. When it comes to Warhammer it’s better for the gifts to be generic and useful than specific and useless.
“But I don’t even play that army” is the worst kind of purchase.
New players: Get your Codex, a Combat Patrol, and play some games! You’ll figure out the rest when it time to make that next step.
