Warhammer 40K - Basic Army Theory

 

When beginning a table top miniature war game, your army is a big investment in time, money, and effort. Here’s a few tips for new Warhammer 40k players to help you get started on the right foot.

First, Know The Rules.

Obtain the main book and your codex of choice. Read them both thoroughly before you start building an army. Having a pretty clear idea of how it all is supposed to work makes it much easier to put together a decent starting force.

Decide What You Like.

It may sound obvious, but remember as you’re designing your army list, start with models you like. If you don’t like the models you buy, then you probably won’t be as motivated to get them built and painted, and you probably won’t enjoy fielding them as much. Additionally, the vast majority of units in 40k can be made useful, so pick out a few favorites that you’ve just gotta have and go from there.You need something that will deal with all the main types of enemy.

That would be heavy infantry (like Space Marine Terminators), horde infantry (like ork boyz), Psykers (like Chaos Marine Sorcerers), light tanks (like Eldar Vypers), and heavy tanks (like Necron Monoliths). You can deal with them long range or up close, just be able to kill it. Then once you’ve got at least 1 thing to do that, find 1 or 2 more that can pull it off in a pinch, preferably one of your other existing units. Don’t let one squad getting wiped out cripple the rest of your army.Cover the mission objectives.

Now that you can kill most enemies, that covers 2 out of the 6 basic missions. Now you need to make sure you have a few units that can take and hold objectives. Being able to do that will keep you covered for the other 4 basic missions.

Proxy first, buy later.

Make yourself a list, try to proxy it with stuff you have handy before shelling out the dough. First, try playing a couple games and make sure you like it. Then tweak it a few times. After you feel like you’ve got a decent start, you can make the plunge and start collecting that army. And who knows, maybe I’ll see you on the battlefield!