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[Makariel]

This introduction is covering Warhammer 40k specifically, but feel free to contribute with Age of Sigmar, other specialist GW games, or comparable miniatures games.

What is Warhammer 40k?

It is the 41st Millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the Master of mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.

Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor's will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst his soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defence forces, the ever vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants - and worse.

To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.

40k is a miniatures wargame for two or more players, in the dystopian far future of the 40th millenium. I let Luetin explain the lore a bit for newcomers:




The game is played with two players facing each others with their individually collected armies of plastic or metal soldiers. It is a turn-based strategy game played on a tabletop with terrain of various shapes and sizes, but unlike many board games you don't use hexes or squares to check movement and firing ranges. I let Midwinter Minis explain how the game plays in it's most basic form:




Three ways to play

What draws a lot of people to this game is the creative freedom it gives, the lore and background is just a canvas to tell your own stories and create your own adventures for your lovingly crafted toy soldiers. There are three main ways to play that have been established, with many shades of grey in between:

• Narrative
• Matched play
• Competitive play

Narrative play is more akin to a classic pen & paper RPG (which, incidentally, is the origin of the very first version of 40k, then called Rogue Trader) and can be played either with a game master or just by two consenting adults and their plastic toys. Ahem.

Matched play is the most common type of play, both sides agree on a certain points level which is the budget within they create an army to play with. Then a mission type is selected by consent or randomly, and the players take turns until one wins (and in my household: the other makes the dishes).

Competitive play is a more strict version of matched play, where the number of allowed units is more restricted to allow for a more "even playing field". This is the type of play that satisfies the rules lawyers among us and those who love tinkering with army lists until they find unbeatable combinations (the meta), until someone else finds a way to beat that combination (the new meta).

A bit part of the hobby is also the lore, a whole load of different novels, comics, fan films etc. have been released in the decades this game has been out. It is currently in it's 8th edition, with the original release of rogue trader being in 1987.

So, to get started: what is your favourite way to play? Are you just an interested party curious about these strange plastic soldiers or a grizzled veteran who knew Sherlock Obi-Wan Cluseau personally? What army/armies do you play, or do you just read the books and never touched any dice? Do you have a hobby project going on right now? And yes, please show pictures of your miniatures! Doesn't matter if they are vanilla Ultramarines or heretical xenos, we love them all (some more than others).

 

[ScarletSpider]

Watching thread — thank you fir making this and I will contribute more tonight

 

[Makariel]

A bit of my Warhammer history then: I started playing 40k when I was hanging out with some friends when one of them showed up with this big box full of plastic crack:

Spoiler: 2nd Edition Box

Ok the minis were all unpainted and in their standard grey. We spent the afternoon with the Orks overrunning the defending space marines and not too long after I bought the box with a friend and we shared the contents. I took the space marines and had thus my first army, which I decided to paint in space wolves grey because wolves are cool. I just had half of this box for the longest time, until I moved to the city to study. Suddenly there were a number of shops selling that stuff, and not just the base box! The 3rd Edition of the game came out and I continued to play space wolves. Most of the people in the local gaming club also played space marines of various colours (green, red, yellow, white, blue, brown...). Eventually I got tired of various shades of space marines punching each other and retired the sons of Russ in favour of the Xenos menace with capital X: the Tyranids!

Here are some of my current Tyranids as illustration:

I was quite successful in obtaining biomass for the hive mind in 3rd edition and even had moderate success at some local tournaments at the time. In hindsight I think that had less to do with my tactical genius and more with the fact that most of the local players were just used to playing other space marines. So when a bunch of Tyranids showed up and swarmed the table they were completely confused on how to react to that. At the tail end of 3rd Edition and with the Codex Witch Hunters I got interested in the Sisters of Battle, started collecting them as my second army after Tyranids. Then I moved again to a different country, sold much of my Warhammer stuff since I couldn't move with so many boxes of stuff. During that time I was too busy with other things, which turned into a 40k-hiatus in which I would just occasionally pick up the odd 40k novel or play various 40k-related video games.

Fast forward to 2019, and while clearing out the attic at my parents, I stumbled over a bunch of my old models I hadn't sold at the time, many of which were unpainted. More out of boredom I picked up the old paintbrush, watched a bunch of videos of Saint Duncan of the two thin coats (when he was still at GW) and... well... by the end of the year I had a few models painted...

These days I mainly play 40k narrative and matched Kill Team games, more of the latter since KT requires less space on the table. I also tried a bit of Age of Sigmar, where I play Nighthaunt. My main 40k army is still Tyranids with a sizeable contingent of Battle Sisters as second army. I got my wife interested in the hobby as well and she plays Stormcast Eternals in Age of Sigmar and Eldar in Kill Team. She is more into the fantasy elements, so AoS is more her thing. I spend much more time building and painting than playing though. In contrast to that, during my years as undergrad I was more interested in playing and less in painting. My old tyranids had just enough colour on them to classify them as "painted" according to local tournament rules.

 

[Stilton Disco]

A bit of my Warhammer history then: I started playing 40k when I was hanging out with some friends when one of them showed up with this big box full of plastic crack:

Spoiler: 2nd Edition Box

Ok the minis were all unpainted and in their standard grey. We spent the afternoon with the Orks overrunning the defending space marines and not too long after I bought the box with a friend and we shared the contents. I took the space marines and had thus my first army, which I decided to paint in space wolves grey because wolves are cool. I just had half of this box for the longest time, until I moved to the city to study. Suddenly there were a number of shops selling that stuff, and not just the base box! The 3rd Edition of the game came out and I continued to play space wolves. Most of the people in the local gaming club also played space marines of various colours (green, red, yellow, white, blue, brown...). Eventually I got tired of various shades of space marines punching each other and retired the sons of Russ in favour of the Xenos menace with capital X: the Tyranids!

Here are some of my current Tyranids as illustration:

I was quite successful in obtaining biomass for the hive mind in 3rd edition and even had moderate success at some local tournaments at the time. In hindsight I think that had less to do with my tactical genius and more with the fact that most of the local players were just used to playing other space marines. So when a bunch of Tyranids showed up and swarmed the table they were completely confused on how to react to that. At the tail end of 3rd Edition and with the Codex Witch Hunters I got interested in the Sisters of Battle, started collecting them as my second army after Tyranids. Then I moved again to a different country, sold much of my Warhammer stuff since I couldn't move with so many boxes of stuff. During that time I was too busy with other things, which turned into a 40k-hiatus in which I would just occasionally pick up the odd 40k novel or play various 40k-related video games.

Fast forward to 2019, and while clearing out the attic at my parents, I stumbled over a bunch of my old models I hadn't sold at the time, many of which were unpainted. More out of boredom I picked up the old paintbrush, watched a bunch of videos of Saint Duncan of the two thin coats (when he was still at GW) and... well... by the end of the year I had a few models painted...

These days I mainly play 40k narrative and matched Kill Team games, more of the latter since KT requires less space on the table. I also tried a bit of Age of Sigmar, where I play Nighthaunt. My main 40k army is still Tyranids with a sizeable contingent of Battle Sisters as second army. I got my wife interested in the hobby as well and she plays Stormcast Eternals in Age of Sigmar and Eldar in Kill Team. She is more into the fantasy elements, so AoS is more her thing. I spend much more time building and painting than playing though. In contrast to that, during my years as undergrad I was more interested in playing and less in painting. My old tyranids had just enough colour on them to classify them as "painted" according to local tournament rules.

Are we twins seperated at birth?

I also got into the hobby with 2nd edition, won tournaments and eventually ended up with a Sisters of Battle army before moving out to Uni and forgetting about the hobby until last year when I found a box of my old Space Marines and have ended up getting back into it again.

I've mostly been listening to the Horus Heresy books and stuff on Audible, various lore guys on YouTube and kitbashing individual models since there's no one I can find in my area to play against.

I have been spending some time just coming up with my own little stories and factions though. 40K is such a rich vein of story potential, it's a great setting for creative writing exercises.

Sadly I've got very few pictures of anything that's mostly finished, since I tend to use photos to help spot corrections I need to make before finishing up and basing, but here's a few things ive been working on:

Spoiler

 

[Malakhov]

Anyone tried or wants to try warcry on tabletop simulator? It's 50% off right now on steam.

 

[ScarletSpider]

So, to get started: what is your favourite way to play? Are you just an interested party curious about these strange plastic soldiers or a grizzled veteran who knew Sherlock Obi-Wan Cluseau personally? What army/armies do you play, or do you just read the books and never touched any dice? Do you have a hobby project going on right now? And yes, please show pictures of your miniatures! Doesn't matter if they are vanilla Ultramarines or heretical xenos, we love them all (some more than others).

Shoutout to Makariel for making this thread.

Right now I'm mainly into matched play, specifically Warcry. My wife and I just got into Warhammer last August or so, so we've been at it for less than a year. We started out with the 40k Know No Fear boxed game and the Citadel Essential Colors paint set (the one that comes with clippers and a brush). I should have taken some photos of our first miniatures prior to this but they are now sitting in some Simple Green being stripped. If you're thinking about getting into this hobby (you definitely should) but are unsure about painting, this is the best advice I can give you:

The Prince of Paints. Der Kaiser von Kreativity. The Sultan of Shades.
The God Duncan
​

I waffled with the idea of getting into Warhammer for a couple weeks -- after all, it IS very expensive and a bit of a commitment -- and man am I glad I did. This shit is beyond fun. Little overwhelming at first but if you stick with it, it's so worth it. If you're going to paint, and you're going to do it with a friend or partner or just some randoms at your LCS, the second best advice I can give you is to not get discouraged. My wife is a stellar painter. She was a natural at it, and I'm.... still trying to fully comprehend just HOW to take care of my brushes, haha. While 90% of the time her work inspires me to be better, every now and then she does some shit that just makes me go "Yeah I'm just gonna stop because I'll never get to that point." Don't do this. If you're not having fun with it, or you're not allowing yourself to make mistakes and learn from them, you're never gonna get to that next level you want to be on. Let yourself fuck up, because you will. A couple YouTube channels I follow even suggest hanging onto your first miniature and keep it at your hobby desk as a reminder of where you came from as a daily reminder of progress.


I got started with 40k and picked up a Start Collecting set for Drukhari. I don't regret this, but VERY quickly realized it was far too advanced for me from a painting perspective. I knew from the jump that it looked like shit, so I stripped them and started from scratch. I chose a different color scheme than what was on the box and.. yeah. Awful. Feel free to shit talk this monstrosity. Was trying to find a cool color scheme. I failed:

Call me Horus because this ugly shit is fucking heresy.​

SO! I then picked up a Start Collecting set for Deathwatch. I thought out of all the space marines they were some of the coolest. Space marines are great to learn how to paint on as well. On the outside looking in, you might not like the Space Marines at first as they are pretty ubiquitous -- trust me, they are the shit.

Maybe under quarantine I'll dig these bad Larrys out and try to rework them.​

While I did this, my better half worked on a Necron army. Immediately she decided to do a custom color set and even ordered custom parts off of Etsy so she could make a more girly Necron army. There's a lot of pink and purple, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't think it looked dope.

I can't hate on this. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯​

She and I both like the 40k miniatures but for our personal tastes, we really, REALLY love the Age of Sigmar models. It's tough because way more people pay 40k than Sigmar... that's why Warcry is so awesome. Seriously, y'all are gonna get sick of me stanning Warcry *VERY* quickly. The box is 180 bucks BUT you get two warbands, some dice, ruler, rule book, TERRAIN, and a play mat. Two people can play and it's never the same game twice. Seriously. There's four decks of cards that determine the layout/terrain, starting positions/deployment, victory conditions, and plot twists. You draw a card from each deck and that sets up your game. Super fun, highly recommended.

There should be four images here. Nothing too crazy.
​

By now I'm sure you've gotten the idea that I am super hype on the painting aspect of Warhammer. Seriously, it's the shit. And *SO* relaxing. But playing the actual game itself if a total blast, too. The vast majority of my experience is with Warcry and while I know 40k games can go a lot longer, the Warcry games I play typically last anywhere between 45min to 1hr and 15 min.

I was pretty proud of this little before and after when I completed it a couple months ago but all I see are major errors
.



Tried to make my shit look rusty.​

Last but not least, I wanted to close with some YouTube channels that helped me with painting:
Warhammer TV: Top notch painting guides.
Miniac: Super knowledgable, his video on taking care of brushes is essential and he knows a lot about airbrushing if you're ready for some advanced shit!
Duncan Rhodes Painting Academy: The man, the myth, the legend himself. Duncan left Games Workshop to start his own thing, and uhhh, maybe next week when payday rolls around, your old pal ScarletSpider is gonna subscribe.
Sorastro's Painting: Your boy's got a voice that'll lull you to sleep but the talent is insane.

 

[Makariel]

Are we twins seperated at birth?

I also got into the hobby with 2nd edition, won tournaments and eventually ended up with a Sisters of Battle army before moving out to Uni and forgetting about the hobby until last year when I found a box of my old Space Marines and have ended up getting back into it again.

Maybe I'm your clone? Or you are mine?

I've mostly been listening to the Horus Heresy books and stuff on Audible, various lore guys on YouTube and kitbashing individual models since there's no one I can find in my area to play against.

I picked up a bunch of HH books second hand and also got the big audiobook bundle they did last christmas. My issue with the HH series it's that it's a bit all over the place in terms of quality of the books. I quite liked for example First Heretic, Legion, Prospero Burns and Know No Fear, the latter made me briefly appreciate Ultramarines. But then there's stuff like Vulkan lives, anything covering Dark Angels up until where I read and Titandeath, that were so boring I fell asleep multiple times per chapter.

I have been spending some time just coming up with my own little stories and factions though. 40K is such a rich vein of story potential, it's a great setting for creative writing exercises.

Feel free to share!

Your techmarine looks crazy, I love it! And where did you get the helmet with the eagle moustache from for the first one?

While I did this, my better half worked on a Necron army. Immediately she decided to do a custom color set and even ordered custom parts off of Etsy so she could make a more girly Necron army. There's a lot of pink and purple, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't think it looked dope.

I can't hate on this. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯​

​

I love those Neoncrons! Looks like something that jumped straight out of the neon-saturated future of the distant year 2021. I had a certain hatred for Necrons that is still from the fact that their 3rd Edition codex was just broken. It was the necrons that completely threw the balance in 3rd ed out of the window and effectively starting version 3.5. If I were any good with airbrushing I'd actually try something like this with Necrons:

Seriously, y'all are gonna get sick of me stanning Warcry *VERY* quickly. The box is 180 bucks BUT you get two warbands, some dice, ruler, rule book, TERRAIN, and a play mat. Two people can play and it's never the same game twice. Seriously. There's four decks of cards that determine the layout/terrain, starting positions/deployment, victory conditions, and plot twists. You draw a card from each deck and that sets up your game. Super fun, highly recommended.

I missed the demo games they had in my local GW, but my wife is not too much into Chaos-related armies and from what I saw Warcry was mainly chaos warbands bashing each other? Or have they now included more of the regular armies as well?

By now I'm sure you've gotten the idea that I am super hype on the painting aspect of Warhammer. Seriously, it's the shit. And *SO* relaxing. But playing the actual game itself if a total blast, too. The vast majority of my experience is with Warcry and while I know 40k games can go a lot longer, the Warcry games I play typically last anywhere between 45min to 1hr and 15 min.

Same here (just with kill team ), KT games are typically over within an hour, which is really much more manageable if you have any sort of full-time job and other commitments. I'd love to play more "full scale" 40k, but it's simply too time-consuming at this point.

But the painting aspect is something I really got into over the past year. I just put on an audiobook, some podcast or spotify and paint a bit. I find it very relaxing and at the end you look at a miniature and can say "I did this!"

And just to show some of my really early miniatures, and that bad painting at the start shouldn't stop you...

Spoiler: THE HORROR!

This was of course from a time before easily accessible youtube tutorials. I did not know the way of the two thin coats at this stage, and painted straight from the pot. One thick coat. At some point I will strip them and give them a second life, but I still have two entire battleforce tyranids boxes (that's 2 hive tyrants, 4 carnifex, 24 Termagants, 24 Hormagaunts, 16 genestealers and 20 gargoyles) and bunch of sisters of battle miniatures (including exorcist, immolator and rhino tanks, a squad of celestians, a squad of zephyrims, a bunch of moritifiers and the floating funeral procession) to do, so they are waaaaaay down the priority list.

And this is how my first army looked like, so that's the space marines from the 2nd Ed starter box, a box of plastic terminators, a cardboard Rhino and a cardboard and balsa wood dreadnought:

This was pretty much my entire army during 2nd Edition Warhammer!

 

[mcz117chief]

This was pretty much my entire army during 2nd Edition Warhammer!

Ahhh, vintage terminators, they give me fuzzy feelings whenever I see them. I managed to get my hands on a Deathwing Terminator from 2nd edition unpainted still in blister a few years back, it was such a great moment painting my favorite company in 40k. That stems from my childhood when one of my first and most memorable game was Space Hulk on DOS, I loved that game so much. Still probably the only 40k video game which I would consider lore accurate.

 

[Threeshotgamer]

I can still remember being in a model train shop with my grandpa and seeing my first Warhammer Fantasy box set in 1999. It was a 5th edition starter set that contained the Bretonnian and Lizardman army starters. Was absolutely hooked from that point later picking up 40k around 2001 with the 3rd edition starter set.

My favorite game for the last few years has been a game from Steamforged Games called Guild Ball which is a fantasy sports game played on a smaller pitch that's all about positioning and strategy. The matches are a little quicker than my standard Warhammer or Warmachine games which is a big plus and the guilds are pretty fun to paint. I'm currently running a Butchers guild team but am considering switching over to a Fishermans Guild team.

 

[TBiddy]

So I finally got around to watching Astartes today. Holy shit.

Spoiler

The melting of the poor guards with the lascannon. The "remove them immediatly"-comment by the Psyker. The prompt execution of said Psyker.

So god damn impressive.

Are there other series like this one?

Also, I really need to get back in to the hobby. It's just hard to find the time with two kids (well, in 3 weeks, it'll be two, at least), full-time job and the countless hours spent shitposting on Gaf.

 

[Makariel]

Are there other series like this one?

There's nothing quite like Astartes I'm afraid. One fanseries that is quite decent is Helsreach:




It is quite different since it's based on some official lore and I think also takes various parts of audiobooks for the dialogue. The guy was then hired by GW to make a new series, the trailer of which just got out:



The style is not for everyone I think. I personally find Helsreach to get progressively less interesting, but your mileage may vary

Also, I really need to get back in to the hobby. It's just hard to find the time with two kids (well, in 3 weeks, it'll be two, at least), full-time job and the countless hours spent shitposting on Gaf.

Indeed, that shit won't post itself!

 

[TBiddy]

There's nothing quite like Astartes I'm afraid. One fanseries that is quite decent is Helsreach:




It is quite different since it's based on some official lore and I think also takes various parts of audiobooks for the dialogue. The guy was then hired by GW to make a new series, the trailer of which just got out:



The style is not for everyone I think. I personally find Helsreach to get progressively less interesting, but your mileage may vary


Indeed, that shit won't post itself!

thank you kind sir. Will need to check this out!

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

I played a lot about a decade ago. Haven't touched any of the tabletop stuff in awhile. I had Eldar, Grey Knights, and Tyranid armies and of course the smattering of Dark Eldar, Space Marine, and Ork "starter set" stuff.

I'm fond of the modern boardgames for a taste of that top-quality lore/art but without the wallet pain. A longstanding favorite is Death Angel, which compacts the Space Hulk experience into a 30m experience.

Anyone looking to get into it should learn to paint. I basically played for "free" by buying armies, painting them, then selling them off when I was bored. I went in with zero prior experience in model painting.

 

[Stilton Disco]

There's nothing quite like Astartes I'm afraid. One fanseries that is quite decent is Helsreach:




It is quite different since it's based on some official lore and I think also takes various parts of audiobooks for the dialogue. The guy was then hired by GW to make a new series, the trailer of which just got out:



The style is not for everyone I think. I personally find Helsreach to get progressively less interesting, but your mileage may vary


Indeed, that shit won't post itself!

There's also Death of Hope, which is no where near as good as Astartes but has nice art direction and plays around with the conflict between the Ultramarines and Word Bearers/World Eaters in 30K:



And arguably the best long running fan fiction of the 40K setting, but of a wildly different tone to what you'd expect, is the If The Emperor Had a Text to Speech Device series:

 

[Stilton Disco]

Just before rhe Lockdown I scored the Dark Angels half of Armies of Vengeance for £30 off ebay (also since I rolled up a DA heroic crusading chapter on the generator that sounded like fun and they were an absolute bargain for a Tactical Squad, Deathwing Squad, 3 bikers, a Master and a Librarian).

So I decided to try painting up the Tactical Squad primarily with Citadel Contrast paints, and I've got to say, after being impressed with them for small details, they're not as great as advertised when it comes to a full figure:

Its a work in progress obviously, and not bad considering it is a single coat, but still disappointing. Sure, it it'll look better once finished, but does anyone have any tips for getting a smoother finish with the stuff?

I'm going to try using some of the contrast medium with the green and blue for the next one and see if that helps. It is a hell of a lot quicker than normal paints, thats for sure, but I just wish it would give a bit more of an even finish.

Oh, and if anyone wants to try the generators for coming up with their own Chapter/Hivefleet/Craftworld etc, the link's below:

Space Marine Chapter Creation Tables - 1d4chan

1d4chan.org

 

[Makariel]

I have zero experience with contrast paints, sorry! What if you use contrast medium and... apply two thin coats?

For fun I rolled on the space marines random generation list linked above, here is what I got:

Why was the chapter founded: Counter - "There is Orks over there! Found a Chapter!" "But it'll take 50 ye-" "Do it!"
Founded in the 39th Millennium
Progenitor: Blood Angels
Gene-seed purity: pure (well, as pure as one can be coming after the bloodthirsty space vampires!)
Chapter demeanor: Swift as the wind
Gene-seed mutation: hyper-active Omophagea (same as Blood Angels)
Chapter flaw: Faith in Suspicion - Chapter hates a single imperial institution and refuses to work with them

Chapter Legend:
A battle-brother seconded from the Blood Angels (Master of Sanctity)
Legendary deed: The individual was a stalwart enemy of the servants of Chaos, and slew a Daemon Prince.

Chapter homeworld:
Medieval world (mostly ocean), direct rule of homeworld by chapter master.

Tactical and strategic organisation: Codex-adherent (well, the Blood Angels codes that is)
Combat doctrine: close combat
Characteristic chapter training: Scholar-Knights: All astartes of this chapter are expected to be well-read and treat gathering intelligence as a duty of equal importance to direct destruction of the foe.
Chapter beliefs: Revere the Primarch
Chapter strength: Endangered (suffered catastrophic losses)
Chapter relations:
Friendly with Adeptus Sororitas
Enemies of the Eldar (likely responsible for aforementioned losses)

That actually doesn't sound too bad, I just need a few names, colour and heraldry and could make a kill team out of that. Since my wife plays Eldar the randomly generated arch-enemy also works out

But for my homebrew orders/hivefleet/craftworlds I would just keep rolling until I get the result I wanted anyway. Which brings me to my current project, a bunch of Seraphim, Imagifier and Hospitaler of my Order of the Crimson Lily:

I went a bit overboard with writing up their backstory, at some point I need to edit that down a bit to a normal scale. One interesting problem I now encounter, since I have the new models: those bases are so much larger! On the old models I'd just drop some sand or texture paint, wash and drybrush and that's it. But there is suddenly so much more real estate below the miniature that I'm not used to deal with. Also weird just how much larger the models are now:

On the left and right are the old metal minis, a seraphim and regular battle sister respectively. In between some of the newer plastic sisters, they are typically a head taller. I'm also putting together a Celestian squad, where I'm for the first time trying to magnetise weapons for regular troops (the new plastic sisters come with tons of extra weapons!). So far I've been mostly magnetising really big stuff, like the Imperial Knight or a Carnifex.

Next up will likely be my Trygon and then it's go time to crack open the first of my Tyranid battleforce boxes as reinforcement for my hive fleet Angrboda.

 

[Durask]

Love the setting but painting miniatures just isn't for me and prepainted ones are painfully expensive.

 

[Stilton Disco]

I have zero experience with contrast paints, sorry! What if you use contrast medium and... apply two thin coats?

For fun I rolled on the space marines random generation list linked above, here is what I got:

Why was the chapter founded: Counter - "There is Orks over there! Found a Chapter!" "But it'll take 50 ye-" "Do it!"
Founded in the 39th Millennium
Progenitor: Blood Angels
Gene-seed purity: pure (well, as pure as one can be coming after the bloodthirsty space vampires!)
Chapter demeanor: Swift as the wind
Gene-seed mutation: hyper-active Omophagea (same as Blood Angels)
Chapter flaw: Faith in Suspicion - Chapter hates a single imperial institution and refuses to work with them

Chapter Legend:
A battle-brother seconded from the Blood Angels (Master of Sanctity)
Legendary deed: The individual was a stalwart enemy of the servants of Chaos, and slew a Daemon Prince.

Chapter homeworld:
Medieval world (mostly ocean), direct rule of homeworld by chapter master.

Tactical and strategic organisation: Codex-adherent (well, the Blood Angels codes that is)
Combat doctrine: close combat
Characteristic chapter training: Scholar-Knights: All astartes of this chapter are expected to be well-read and treat gathering intelligence as a duty of equal importance to direct destruction of the foe.
Chapter beliefs: Revere the Primarch
Chapter strength: Endangered (suffered catastrophic losses)
Chapter relations:
Friendly with Adeptus Sororitas
Enemies of the Eldar (likely responsible for aforementioned losses)

That actually doesn't sound too bad, I just need a few names, colour and heraldry and could make a kill team out of that. Since my wife plays Eldar the randomly generated arch-enemy also works out

But for my homebrew orders/hivefleet/craftworlds I would just keep rolling until I get the result I wanted anyway. Which brings me to my current project, a bunch of Seraphim, Imagifier and Hospitaler of my Order of the Crimson Lily:

I went a bit overboard with writing up their backstory, at some point I need to edit that down a bit to a normal scale. One interesting problem I now encounter, since I have the new models: those bases are so much larger! On the old models I'd just drop some sand or texture paint, wash and drybrush and that's it. But there is suddenly so much more real estate below the miniature that I'm not used to deal with. Also weird just how much larger the models are now:

On the left and right are the old metal minis, a seraphim and regular battle sister respectively. In between some of the newer plastic sisters, they are typically a head taller. I'm also putting together a Celestian squad, where I'm for the first time trying to magnetise weapons for regular troops (the new plastic sisters come with tons of extra weapons!). So far I've been mostly magnetising really big stuff, like the Imperial Knight or a Carnifex.

Next up will likely be my Trygon and then it's go time to crack open the first of my Tyranid battleforce boxes as reinforcement for my hive fleet Angrboda.

Nice! But really rams home my only problem with the new Sisters: they're bloody ginormous! If they and the Primaris Marines are meant to both be true scale this women must all be 7ft+ tall.

Also idea for the Blood Angels successors you rolled up: Blades of Metatron, since they love stabbing things and, as they're apparently quite scholarly, Metatron is the angel that was the voice and scribe of god.

Also colour wise maybe Black and Purple? They were started by a Master of Sanctity, so Chaplain black makes sense, then as a contrast colpyr I thought maybe combine blue for the studious Librarian like nature and red from their progenitors. Plus purple is awesome and terribly underused by loyalists.

 

[Makariel]

Nice! But really rams home my only problem with the new Sisters: they're bloody ginormous! If they and the Primaris Marines are meant to both be true scale this women must all be 7ft+ tall.

When they are on the game table it's not too crazy, but if you put an old sister next to a new plastic sister the scale difference is crazy. Also have a few metal tallarn guardsmen here, they look more like hobbits next to the Repentia superior with her two whips. I don't actually own a Primaris marine, so have never placed one of them next to the new sisters. Because if the new lines of miniatures are nearly the size of Primaris, will they release Ultramaris Marines next, which are another head taller?

Also idea for the Blood Angels successors you rolled up: Blades of Metatron, since they love stabbing things and, as they're apparently quite scholarly, Metatron is the angel that was the voice and scribe of god.

Oh I like that! And with the medieval chapter world there's scope of mixing in some bits from the Dark Angels or Grey Knights to get a distinct medieval style.

Also colour wise maybe Black and Purple? They were started by a Master of Sanctity, so Chaplain black makes sense, then as a contrast colpyr I thought maybe combine blue for the studious Librarian like nature and red from their progenitors. Plus purple is awesome and terribly underused by loyalists.

Fulgrim gave purple marines a bad rep. I'll do some mock-ups later, Black and purple with some silver or gold trim (depending on rank) might be neat. I'm just painting up an inquisitor to accompany my battle sisters with a purple cloak:

Still have to figure out what to do with the base though. Again, the base is so enormous! Maybe some remains of heretics?

edit:

For anyone interested in the lore, the GW Black Library is currently promoting its new app:

Black Library - Black Library Audio App

www.blacklibrary.com

And as part of that there is every week one specific new audio book for 1 pound/dollar/local equivalent available.
This week it's a short story collection:

Black Library - Crusade (MP3)

www.blacklibrary.com

 

[Mr Nash]

Text to Speech is great. I liked the one when Ahriman is hosting a late night talk show with Lucian. =p

Also, is a new Fulgrim miniature confirmed or is that all just speculation right now?

 

[Makariel]

Also, is a new Fulgrim miniature confirmed or is that all just speculation right now?

It was a rumour that a new Fulgrim might be coming along when the PA gets to Emperors Children somehow, but instead of Fulgrim in all his demon glory we got a new Fabius Bile instead. Maybe he is preparing Primaris chaos space marines?

 

[Makariel]

So I did my tried and tested filling-in-colours-with-MS-paint-method I usually employ to get some sort of idea about the colour scheme for the Blades of Metatron:

Thoughts? Too much purple? Not enough purple? Invert colours to get purple core and black legs and shoulders? The gold trim could be replaced with silver, different helmet colours could be different ranks. The colour of the weapons would depend a bit on what colour the helmet would be.

p.s. yeah, there are a lot of existing chapters...

 

[Stilton Disco]

So I did my tried and tested filling-in-colours-with-MS-paint-method I usually employ to get some sort of idea about the colour scheme for the Blades of Metatron:

Thoughts? Too much purple? Not enough purple? Invert colours to get purple core and black legs and shoulders? The gold trim could be replaced with silver, different helmet colours could be different ranks. The colour of the weapons would depend a bit on what colour the helmet would be.

p.s. the space marine template is on the GW website.

p.p.s. yeah, there are a lot of existing chapters...

Firstly, I recommend using Bolter and Chainsword's colour scheme creator tool instead of GW's low effort jpeg:

It's a lot better and easier than MS Paint

I'd also say either middle or right, although a black backpack and purple head would lool nice too, and look better with Blood Angel like green eye lenses.

 

[Makariel]

Firstly, I recommend using Bolter and Chainsword's colour scheme creator tool instead of GW's low effort jpeg:

It's a lot better and easier than MS Paint

I'd also say either middle or right, although a black backpack and purple head would lool nice too, and look better with Blood Angel like green eye lenses.

Thanks for translating my sketches into more reasonable pictures

Yes the B&C painter might have been easier for a space marine. I usually don't do marines, and B&C painters are quite limited in their selection so I haven't used it in a long time and just forgot. MS paint on the other hand works with every model, including my weird conversions. I usually just doodle on top of a picture of the model. First time I tried that GW PDF and was a bit surprised by how unsuitable that was to do edits on the computer. They really expect everyone to have a printer at home?

Back to the actual paint scheme: the black helmet doesn't stand out at all when the torso is black. One could argue in the field that would be an advantage, but in the field having actual camouflage would be preferrable anyway. I quite like the idea of purple helmet for regular marines and white helmets for sergeants and the like. The white helmet should also work with the green eye lenses, so that can be consistent.

Now I'm just wondering what to do with the a cloak, that could be purple or blue maybe. Or white like the helmet, since that is more for veterans/sergeants.

 

[Stilton Disco]

I'd say white cloaks, as you're using white helmets to signify command.

Also they're Blood Angel successors, so you've got to add increasingly more gold as they go up the ranks. As well as yellow helmets for assualt types and blue for heavy weapons squads!

 

[mcz117chief]

I bought plenty of Sisters of Battle models but I haven't started working on them, just checked if all the parts were there and cleaned them of that resin goo.I guess I could start working on them this week, spray them today or tomorrow and paint, at least a few, over the weekend.

 

[Mr Nash]

It was a rumour that a new Fulgrim might be coming along when the PA gets to Emperors Children somehow, but instead of Fulgrim in all his demon glory we got a new Fabius Bile instead. Maybe he is preparing Primaris chaos space marines?

Ah, okay. Bile is fun lore-wise, but I'd still have preferred a nicely designed deamon prince Fulgrim. Chaos Primaris space marines would be neat, though. Cawl has been pestering Guilliman to let him make Primaris marines with geneseed from traitor legions as well as the lost legions, so there's some interesting possibilities, especially considering that the big benefit Primaris geneseed is that it's extremely stable compared to the First Borns. It would be cool if Bile started doing stuff like making new Thousand Sons that don't have to worry about mutation, for example.

Edit: As an aside, are there any codex or ways to approach playing as a renegade space marine group. Say if someone wanted to make a bunch of Soul Drinkers or something, is there a rule set one would default to?

 

[Stilton Disco]

Ah, okay. Bile is fun lore-wise, but I'd still have preferred a nicely designed deamon prince Fulgrim. Chaos Primaris space marines would be neat, though. Cawl has been pestering Guilliman to let him make Primaris marines with geneseed from traitor legions as well as the lost legions, so there's some interesting possibilities, especially considering that the big benefit Primaris geneseed is that it's extremely stable compared to the First Borns. It would be cool if Bile started doing stuff like making new Thousand Sons that don't have to worry about mutation, for example.

I think they probably planned to have Fulgrim and a full EC refresh, but have had to change their plans because of fears of getting called transphobic/homophobic.

Fabious is just a mad scientist that creates monster men. Nice and safe while not having to totally alter plans that are made years in advance.

 

[Stilton Disco]

Finished my first 'mostly contrast' dude, and I'm actually reasonably happy with the results.

Not as good as nornal paints, obviously, but not bad either. Certainly a lot quicker to paint than normal too.

Definitely think I'll just use it for squads rather than characters though. A group of averagely painted dudes together always looks better than they actually are, while a lone flashy model's imperfections stand out more than they should.

 

[Darkmakaimura]

I'm sort of a recent convert.

I used to hate 40k. I just thought it was dumb and a rip off of every sci-fi and fantasy trope all rolled into one.

I came acrosd Space Marine bideo game and delved into the lore and now I like it.

Admittedly it's still a corny rip off of many things, some of which are so blatant it's kind of funny i.e. Space Marine helmets almost looking like Vader.

But damn it's a cool setting.

And it's not like Prinny and nobody is a hero.

Now I just wish there was a DRM free version of Dawn of War II: Retribution and a proper sequel to Space Marine.

 

[Makariel]

Edit: As an aside, are there any codex or ways to approach playing as a renegade space marine group. Say if someone wanted to make a bunch of Soul Drinkers or something, is there a rule set one would default to?

Well, depends on how far on the heresy-spectrum you want to be. Unless you want to throw some demons around, there's nothing rules-wise that really separates a loyal from a renegade legion. Soul drinkers are a case where they still consider themselves loyal to the Emperor, so there's nothing stopping you from playing them just based on the normal Codex space marines. Friend of mine plays Alpha Legion, and in true Alpha Legion fashion, i.e. just to mess with people, he decides seemingly on a whilm if he fields his Alpha Legion based on the CSM codex or the loyalist SM codex (usually raven guard-ish). And whatever he does, he just says it's just Alpha Legion.

I used to hate 40k. I just thought it was dumb and a rip off of every sci-fi and fantasy trope all rolled into one.

Yes, and after they roll it into a big ball they also dial it up to over 9000, in the most ridicilous way possible. That's why it's great Have you heard about the minor xenos race (now extinct) that offended a space marine chapter once? In retaliation they invaded their planet and killed every single one of them. But that was just the start: next they were grinding their remains into a fine powder (can't remember if it's was just of the ruling class or of all of them), collected all and fired the remains into the nearest sun. It wasn't specified what they did that was so offensive. So if you ever think you have a bad day, at least you didn't offend a space marine.

Now I just wish there was a DRM free version of Dawn of War II: Retribution and a proper sequel to Space Marine.

Sad state of affairs that there is still no Space Marine 2. Dawn of War is a different story. I quite liked the first one at the time, but the second game didn't quite click with me, and with the third I didn't get along at all.

 

[ScarletSpider]

Bout to prime this lil twink

 

[mcz117chief]

Now I just wish there was a DRM free version of Dawn of War II: Retribution and a proper sequel to Space Marine.

You don't like Steam or something? There is no special DRM there, just buy the game and launch it.

 

[Darkmakaimura]

You don't like Steam or something? There is no special DRM there, just buy the game and launch it.

Not a Steam fan, no. I mostly use GOG. Plus, Retribution and pretty much DOW2 requires an online connection even to just play the single player campaign.

 

[Makariel]

Not a Steam fan, no. I mostly use GOG. Plus, Retribution and pretty much DOW2 requires an online connection even to just play the single player campaign.

Have you tried 40k mechanicus already? It's on GOG and imo much more fun than DoW, if you are OK with turn based games. It's Inspector Gadget Indiana Jones and the Necron temple of Doom with extra heresy.

 

[Darkmakaimura]

Have you tried 40k mechanicus already? It's on GOG and imo much more fun than DoW, if you are OK with turn based games. It's Inspector Gadget Indiana Jones and the Necron temple of Doom with extra heresy.

It's on mt Wishlist actually but I like the gameplay of DOW more.

 

[mcz117chief]

Have you tried 40k mechanicus already? It's on GOG and imo much more fun than DoW, if you are OK with turn based games. It's Inspector Gadget Indiana Jones and the Necron temple of Doom with extra heresy.

Is it really that good? It looked very janky when I looked at the screenshots. But if you can vouch for it then I should at least consider it.

 

[Makariel]

Is it really that good? It looked very janky when I looked at the screenshots. But if you can vouch for it then I should at least consider it.

It's not as good as xcom, definitely not as polished, but it is pretty good and very faithful to the 40k universe. However, I've had a number of crashes, so if you have no tolerance for that then stay clear. But despite the crashes I had more fun hunting for xenos in mechanicus that with Dawn of War 2 or 3.

 

[mcz117chief]

Just finished my first knight boi. What do you guys think? I am still pondering what heraldry, if any, I should paint on the shoulder pads since they are only the little bois. Maybe something simple to denounce their stature, a ribbon or a simple cross. Other than that they should probably have some kind of house emblem on but I haven't decide on which one (some animal or flower would fit best, a boar, edelweiss, ...).

Spoiler

 

[Stilton Disco]

I'd add some banners and standards myself, but I'm quite old school in my 40K tastes.

 

[mcz117chief]

I'd add some banners and standards myself, but I'm quite old school in my 40K tastes.

That isn't a bad idea, would be annoying for transport so I would have to make them detachable, other problem is that according to new rules if any part of the model is visible you can shoot at it so it would never be able to hide.

 

[mcz117chief]

Stilton Disco your image intrigued me so I looked around a bit about the history of Knights in 40k and found this great article. I didn't know Knights were that old school, I have no recollection of them from back then so it is always nice to find something buried deep in history.

 

[ScarletSpider]

.

 

[TBiddy]

Has anyone read any Warhammer lore/fiction and if so, what do you recommend? Looking for a good starting point. Should I start learning about Horus, finally?

I've heard that the Horus Heresy series is a good read. But that probably covers mainly Space Marines and Chaos.

 

[ScarletSpider]

.

 

[Makariel]

That isn't a bad idea, would be annoying for transport so I would have to make them detachable, other problem is that according to new rules if any part of the model is visible you can shoot at it so it would never be able to hide.

In my gaming group we all agreed that banners are not part of the "killbox" for miniatures, we take the base and the height of the body into account. Because that rule really just favours old models, which are typically smaller and more hunched, and puts anyone at a disadvantage who puts any effort in the pose of their models.

If you take the rules as written, the best way to build miniatures would be to chop them up and glue the bits as tight as possible on top of the base. I'm not sure if this is in the interest of the game.

I'm still not certain how I do the heraldry of my Armingers, only thing I have settled so far is to borrow the double headed wolf from the space wolves transfers for my Knight house.

Has anyone read any Warhammer lore/fiction and if so, what do you recommend? Looking for a good starting point. Should I start learning about Horus, finally?

For the love of all that is good in the imperium, don't start with the horus heresy series

I'm just working my way though that, after a year I'm now at pharos, which is number twenty-something or so. While there are a couple of decent books in there, there are also a bunch of stinkers that are IMO a bit of a waste of time. Maybe I'll put a list in here at some point, pointing out some of the better and some of the worse ones. One of the problems is that there are a lot of books that are just filler, where nothing of substance is actually happening, but they are still 300+ pages.

I'd rather start with some self - contained 40k books tbh. Don't get into some of the long series to start with. Some nice starting points are "Apocalypse" and "the World engine", both space marine novels. If you can't stand space marines, stay away from novels if you are interested in specific factions it's also a good idea to start there. I quite liked the sisters of battle Omnibus, while I'm not a fan of the gaunts ghosts series or the eisenhorn books that many 40k fans seem to like.

 

[mcz117chief]

In my gaming group we all agreed that banners are not part of the "killbox" for miniatures, we take the base and the height of the body into account. Because that rule really just favours old models, which are typically smaller and more hunched, and puts anyone at a disadvantage who puts any effort in the pose of their models.

If you take the rules as written, the best way to build miniatures would be to chop them up and glue the bits as tight as possible on top of the base. I'm not sure if this is in the interest of the game.

It isn't but it is the sad reality of it. I saw people park their vehicles in insane places claiming they have vision since they can see the top of an antenna of an opposing Leman Russ and the judge said that he is in the right. So tournament miniatures are as tight as possible with no raised arms, antennas, tank crews etc. It is a double edged rule that is for sure, since you almost always have vision in any situation, since you can claim you are aiming through a track of a tank looking through a tiny hole in the wall or something and you are in the right.

 

[ScarletSpider]

.

 

[Mr Nash]

Has anyone read any Warhammer lore/fiction and if so, what do you recommend? Looking for a good starting point. Should I start learning about Horus, finally?

The Eisenhorn trilogy is always a good place to start. It gives a good view of the 40K universe from the viewpoint of an inquisitor. Devastation of Baal is good as it illustrates the bombastic nature of the universe with a huge battle between space marines and tyranids. Omnibuses are good for fleshing out specific groups in the lore. Some are better than others. Could always give some of the Gaunt's Ghosts or Caiphas Cain stuff a try too.

 

[Makariel]

It isn't but it is the sad reality of it. I saw people park their vehicles in insane places claiming they have vision since they can see the top of an antenna of an opposing Leman Russ and the judge said that he is in the right. So tournament miniatures are as tight as possible with no raised arms, antennas, tank crews etc. It is a double edged rule that is for sure, since you almost always have vision in any situation, since you can claim you are aiming through a track of a tank looking through a tiny hole in the wall or something and you are in the right.

There is a reason I don't play tournaments anymore but yeah there's a reason why these 2nd Ed minis are quite popular with tournament players, they are easier to hide.