How to Start Collecting Your First 40K Army! 

The most important part of starting an army: Choose the models you think are cool :)

"Nothing wrong with being a hobbyist." I hope not, because I'll spend twenty times more time building and painting a year than actually playing.

I've been into 40k for about seventeen or eighteen years and have collected dozens of armies and had a chapter sized force of space marines. I've played three games.

BRB painting my Tau stealth suits like Gru's minions.

I’d love to see y’all redo this in 10th edition

Would love to see this exact video but for the lesser talked about factions. Like there are a million how to start marines videos but the Demons and Xenos really get no love and they really don’t play like Space marines so trying to use SM sensibilities with them can really hurt the list building.

Also, for Tau, I recommend a storm surge or any of the large forgeworld battlesuits (especially the ta'unar) if you don't wish to have friends anymore. Also lore wise, one of the eight of the farsight enclaves uses a riptide battlesuit, so it isn't that bad.

Love how supportive you guys are, Tau can be a hard topic among the community but you have broken them down and highlighted some great steps to build and play. For The Greater Good!

"Sorry knight players, you're gonna need to figure this stuff out on your own." "Do they even have a troop?" "Nah, they are built different" LMAO

I have never played the “you get what you see rule” because everyone wants to make their model look the way they want and nobody wants to worry about what they’re carrying game wise. That’s why we explain our armies before the game in the first place so we can make notes of equipment and minimize confusion.

Another bit of advice: start with building and painting a Kill Team. Pick your desired army's Troops choice (or whatever), and paint it to completion. Or at least try to. If you're new to miniature painting, you may not know if you even like this whole thing yet, or if you want or can see it through to 2000 points. Completing a Kill Team allows you to know what you're getting into. If you decide halfway through you don't have the time or patience for painting, or don't enjoy it, that's okay. Not every hobby is for everyone. It's not a big deal if you decide to abandon it and do something else. Or maybe you DO complete the project, but decide you aren't as enthusiastic about the army or enjoy painting it. You may decide that painting checkerboards on Harlequins is a royal ball ache (and you don't want to simplify the scheme, especially if you did it once and don't want units to not match). Whatever the case, you decide that maybe painting is alright, but not the army you chose. That's also fine. If nothing else, you will have a group of models you can run in skirmish games. You may decide you never want to paint another Harlequin unit, but you have at least one you can be proud of. (As an aside: it's very easy to become burned out when painting if you're trying to grind away at a single army. So maybe don't do that. Variety is the spice of life. Take a break from painting Harlequin checkerboards to paint some Necron warriors with metallic spray paint and Contrast, for example. Even the same army can have a variety of unit types you can alternate through, like taking a break from Ork Boyz to paint some Killa Kans. Bouncing between a few different projects can make the process seem less like a slog, and make you excited to return to the army you want to paint. Plus, having another army, or at least an extra Kill Team or two, means you can lend a set of models to a new player if you want to get some games in.)

As someone struggling to pick a faction (I'm torn between the Ultramarines and Thousand Sons), this was really helpful - and thank you for telling us what websites to, uh, avoid!

If your starting out, why not pick 2 factions? You can play at home and hopefully rope in friends and family. I chose tyranids and gscult with a guard add on, so had 3 decent sized forces not long after ( by 500-1k games) learning to play from 250 point matches up (without objectives 'n strats - adding psykers with basic strats - to objectives from core book and full strats) just get what you think looks cool and start playing with grey plastic, I started with a hq and basic infantry patrol games then added vehicles / monsters later, other unit types came after filling out a battalions slots, but by then I had made a choice for play styles, found out I like hordes but have enough vehicles now to play mechanised / monster bash if wanted.

I love builders leagues so much, start with 500 pts and go up 250 pts every 2 weeks. You support a (hopefully) cool lgs, you slowly afford the opportunity to build and paint your army, play consistently with a super diverse group of armies, everyone is painting Thor models and chatting about the lore they’re getting into, it’s so great! Haven’t seen any since covid came out

When I FINALLY build my Thousand Sons army, you know full well who's gonna be my most important guy: because I'm going to put him together using both an Exalted Sorcerer and a CSM Warpsmith.

as a T'au collector, think big, but collect small. if you are not used to the hobby side of gaming (build, paint, kit-bash), don't overwhelm yourself. absolutely, the T'au are by far, the coolest looking models in 40k. but I cannot recreate the paint quality shown on the boxes or in the books. by collecting small, start with a basic troop, a crisis suit and/or stealth suit. just figuring out how to build and clean up each model will take time. don't worry about the paint scheme. if you like the box art, don't get frustrated. they were painted by professional artists. otherwise, pick the colors you like. I also recommend watching "how to" paint vids on RU-vid. there are plenty! regardless of the appearance of your army, painted is better than Grey and T'au is better than anything else!

I would love to see this as a series for each faction.

Just found the podcast and I love it. You have the perfect amount of cynicism towards GW. The books are ripoff and GW kinda sucks but 40k is still awesome. You should still play it.

This has been exactly what I have been looking for to feel confident to grab a box and start down the 40k path.

for a second i thought eric no longer liked grey knights phewwww

In regards to the "everyone laugh with me" upon mentioning the auxilliary theme; Vespid are our most effective unit against the widest amount of different targets in math hammer. And Kroot are in every list. I've gotten significant mileage out of the two 12-bug squads of metal Vespid I bought when they came out, despite my mates joking about it at the time. They even beat pre-nerf 9th Broadsides in mathhammer! A big plus is how easy they are to paint, did mine up in Dark Angels green as a base, with drybrushed Hawk turquoise on top, really striking and people guffaw over them when they see them even though they took so little time to paint.

I started just wanting to play the game, and ended up really liking the hobby side of it. This opened up the door to terrain, other miniature systems, and finding out what I do and do not like painting which helped influence my choices.

I actually just grabbed the stuff needed to cap off my first army today, as well as the paints to finish it. I was fortunate to be able to buy a decent lot of necrons off of a guy locally. Between what i got from him, what i had already for Killteam, and one more box i grabbed today, i have enough of a variety of stuff to try out list building and get a feel for most of their units. Super excited to branch from killteam into full scale 40k Once they are table ready, Tau and Tyranids are a tossup for my 2nd army, and then eventually i’ll have all 3. Happy to see you guys cover a “starter tau” setup. I like to plan things well in advance, so this is quite helpful, and very well timed for me

This is a good video. I'd actually love a guide like this for Orks. I'm torn between Blood Axes and Goffs and they seem to be at odds with each other. Ork clans are so colorful too, so it's hard to decide what to color which unit. I don't mind if the whole army doesn't match, but I don't want a single yellow Deff Dread if I'm never running Bad Moons.

I'm just getting into this hobby/game and you are the only ones who have successfully explained what a detachment is. Thank you for that! I also love the structure of this video and would love to see similar videos for other factions!

We need that for each army !! so cool concept

@34:07 your comments on step 6 here hit home for me. I originally got Tau models for the cool mechs but after building and playing with the units I realized I actually love the infantry. With cadre fire blades aura and a commander farsight or dark strider you can make your infantry quite scary even to larger more expensive models. I originally thought the Tau models (as aliens) looked stupid and was a bit miffed to purchase them but the level of customization and the flexibility to pose them a number of ways makes them an absolute blast to build, paint, and base. I just got the hang of painting their faces after 1.5 years having this hobby and every time I look at my first team of Pathfinders I cannot help but reminisce on all the various lessons I learned in painting since I started. Took me a solid month to paint those first blue boys, and I could probably paint a full squad in a day now. Such progress. Great video this would have been very helpful to me starting out. Something that also might be useful to new players is a pic or something at the end of the video with all the different detachment types with a timestamp in the video details.

So what you're saying is, I am not meant to just buy 2000 points straight away?

There are times I miss the 9th edition Tau when they first come out. Crisis suits were a lot less points then they are now, montka was stronger, and gear was cheaper.

I found your channel a few months ago. I used to play Fantasy & 40k back in high school before Necromunda came out then played that when it released. I haven’t touched a model in perhaps 25 years but always wanted to play again. Thanks for your channel, I’m going to see about picking up a new army and what older models I can salvage. You probably won’t see this but I appreciate what you guys do

I got the Ultimate Starter Set as a birthday present a couple of weeks ago from my friends as my first 40k set and they bought a combat patrol so we can all learn to play. I have no interest in the Space Marines (my choice would've always been Xenos, and was split between Orks, Nids or Votann) so I instantly became more interested in the Tyranids since they were half of the box, and that *instantly* brought me to the Genestealer Cults and it aesthetically clicked with me as a complimentary army once I finish painting my nids, and I find their lore as a 40k take on Lovecraftian cultists really compelling. I really want to get started on my nids so I can justify buying the GSC Combat Patrol now. For me as a role-player, this "faction" feel and a compelling narrative > all. My friends each got a Drukhari and Votann combat patrol each and we've made it a point to meet up a couple times a month on a schedule and just paint minis together at someone's house while we chill.

I actually enjoy having a couple of factions I play (Right now it's Dark Angels and Tau). For my tau army though, I like having a mix of suits and troops, so finding out that the tau can only have one commander per detachment was sad since my space marines have two captains, two librarians and a lieutenant... mostly because it's a mix of Mk.VII and Mk.X marines.

Ghostkeel does look rlly cool ngl

Just bought a necron army as my first. Nice to see a video like this.

Stumbled across this video and channel and this helped me a lot, definitely am going to go check out some other uploads. 👍

Im loving your content and cant get enough. Would love to see one that is more gun line focused with all the troops and other factions like Imerial guard!

This is perfect for me. Ive picked Tau so need to purchase my first ever models. 😊 wish me luck.

What you can magnetise, magnetise. Every Edition has it’s charmes and curses. GW plastic has the price of raw silver .

10:04 Ah yes, reminds me of very early 8th, where the "optimal tau army" was like, 4-6 commanders and 3 riptides, plus screening units (maybe).

I started with the Space Marines and yes I have become aware of the meme of there being too many people playing them but for me I am an artist already but never did any miniatures or hobby painting but it was so fun and an easy transition to start building and painting my armies I even did a few in my own style for fun

Great summary. I'm not the target audience for this one, but I enjoyed the perspective and reasoning provided.

I feel like I skipped the 500/100/1500/2000 steps and went in hard at around 4.5k. After playing for a year I figured out I don't like Riptides, Ghostkeel or Commanders. Ended up selling about 2k worth. Now I run Hammerheads & a Stormsurge 👌

I've just discovered your channel and really like the vibe you guys have. Have you ever considered trying AoS? Obviously 40k is the main thing here, but I'm curious about your takes on that game's play and factions.

Awesome video - especially since I'm interested in Tau! Thanks guys.

Man, this is great content.

Yooo... The surprise JoJo at 20:32 had me "AWAKEN MY- aw it's over..."

Honestly, this would be a great consultation service!

I have had Necrons for two years now, have finally gotten to the end of the silver tide and have yet to play a game with them, this is not an extreme case.

Started out with nids, went with a spore mine focus with lots of GSs and things like that and loved it despite loosing a lot Due to several changes (in recent memory) I grabbed a single exocrene and within a few months my armies now look like a knights list with less than 10 units and almost all of them are big monsters

I wish This vid had come out 3 yrs ago my friends bought me the Tyranids Start Collecting box right as the pandemic hit... with no one to play with because "distancing", no real guidance on doing this, and my job there was no slow grow the army and find what I liked. Instead I did the equivalent of tying a hundred pound safe to my legs and jumped into a diving well. So 3 yrs later and I'm 10K pts into Nids and have played maybe a dozen games oiy vey!!! as a side note I've painted (not based) about 7K of the army so far and have a "few" other armies @ the 3K range... I need help!!! XD

Started the hobby and both the factions i liked (SM and guard) were bottom 2. Im just now hetting my first army together and now theyre arguably top 1 and 2

IDK if there have been changes within these last 3 months, but at least on BattleScribe, the 500pt list is more like 520pt. I just did a few changes switching the Coldstar to have 2 Ta'u Flamers instead of Plasma Rifles and removing his Shield Drone. Either way, the list is more ideas for me. I've just been compiling a bunch because I want a nice combination of Battlesuits and vehicles, with some good supporting infantry like Breachers in Devilfish, and Pathfinders.

Good channel. You've earned a subscriber

I came to 40k to build bunny eared mech suits. Great episode.

I technically "Started" one army already as my 2 brothers gifted me a 10th edition starter box, and I kept the Nyds (one of them is will keep the Marines), so I better take notes

love the video and Quality! audio is a little soft could be a1-3 DB louder.

When I started in 5th, my tau list was fire warriors in devilfishes to dig in mid field, piranha squads tank hunters, as many crisis suits as possible to delete elites, 2 riptides as long range nukers against hordes :P My FSE list version was a farsight bomb that included 7 bodyguards and 14 shield drones deepstriking with no scatter (due to farsight's special rule). 1000 points spent on just one squad of suits mwhaha. God I miss 5th ed Tau

I am so glad that they said there's nothing wrong being a hobbyist, and how the whole Warhammer community seems to agree. As a new player, I have been researching the game and the lore like crazy, so even if I don't play often, I am 100% a Warhammer fan now. Even if I only find time to play once every month or so, I will still have a gorgeous display!...also another expensive hobby...especially since I chose AdMech.

As a long time collector . Always go with the rule of cool . If it is not cool to you , you will quit . Go slow or you will have a pile of shame bigger than you're actual table top army . This can be an expensive hobby very fast . If you're smart 3d print 500pts to get a "feel" for the hobby . True , They are not Tournament legal , but your wallet will love it . Don't plan on being a meta chasing tournament champ for a while , maybe years to get in 100+ battles . And yes , you will need 100+ battles to really be competitive at a GT Slap Chop paint your Army , it is fast and easy and looks good . Air brush is over rated for a beginner . Don't plan on being a "Golden Daemon" winner in the beginning . Be single or get your g/f , wife , b/f and/ or child into the game . You will have more harmony in the home . my collections before 3D printing and Ex g/f's helping with painting ( started in 1996 and a big fan of Apocalypse ) $15,000 would not replace all of this even using recasters 1) Cadian atleast a full 2000pt of each : Pure infantry , Armored Spear head ( Gryphone 4 , FW turrents ) , Artillery Barrage , Scouting Formation and Mechanized plus 3 Baneblades 2) Vostroyan 2000pts of pure foot 3) Elysians 2000pts with Grav chute foot , Valkyries , Vultures and Tauros Assault Vehicles 4/5) Orks ( Black Reach box set Deffkoptas got me hooked / rule of cool ) at least 5000pts with all clans mixed up as lots of different g/f's helped in painting and used in Tournaments themselves when not borrowing my "Guard" Ex g/f's old armies I inherited and she used in Tournaments 6/7 ) Tyranids 2000pts of the "gaunt hoard" 2000pts of the "monsters mash" Yes She was a horror movie fan , Especially "Alien" or Creature Feature of 1950's

I have the dark imperium box, I also bought a mephytic blight hauler, i really like that unit, I'd like to get more of them and customize them a bit. I got those things, but all I've built was the space marines. I'm almost done painting them. I got really irritated by the switch to 9th. So I just put everything away. Not which of those factions I would rather play.

I didnt know tau piranha were a thing and I love the looks of them. They are straight up halo ghosts

I'm back from the future. Seems like Games Workshop wached this video because the new Tau Boarding patrol pretty much follows this video's exact recommendations; a handful of Crisis suits, Fire Warrior Breachers, and the new Commander Farsight.

I overdid it a bit on my Necrons, it’s been a while since I played/counted but I jumped straight to 2500pts and I think I got 4-5k within a year or two of collecting.

So I’m collecting MY third army, I have 5k in necrons, 7k in chaos space marines, 1k of nids, I’m still working on my nids, but I might also jump to tau and chaos knights too because people around where I live are selling stuff for cheap

Could you review the cadia stands box? Is it worth it over the start collecting that comes with the leman russ?

This for other factions would be cool

Awesome video. Now I just want to go and buy 500 points of Tau

welp i cant recommend Trying armies in TableTopSimulator, is just only Easy, cheap, and fun, but remeber that you have to legally adquire your plastic folks.

I agree, magnetizing some stuff is just a hassle and creates a lot of extra little parts to keep track of. What your opponent cares about is if he can tell what model it is, and if it's painted, not that it's holding the correct gun that is on your army list.

Can you guys increase the master volume or mic input volume on your future videos? They are very quiet and the ads before hand are the complete opposite.

Tau drone bodies are the easiest item to 3d print. I use up all the extra drone parts.

I like everything about the set up apart from the ghostkeel. It there a good alternative points wise?

And most importantly: Don't look at guides like this and jump to the end, thinking "Excellent, I know the end point, I'll just buy everything from the start". Trust me, if there's anything I've learned from 25 years of these games, it's to only buy the absolute bare minimum number of models (one blister, one box) and FINISH that before buying the next one. Please for the love of god.

This is great content. Not a fan of Tau and still enjoyed and listened to this twice. 😂

My first army was Imperial Guatd, specifically only the Krieg models.

Xv95 Ghostkeel is the coolest unit, Cactar is 100% right on this.

I wonder how much this list changes with the 10th edition adjustments. I am especially interested as I am currently eyeing to get into Tau as my first army.

How do you figure out faction “aspects” as you call it? For example, I play AdMech. The most obvious separations are Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus, but you kinda need both to make a full army. I guess Kastelans are kinda their own thing? Maybe vehicles but AdMech doesn’t have that many of those. Is it fine to have a little bit of everything?

Thank god for 10th being the Ghostkeel's edition. That model sucked in 8th and 9th, but is a staple in 10th.

Aight so what about a 2k army ofTau Sept, Shadowsun, Longstrike, 3 teams of 3 Broadsides, 3 Hammerheads, and filling the remaining 40 points with Tactical (Marker) Drones? It seems like it would either go surprisingly well or pretty bad and not really in between

Question as a very very new player, scemeing to mix Thousand Sons and Tzeentch Horrors; WIth the Horrors 'split' ability, do those Blue and Brimstone horrors spawning in COUNT towards the intitial 500 or 1000 pt total, or do they come in at a discount? Free?

I know this video is old and there's a new codex coming but I've just picked up a crisis suit box and I'm a bit confused. You say for the weapons to use a flamer, plasma rifle and a blaster is that one for each suit or all of those weapons for each suit?

I want to start picking an army, but I can't pull the trigger because I feel like it won't be the correct choice. I like a lot of the different armies

If my first 500 point chapter is Dark Angels and I want to change to Salamanders because my models are already green, is there much adjusting I need to do? Or just like you say, this is my first time, use what I have and follow the new data sheet and play?

Man... that counter-recommendation at 15:36 will make you REALLY SAD if one day you want to go to a tournament that has the rule "what you see is what you get"... Magnetize your stuff before building it... Its always safer.

I just got into Warhammer I love building and painting but honestly wanna give a try playing a game but idk anyone or where to find people who kind enough to help and stuff

In case anyone is wondering at 500 points for imperial knights /chaos knights - the only legal detachment is a Super Heavy Detachment, and it forces you to bring 3 Armigers / War Dogs. That said, 2x melee mechs and 1x ranged mech or 3x melee mechs is pretty brutal at this game size unless your friends specifically overload on AP -3 guns.

My Shield-Captain is just a custodian in a cape.

Love the video. it was very helpful. My big concern is I have no idea what weapons I want my units to use. I need to try stuff. Are friendly games at locals super anal about what weapon your units have? should I make all the units in a squad carry the same weapon or mix and matching ok?

Been a listener for a while now and as someone who's just picked up some Fire Warriors to test out somr paint schemes for a future army; why do you consider the Breachers just... better than the standard Fire Warriors? I understand the higher AP on the Pulse Blasters being important, but the massive range on the Strike Team's Pulse Rifles seems like it would kinda outweigh that; wouldn't a balance of both be better?

need more of the editor, hes cool

The problem for me is i like the thousand suns because they are a bunch of super powerful psychic doofs who apparently fail all the time, and painting them would be the death of me.

New to the hobby here, how does one make a balanced army? Is there a tool for that? I currently just have the patrol box for the space wolves. Left to my own devices I would probably just get whatever looks cool.

Can you please do a video like this for Eldar?

I really want to get into death korps

As a Tau player myself currently building commander farsight while I’m watching this every tell player is a big Mech nerd (which is also me)

Me watching this with my 3k points of necrons and HH emperors children and my 2k points of space wolves and emperors children for 40k

Might want to redo this beings there's an app to help new players, and how they may go about entering the game with 10th edition

I started a 6 months ago and chose necrons cause i thought they looked like terminators and then a friend sent me his old 3rd edition blood angels 🙂

I'm sitting here assembling my Necrons and I realize I should've started Tau for savings