Getting into Warhammer 40,000?

[Kwesi]

I have no interest in the tabletop game but the lore just seems awesome. I'm watching the Ultramarines movie and between the movie itself and the comments I really want to learn more. Where should I start?

[i_got_a_mohawk]

I wouldnt post this publically . . . .

As someone who spent much of his pre-teen childhood playing the tabletop game

There's a movie? I know there are a lot of books out, and there always used to be a fair bit of "history" in the rule books etc. But it was never really unified, it had loop holes/mismatches a-plenty.

Tho not really looked into any of it in the last ~15 years. I think the "White Dwarf" magazine is still on the go, that used to have a fair bit of the stories/lore in it. Only real touch on it, that I've had, recently was with the Dawn of War games, which are awesome!

[jmattbassplaya]

You could just get into Starcraft and play as Terran. It's kinda the same thing

[pie_man_25]

First things first - warhammer 40k (and just about ALL of the games workshop's games) is EXPENSIVE. I think in my tweens/early teens I spent like $500 on the stuff (when all you've got is christmas and birthday money, that's a lot). It is TIME CONSUMING, a 2,000 point game can kill an entire afternoon, not to mention assembling, painting,building/buying terrain, buying models, discussing strategies. It's something I used to be into, but once I discovered music (which really takes up about the same amount of time and money) I just dropped all of it and got into playing bass. For me it wasn't WHAT I was doing, but who I was doing it with - music got me out of the house and with other like-minded people, I couldn't find others who were into WH40K, playing bass got me into some bands and got girls to look at me, WH40K has a tendency of getting girls to look at you - and then quickly proceed to laugh.

I'm not saying it's not a fun hobby or saying it's just "for nerds", I've got some friends who are into it, and I bring out my old models and we could kill an afternoon playing WH40K and eating junk food and stuff and it's a fun afternoon. they're all well-rounded people who do other things too - have jobs, go to school etc.. and I'm willing to say that's most people who like WH40k, but I'd stay AWAY from those who take it too far - I've met some who seem like all they do is work, eat, sleep, and warhammer (note how "shower" isn't in that list), they're just like "otaku" in anime culture, there is a majority who like anime and perhaps some that are a little geeky about it and then there are otaku who skip showering and a proper diet just so they can have more time to dedicate to anime.

about the game itself: it takes a long time and there's a lot to learn and remember about it, so having a long attention span is a plus. The backstories/"history"/"lore" are very interesting in my opinion, but some aspects of the game can be easily considered boring. Some people say it's a waste of time, to be blunt though - what isn't? Watching professional sports is obviously not much of a better passtime. If you want to see a little more about the tabletop game, I think that "blood bowl" for PC (modeled after another games workshop game), as well as "Dawn of War 2" can introduce you to some of the basic ideas while still being "engaging" and not nearly as costly.

[Kwesi]

Like I said, I'm only interested in the lore, haha. I spent the last 4 hours just reading pages on the wiki and finishing the movie which just made me more interested! I'm probably gonna pick up a novel or two sometime soon. Might check out the Dawn of War games too even though I'm not usually an RTS fan. Starcraft never really grabbed me but I still want to see the movies though.

I don't understand how Lord of the Rings has a trilogy and WH40k only has a straight to DVD movie .

[pie_man_25]

Originally Posted by Kwesi

Like I said, I'm only interested in the lore, haha. I spent the last 4 hours just reading pages on the wiki and finishing the movie which just made me more interested! I'm probably gonna pick up a novel or two sometime soon. Might check out the Dawn of War games too even though I'm not usually an RTS fan. Starcraft never really grabbed me but I still want to see the movies though.

I don't understand how Lord of the Rings has a trilogy and WH40k only has a straight to DVD movie .

Most RTS games focus on base and resource management, the dawn of war (and company of heroes) games focus more on troop movement, plus they have cool graphics (voices in DoW1 could use improvement though) so I think they're both more engaging - I've actually played DoW1 for two months straight, in french (english is the language I'm better with). As for books, I really can't help you out with that one, I read all the fluff in the rules books and codices.

[Nappa]

Originally Posted by Kwesi

I have no interest in the tabletop game but the lore just seems awesome. I'm watching the Ultramarines movie and between the movie itself and the comments I really want to learn more. Where should I start?

What group are you most interested in? Space Marines? Chaos Space Marines? Imperial Guard? Tau? Eldar? Dark Eldar? Orks? Tyranids? Necrons? Most if not all of the books I have seen on WH40k were told from the Imperial or Space Marine view.

[nocontrols]

Originally Posted by Kwesi

I have no interest in the tabletop game but the lore just seems awesome. I'm watching the Ultramarines movie and between the movie itself and the comments I really want to learn more. Where should I start?

Getting a girlfriend.

Just kidding. Seriously, I never played it and never wanted to because I had a friend or two in high school who I watched become swallowed alive by that table top game... it consumed their lives entirely. It turned them into mega-dorks on a level I've never seen. I'm pretty dorky myself but MAN, the Warhammer 40K guys were just the most hopeless of the hopeless.

Anyway, I've seen paperback novels that tie into the game but it just seems like really standard genre fiction to me. Also, BOOM! Studios made a Warhammer comic that is still out there, if I'm not mistaken.

[TomA1234]

Originally Posted by Nappa

What group are you most interested in? Space Marines? Chaos Space Marines? Imperial Guard? Tau? Eldar? Dark Eldar? Orks? Tyranids? Necrons? Most if not all of the books I have seen on WH40k were told from the Imperial or Space Marine view.

There are some Eldar books and possibly some Tau but no others for the following reasons:

Chaos marines are mad and want to kill everything
Dark Eldar are mad and want to touture everything
Orks are fairly stupid and want to punch everything
Tyranids act as a hive mind and just eat everything
Necrons act as a hive mind(ish) and are made to kill everything

So really there are only a handful of races we can relate to/understand (well for most of the population). There may be one or two Chaos marines books but I can't remember.

As has been said the game is EXPENSIVE, moreso for Space marines (cause they are easy to use and powerful so the popular choice).

[i_got_a_mohawk]

From what I remember they used to be the cheaper option. As they cost so many points in game. ('back in my day' most of the models were lead and mucho expensive).

[BogeyBass]

Cool where have i been i didn't know there was a movie either.

I was never interested in playing the game either, but i loved building models as a kid, and really got into the figures and building armys and painting them and building dioramas and such.

Don't know if you like that sort of thing but just checking out the game workshop website is cool their is lot of neat pictures of finished models.and will include info on the story and such.
Warhammer 40,000

I know you dont want to play the game but picking up the rule book would not be too bad....same thing it loaded with lots of cool pictures and models and has tutorials on painting the figures. alot of that stuff is posted on the Game Workshop site as well.

lots of cool armys and support vehicles check out some Possessed Chaos Marines

also as a side note i don't know your musical tastes but the band Bolt Thrower has endless song all about warhammer. I use to listen to them when painting figures to go with the whole War Hammer theme. yes kinda geek i know
The band is named after the actual warhammer bolt thrower weapon

and the first Warhammer to me has better armys check out one of my favorites Tomb Kings Tomb Guard

hope any of this helps

[Happynoj]

I've been through phases of collecting models. I love the lore and I love building and painting the models (and I think I'm pretty good - feel free to shatter my illusions...) - I was just never really into playing games with them. I built a massive (3000+ points) Iron Warriors Chaos Space Marines army and a 2000pt Empire (Classic Warhammer) army, which just sat around and got used in about 3 or 4 games. Eventually I gave all of it away for nothing, and forgot all about it for a few years. Then a couple of years ago I picked up a bunch more stuff and played a couple of games, and then gave away again.

I've currently got a load of Black Templars sat in a box in my cupboard, about half of which are painted, and the other half are half-painted. I keep meaning to dig them out and finish them off.

Here is one of the ones that I have at the moment:



EDIT: And where did you get this movie from?