Suggestions for a starter army.

[maloysius]

Hello, one of my first posts. I've looked around and this seems to be the right place. I've painted miniatures for about a year, i'm getting better at it and have painted them from multiple armies. I figure I would just paint and paint while I try to decide which army I would like to play, well a year later I think its time to finally make a decision.

I haven't narrowed down too much as who I want to play, for one reason the space marines have a lot of interesting factions to choose from, and I keep going back and forth which I want to play as. I do want to be a space marine player(Which can also include Dark Angels, Blood Angels, Grey Knights, Space Wolves.) That narrows it down a little bit.

I also want to respect the fluff, which I know a little about from reading various articles on the lexi. I think the style i would enjoy playing and furthermore painting would be troop spam. I like the idea of having tons of units on the board and moving them around in different ways. Even when I used to play RTS games on the computer, i'd always just spam tons and tons of units pretty much forgoing vehicles. Which hopefully narrows the choice as well.

I guess the last thing to consider would be learning curve, I am not sure if some of those armies are really hard to get the grasp of for the beginner, or even how much of a curve it would be, so i'll put that low on the priority list.

Again any suggestion is welcomed, and I thank you in advance for taking the time!

[Tyrendian]

Hey there and welcome to the Hobby (playing side at least...) and BOLS!
Learning curve should not be your biggest problem - Space Marines are generally regarded as not all that hard to pick up (there's always a lot of finesse to learn though!)
As to wanting to play lots of boots on the ground, that basically screams Space Wolves at me - Grey Hunters are still among the best Troops in the game in my opinion, and can do without a lot of vehicles. Maybe a squad or two in Rhinos, a Drop Pod with Wolf Guard Terminators, and the rest can be Infantry (oh and the ever awesome Thunderwolf Cav!).
Blood Angels can also work with a lot of Troops - Assault Squads in this case - but are generally more hampered by the shooty-friendly 6th Ed than the all-rounder Space Wolves. Still, very playable if you don't plan to win any tournaments in the immediate future, and fun for sure Oh and they have Fliers in their Codex, which Wolves don't, should you want them.
The other "factions" rely on their toys a bit more, so a pure "boots on the ground" approach might not work as well in their case - it's still very possible though!

[Ben_S]

Often when people are looking for a starter army, money is a significant constraint. In that case, I'd definitely suggest Dark Angels, because you can pick up your HQs, tacticals, terminators, and bikes from Dark Vengeance very cheaply.

Of course, if you've been buying and painting miniatures for a while just for fun then perhaps you're not so bothered about the price. In that case, I'd say give more thought to the look/fluff of the army. Space Wolves or Blood Angels (for example) are both pretty distinctive amongst marines and also both quite close-combat focused.

If you enjoy the painting side, you might even want to think about creating your own chapter, though that does take a bit more work. If you do this though then you can probably get away with using them as 'counts as' several other chapters (at least from Codex Space Marines, but probably also Blood Angels, Dark Angels, etc).

[Katharon]

Standard Codex: Space Marines is easiest.

[carny]

some considerations:
standard space marines codex is a wonderfull book. You are simply spoiled for choice there.
I would seriously reccommend them
You have excellent choices in all slots, most, if not all, of your army is plastic and with allies and chapter tactics means there is more or less an army that suits you.

Dark Angels are also an interesting choice - they have many of the same choices as the space marines, but they do not have all the nice options - specifically they lack acess to a good flier - also their role as the "stubborn" space marines feels bland next to the new fangled chapter tactics. They have some things going for them. as has been mentioned; they are currently the "starter set" faction. That means you can buy a box with Dark ANgels and Chaos marines for relatively little money. This will make starting out cheaper. In addition they have an (so far) unprecedented ability to swap force organisations. With Belial their terminators (elite superheavy infantry) can be troops. With Sammael, the bikers become troops. With Azrael you get both- That means that a Da army can be put together in quite interesting ways.

Rumors are currently suggesting that Blood Angels will get a new book soon -Also that Blood angels might be added to the starter set.
that means that if you wait a bit, blood angels might be viable, but it is stupid to by a codex (and potentially some expensive models) that might be rendered obsolete by the next codex-update. Same goes for the wolves, albeit to a lesser degree as their update is further in the future.

[maloysius]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. As far as the Dark Vengeance set goes, I actually have one. I bought one because I figured it be some good practice on the models because you really cant beat the value of it, and for the minirulebook which from what I read has everything the big one has minus fluff.

I think I am leaning towards the Blood Angels assault spam though, although the idea of buying a codex learning the tactics than having another one come out shortly after is annoying. Especially with the amped up release schedule.

I'll have to look into Belial with Deathwing more too, because that sounds pretty good. from what little I understand though I think they need a transport though.

Again thanks everyone, I really appreciate the help.

[Tyrendian]

I'll have to look into Belial with Deathwing more too, because that sounds pretty good. from what little I understand though I think they need a transport though.

Deathwing is probably the army that least needs Transports to get to grips with the enemy (except Nids who simply have not Transports, and Tau who don't want to ) - you simply teleport more or less everyone into their desired positions in the first turn (Deathwing Assault rules!). Not that a Land Raider (Crusader probably) would hurt though - and that's less your typical bulk transport and more of a mobile fortress and centrepiece for your army, so it might be more aggreeable for you?

[maloysius]

Hows this for a 1k army

Libarian w/pa, force axe, wings of Sanguinius, shield of sanguinius 100 pts
10 man assault squad 2/ 2x melta, 1x Infernus pistol for SGT 225 pts
10 man assault squad 2/ 2x melta 1x Infernus pistol for SGT 225 pts
10 man assault squad 2/ 2x melta 1x Infernus pistol for SGT 225 pts
Sanguinary Priest w/jump pack 75 pts
Sanguinary Priest w/jump pack 75 pts
Sanguinary Priest w/jump pack 75 pts

1000 Points

[Wolfshade]

Your priests can have an area affect FnP so you might not need the three separate ones.
I would also suggest given the highly limited range of the infernus pistol that it is a bit redundant given the much further range of the melta guns.
So that might give you some more points to play with.

[Dave Mcturk]

orkz. warbosses and nobz on bikes with cybork armour and a mixture of power claws and combi-skorchas. with a painboy.

only about 24 biker models. two deathstars. t5 ;two wound; fnp ;built in 4+ cover ... high leadership or fearless ...

have fun