In honor of "Old Stuff Day" for 40K bloggers, I thought I'd repost one of my favorite previous posts. It was not only well received (lots of comments) it's still pretty relevant for a new player. I wound up doing a series of posts as a 'spin-off' of this post, which were all really informative and helped me gather a large portion of the 40K for Beginners' project material..
Enjoy!
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I'm thinking this might be a series until I get a better handle on what the crap 5th Ed is all about.
Yes, I think I have * FINALLY * decided what army I'll play. I just have to get figures. And that leads me to the question of the day:
What comes first in army building: the figures or the list?
I don't possess any figs of my own yet. I'm of the opinion that I shouldn't just buy crap willy nilly- I should have a purpose and an army or list in mind. However, there's been some encouragement to use available figs as proxies, building a list to suit them.
Going with the first option gives me control over what goes in my list, what I like and don't like, as well as what flavor or type of army I field. Going with the second limits me to what I have available, but I get to see if I really like the intended army before spending a metric crapton of cash.
Either way, I've discovered that I need one of those Army Builder things (I just happen to be testing one out right now) because it's not the math -it's the details and the math combined. I know I'll get better, but at the moment, I can't keep track of all of it at once.
So at the moment, I'm playing with numbers and imaginary dudes, trying to get a handle on point allowances and Force Org (you're supposed to have a lot of troops, right?) . See you at the next installment.
I buy models based on how they look, not how they perform in game. True that goes against virtually all army building recommendations, however as expensive as mini gaming is I'm not spending money on ugly minis (I don't care how good they are)!
ReplyDeleteIs there a good, low cost (or free) army builder out there? I have an old version (probably out of date) of Army Builder.
ReplyDeleteTom
Which version of AB are you using? I'm still using my ancient version 2.2 one (upgrade from the 1.4 disk :-))... There's a group of folks out there still doing updates and the like for the program...
ReplyDeleteI did a poll on the reasons people play their armies recently, and while not a true chicken-or-the-egg question, it seemed to indicate that the look of the models ranked very high for people. I know that some of my favorite armies in the past have been thematic based upon the look of a force: a Praetorian army with Camel-riding rough-riders and Elephant based sentinels just can't be beat. Likewise, that guy that has an "orkron" list using WHFB black orks as necrons (or event he Tyracrons from Musing of a Metal Mind) just ooze so much character. Regardless if their armies are "competitive," I love just looking at them.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, if you want a link to those poll results, here's one: http://www.warhammer39999.com/2011/02/poll-results-why-did-you-choose-your-army/)
You know, I should have edited this some. I now own a couple thousand points of what will become a kickin' BT army and I'm really happy with what I have, especially after some major modifications I did last week.
ReplyDeletethe intent was the same, though- it can be overwhelming to try to figure out what works for you.
I find that Army builder is not really necessary. You can add it all up in an excel spreadsheet just as easily. And you won't get the random errors that pop up now and again.
ReplyDelete