Newb Army A.D.D. Part 4

As discussed in my last post on the subject, I like the idea of building two armies at once and thus leaving me with 3 armies to field when they are done. Granted this means it won't be until late 2012 at the earliest and realistically into 2013. This means that both Dark Eldar and Blood Angels have been pushed off the shelf - for now. I definitely want to play these armies in the future, but since this is the harsh arena of process of elimination, they are gone. For now.

This leaves the choice of building a Chaos Space Marines and a Chaos Demon army together, or building two Space Marine armies together. So which two do I go for? Some things to consider:

• I already have or will have a Grey Knights army. In both of my options I'm still playing around with Space Marines, though in one I can also play with Demons.
• Space Marines armies are a dime a dozen, but building them is usually cheaper (according to some).
• 6th Edition will be out by the time either of these choices are built. Can probably count on these both being updated to 6th edition by the time they are built with new codex's.
• Both have great support through Forge World and GW shows them all some love.

In the very long run, I expect I will have several armies. So no matter my choice, no matter the armies I've already shelved, I will eventually get around to the ones left behind. I am very drawn to the lore and fluff of the 40K universe and very much into the hobby aspects of it as well. This logically means that as I go forward in the hobby, the better my painting, army building, etc. will become. So with all that in mind, I've decided on my winner...

The Space Marines.

The next step is to decide which two chapters I want to build. In a perfect world, I'll choose two that compliment each other, just in case I get half way through and settle on a unified army of two chapters instead of two individual chapters. In a perfect world I'll end up with two outstanding armies.

So my next step is to decide which two armies. They will both need to be radically different in terms of tactical organization, so I'm not just playing the same army painted two different ways. My options are nearly endless with the combinations, but I will be keeping to established chapters from the lore of the 40K universe. Possibilities include but are not limited to:

• Ultramarines
• Salamanders
• White Scars
• Ravenguard
• Howling Gryphons (Badab era)
• Carcharodons (Badad era)

Considering I still have a lot of time as I build my Grey Knights army, I have plenty of time in deciding which two chapters. I'll be sure to update my thoughts here on the blog of course. I hope this exercise helps other newbs out there in deciding what they want to run by taking a good hard look at all of the options out there. I know it helped me. Before running through these posts, I was considering Dark Eldar, but I like this choice better. The Dark Eldar can be my 4th army!

Newb Army A.D.D. Part 3

When I left off last, I had narrowed down my selection of potential second armies to the following:

• Blood Angels
• Chaos Demons
• Chaos Space Marines
• Dark Eldar
• Space Marines

I've decided that in the wake of Battleforces availability and my own desire of collecting, that a possibility will be to make two armies at the same time. This might not make sense though depending on the army/armies I choose. Let's look at the possibilities.

The Blood Angels is a strong army, with fluff that I really like. No, I'm not a romantic emo-vamp lover, but I like the Blood Angels from what I've read (codex, Omnibus) and from what I've seen on the gaming table.

The Dark Eldar is an awesome looking army, with a roguish style that appeals to me (I usually end up playing Rogue characters in RPG's, MMO's). I like the fluff, their models, the tactics. I don't even mind the fact that they are glass cannons.

Chaos Demons. Awesome looking models and from what I've heard, a decent army.

Chaos Space Marines. According to various reports I've heard and read, I really like the versatility of this army. I like the fluff and think that some of the traitor marine chapters look really good in the modeling aspect.

The Space Marines. I have no doubt that while it will take years, I'll have plenty of Space Marines. I'm particularly interested in building chapter fluff armies, including Ravenguard, Salamanders, White Scars, Ultramarines, Howling Gryphons and Carcharodons. Maybe even pre-heresy Luna Wolves.

As I mentioned in the beginning it may make sense in making two armies at once depending on the mix. For examples:

• Chaos Space Marines and Chaos Demons. It is my understanding that Chaos Space marines can have Chaos Demons in their ranks. To me it makes sense to build these two armies together, with perhaps a little more emphasis on the Chaos Space Marines and finishing off with a Chaos Demon army when building them.
• Space Marines chapters. This makes sense to me, though also means that while building the armies I may be playing fluff, with two chapters representing until each chapter is done. Not sure which two chapters I'd start with though.
• The Blood Angels and Dark Eldar IMO are pretty similar and if I go with either of these armies, while I am sure I will get the other I'm not so sure I'm interested in building them together if that makes sense. It just doesnt' feel like a good mesh like the above two examples. Whichever army I do go with between these two though also means I'll be pushing the other one back until a later date.

With this all now laid out, I think I really like the idea of putting together two armies at once. This means by the end of the project, I'll have 3 armies to field. Stay tuned for the next post when I declare the winner. Maybe.

Newb Army A.D.D. Part 2

I think a great place to begin when deciding which army I would like to collect next is to present which armies I do not want and why. This will either help or might just be an exercise in the process of elimination. In either case it seems a good place to start.

• Armies I'm not interested in:
• Black Templars. Not crazy about the models nor the background from what little I've been exposed to.
• Dark Angels. As with the Black Templars.
• Sisters of Battle. Cool models and was one of the first things that exposed me to the 40K iniverse that caught my attention. I'm just not crazy about their special rules.
• Orks. They just don't appeal to me. I like fighting them, but don't see myself as an Ork player.
• Tyranids. While they do look cool, I'm just not into them right now. As a side note and I have to admit some selfishness here, if my wife ever gets into 40K, she has already declared that the Tyranids is what is most interested in. This means if she does end up playing one day, I'll most likely have access to a Tyranid Army anyway. While tempting to collect to maybe push her a little into 40K, at the end of the day if she does not get into it, I'm not ready or willing to be stuck with a Tyranid army yet.
• Eldar. I like the lore and fluff about these guys, I'm just not crazy about their models.
• Tau. Communists. 'Eh' models. I'll pass.
• Space Wolves. While powerful and looks good, I'm just not crazy about them. Passing for now.
• Necrons. Upcoming release soon, expected bad-assery. I remember thinking these models were cool looking way back in the day. Here and now though, just not that interested. Passing for now.

So a lot of No's and passing for now's in this list. What's left?

• Blood Angels
• Chaos Space Marines
• Chaos Demons
• Space Marines
• Dark Eldar
• Imperial Guard

Of these, I'm going to put Imperial Guard on the shelf for now, mainly because I do have a vision for an awesome IG army in the future, but not prepared for the work I know it will take. This will be an army of mine one day, but I'm thinking it won't be until my 3rd, 4th or 5th army at best.

Next time, I'll take a look those armies remaining and see if I can't distill them down even further and perhaps even come up with a couple of finalists.

Newb Army A.D.D. Part 1

So here I am, just getting started on my first army - the Grey Knights. Scheduled to perfection, or not, I should be fielding a full 2000 point army by my birthday in March or shortly thereafter with some for a sideboard.

Yet, I'm already thinking of my next army. The one that will come after the Grey Knights. I'm considering making purchases for it as early as the end of this year or the beginning of next year while still finishing up my first army. Army A.D.D. is in full swing.

Not many people know this - actually only 1 or 2, but my first army was going to be Space Marines. Then, even as I was budgeting out and preparing to buy quite the expansive army (used) the Blood Angels came out and caught my eye. My first game to end in something other than a loss was proxing a Blood Angels army (a tie, I've yet to win, though in fairness have barely played just over a dozen games).

Then the Grey Knights came out and I was ready to start buying my first army and they were all shiney and new, seemed easy to paint, had some powerful options and I really like the fluff. Grey Knights it is and I'm very happy with them and looking forward to playing them more. It's even looking like by next month I may be able to get my game on in a more consistent manner.

Perhaps because I do like to plan out so far in advance, I'm in the mode lately of trying to figure out what armies I want to eventually have and which one should go next. Or should I build two armies at the same time? I figure I'm not the only one with 40K Army A.D.D. so I decided to write about it - not just for my own sake but other newbs out there as well. So let's look at the army choices out there:

• Dark Angels
• Black Templars
• Blood Angels
• Grey Knights
• Space Wolves
• Space Marines (various chapters, themes, pre and post heresy)
• Chaos Space Marines (renegades, pre and post heresy, etc)
• Chaos Demons
• Orks
• Tau
• Eldar (various Craft worlds)
• Dark Eldar (various Kabals, Cults and Covens)
• Imperial Guard
• Sisters of Battle
• Tyranids
• Necrons

So a lot of choices to made and thats not counting the themes, organization, historical, etc. that are within each of the armies themselves. Before moving on in another post, a couple of things I know I need to consider are:

1. My current Army. The Grey Knights is an Elite army, good for mid-range shooting and a middle of the board game strategy (for the most parts). They are MEQ (Space Marine Equivelant) and are indeed Space Marines; just specilaized. If, I want to go in another direction with my second army, I need to keep this in mind.
2. Do I want to go with more shooty or more assaulty with my next Army? What strategies do I want to work with?

In my next post on the subject, I'm going to explore what armies I don't want to go for and then start looking at those who may be contenders.

Happy July 4th! And whhat is happening in July?

I started out in June full of aspirations and energy for this blog. It is still all there, but if you've been following 40K Newb, you know only about half of what I had originallyplanned for this month has come to pass.

The main culprit is time. Between work and summer semester at college and one fire after another in my world this last month, I've simply not had the time I wanted or needed to accomplish everything I had originally planned for June here.

Not to worry though! I will be coming back as strong as ever, though July's picking may be as slim as June's was. Stay tuned though for more army lists, work's in progress, and news. Might even have a bttle report or two!

Introduction of 4K Newb

Welcome to my new blog: 40K Newb. I'm Sam Guss, owner of Samuel Guss Photography and the blogs: Exploring Uncertainty and Classical Newb. The focus of this blog will be adventures, mishaps, thoughts and growth as a Warhammer 40K player.

My first tournament is coming up next weekend. I'll be borrowing my brother-in-laws Space Marines for it and in May I have my own SM army that I am purchasing from a fellow gamer. Warhammer 40K is still very new to me. I've played a grand total of 8 games over the last 5 months, 6 of them Ultramarines and 2 of them Blood Angels. My strategy is to go into Space Marines, Blood Angels and Grey Knights. I'm considering Space Wolves in the future.

The reason I chose Space marines and the various chapters such as Blood Angels, is threefold. First of all, in some cases I will be able to get double duty out of some of my models, since they use some of the same basic models. Second of all, I like the back story of Space Marines, which leads into my third reason: I'm a huge Warhammer 40K Space Opera novel fan - most notably the Space Marines.

I'm 41 years old as of this posting, married with 3 teenagers, 1 of which lives with me; 3 dogs, 2 cats, a car loan and a mortgage payment. I run my own wedding photography business - Samuel Guss Photography where I also specialize in portrait photography and some fine art photography. I work full time in outside sales as well - credit processing and I'm in college earning my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree (majoring in Photography and Graphic Design). In addition to this, I'm a board member of the Unitarian Universialist Church of Birmingham and an avid writer and gamer. Gaming is my hobby and in all of it's forms. I play Magic the Gathering, Warhammer 40K, MMO's (like World of Warcraft), computer pc and Xbox 360 video games, as well as board and other strategy games.

So far, I find myself intrigued and hyped up about Warhammer 40K, thus the purpose of this blog. I welcome you to follow along my journey, give me your 2 cents and together let's have fun with our chosen hobby. Until next time!