Starting a New Army 40k 10th Edition

So you picked out an army. Fantastic! Now what? Well, you’re gonna need some models. BUT you’re gonna need other things besides. So let’s start with the dull stuff.

HOBBY STUFF

Don’t cheap out but don’t spend a mint. A couple extra bucks can save you a lot of pain later.

Hobby clippers! These will help you get models off the sprues. Look for ones with a needle nose and the cutting edge flush with one side.

A decent X-acto knife with spare blades. You’ll want to change them more often than I do.

Superglue! I like to get both thin superglue and a gel glue to help with pieces that don’t want to hold at first.

Hobby file! You can get just one or a set like this. It will help clean flash and sprue marks off the parts of a model.

This will get you started to where you can assemble your grey horde. Now on to actual Warhammer stuff. The rules are online, if you want to get a rulebook it’s probably a good idea.

FIRST PURCHASES

You’ll want a codex. I’m doing Chaos Space Marines so

It says it on the cover. Not every codex is out for 10th edition. Ask at your local shop if the codex for your faction is out yet. This has all the rules you’ll need for playing your army. These are updated online but you want to have this so you have the rules to start FROM. This isn’t optional, you’re gonna want it.

FINALLY let’s get some minis. There’s a bunch of choices for CSM right now.

This is the new/current Combat Patrol

This is an older one you can likely still find if you look around.

This is a large battleforce box you can find if you’re lucky

There’s another battleforce box called Veterans of the Long War and if the Dark Gods let you pick one up for a decent price get it. Anyway, I started with the 2nd combat patrol with the big stompy guy in the background. Combat Patrols are almost always the best answer, having enough models to at least get stuff on the table and start learning rules, without having so much you have an immediate crushing backlog.

At this point you’re going to have a BUNCH of plastic some instructions that may be good, and they may not be. In my case the CSM instructions were MOSTLY good. I did make a few mistakes myself but nothing irredeemable.

Here’s some assembly tips.

• Clip carefully and make sure you check the instructions so you don’t clip off a tab that will help the assembly. Some parts have tabs/pegs that insert into another part of the model.
• Test fit several steps ahead. If you see gaps put a little white paint on where you think contact is being made so you can see what you need to adjust or trim.
• Clean flash and sprue marks (where you clip from the sprue and sometimes leave extra plastic behind
• If you glue a model to its base whether to play before painting or to make painting easier, I recommend a VERY small dot of elmer’s glue (white glue, craft flue) not superglue so you can pop it off to make basing easier. You’ll thank me later.

So at this point I have 2 5-man Legionnaire squads, a 5 man Havoc Squad, a Dark Acolyte, and a Hellbrute. Don’t know what those are? Well let’s take a look. Most Combat Patrols are going to be pretty similar.

• The Dark Acolyte is the leader of the combat patrol. His caddies are along and certainly will not end up being brutally sacrificed to cause daemons to attack an enemy and cause mortal wounds.
• The Legionnaires can be built as 2 5-man squads, or 1 10-man squad, with a long range or melee focus. I built them with long range options and plan on building the next box for melee as this is a unit you will use a lot of.
• The Havocs I built with Lascannons and Reaper Autocannons as these weapons always have a use in the game.
• The Hellbrute I built as a Multi Melta and… Hellbrute Hammer? Really? That’s what it’s called? Anyway. Tank cooker and Big Hammer. Maybe not optimal, definitely fun.

So let’s take a look where I’m at

Dark Apostle (Need to finish painting the caddies)

An illegal Legionnaire Squad since you can’t have a Heavy Weapon and a Special weapon so let’s move right along.

Oh hey that’s illegal too. Guess my next two Legionnaire units don’t get any fun guns.

You know who does get fun guns? Havocs! LOTS of pro-pain and pro-pain accessories.

Hellbrute is still a WIP so you’ll see that later. This gives me a leader to throw in a unit, two small “line” units to play objectives, tie up the enemy, etc, one long range threat to apply pressure where needed and one monstrous unit that’s a big obvious threat that can either be a distraction or just a hammer.

So obviously I skipped right ahead to painting. I love painting, it’s a fantastic part of the hobby and I encourage you to start, get a can of primer, get some tips from friends make sure you get a smooth even coat of paint. Get some paints, watch some videos, THIN YOUR PAINTS and come up with a good scheme. Start practicing and start improving.

So we’ve got some tools, we have some models. You can play a few games, and you should, but for now we’re gonna leave it at that and talk about next steps before expanding your army.