A few questions from an 'old' gamer thinking of dabbling again

Beefy78

Hi,

I've got a fair bit of free time on my hands at the moment and as the thread title suggests I'm thinking about spending a bit of time, and maybe money, dabbling in some gaming. I'm not sure if I want to actually play at all, but I've been playing 40K: Space Marine on the Ps3 the last couple of days and it's stirred something about that universe which has got me thinking.

To give you a bit of background, I first started playing 40k at the age of 11 (I'm 33 now) so quite a long time ago. I got into Warhammer Fantasy (as it was at the time) a year or so later although my real love was Blood Bowl which I was playing up until a couple of years ago.

I've been a bit of a kiss of death to armies throughout the years. My main 40K army was Squats and my main Warhammer Army was Chaos Dwarfs.

I think I'd like to collect a couple of small armies for 40k. Probably Space Marines and Orks. Nothing big, maybe just a couple of units of each. Even though I'm not going to be gaming, at least initially, I'd like to know the rules and get the armies list (codec?) for these. Are there different lists for different Space Marine chapters still?

I've got quite a lot of old miniatures boxed up at my parents' place in the UK and I'm thinking of bringing some over here. I was never a very good painter (in fact I once won a prize for being officially the worst painter of the regulars at GW Southend!) but would like to think I could do a bit better now. Does anyone have any tips for how best to strip the paint off of models I've already painted once so I could start again?

Has anyone else come back to these games after a long time out?

grugni

The good news at the moment is that Warhammer 40k should be going into its 6th edition in the next couple of months so any GW store will be crazy with information on getting back into the game as well as hopefully some veterans to help you with army choices. Also its rumoured the box set will be Dark Angels Vs Chaos so there should be a plethora of miniatures in the box aswell as the mini rulebook for the new edition

40k is still ruled by the main rulebook and plug in codex's for each army so as you said you will need both if you want to start playing. Orks have their own codex and are a great army to build/play as they are all crazy.
For the space marines there is the standard vanilla codex (ultramarines, White Scars, Imperial Fists, Salamanders and a few others)
There are also the following space marine chapters who have their own codex

• Blood Angels
• Dark Angels
• Black Templars
• Space Wolves (SPACE VIKINGS !!!!)

For myself the best stuff I found for stripping off paint is fairy oven cleaner. However you really need to be careful as this is toxic stuff. Do this outside as it stinks and you need to wear plastic gloves as it is corrosive on the skin. Soak minis in it and then use a toothbrush to clean them. Again please be careful as it is propper dangerous stuff. If you dont want to put your hands in toxic waste then I can recommend nail varnish remover or anything that has acetone in it. But dont put plastic models in it as it will melt them.

If you have anymore questions please ask, also it would be awesome to see the squats if you have piccies, the only thing better than Space Vikings are Space Dwarves!!!!

Beefy78

Cheers grugni,

I've got quite a lot of Squats but they're all old plastic models and poorly painted. They're some of the models I wouldn't mind stripping and starting again on. I know they won't ever be playable in the official rules (DAMN YOU GAMES WORKSHOP!) but it's quite nice to say that I've got a few units of Squats knocking around. When I first got into these games, GW were knocking out almost unimagable quantities of units in a box set. I think my starter Squat unit was something like 50 models and cost maybe £8. I've got a load of Space Marines from that era as well which were similarly priced.

What is the best thing for stripping the paint off of plastics? Would the oven cleaner be too corrosive for these? How long do you soak miniatures in it for before moving onto scrubbing them?

I do have a couple of units of Space Wolves from the 4th Gen so I'll pick up their codex but think I'll create my own chapter so will likely need the 'Vanilla' book as well. I play Orks in Blood Bowl and it was my first experience of playing green skins in anything (other than Orc slaves for the Chaos Dwarf army) and I do enjoy them so I'll definitely be thinking about getting a few of them as well.

I guess I'm best off not getting a rulebook for now if the new gen game will be out soon?

I'm actually quite excited about this.

Spear

Don't forget the new 6th edition is out at the start of July, so the 5th edition rulebooks are getting pulled from the shelves soon. The sixth edition box set should provide some good value at least.

Beefy78

So will there likely be new Codex books once the 6th Gen stuff is out?

If so I'll likely just concentrate on stripping and repainting my existing miniatures for now.

grugni

With fairy oven cleaner leave them to soak in a well ventilated area for say 20 mins you should actually see the paint start to come off before you start scrubbing. Ive never used it on plastic miniatures but I have been told that it works fine by others who have tried, I would possibly test it on one model first (one that you dont want) and see how it goes before you mass produce them just incase it goes wrong.

In wouldnt user acetone on pastic at all, GW stopped producing squats so I would never endanger the model (Im a bit of addict when it comes to out of production stuff)

And I definately have to agree with Spear, the 6th edition boxset will be great value for money

quozl

I use plain old dettol to strip my miniatures.
Depending on how old your paint jobs are, they could possibly be enamel paint. I've no idea if dettol would strip enamel paint - I haven't used enamel since painting d&d figures 20 years ago

Beefy78

I think my Squats are enamel paints. I used to use the paints my Dad used on his Airfix kits. My other plastics are GW water-based paint jobs.

Nody

Spear wrote: »

Don't forget the new 6th edition is out at the start of July, so the 5th edition rulebooks are getting pulled from the shelves soon. The sixth edition box set should provide some good value at least.

Depends on definition of good value considering the price increases they did

Waking-Dreams

Spear wrote: »

Don't forget the new 6th edition is out at the start of July, so the 5th edition rulebooks are getting pulled from the shelves soon. The sixth edition box set should provide some good value at least.

It appears to be the 23rd of June now, according to the GW blog.

grugni

I think it will announced on the 23rd and they will show off the shiney versions of the 40k rulebook. Im not actually sure when it will go on sale tho. From what I heard (take with pinch of salt) the Chaos and Dark Angels codices will be available shortly after the 6th edition release

We will just have to wait and see!!!

Waking-Dreams

I would imagine so, given that every release they put out usually gets listed under 'coming this month' and 'advance' pre-orders. I suppose that's why White Dwarf still shifts copies. Still though, it shouldn't be more than a fortnight after the release date until it hits the shelves.

CruelCoin

Beefy78 wrote: »

Hi,

I've got a fair bit of free time on my hands at the moment and as the thread title suggests I'm thinking about spending a bit of time, and maybe money, dabbling in some gaming. I'm not sure if I want to actually play at all, but I've been playing 40K: Space Marine on the Ps3 the last couple of days and it's stirred something about that universe which has got me thinking.

To give you a bit of background, I first started playing 40k at the age of 11 (I'm 33 now) so quite a long time ago. I got into Warhammer Fantasy (as it was at the time) a year or so later although my real love was Blood Bowl which I was playing up until a couple of years ago.

I've been a bit of a kiss of death to armies throughout the years. My main 40K army was Squats and my main Warhammer Army was Chaos Dwarfs.

I think I'd like to collect a couple of small armies for 40k. Probably Space Marines and Orks. Nothing big, maybe just a couple of units of each. Even though I'm not going to be gaming, at least initially, I'd like to know the rules and get the armies list (codec?) for these. Are there different lists for different Space Marine chapters still?

I've got quite a lot of old miniatures boxed up at my parents' place in the UK and I'm thinking of bringing some over here. I was never a very good painter (in fact I once won a prize for being officially the worst painter of the regulars at GW Southend!) but would like to think I could do a bit better now. Does anyone have any tips for how best to strip the paint off of models I've already painted once so I could start again?

Has anyone else come back to these games after a long time out?

Hi beefy.

A good place for you to start would be the Assault on black reach box set.

In it is a roughly 750 point(i think, could be a bit more or less than this) army of each orks and space marines.

If i remember rightly, it has a mini-version of the rulebook (no fluff just the rules) inside.

I started with this, and per model it is probably one of the cheapest way to get your hands on orks and space marines right now!

Quoted from the website this is what you get in the box for €79

"This boxed game contains a 112-page Rulebook, a 33-page Getting Started booklet, Dice, Templates, Range Rulers and almost 50 Citadel miniatures, including: a Space Marine Captain, 10 Tactical Space Marines, Five Space Marine Terminators, a Space Marine Dreadnought, an Ork Warboss, 20 Ork Boyz, five Ork Nobz and three Ork Deffkoptas."

Hope this helps,

CC.