Warhammer 40k

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I really want to get into Warhammer, any good starting points?

What aspects of the Warhammer IP interest you? I suggest sperging out on a wiki like the Lexicanum or even 1d4 chan, casually skipping from link to link until you find factions and game systems that tempt you. If you want to play tabletop 40K, I'd start with Kill Team first. It's much cheaper and arguably a better game, and it encourages you to focus on what are foundational units in 40K. If you are coming in from Total War, the fantasy side of the Warhammer coin is alive and well (although grognards will tell you different) and you can wet your beak with the fun and simple Warhammer Underworlds game.

My only advice is not to play Ultramarines. Well, it's not advice really, more of a request.
 
I really want to get into Warhammer, any good starting points?

If you are talking about lorewise, I suggest starting with the Horus Heresy books.
If you are talking about the game, get the core rule book first.
After that, its a matter of what faction (or sub-faction) you want to play as.
After you decide, get the appropriate codex that represents that faction as well as any supplemental materials.
Next is deciding what kind of army you want (thus buying the figures to fill in your ranks).
I also suggest watching Battle Reports (archived streams of WH40K players fielding their armies against each other) to study how to play the game, too.
 
I really want to get into Warhammer, any good starting points?
I don't know about Tabletop, but good entry point for the story is Gaunt's Ghosts and the Eisenhorn trilogy (generally everything written by Dan Abnett is recommended). Another good entry story is the Space Wolves series that has the entire process of turning into a Space Marine.
I wouldn't start with the Horus Heresy since it requires cursory knowledge on the history, "magic" and galaxy scale players.
 
Its probably just GW not thinking about the scale that the Imperium exists in when it comes to some wars but I'd like to think that a low body count could be the result of general Munitorum incompetence and bureaucracy at work. Things like deaths occurring off the battlefield in triage centers or in orbit not counting on technicalities, guardsmen being listed as MIA as there weren't enough pieces to positively ID them, files on units being misplaced causing entire units that died as still being filed as active, various factions under reporting either to over their asses or save morale.
a lot of technical details, specifically numbers listed, in warhammer 40,000 do not make a lot of sense. for instance, the baneblade has thinner armour than the M1A1 abrams. listed weights for any vehicle-class weapon in the warhammer 40,000 roleplay franchise are vastly lighter than most modern equivalent weapons, and the profiles of w40k weapons are absolutely not the slimmest, compared to our real weapons. the imperial infantryman's uplifting primer also lists a lasgun sight calibrator as part of the universal standard kit for guardsmen... even though laser weapons inherently fire perfectly straight and thus there is no projectile drop to worry about when using them. there's lots of overlooked details like that.

as a side note, it is peculiar that warhammer 40,000 roleplay has most of these same errors that games workshop has in their content, since warhammer 40,000 roleplay was made by fantasy flight games, an american company. you would think they would know more about guns.

I really want to get into Warhammer, any good starting points?
if you are interested in knowing about the more mundane and human aspects of the universe, I would recommend pirating downloading warhammer 40,000 roleplay: dark heresy, warhammer 40,000 roleplay: only war, or warhammer 40,000 roleplay: rogue trader. keep in mind that since february 2017 you cannot acquire any warhammer 40,000 roleplay books through official means, due to games workshop not renewing fantasy flight games's license to their content. they never continued the franchise either. there technically is a continuation by the same name, but it is fucking god-awful and you should never touch it, even with a forty thousand miles long stick.

as others have said, you could also browse through lexicanum and 1d4chan, both of which have a lot of content and go into as much detail as possible, just in obviously two different tones. that's how I learned a lot about warhammer 40,000 initially myself. warhammer 40,000 is an incredibly large universe, and there's something a little bit for everyone.

while some warhammer 40,000 licensed video games are good, even those that are good have very little to do with the actual setting. dawn of war is a good real-time strategy game, but it just that: a good real-time strategy game in a warhammer 40,000 drab. nothing about it would change if you removed the skin and replaced it something else. only cutscenes in dawn of war remind you that you are playing a warhammer 40,000 game. overall, you will learn almost nothing from playing warhammer 40,000 licensed video games, with the small exception of warhammer 40,000: space marine.
 
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Another tip: don't get discouraged when your minis look like crap. You have to paint bad ones before you can paint good ones. And once you improve, you can strip them and try again. I have a shoebox full of ugly miniatures that need to be redone, I call it the Shit Pit.
Sometimes those minis even have a little charm all on their own.

Also, if you have the funds, don't be afraid to play with your spare parts and bits. I've built a few custom models that annoy the autists but invariably get applause from sane players.
 
Praise be to Null for making me sign up to get my daily dose of news-related salt with his spider changes a while back. Now, some easy advice for painting your models: THIN YOUR PAINTS!

EDIT: I also second anything written by Dan Abnett as a good way to get into the lore. Gaunt's Ghosts is great IG stuff, then the Eisenhorn then Ravenor books for more behind-the-scenes stuff. And for some quite marvelous Space Marine badassery that isn't Ward-grade Mary Sue bullshit, Brothers of the Snake.
 
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