First Experiences in Warhammer 40k

[Tabgoi]

I was just wondering what was the first experience most people had with warhammer 40k, what got you into the hobby.  We form a community based on collecting, modding, kit bashing, and painting minis, but what was your first experience with the game?  For some of us this might be reaching back a bit, and I'll start off since its not fair to ask others what you will not provide yourself.  And why Blood Angels in particular?  I am just interested in how many people had similar experiences, starting in a GW store, or local tourney, or dragged by friends kicking and screaming.

 

I was living in Chicago, Illinois, and a few friends were talking about Warhammer 40k and invited me to a tournament out in the Suburbs, no army needed, they would be provided. I'm right around 16 and head out to this other school in Norridge where the tournament is going on in the basement of the gym.  You know, the weird not quite green tile walls, some kind of rubberized floor and a bunch of folding tables set up for the fight.  There were probably 16 people there to play and a couple of vendors, so not really a big gathering.  There was no apocalypse rules back then, but we lined up eight people on each side and I ended up with someone's spare BA army, with my other buddy getting someone else's spare BA army. Both of us had a Dante leading it, so I still remember we decided the second Dante would now be Bantuu, no clue why.  Anyways, simple third edition rules, and whomever gathered the most VPs won.  Back then that was simply a matter of taking the points value of the amount of troops you killed and subtracting the points value of what you lost, giving you hopefully a positive total.

 

I think it took around five hours to settle the game.  We had a lot of people just learning the rules, and I know I must have stopped everything a few dozen times to ask questions.  Two BA lists, a ultra smurf land speeder list, some nids, chaos, one IG, one each of craftworld and dark elder, and I forget the rest.  I lucked out on a corner and ended up rolling the enemy line using those prodigious sweeping advances of the time.  Newer players will be unfamiliar with this, but in third edition a DC unit could wipe two units a turn as you could sweeping advance straight into another unit and initiate close combat without your enemy getting a chance to shoot at you, so Death Company with Jump packs were by FAR the most powerful unit in the game.  It made a lot of sense when they nerf batted the sweeping advance rule into the dust.  So based on some luck with deployment, and some good positioning I won a box of plastic plague marines and then I bought an already painted BA metal assault cannon dread for like fifteen bucks, and a box of metal DC. 

 

I kind of got swept up by the whole, here are elite troops, ready to take on all comers and they paint their armor blood red.  Like how the Spartans of old would wear red cloaks so the enemy would never see them bleed.  You were always outnumbered in every battle, but the quality of your troops was higher so you could overcome (not necessarily true now).  The very modern outlook of a chapter that takes these hapless, starved, moderately radiation poisoned scavengers and elevates them into idealize Greek gods who defend humanity from all comers.  Who despite being bred for war focus their time on art and beauty.  The tragedy of the flaw, and the hope that it can be overcome.  The darkness of the reality of Imperial life surrounding them, but they still hope for a brighter future where mankind can live unmolested and individuals are not being ground into nothing by bureaucracy.  Also I was in high school listening to a lot of punk and metal music, playing Vampire the Masquerade and here was an army list with the Lord of Death, yeah, I was in.  Now I play them because using one of my other armies would feel like a betrayal of my first.  Plus it would just seem odd to not have a force of blood red killers advancing to save humanity on my command.

 

So where was your start, and why the Blood Angels?

[Leonaides]

space crusade board game by Citadel/MB games - Blood Angels got Close Assault blade attachments to their bolters. Never looked back.

 

Oh yeah - and they were red!

[Dolchiate Remembrancer]

Wow. Thinking back on it now I can't really remember why Blood Angels, but back in third is when I joined up. Friend of mine bought the starter set(at the time it was Dark Eldar and Space Marines) and he grabbed hold of the Dark Eldar army while I played his Space Marines. A little research revealed that I could keep them vanilla or play them as Dark Angels, Space Wolves or Blood Angels.

 

Again I can't remember why but I give the Blood Angels a try and never looked back. I have loved the fluff and the feel for the army since.

[Dhx711]

Pulled into the game through a friend of a friend. My buddy and I started at the same time so we bought the current set at that point which was space Marines and Nids.

 

After a few weeks of the narrowing down my choices it was down to either space wolves or blood Angels. And of course after reading their oh so awesome close combat style and the nobleness of holding back the flaw while serving the imperium made my choice for me.

 

12,000+ points later I'm still a blood angel and will be for life.

[Jakbal]

I moved to SW Ohio from Chicago and began hanging out with my old high school friends again. They all played 40k, and it is right down my alley so I jumped right in and have loved every minute of the modeling, and most of the gaming. I read a lot of 40k lore and Horus Heresy novels so this is all amazing to me.

 

I started Blood Angels at the suggestion of a friend. Part of me wishes that I had spent more time learning about different 40k armies before choosing Blood Angels, but really I bet I would have landed on the Sons of Sanguinius no matter what ... I wanted to go Tau or Grey Knights right at first, but was talked out of it. I love space marines, though, and I really like our models and lore ... so I'm pretty happy with the choice of BA! Well, I'm really happy about it.

 

The one thing I do not like is the play style of our army. I have had terrible luck with deep striking (bad dice rolls), and the fact that we really aren't any better at close combat is frustrating since it is our specialty. I love the affinity towards jump packs and flight, however. Most of my friends play really shooty armies, and their strategy is always to roll out a bunch of tanks / fortifications and just turtle at the back of their deployment zone, making me approach them ... this has led to a pretty near total loss record, which is very frustrating. I'm beginning to adjust my tactics, though, and have a few games scheduled for 2 weeks out that I'm really looking forward to play!

[Tabgoi]

In third edition the close combat advantage for the Blood Angels was HUGE.  We were the only ones with FNP and FC, even Khorne berserkers and Bloodl so much.etters feared our charges.  Now not so much.  Much higher armor saves all around, impact shock can still be useful, but you used to be able to charge a unit of BA tac marines into an Eldar Dire Avenger squad and likely come out ahead.  I do not recommend that now.  And with the last Dark Eldar codex we are definitely not top of the heap, even compared to current dexs that thing is nasty.  But who knows, we are due up for a codex and that will likely mean a lot of changes.  Here's hoping we get back our CC dominance.

[Spagunk]

I too was intro'd via 3rd edition. All my friends who played had other armies and no one played marines so at the time I was the odd one out ;). I asked about  the game and someone let me look at their 3rd Ed rulebook. Found the section on Marines and saw the info on Blood Angels. Was interested in BA ever since.

 

Still have a squads of 3rd edition snap together marines in all their static posed glory.

[JamesI]

I started in 3rd edition, right after Codex Armageddon came out.  My first army was Salamanders.  Over time started to use a ton of jump infantry and switched to Blood angels when the PDF codex was published.

[Plague Angel]

My first 40k experience was when I must have been 12 or 13 or so. I was passing by a GW store (which isn't there, these days) and saw all the really cool models in the window, so I walked in. I was shown Battle for Macragge and thought it was amazing. I played as the Tyranids. I was all set to ask my parents for it when I noticed someone buy a kit, open it, and start building. I hadn't realized the models didn't even come assembled, and as a kid I was intimidated away from it.

 

Some whole decade later, I started playing Warhammer Fantasy in college, getting up to about 2000 points of Ogre Kingdoms. (I have 4000 today.) All of my friends played 40k too, so I was always being talked towards that. I flip-flopped around from codex to codex, and played practice games borrowing my friend's armies. I tried orks, I tried Chaos, I tried Black Templar (and discovered B&C as I was researching them). Upon discovering the PDF Codex, I thought "free" was a pretty good draw, and read through it. I didn't know much of the fluff and there wasn't a ton in there, but while I was iffy on the chapter, I thought the idea of sending so much jump infantry sounded great! I declared myself a Blood Angels player and started writing a list.

 

Literally the next day the 5th edition Codex was announced on the GW website. It was a sign.

 

I never used that list, deciding to be patient, but for all the flipflopping I did in practice, I'm proud to say Blood Angels were the first 40k models I actually owned. I've been around these parts ever since, and while I can't claim to be a true veteran of the PDF Heresy, I like to think people here recognize me pretty well. Blood Angels have become my favorite chapter in the modern 40k age, though honestly not my favorite Legion if we're talking about the Heresy era. It's the aftermath of Sanguinius's death and everything that's happened to the BA since then that makes me love them, as cool as the Heresy is.

[Dhx711]

 

I started in 3rd edition, right after Codex Armageddon came out. My first army was Salamanders. Over time started to use a ton of jump infantry and switched to Blood angels when the PDF codex was published.

I started right around the same time. In fact I bought the third edition Kodak's like a week or two before the first half of the PDF codex was out in the white dwarf.

[Jolemai]

Here's an old and interesting thread about why people play Blood Angels. Take note of the quote at the start, it should be committed to memory and recalled whenever you start to stray from the path of Sanguinius.

 

***

 

As for me, I began in the second edition. One afternoon I went round my one of friend's house and they were having an enormous battle of Orks versus Space Marines. I recall masses of Gretchin, Dark Angels Devastators locking down and entire board edge (people were too afraid to move due to the old Overwatch rules), Dante and his "beat squad", Assassins that were actually decent, and lots of silly things/cheesey combinations that were allowed back then. Such as Chief Librarian Ganymede (Level 4 Psycker) in TDA with his four wargear cards being a Refractor Field, Conversion Field, Displacer Field and a Power Field - I'm told he got killed by a Vortex Grenade - Virus Grenades, wiping out half of the board, etc, etc. It all seemed so much fun.

 

That Christmas I got the 40k box set. Spent all day gluing the models together, popping the card bits and even began painting. As for why Blood Angels? Because there was a guide to paint them in the second edition box...

[Tabgoi]

That is a great thread, love the quote. Its funny talking about the dedicated minority that sticks with BA thick or thin. There is a 1250 point tournament coming up near me and my brother has been doing research on who will be in it. No clue where he finds the time or intel mind you, but he has basically assembled a complete army list for everyone who will be there. But he is trying to convince me to run my army as codex for an easy win, way more boots on the ground, more room due to lower points cost to fit in tanks. I keep trying to tell him, I would rather lose with an underpowered BA codex than win with CSM. Something may be wrong with my brain, but BA has not let me down yet.

[Jakbal]

That is a great thread, love the quote. Its funny talking about the dedicated minority that sticks with BA thick or thin. There is a 1250 point tournament coming up near me and my brother has been doing research on who will be in it. No clue where he finds the time or intel mind you, but he has basically assembled a complete army list for everyone who will be there. But he is trying to convince me to run my army as codex for an easy win, way more boots on the ground, more room due to lower points cost to fit in tanks. I keep trying to tell him, I would rather lose with an underpowered BA codex than win with CSM. Something may be wrong with my brain, but BA has not let me down yet.

 

I bought the C:SM codex so I could run my BA as red marines (thinking of the unit/model cost benefit) ... and I've never done it a single time.

[Lord Commander Scrymgeour]

For me its all about the artwork, specifically the old epic box cover with that captain with the combi plasma screaming at a million orks. Excellent. In fact he was the first model I converted when I began my return into 40k after almost 15 years

[Xenith]

Always wanted to play, first models were the space hulk second edition terminators. That was all about blood angels, got the codex, liked their background, and they were deadly on the table. Chaos is my love, despite being hard to love at the moment, but BA will always have a place in my heart. The paint scheme is great, sanguinary guard are some of my favourite models ever, they look good on table, and allow me to go mad with the freehand!

[sabbacca]

I didnt start until 6th Edition. My buddy and I went to the Hobby store and the first space marine model I picked up to look at was the sanguinary guard. I didnt have a chance. I have only been playing for a little over a year but the blood angels are so visually striking and the fluff so interesting that I dont see myself switching over anytime soon.

[ThatOneMarshal]

I started the blood angels in 5th edition, very recently in fact. I still remeber that the gw store employee recommended I buy the space marine painting set and I was going to start an ultrasmurfs army because it looked like the best . One day I check out gws homepage and there was a new release happening fo this called blood angels. I checked out a couple articles on them but the ones that got me hooked were the heroes of the blood angels and why play blood angels. Both instanly hooked me in and so I went to my FLGs and bought a box of DC, lemartes, a tactical squad, and the dex. The fluff was AWSOEME and also red gives me a boner . My passion quicly dropped for them due to school then one day i was youtube and looked 40k tactics for blood angels. Then my lord saviour jawaballs came to me and the rest is history! Also nowadays its fun to see the look on your oppenent loses to a "subpar dex"