I have completely ignored Warhammer 40,000 ever since it came out. No interest.
My nephew however has become interested in it. He specifically wants the most basic ruleset to get started with – not a follow-on supplement, and nothing with miniature figures. He is in prison and will not be allowed to have miniatures, but figures he can make paper chits to represnt the units, and has some buddies who want to try it. They don’t want Warhammer (the original mediaeval version) but WH 40k, the Space Dwarves version of the game.
His mom is all set to cruise Amazon.com and buy him tons of Warhammer 40K stuff, and if she does so, will almost certainly waste money getting him something he can’t use.
I know there’s a LOT of Warhammer 40K rules/supplements/add-ons/etc. by now. What can he get to get started with basic play?
Dunno how it is in the new edition (5th if I’m not mistaken), but the one I played extensively with (2nd) came with all the basic armies in it, yes. Very few equipment cards, no magic and no special characters though. That came in a separate box.
Also, he’ll probably need photos of the different tanks, or at least their dimensions in order to make the paper proxy the right shape/size. Some armies are utterly useless without their tanks (the Imperial Guard comes to mind)
Yes, the 5th edition rulebook should have the stat lines for all the weapons/troops in the game.
However, without the codexes for the individual races, it’s just about impossible to play them. So, the 5th edition rulebook and then a few of the individual races’ codexes. I’d recommend, say, Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Orks, Eldar, Nids. Although that’s about 150 worth of books at that point, so it might make sense to go slow or try to get other folks to chip in.
What I was thinking was he could just do Space Marines vs Space Marines at start and see how that goes. If it works, add codexes. The basic rulebook is enough for a starter game. Not fantastic, but enough. There’s limited space in jail, after all.
This would be the second book, how to ‘really’ play Space Marines. After that, add codex by codex till everyone’s happy.
For the record, if money’s a concern, you could always go for an older edition. I know, I know, it’s not the lastest, best thing, but I remember buying older codexes for a couple bucks (although that was back in '99, so prices will have changed).
As I see it, the two reasons to avoid the older editions are:
A) Being able to play with everyone else, which may not be an issue if the local hobby shop is out anyways
B) Not wasting money on old models that won’t necessarily be worth anything (in gameplay terms, not dollars) under the new rules. Not an issue with paper chits.
If he gets into the game, he may want to go for the new books, but the older ones are cheap enough that it might be worth it as a first step.