[WH40K] Where to start?

ImaPiranha

Okay, here's the thing, my little brother is OBSESSED with Warhammer. The kid reads the codices like most little kids read the Spiderwick's Field Guide and such (he does the same with the D&D monster manuals) but has no idea how to play the actual game. I don’t' know it either. I know we need the core rulebook for the game and obviously we need minis too but I'm just confused about where to really start.
I'd like to order enough stuff that the two of us can play together. I know it's going to be pretty expensive but since I don't currently even know what we actually need to play I don’t want o blow a ton of money on it and find out I got the wrong shit. I'm also wondering if the game is similar to D&D at all in the sense of being able to play it without actual minis if you're willing to imagine and improvise or if you HAVE to have it.
I would be very appreciative if someone could at least point me in the right direction, if not just help me out personally. Thanks.

Chrysis

A good place to start is probably the Dark Vengeance box set. It comes with a couple of small starter armies (Chaos Space Marines vs. Dark Angels), a mini-rulebook which is far more portable than the massive hardcover but only sacrifices fluff and background stuff, and a little book of scenarios which can be run as essentially tutorials. You probably won't want to paint the figures up straight away, because they may not be armies you want.

Alternatively, you can play without figures but it will get confusing extremely quickly. One of the core mechanics is "True Line of Sight", i.e. what the model can see from it's "eyes" is what it can see for shooting, charging, etc. Scraps of paper can stand in for the physical location, but it could get messy quickly. An army also usually contains a wide variety of distinct models, which can get confusing when everything is a scrap of paper. It's doable, but not ideal. There's also Vassal and the 40K module which you could try. I haven't used it in a while, so it may have improved, but I recall it not being entirely user friendly. You'll still need a rulebook and an idea of how tall models are to use it properly, but it's a bit easier to see what's what.

lowlylowlycook

Well, if you guys aren't really into wargaming or painting, you might want to look into the Dawn of War RTS games.

Otherwise, the usual advice is to get mini's that you want to paint or look at. If you don't like the space marines, you could pick up the mini-rulebook on ebay.

ImaPiranha

I think I would like painting the minis, I did a lot of models and stuff as a kid but mostly I'm just trying to figure out how to play the actual game so maybe we can start talking about what we did or how a battle went and i can stop hearing endlessly about this or that unit! I think the Dark Vengeance set looks like exactly what we need. Thanks a bunch.

DarkPrimus

If you're really into the fluff, maybe look into Fantasy Flight's 40k role-playing games? Although they're about to release a second edition of Dark Heresy so they might do a second edition of Rogue Trader and Deathwatch soon.

Dark Heresy is a game where the characters play as more or less ordinary citizens of the Imperium who have been recruited by the Inquisition for whatever reason and, if they survive, will become more powerful and influential. This ends up being

Rogue Trader, everyone starts out as the crew of a space merchant-prince, and a typical game will involve the buying and selling of entire planets.

Death Watch is the one that you would probably be most interested in from a "FUCK YEAH, 40K!" standpoint. This is the game where you get to play as Space Marines, part of the multi-chapter organization known as the Death Watch, an alliance between the Adeptes Astartes and the Inquisition by ancient compact where the best of the Astartes band together to fight against the greatest threats to Mankind.

There's also Only War, which is focused around the Imperial Guard, and Black Crusade, which allows for players to be heretics and Chaos-worshipers and suchlike, but I don't have personal experience with either of those.

Unknown

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Chrysis

That's pretty much why I said not to paint them up straight away. If one of you wants CSM, and the other doesn't want Dark Angels then it's easy enough to convert the Dark Angels into Chaos Space Marines. Not so much the other way around, though. Hence not painting the Dark Angels up, because once you're finished with the scenarios you might want to make them Chaosy.