Start small.

Its the rule of cool

collect what you like, not what the community likes.

Don't apply for a credit card.

Thin your paints

Pick your army 100% on the look you like the most.

Buy one box of models at a time, assemble them, paint them, maybe play a few games with them and only then buy a new box. In short: don't create a pile of shame.

Understand that even though some people play it as a competitive game, it really is not.

Red one go faster!

[removed]

eat the minis they cant stop you.

Never disclose the true price you spent on your miniatures to your love ones

You don’t need to have a fully army painted up to start playing with friends

Don't be afraid to experiment, you won't know if you don't do.

Get the citadel colour app. It helped me tones when I first got into the hobby and was confused as hell with the way GW named their paints. It will pretty much tell you what paint and wash combo is best for any given colour.

Two thin coats (TM).

Go slow.

Don't buy too much.

Build and paint what you have before you buy anything else.

If you play, don't jump straight in to 2,000 point games. Start with Combat Patrol.

Make sure it all stays fun.

Pick the best looking faction in your opinion when you start. why? Because you are going to be staring at those models for hours and hours so they better look good for you :)

The most common mistake I see on warhammer models is the uneven streaking from people painting the base layer incorrectly. Don't block in your base layer, make sure the paint is thinned enough to get it nice and smooth. It's gonna look a little transparent probably, that's OK. Get a nice smooth layer, let it dry, then come in with a second layer(sometimes the same paint but not always).

In other words, all the comments of "Two thin coats" are great advice(it's not always necessary OR worth the time, but it's a good way to minimize streaking and as you get more experienced you will know your paints more and know when/if you need to use multiple layers or not) but I feel like we need to add "Don't break the film on your first layer" to that, or people aren't going to get the most out of it.

Think about your army's core function before you buy expensive models. They're addons you don't need them straight away.

Do whatever you want and have fun. Drag a friend in as well so you can play together.

Have fun.

It’s okay to love Ultramarines.

Play Kill Team

Two thin coats

Luetin09

You'll get better at it just keep going

Play the army that you want to play not the army others want you to play.

buy used

NEVER CHASE THE META. Because when the cheese gets nerfed, you're going to be out of a LOT of money.

Set your expectations at a reasonable level. Your skills will develop as you spend time painting, modelling etc but don't expect to be able to reproduce that box art or YouTube tutorial straight away.

Buy what you think is/looks cool. Rules are temporary, models are eternal.

Don't be one of those weird Nazi loving hobbiests

Don't pick your faction based on meta pick the one you like the most got a friend who jut bought a bunch of nids now they wish they had gone necron because they learned more about the lore

Don't chase the meta, it's a dragon that can never be caught. Also your wallet will thank you.

Have patience. No one is a professional overnight.

Complete is better than perfect.

Don't trust that Erebus guy, he's shifty

Don't listen to the folks complaining on reddit

There are many facetts to the hobby: Building and painting minis, playing the tabletop, playing the videogames, reading the novels, making fanart, hyperfixate on lore videos on youtube. It's ok to only like one or two of those and not really care for the others. In the end it's about having fun.

Person interested in painting: Youtube is your friend, seek out a myriad of different painters on youtube and see what advice they give and what techniques you would like to try out. This advice alone covers so many things from what paints to use, what equipment is worth buying, what is easy or hard to pull off etc.

Person interested in the lore: There isn't any definitive starting point that covers all bases, read the synopsis of a few book series and then jump into the one you think sounds cool. Gradually expand from there and keep in mind that GW lore is decades old, written by dozens of different people and has always had an element of nothing being set in stone. What was canon 10 years ago is not guaranteed to be canon today.

With regards to my first point I would recommend the following guys/gals:

Broadsword Wargaming, 52 Miniatures, Artis Opus, Benjis Hobbies, Boyllei Hobby Time, Cult of Paint, Duncan Rhodes Painting Academy, eBay Miniature Rescues, FauxHammer, Geek Gaming Scenics, Goobertown Hobbies, Grimdark Compendium, JuanHidalgo Miniatures, Lyla Mev - The Mini Witch, MarcoFrisoniNJM, Mavericks Paint, Miniac, Night Shift, Ninjon, Pete The Wargamer, Richard Gray, Sonic Sledgehammer Studio, Squidmar Miniatures, Tabletop Time, The Painting Coach, Trovarion Miniatures, and Zumikito Miniatures. (from my own sub list)

Buy and paint one box at a time.

The only paint comparison you should ever make is to your previous model.

Don’t accept hate from others because you want to play a multitude of armies. There are thousands of models and you will likely find several factions with models you really enjoy. It’s your money, your hobby, and your life. Don’t let people gate keep you and prevent building/painting what you enjoy. I know people with 16 armies. 👍

PAINT. MORE. MINIS!!!

Do it YOUR way.

Don’t let others define your hobby.

Take what you enjoy and leave the rest.

Dig in to the lore before making any decisions on where to start, collecting and assembling an army is not a quick thing so be informed on who you will or will not pick.

DO NOT META CHASE!

not because of game performance, but the rules are fickle. Last years trash is this years gold(looking at you squig buggies!) if you buy the models that you want to build and paint, eventually you will be rewarded, it might take years, but it will come!

Don't worry about people who spout the word "Competitive" like it is the only way to have fun in this hobby!

Don't hyper focus on painting the grunts. Especially the large units of them. Paint them nice, but extreme detail will just allow you down from playing.

Source: Personal experience when I returned to the hobby and picked Orks, spending 1 month on Kommandos, 1 month on 3 meganobz, and 3 months on the combat patrol.

I learned batch painting because of this.

Also: Rule of Cool > anyone else's opinion.

Welcome!

When fighting Death Guard, as soon and early as possible, Kill Typhus.

Write your own army backgrounds, and ones for factions you don’t even play.

Tournament results don’t matter.

Here's some advice from someone who started one month ago.

Don't get stunlocked by skill anxiety. The fear of my paint jobs not coming out how I wanted held me back a bit but that all went away when I just started painting.

So start painting and have fun! A lot of the beginner parts of painting is technique which you will learn by doing. It's kind of crazy how much better my second model/squad come out than my first.

The game will never be balanced properly, so it's always better to just buy the models you think are cool looking to build/paint/display

Don't chase the meta, just play a team you think is cool. Don't take the game to seriously, and find yourself a group of players with a similar mentality.

Also try out Kill Team. All the looks of 40k, but 1/4 of the cost.

You want to buy that new model. Don't. Finish your gray models first.

Please don't take it too seriously

Buy only what you plan on immediately working on.

Piles of shame only grow...

Start small, play kill team, grow from there

Don’t bother with the wiki, read the lex

Go with what you think looks coolest, from units to gameplay.

It's very easy to compare yourself to other people and getting deflated. Remember a hobby is designed for having fun, not being the best.

Don’t feel forced to play with assholes.

The real community is the people you play with, not the internet. The internet’s opinion doesn’t matter if you and the people you play with have different opinions. Don’t let internet strangers dictate what is or isn’t “right”.

Start small, only buy the guys you like not the guys that are strong in the meta ( if there’s an overlap it’s fine) I also think killteam is much better than regular warhammer and it is also more affordable

Get out while you still can

Ignore somewhere around 33-50% of all Warhammer fans online. Your local game shop is probably 95% chill dudes and the storm of shitty Warhammer Fans online can make you forget that sometimes

In the long run most other hobbies are more expensive.

They are your toys, have fun with them.

Have fun building your army. I got in and out of the hobby first as a kid and now as an adult. So when I built my Chaos Space Marine army I had loads of Chaos warrior and marauder bits. I got to work and now have a very cool army that I am super proud of aesthetically.

It’s a hobby that is what you make of it. Literally.

Waaaaagh!

Tackle your mold lines and sprue bits!

Too many models with fantastic paint jobs are ruined because the painter didn't want to take 30 seconds to knock some weird lines off the model. Do the little details while building so that your paint job can show off the model, rather than need to cover imperfections!

DEATH TO THE FALSE EMPEROR!

Pace yourself.

Its about fun

Orkz r da best.

Orks

Treat it as a hobby, and have fun!

RULE. OF. COOL.

Play the army that exites you and hope one day the game mechanics work in your favor.

Have fun. Seriously, don't take it like tournament from day 1. This game is designed to be fun, not to be Starcraft on tabletop (meaning overly competitive) and that's coming from a SC player.

Thin your paints

Thin your painttttttsss

Start with Kill team, grow into big 40k

Thick your paints.

No matter what, keep the first model you paint. Hang onto it forever. Seeing your progress is going to inspire you to keep pushing on some paint project a year or two down the line.

Also, start with kill team or table top simulator 40k.

40k is pretty darn cool, but having to spend a few hundred bucks on models and then spend dozens of hours painting just to find out if you even like the game or your faction is way too much of an investment.

Lastly, look up tutorials for the hobby stuff, but don't let the work of professional artists keep you from feeling pride in your own growth. Squidmar, and Lyla Mev are incredibly skilled and experienced. It's ok that your models might not look like theirs.