How to build an army of Warhammer 40k figures?

[GoblinGilmartin]

So, I've been toying with getting some 40k figures put together, and I was wondering how exactly I do that?
Here's my scenario. Because there are so many different factions, I'm just going with an army that stuck out to me. I chose the Slaanesh Noise Marines, because they fight with sound and are pink (I've always wanted to kick butt with sherbet colored troops). But my brief googling doesn't give me the straight answer. How would I "make" them? Are they specific figures? I saw some add-on bits that I assume go on other figures, I'm assuming vanilla chaos marines? Can someone give me an idea of what I'd need?

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

First off, you'll find most of your stuff here (http://www.games-workshop.com/en-CA/Warhammer-40-000?N=102268+4294967254&Nu=product.repositoryId&qty=12&sorting=phl&view=table&categoryId=cat440130a-flat) and here (http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Chaos).

You'll need the codex (http://www.games-workshop.com/en-CA/Codex-Chaos-Space-Marines-EN) and general space marine stuff. Lots of things you can use modelling putty for, but there are also official (http://www.games-workshop.com/en-CA/Chaos-Space-Marines-Noise-Marines-Upgrade-Pack)conversion (http://www.games-workshop.com/en-CA/Chaos-Space-Marines-Noise-Marine-Sonic-Weapons) and other pieces scattered about that you can probably re-purpose, even from fantasy and other lines. They don't appear to have any specific full models anymore, but the parts are to upgrade the normal Chaos Space Marine figures.

Edit: You can also probably use Forgeworld's Horus Heresy era Emperor's Children (http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/The_Horus_Heresy/Legiones_Astartes/Emperors_Children) models.

[Manticoran]

Ok, so strictly speaking you can't play *Just* Noise Marines. You can play Chaos Marines of Slaanesh, which can include Noise Marines as fairly elite troops. I think you might not even be able to take them as a Troop choice, although I don't remember offhand. You're going to want to start with getting the Chaos Space Marine Codex, or possibly IA13 if you're more into playing kind of crappy human dudes with a small number of Noise Marines bringing The Rock(tm).

They're... A lot weirder and sometimes not allowed to be played, depending on your meta though, so I recommend probably just starting with the Chaos Space Marine Codex and going from there.

[Grim Portent]

The basic things you'll need to bring the noise is a Chaos Lord of Slaanesh/Lucius the Eternal to make Noise Marines into a troops choice so you can use them for the bulk of your army, and the Noise Marines themselves. Oh, and the chaos marine codex of course.

Noise Marines are expensive to get because they need an upgrade kit to build in addition to the normal kit. The normal chaos marine kit is also pretty ugly in places, but you could use the imperial space marine tactical squad kit instead and just add a few bits of chaos/noise marine stuff, the EC are known to sometimes wear aquilae still to taunt the Imperium so it works out fine fluffwise.

As an army Noise Marines can do a mix of assaulting the enemy and blasting them away with bass beats from afar. Sorcerer's of Slaanesh make a nice addition to the army, as do Sonic Dreadnoughts from Forge World, Havocs and Bikers.

If you prefer a more over the top theme for the army you can skip GWs noise marine upgrade pack and buy little guitars from other companies and rock out. This isn't really any better value for money, but it looks fantastic. Especially when painted/converted as tributes to old metal/rock bands.

[GoblinGilmartin]

So, what I'm getting from your answers is that it sounds like anything goes? I can take any "marine" style troop, paint it bright colors, and call it a Noise Marine? So accuracy is more a stylistic choice? I'm a tad confused.

[Grim Portent]

So, what I'm getting from your answers is that it sounds like anything goes? I can take any "marine" style troop, paint it bright colors, and call it a Noise Marine? So accuracy is more a stylistic choice? I'm a tad confused.

Noise Marines can be represented by any 'chaos' marine figure, which can be represented using almost any marine miniature with minor modifications to make them chaosy. Their normal gear is the same as that of normal chaos marines, so if you don't want to use sonic weapons you can just paint up some normal chaos marines.

But if you want to use the sonic weapons Noise Marines can take you have to represent them somehow. That's what the Noise Marine upgrade pack is for, and what a lot of people use guitars to represent.

[Jormengand]

Ok, so strictly speaking you can't play *Just* Noise Marines.

Unbound. Yes, you can.

[Manticoran]

Unbound. Yes, you can.

Fine. Very technically you can. It's just 99% a bad idea. Most people I know won't play against Unbound lists, and they tend to be pretty bad regardless.

[Jormengand]

Fine. Very technically you can. It's just 99% a bad idea. Most people I know won't play against Unbound lists, and they tend to be pretty bad regardless.

Most people I know will, and "I'm spamming noise marines" will probably get a better reception than "I'm spamming heralds of Tzeentch, ML 3"

[GoblinGilmartin]

Noise Marines can be represented by any 'chaos' marine figure, which can be represented using almost any marine miniature with minor modifications to make them chaosy. Their normal gear is the same as that of normal chaos marines, so if you don't want to use sonic weapons you can just paint up some normal chaos marines.

But if you want to use the sonic weapons Noise Marines can take you have to represent them somehow. That's what the Noise Marine upgrade pack is for, and what a lot of people use guitars to represent.

That's the kind of thing I wanna know.

[Closet_Skeleton]

A Slaanesh army can contain pretty much any Chaos Space Marine unit that isn't Khorne, it just probably shouldn't have a lot of Nurgle or Tzeentch stuff.

Noise marines stopped interesting me when they killed the fun by discontinuing the first/second edition models. (http://heresyandheroes.com/2014/11/28/miniature-focus-noise-marines/)


So, what I'm getting from your answers is that it sounds like anything goes? I can take any "marine" style troop, paint it bright colors, and call it a Noise Marine? So accuracy is more a stylistic choice? I'm a tad confused.

There used to be Noise Marine boxes, but they were just regular Chaos Marine boxes with the upgrades you now have to buy separately included.

40k is a pretty loose game. You have to use GW products to play in GW owned stores and some tournaments but even then its completely flexible about what model you're using as long as it follows one important rule:

"what you see is what you get" (usually abbreviated to WYSIWYG)

This means the model has to have something on it to represent the equipment you're saying he has. A noise marine's equipment is:

power armour
bolt gun
bolt pistol (usually you can ignore secondary weapons like these for wysiwyg)
grenades (usually you can ignore these for wysiwyg, or just give them to some of the models)
mark of slaanesh (which is usually more colour scheme than modelling)

+ any upgrades

So any model with that equipment is a legal noise marine by wysiwyg. Though wysiwyg is actually most important when it comes to upgrades, its safe to ignore some of the default gear, you can even have the odd model with incorrect default gear, but upgrades should be more precise. You don't want to suddenly have to say that all the swords your models are carrying are actually power axes but if you want one of your bolt gun guys to be holding binoculars and staring off into the distance then that's cool as long as its clear what the majority of the rank and file have.

But it is actually quite flexible as to what you use to represent those upgrades. For example, any kind of radio looking thing can represent a Guardsman's vox caster, a power maul can be anything that looks like a big bludgeoning instrument, it doesn't have to be an official power maul.

A space marine with a bolt gun is not WYSIWYG carrying a Sonic Blaster, but a Space Marine with something vaguely sonic to represent that upgrade is because what really matters is that the upgrade is represented.

Then there's proxying. This is when you use a model that is not WYSIWYG, this is done often in friendly games but is a no no in tournaments and even plenty of friendly people frown upon it.

Then there's Counts As which is slightly different. This is when you take a usually heavily customised model that doesn't have any official rules of its own and borrow rules from an existing unit to represent it. These are still WYSIWYG, but more creative. For example, Astra Miliatrum Imperial Guard don't have biker units officially, so you use the rules for Rough Riders who officially ride horses for your converted bikers. Or to continue the cavalry examples you have a custom Space Marine chapter that rides giant lizards, so you use the Space Wolf rules and say that your giant lizard riders count as Thunderwolf riders.

[Artanis]

Then there's Counts As which is slightly different. This is when you take a usually heavily customised model that doesn't have any official rules of its own and borrow rules from an existing unit to represent it. These are still WYSIWYG, but more creative. For example, Astra Miliatrum Imperial Guard don't have biker units officially, so you use the rules for Rough Riders who officially ride horses for your converted bikers. Or to continue the cavalry examples you have a custom Space Marine chapter that rides giant lizards, so you use the Space Wolf rules and say that your giant lizard riders count as Thunderwolf riders.
I recall one of the guys in the main WH40K Tabletop Thread having turned a WHFB dragon into a seriously badass Heldrake.

[The Glyphstone]

So, I've been toying with getting some 40k figures put together, and I was wondering how exactly I do that?
Here's my scenario. Because there are so many different factions, I'm just going with an army that stuck out to me. I chose the Slaanesh Noise Marines, because they fight with sound and are pink (I've always wanted to kick butt with sherbet colored troops). But my brief googling doesn't give me the straight answer. How would I "make" them? Are they specific figures? I saw some add-on bits that I assume go on other figures, I'm assuming vanilla chaos marines? Can someone give me an idea of what I'd need?

Well, the first thing you need to do is sell one of your kidneys and/or children...:smallbiggrin:

[Grim Portent]

Well, the first thing you need to do is sell one of your kidneys and/or children...:smallbiggrin:

Oh shush, I can build a 1k chaos marine army for £80. It's a terrible army, but it's cheap. :smalltongue:

[boomwolf]

That's the kind of thing I wanna know.

There ARE official noise marine parts to build on top a generic marine kit (usually chaos space marines, but I'd go space Wolf gray hunters)

However, general rule of 40k is that alternative appearance is kosher as long it's cool and clear.

[GoblinGilmartin]

I just ordered a lot of ten chaos marine figures on amazon for $36