Quote Originally Posted by Cheesegear View Post
For the most part, pick an aspect you like, grab the Codex and the novel for that Codex (I think nearly all the armies have their own race-specific novel now, and if they don't, they're probably the main antagonists for another novel) and go from there.
Since you mentioned Codices, I immediately thought that any aspiring 40k-er should try to find the Second Edition version of their chosen army, if they can possibly get their hands on one.

You're right in saying that quite a bit of them have been surpassed by the new history - particularly in details about the newer units and recent IC Campaigns - but looking at my collection now I still think that 1) they still contain all the basic mythology of each race's history and 2) they are considerably richer in flavour text, art and supposedly trivial details than the current editions. Certainly, far far more than 3rd and 4th edition Codices.

Sucks to be Necrons, Tau or Grey Knights in this case, sadly, but for everyone else they're beautifully crafted sources of information from an age before additional novels and audio books.