Never played the table top but have played the Dawn of War series and really enjoyed it (DoW 1 is better than 2 and even better with mods. Dawn of War 1 is great and Dawn of War 2 is good.) and look forward to Total War: Warhammer. Both DoW 1 and 2 are far better with their expansions imo. I know some of the 40K lore because I looked at the Wiki when I started playing Dawn of War, so I would go there if you want to find out more, as well as the Lexicanum for 40K which someone else mentioned. I assume the wiki for fantasy is just as useful (I don't know yet but will know when I start looking at it around the release of Total War: Warhammer.). I expect there is a fantasy Lexicanum equivalent too.

Dawn of War is a standard base building spam troops and rush RTS.
Dawn of War 2 is more true to the lore and tabletop with no base building and much more limited troop numbers.

I'd guess it would go something like this.
Main interest is RTS - Dawn of War.
Main interest is Warhammer 40,000 - Dawn of War 2.

My contact with WH40k franchise has started "for good" with Dawn of War series (since very first game). I had earlier brief contact with Chaos Gate and Rites of War, but they didn't "triggered" fascination yet (surprisingly, at this moment they're one of my favourite PC games from WH40k universe, especially Rites of War).

A bit later to video games joined some books (especially Gaunt's Ghosts, my favourite series) and board games - or rather card game (WH40k: Conquest) and Relic (although this one turned out to be too tough for me due to veeery long gameplay time, so I regret a bit buying it).

I never "caught" Warhammer Fantasy, but probably because there are so much fantasy worlds in literature and video games, that I didn't feel some urge need to try this.

WH40k, on the other hand, is for me a perfect antidote for infantile/juvenile Star Wars universe - I personally consider it as very flat and bland comparing to WH40k universe, or even Starcraft's universe. And unfortunately, Star Wars is the most popular amongst those three :P

I was wondering multiple times about getting into tabletop Warhammer 40k, however there are a lot of "buts":
- I'm not convinced about measuring every move of my units and counting every hit (especially due to my sibligns, who are very afraid of any "more complicated" stuff in case of tabletop/board games),
- my terrible manual skills (assembling and painting - I'm simply afraid of doing it and broke expensive miniatures)
- style of miniatiures (I've got impression that there are some weird midgets with disproportion of body)
-prices and "collectibility" (I don't like if any game is "endless black hole" consuming more and more money, no matter if video game or board/tabletop game)

I'm dreaming about something with figures, but with more "standarized" movement/combat system (e.g. something like in Neuroshima Hex, but on bigger board). But I don't think that there exist something like that (or maybe I'm wrong?)

I sympathize the most with Imperial Guard/Astra Militarum (yes, due to the fact that they're "just common guys" who can count only on their courage, intelligence and wargear). But in practice (so mostly in video games) I'm usually aiming into playing with Imperial Guard, Space Marines or Tau (although I dislike a bit those for their ideology).

Nowadays... Well, I'm still mostly focused on PC games. I love Gladius: Relics of War and Sanctus Reach, sadly I've lost a lot of my admiration for WH40k: Armageddon, when I've realised how much lacks it has. And of course I'm eternally sad about what they've done with Dawn of War 3 - I've spent many hours with every, every Dawn of War game and add-on. Except Dawn of War 3, which bored me very quickly, despite three attempts.

I have looked into it and it seems interesting, but I have no idea where to start.

I gather the Orcs are bad, but I don't understand the lore between all the factions. How do you decide who and what to play?

Are there any books or resources that can get somebody the basics into the series?

There are two quite rich wikis about WH40k universe:

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Warhammer_40k_Wiki
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Main_Page

There are also books named Codex for each army, which present information about specific race.

According to what I've read in the past, best method to choose your army is reading about their specific in battle and "general" specific (origin, behaviours etc) and choose one which looks most appealing for you. And not trying to find opinion "which race is the best for me", because you'll receive 100 different answers ;)

(just the knowledge basing on articles I've read in the past, not from my experience, since I've never decided to start collecting any army)

I believe ths counts as thread necromancy, which is generally frowned upon.

And now I'm part of it too. NOOOOO!!!

I just made a recent thread regarding a Warhammer Fantasy Diablo Clone and how much I want it to come to GOG.

Then someone, somehow found this ancient thread.

MartiusR is the necromancer here xD

But again, as in your other thread, WH40K has more supporters than the fantasy theme. Despite TW:Warhammer 1 and 2, i think the awesome Dawn of War original game series have to do with this (DOW3 is a disgrace, imho)

I am one of the few who liked 3 and think the most of the hate for it is blown out of proportion. Honestly they did make it hard by deciding not to make it like either of the previous 2 though and it didn't have enough launch content either.

Since my ancient post in this thread warhammer total war and what is effectively the first expansion has been released though. Both really are brilliant but the second's post release cycle has been a disaster. A huge mess up implementing their early adopter bonus into it created a 4 month content drought earlier this year. However what's worse is there currently is another drought of at least the same length this time for no apparent reason. Whats there is great but is unbalanced like half of the core races for the second game don't have their lord pack and won't get it next either. I would still recommend but stuff like that is ridiculous.

I didn't find Dawn of War 1 and 2 that great from a gameplay perspective and for different reasons.

Dawn of War 1 just felt too dated and clunky. Why can I only control 8 units at a time? Why is the AI Pathfinding so godawful? Warcraft 3 played better then this :P.

Dawn of War 2's problem is that it felt too slow and most of the missions felt samey and it was rather loot grindy. And the story presentation in that game is not a strong as it was in Dawn of War 1.

You might be confusing it with something else, there is no limit on the number of units you can select at a time in the first Dawn of War games.

Never played on the tabletop, but I've been on a 40K PC gaming kick since Humble gave away Space Marine (which I'd already played on 360, but it's nice to be able to aim properly this time round), and ended up reinstalling and playing more of Dawn of War I&II, Space Hulk, Regicide etc.

On that note, anyone played Battlefleet Gothic: Armada? Reviews seem to be very inconsitent for it (the professional reviews at launch are almost all very positive, but the Steam reviews are incredibly negative). It looks amazing, and I love the idea of a slow, tactical, positioning-and-angle-matter space RTS, but... it might suck.

It's also currently about £7 on Humble, so I thought I'd try it to see if it's worth getting the imminent sequel (which is set to have a lot more content).

Confusing with what?!

In Dawn of War 1 I clearly see that I can only control 8 units at a time.

Like in Starcraft 1 I can only control a total of 12 units at a time.

Is it vanilla Dawn of War? Winter Assault? Dark Crusade? Soulstorm?
I haven’t played versions prior to Dark Crusade for quite a long time, so maybe I forgot about such restrictions that would be effective only in older versions. But in Dark Crusade you can select all of your units at a time, there is no limit.