Okay so I'm on the verge of hitting 40 ( will hit it tonight) and was curious.

Should I keep hitting the battlefields and racking up honor/rank and a lil exp via turning in bf runes.

Or should I just focus on hitting 60 and then pvp?

Soloing to 60 is slow work, but it is happening even when me keeping my leatherworking leveled.

My son is a level 16 warrior and loves the battlefields. He contends that getting the rank now at a lower level is actually better than later. He's 13 and knows all of course!

Fandros

If you're interested in getting a certain rank, do it before you get in the 60 range. Else, you'll be competing against well organized guild teams and people who've been farming MC/BWL/ZG loot for months and have an unbeatable advantage over you.

The thing is that there are certain soft caps on how high you can rank in a level range.
The same effort you invest into getting non-com ranks in the lower levels can get you well into the officer ranks at 60.

Even if you invest the same effort into it as the rank 12-13 grinders do (ie 14 hours a day pvp) it is probably impossible to reach higher than rank 4-5 before level 50.

I guess it all depends on what is your goal, if you like BGs then you can level up on the xp you get from the rune turn ins, I know that few (select) people got to 60 that way.

I guess it really depends on your server, on my server there is always 3 to 10 ABs up at any given hour (except for very early in the morning) for the level 60 bracket but the same isn't true for the lower levels who sometimes have to wait for hours to get into one.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out that you can make more honor in level 60 ABs even if you lose every single one of them to guild groups if you don't have to wait in queue than if you win every single AB in the level 50-59 bracket but you have to wait an hour or two in queue after each one.

Also never forget that guild groups are usually made up by high ranking people and they give more honor per kill, sometimes you make more honor by losing to a guild group of rank 10+ people than winning to pug of rank 3-5s.

As always YMMV, my experience comes from a US pvp server (Deathwing)

Sanchek is right.
Also, as far as gear goes, once you hit rank9 you won't be substituting your gear for a long time. I'm still using my chest piece, since the teir1 purply was a 50hp upgrade (we're on dkp).

well..
As you are Horde on Elune... getting rank is pretty easy. There are only about 25 hardcore PvPers on our side, and by the time you hit 60, many of them will have mustered out.

Keep in mind that decay of your honor is the enemy. if you get rank at early level, and you want to maintain it.. you are in essence fighting two battles at once. One to gain Exp, the other to maintain rank.
I pvp about 30 matches a week and am at Centurion (rank 9). I need about 60k just to fend off Decay at this point. On Elune, 100k in a week will almost certainly let you rank up. Add to the fact that Horde wins about 9 out 10 games, even PUGS. Once you hit 60, you know youll always have a place in a group im in. =) We have a pretty good crew of random people that pvp alot.
Also, as horde.. 5 secs after we Queue, we are in a match.. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Whereas Alliance seems to have sometimes as much as a couple hours wait in the queue. So we can bang out about 3 to 4 matchs an hour.

Its good to be the minority.
Do what you feel like doing that day Fanny, it really doesnt matter

A few things. First, get rank 3 ASAP. I'd say get it at level 25 or so if you can. That way you save $$ on all your purchases, like your mount. Generally though, PVP just isn't worth the effort until ... like Sanchek said ... level 59. The honor / kill is so pitifully low in even the 40s that you will waste so much time and ultimately can't achieve much more than the lower officer ranks.

Do the first few ranks asap as Kelraz said, the savings is well worth it as well as the food/drink available are usually better quality than what you'd buy from a vendor. Myself I've spent most my time since level 54 in BGs. The leveling is slower but you're working your way towards accumulating some nice cheap gear in the process. Also you don't burn up all of your rest XP in the BGs so its nice when you and your friends do decide to go burn through a few quests for the night.

1 day in a BG at 59 or 60 is equal to 7 days in a BG at any level below that, honor wise. It just doesn't make sense to invest time pvping until you hit 59 really ... (at 59 you are the top of your bracket, making you a killing machine. With good gear, honor is faster acumulated at 60 than 59 but with poor gear 59 gives you the edge. You will still never hit the top few ranks until 60)