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A few of the recent discussions on the boards has led me to think about gaming and the means behind the gamers. By means I mean money, and it seems that a lot of people complain about how much they have to spend or the lack of ability to spend much. I am fortunate enough to have to have the means for a large amount of toys with all the frills I can justify. I also understand being a poor college kid with limited means to barely get by on days of ramen and scavenging the internet for torrents to get my gaming fix.

So with that in mind I was wondering if I was alone in my rabid spending habits or are there those of you out there who have large disposable incomes that like to buy up everything in sight that is interesting to them like I do. I would also like to clarify that I am in no way trying to pressure people into disclosing any information they would like to keep to themselves. My interest has just been peeked from recent thread activity like "using ipod apps for dice rolling" "owning all the army books" and "casino dice over chessex dice".

On that note
I have a 40 set of dice that cost me $90, with a 30$ leather tray to roll them on.
I do have an Ipod touch and use a chess timer for my games.
I own a copy of all the army books.
I have a closet full of unopened models including a warhound titan, a stompa, and probably close to 100k points worth of forgeworld and GW products. Not including the 10 or so 1 gallon zip lock bags full of bits.
I have all the current gaming systems with a healthy selection of games, plus a fairly large entertainment system to play them on.
I play wow and just ordered myself a second computer with: duel 1gig 9500s SLI'd to a matrox triplehead for 3 24" monitors, 8 gigs ram, 128gig solid state drive, and a AMD phenom 910 quad.

I take my gaming seriously and also try and donate as much as possible to the gaming community I am part of (HAAWGS). I have built 6 tables, several sets of terrain, hosted game and painting nights that included free beer and pizza =), helped to support The Big Waaagh and other local tournaments, and tried to be as active as I can be in helping any members with painting or gaming.

Again, I do not want this to come across as fishing for information or as an attempt to brag. I simply just want to know if I have a problem or if anyone else out there spends way to much money on games =)

All depends on your circumstances. Me, I'm at the stage where the kids have flown the nest and I have disposable income.
I've shopped around all over the planet so my army isn't 100% GW, what it is is big. So big, in fact, I've now run out of storage space, and if I deploy the lot they fill my 16x4 foot table.
Also, I put in the work time to get the disposable income, spend my days off building/painting/converting, so not much time to game.
So yeah, I've built a humungous army most kids dream about ( and most sales reps push), but a small section attack can be as much fun as a 4 day Armageddon.

I have no children (and can't have them) so my disposable income is all disposable. My wife knows that hobbies are important - and mandollies are cheaper than pissing my time away down at the pub/club or feeding the pokies.

I'm in a similar boat. I've got a low six figure income and my wife triples what I make (love ya babe - smooch). We live modestly...paid off used cars, a 15 yr mortgage payment that is less then 10% of our take home and save for college and retirements before doing anything else. We have zero debt and a big savings. Our ROI has almost surpassed my annual income on an average year.

So, the hobby is affordable to me. I'm a bit of a table top whore with a little bit of everything from a variety of game systems, Confrontation, AT43, Privateer Press, Helldorado, Alkemy, Wyrrd, Uncharted Seas, Firestorm Armada, CAV, Warlord, a Space Marine, Necron and Tyranid army for 40K and an Orc army for Warhammer. I have a metric ass ton of good terrain and the full range of VMC and VGC paints with a lot of others from GW, Privateer, and Reaper. I have a lot of collector models from Marauder and Citadel as well as other manufacturers.

I satisfy a lot of impulse buying through purchasing the cool new model in an army, painting it and selling on ebay.

I really enjoy the hobby and the camaraderie of getting together to play with both friends and strangers. My big splurge is Gen Con every year. 5 days, nice hotel, good food and fabulous friends and running gaming events for others.

well i have four armies, good thing is there mostly painted, but its about a balanced life i guess. But you dont have a problem when you run out of space and are still bying more, then you have a problem.

The cadian 45th

Well my worst year for gaming was when I bought all of my space marines at once. That set me back about 2000 dollars, and since I had nothing else to spend it on it wasn't a problem that I didn't know about discount stores so most of that came from GW. I have paid 1500 for a computer and have an xbox 360 with about 100 assorted games between my computer and 360. So I get where your coming from. Then uni loomed on the horizon and I haven't spent so much in the last year or so. Only a couple tanks and the odd squad of eldar, tau, orcs, oh and half a Brettonian army...

I started 40k as a broke college student, continued to play as a broke law school student, and enjoy playing now. I have more money than time these days, but still enjoy painting (sometimes).

What I don't enjoy is cleaning models; removing mold lines from plastic bits is a form of hell.

Clay Williams wrote:A few of the recent discussions on the boards has led me to think about gaming and the means behind the gamers. By means I mean money, and it seems that a lot of people complain about how much they have to spend or the lack of ability to spend much. I am fortunate enough to have to have the means for a large amount of toys with all the frills I can justify. I also understand being a poor college kid with limited means to barely get by on days of ramen and scavenging the internet for torrents to get my gaming fix.

So with that in mind I was wondering if I was alone in my rabid spending habits or are there those of you out there who have large disposable incomes that like to buy up everything in sight that is interesting to them like I do. I would also like to clarify that I am in no way trying to pressure people into disclosing any information they would like to keep to themselves. My interest has just been peeked from recent thread activity like "using ipod apps for dice rolling" "owning all the army books" and "casino dice over chessex dice".

On that note
I have a 40 set of dice that cost me $90, with a 30$ leather tray to roll them on.
I do have an Ipod touch and use a chess timer for my games.
I own a copy of all the army books.
I have a closet full of unopened models including a warhound titan, a stompa, and probably close to 100k points worth of forgeworld and GW products. Not including the 10 or so 1 gallon zip lock bags full of bits.
I have all the current gaming systems with a healthy selection of games, plus a fairly large entertainment system to play them on.
I play wow and just ordered myself a second computer with: duel 1gig 9500s SLI'd to a matrox triplehead for 3 24" monitors, 8 gigs ram, 128gig solid state drive, and a AMD phenom 910 quad.

I take my gaming seriously and also try and donate as much as possible to the gaming community I am part of (HAAWGS). I have built 6 tables, several sets of terrain, hosted game and painting nights that included free beer and pizza =), helped to support The Big Waaagh and other local tournaments, and tried to be as active as I can be in helping any members with painting or gaming.

Again, I do not want this to come across as fishing for information or as an attempt to brag. I simply just want to know if I have a problem or if anyone else out there spends way to much money on games =)

I think your smart. keep the faith brother!!! You've just ranked up there with John Wayne, Lee Marvin, and William Holden as one of my new heros in terms of the Cool Book.
- We need more supporters like you, guys like you are the motivators of the movers and shakers of gaming. Not only because your supporting it from the ground up, your putting it out there and arn't just some slacker. Collectivly, if no one's told you yet, Thanks for your hard work and efforts.

- If we don't do things like this, we're going to lose players and not cultivate a solid gaming community. It's looking like your doing your part, so your feedback and reward is going to be more player, more gaming, and good competition for all, along with solid, fun and interesting events to look forward to.

I'm not going to get into what I have and what I do, but lets just say we have alot in common.

If we don't do it, then the game is going to die. It's not like GW cares, all they do is provide the minis and rules. You want the fun, thats gotta come out of our ends.

If we were going to leave it to GW, they would have folded long ago. And to finish this off, Like has been said before, I'll put my money into mini's and beer if I want to because my pet stripper is all bought and paid for.

I'm about to enter broke college student-dom. It's not as if I'm going to be completely cut off, but while I enjoyed being a spoiled only child as well, a child, now that I'm not a little boy anymore, I feel guilty asking for things, even though I'd probably get them.

Like I said, I'm not getting cut off; far from it, in fact. I'm moving to California, and my Dad is going to be paying for all the really important stuff, like my apartment and a new-to-me car. But beyond that, I do want to be more self sufficient (and I'd like to take over those things when I'm able). If I was still in the Army, pulling down a steady 3000 a month, I wouldn't be worried. I'm just wondering what kind of paycheck a college student can earn in the greater San Jose area.

Sucks too. I really want to get the Battle Missions book, a Vendread and some Harbingers in the near future. :p

I didn't start wargaming until well after college. I played Magic in college, but made more from that than I spent (I've still got a complete beta set). (Another humourous aside - you can google search old usenet feeds. I found one where I paid $15 for an Ancestral Recall, which I thought was a ton of money back then. Recent prices for that card can be over $900. Not a bad investment really)

Anyhow, onto hobbies - Wargaming is currently my second most expensive hobby. My motorcycle is #1, by far. But, that's paid for, and once my wife finishes school, maybe I'll see if I can match them - doing a full chaos titan legion sounds fun.


P.S. I actually find cleaning mold lines to be somewhat relaxing. I generally sit on the couch with a fire in the fireplace, something to watch on tv, and move bits from one pile to another. If you haven't seen 'The Wire' you should check it out next time you have mold lines to remove. My wife and I watched all five seasons of it in a little over a month - it's that good.

I'm a British University student, and a huge portion of my spare cash goes on the hobby. What's left goes on alcohol. I've been told at times I'm meant to perform a function called 'eating', but my plastic krack comes first!

I started in high school, and unfortunately sold everything in college when money got tight.

I had to "buy in" again a year and a half ago, and it took several false starts to get where I'm satisfied with my army (wood elves... went from tyranids, to tau, to high elves, to lizardmen to get here). I decided that the only way to "stop" spending large amounts of money on this hobby was to get my army exactly where I wanted it (well painted, not by me, and complete) and then just play the games with it.

My wife and I don't have the income for me to keep spending on these things... so most of the time, if I want to buy something (for example, I just bought the old wood elf army book from a Dakka member) I have to sell something else (ebay'ed my old XM radio). Once I'm back on my feet jobwise it may be different... but we're going to be saving for a house and such, so most likely I'm just going to be satisifed with the army I have and enjoy playing the game

I started this stuff back in 6th grade, back when birthday and christmas money flowed like water. even so, I didn't outright spend all my money on the hobby. Usually, I would hold off for allowance and then used said moeny to buy minis.

Now, I'm 18. I get 300 bucks every week from work when its good. However, I usually put $200 in savings for my car. The rest gets to go to over-priced school lunch and haircuts for JROTC. Combined with a girlfriend, stuff gets expensive. This summer I did slurge on my IG, I bought the new codex, a Valk, a squad of 10 cadians, a senital and paint, along with some magnets for the valk and senital ($200).

This christmas I dropped $400 for my family on a PS3 with games, they love it but im still feeling the pain months later.

Before I'm a wargamer, I consider myself an avid hunter and gun-owner. If I wasn't in such an expensive area to do these hobbies, thats where most of my money would go.

I could easly spend tons of money on plastic crack, but when I get something it usually lasts me a while as I may take up to a month to finish even a squad of 10 marines with my schedule. I also really want a car and drivers liscense.....very bad. Thats where my money will ALWAYS go first.

Clay Williams wrote:A few of the recent discussions on the boards has led me to think about gaming and the means behind the gamers. By means I mean money, and it seems that a lot of people complain about how much they have to spend or the lack of ability to spend much. I am fortunate enough to have to have the means for a large amount of toys with all the frills I can justify. I also understand being a poor college kid with limited means to barely get by on days of ramen and scavenging the internet for torrents to get my gaming fix.

So with that in mind I was wondering if I was alone in my rabid spending habits or are there those of you out there who have large disposable incomes that like to buy up everything in sight that is interesting to them like I do. I would also like to clarify that I am in no way trying to pressure people into disclosing any information they would like to keep to themselves. My interest has just been peeked from recent thread activity like "using ipod apps for dice rolling" "owning all the army books" and "casino dice over chessex dice".

On that note
I have a 40 set of dice that cost me $90, with a 30$ leather tray to roll them on.
I do have an Ipod touch and use a chess timer for my games.
I own a copy of all the army books.
I have a closet full of unopened models including a warhound titan, a stompa, and probably close to 100k points worth of forgeworld and GW products. Not including the 10 or so 1 gallon zip lock bags full of bits.
I have all the current gaming systems with a healthy selection of games, plus a fairly large entertainment system to play them on.
I play wow and just ordered myself a second computer with: duel 1gig 9500s SLI'd to a matrox triplehead for 3 24" monitors, 8 gigs ram, 128gig solid state drive, and a AMD phenom 910 quad.

I take my gaming seriously and also try and donate as much as possible to the gaming community I am part of (HAAWGS). I have built 6 tables, several sets of terrain, hosted game and painting nights that included free beer and pizza =), helped to support The Big Waaagh and other local tournaments, and tried to be as active as I can be in helping any members with painting or gaming.

As I don't tend to have many expensive hobbies, much of the free cash I have is saved up for 40k.

However, the cost of this hobby is certainly a tad higher than most, and more often than not I find myself not buying for 3-5 weeks at a time. As I am still in HS, and currently jobless, it comes down to scrimping/saving, honestly. Buying secondhand/trading REALLY helps.

Hopefully, I can score a high-paying job, or something like that.

40k is pretty much my only hobby. As a result, I can afford to direct my disposable income towards it almost exclusively. Aside from a game on sale from Steam here and there, I don't buy much else for fun. Being a poor college student, it's good that I don't have too many avenues to pour my money down. Even then, I get most of my stuff through trades, secondhand purchases, or discounts.

To be fair I'm currently working through a huge backlog of stuff. Aside from the Battle Missions book, some odd paint and dice; I don't plan on buying anything new for a while.

To OP:

This might sound funny comming from a dumb brat like me , but here goes.

Whether or not you have a spending problem on GW , is solely up to you and only you to decide.
Only yourself can determine whether you need them or not , whether you have use for them or not , and ultimately for what purposes do they serve to you.

Well I got back into this hobby (40k yo) almost the second I stepped off the plane comin home from Iraq, and dropped about 1.5k on IG, paints, tools, etc... Then through my great paying job I was able to drop roughly another 500 on the guard, and so far about 500 on CSM. I was also regularily participating in tourneys, on top of the occasional game of MTG, and countless hours on the 360 and off-roadin in the truck (replacement part prices just seem to keep goin up and up...). However, now I'm laid off, broke, and spending MUCH more time painting than buying. Hooray for being global recessioned and finally getting armies painted.

I'm a college student, I was lucky enough to build my Warmachine army while I had no major responsibilities in high school, so all my cash could go to my hobbies. I'm noticing now though, with all my bills, that my 40k army is gonna take a while haha.

I have a hobby budget of about $50 a month, so my army building is more gradual. I used to think I was set, since I had a 6,000 pt Chaos Space Marines army. Of course, anybody who's read their latest codex knows what happened to them. ( ) Now, I'm sticking to the Orks, since in my estimation they haven't been ruined (Not yet) I would probably not spend more than that had I more disposable income, since I'm pretty laid back about modeling and painting. But, hey nice ego-stroke, dude...

I've read it and own it and had I not sold my CSM army it would have gotten better.

I had huge disposable income 10 years ago but then it was all going to latest computer toys. Soon as AMD or Nvidia or Corsair came out with new products I was buying. 95% of the guts of my tower changed to be something totally different about every 6 months. Only thing remained constant was hdd's and the optical drives as those didn't change as fast.

If I were to be 'into' the game more, yes I can certainly afford a good deal more models, forgeworld etc and probably be looking at completing a 3k army every couple of months.

For me though, with the complaints I've made about GW's prices, it comes down to 'Perceived Worth' on cost. I get very annoyed with the concept of 'elite troop' box of 10 figs costing me x3 of 'standard troop' box of 10 and couple that with plastics prices hoisted to metals prices, themselves hoisted after the 'tin crisis' thing and I'm left with a fairly poor view of the company... That leaves me begrudging spending my money with them. If they had been cheaper I would have bought far far more and spent much more.

But I wanted to congratulate you on your work for the hobby and contribution. As Grot said, we need more people giving back to the community.

I am lucky enough to have a large disposable income, and have had one since leaving school. The jobs I did all involved free accomodation, bills and food (or at least heavily subsadised) even though I am now working as an engineer for a printing company I have a low mortgage and share the house with a mate so that utility bills are low. This has allowed me to amass a large collection of little lead men.

However all that is about to change. After several years of disillusionment I have decided to go back to college and train to be a carpenter, once qualified I will be working with my future father-in-law and brotheri-in-law who do barn and farm conversions. For the last 8 years I have been stuck in jobs which pay well enough but offer very low job satisfaction. The only reason i have stuck with it is because the money is good, the work easy and nothing is tying me too it to make it stress me out. In the next couple of years I will be hitting 30 and getting married to Mrs Squilverine (I may even consider inflicting my offspring upon the world). So I thought that with real comitments ahead I should look to be doing a job that I enjoy and won't have me climbing the walls because I have no choice but to stay with it.

Luckily I have a decent amount of savings behind me to see me through college and a huge lead pile to paint my way through in my spare time. Sad as it may seem I factored in to my budgeting an allowance for the lead and plastic crack addiction. Everyone needs a way to unwind, that can be sprots, going to the pub, or other hobbies. I think it is healthy to indulge these past times and utilise them as a way of stress relief.

I'll spend what spare cash I have on my kids without a second thought, but I get huge guilt pangs whenever I consider buying anything bigger than a blister for myself. The habits of years of being a tight-arse are hard to shake off.

That said, I did treat myself to a PACK 1520 for Xmas.

It is inspiring to see so many positive responses to the original post. Plus I enjoyed reading all of them, keep em coming. =)

Working, no dependants, rent. Thus, able to afford w/ever.

I have resolved never to assemble and/or paint again. So when I buy a model it goes away for a few weeks, then appears ready to play. Good stuff.

To answer the original post though, yeah, I own a copy of all the codexes. I get about an army a quarter. Right there with ya bro!

I've been broke for a long time. When I was a kid, my purchases were very limited- my folks didn't support my hobby, I had to earn my money through part time jobs (although they did buy me the second and third edition boxes for christmas when they came out, and my mam, bless her soft heart, picked me up some of the old plague marines (the mono-pose plastics) in town when I was feeling depressed at one point.).

In college, the part time jobs were better paying, but I had to pay my keep, mostly. My parents were good enough to throw me 200 a month towards rent and food. I used to work full time in the summer too. Despite being fairly tight for cash, I started a couple of fantasy armies over the 4 years, with an eye to the cheapest options.
During my PhD I had steady, but low income. I bought a chunk of stuff back then, including my Hordes. Then I was unemployed for ages, and didn't buy anything.
When I got a job for a while, I splurged big time on ork stuff. Now, I'm back to being poor again, and have spent maybe 100 quid on the hobby in the last 4 months. It's still a significant amount, to me, as I'm living on very little.

So nah, your experience doesn't really ring true to me, but I've been 7 years in college, and wasn't well off as a kid so that explains it. I expect, if I get a full time position next year, my spending will increase!
I appreciate guys like you who make it possible for guys like me to go to events.

I've had several hobbies, and overall, minis aren't a very expensive hobby compared to some others (golf & motorsport come to mind). If you can afford it, and you enjoy it, do it.

I recently had a discussion with my mom about my spending money on 40k when I was younger. I can sum up her view point in one sentence:

"At least I knew you weren't buying drugs."

It CAN be expensive but if you know what you are doing, have some patience and ingenuity it can be a very reasonably priced hobby. Plus its cheaper than booze/drugs/gambling.

Clay Williams wrote: I simply just want to know if I have a problem or if anyone else out there spends way to much money on games =)

Do you have a probem? Impossible to tell based on your post. I'd have to know:

-How much of your income does gaming represent?
-Are you financially secure?
-Do you have adequate savings?
-How much do you spend on your family?
-How much of your income is going to improve the lives of others and the wider human community?
-How much of your attention does gaming take?

And after all those questions, it'd still be an answer from my beliefs/value systems, and likely not yours.

I've been thinking alot about this recently. I'm consider myself frugal when it comes to my hobbies (LEGO, Electric Bass, and 40k). I buy used, trade, repair and refurbish, etc, etc, and yet over the past decade, I've still managed (on modest means) to acquire 10 instruments, nearly a quarter million LEGOs, and 2 40k armies. Money has been tight for the past few years, and as my wife reaches the end of her schooling (which will double our previous income), and we plan for possible children in the future, it's become very important to us to put practices in place now that will ensure not only financial security, but also set a good example for our children on how they spend thier time and money in relation to themselves and others.

I don't have any concrete answers yet but I've been repeatedly putting myself and my practices through the above questions and I frequently come up short of my own ideals.

Good thread though. It's always good to self reflect and think critically on one's practices and lifestyle. I do think that in posting it here you'll get alot more pats on the back than encouragements toward truely critical reflection, but that's the nature of a gaming forum.