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BrookM wrote:
And I like to run around naked all day listening to my flaccid member slap against my thighs because HAHAHA, dangling parts! But you don't hear me say that every odd dozenth post.

I think I speak for everyone here when I say I'm very glad of that, BrookM

Hi All! Gaming on a budget, a fav topic of mine as Ive had to do it for years, due to being skint!

Bin diving! As has been said before, one mans trash is anothers treasure. Electrical stores, office supplies, and office blocks are all a good source of poly mouldings used for packing goods, with loads of potential for conversion into various building.
Sign making companies often bin offcuts of perspex, HD poly and other plastic sheeting, fantastic for basing (unaffected by climate like wood based materials can be) and building construction.
Supermarket signage is often foam core or HD poly (hard plastic sheet with a smoth surface and a foam interior if you look at the egdes closely, takes a little effort to work, no more than hardboard, but is strong, light, resiliant and take spray paint well), ask if they are binning any, worst they can do is say no!

Painting LD poly can be a pain. Stores such as 'The Works' in the UK usualy sell kids posterpaint, 500ml = £1, a bit naff on its own, but mix in a healthy dollop of PVA, same place and price, and it covers well sticks well and takes knocks well. Mix in sand for texture.

For custom made buildings, cork floor tiles rock rock. Easy to work, take paint well, flexable and resistant to damage, and if you nibble the edges off (pliers or teeth) looks like broken concrete.

Like your diet, make use of seasonal produce! After Christmas especialy, many decorations are sold off for pennies. One good plastic tree can provide enough forest to give a Catachan wet dreams.

Another aspect of doing it on the cheap, many small electronic component are shipped in eggbox type foam, great for packing minis, and couple lots of this with a sub £10 powertool case from a DIY store and you have a perfectly good figure case for a pitance in comparison to the GW one. Foam can be bought quite cheaply anyway, so you can still make you own cases economicly.

Freeserve - a good potential source of building materials, especial timber and sheet materials if you dont mind cleaning them up.

Use your imagination! Food tins, pringles tubes and loads of stuff you bin are fantastic materials. Stick your head in charrity shops and look at the toys, mostly rubbish but sometimes you find gems for pennies. My best was a complete mint Space Crusade for £3, sold on for £60! But a truck bought for 50p and then 'blown up' make a great terrain piece, more interesting than another hill.

Finaly, if in doubt, ask! 99% of the time folks are happy their craps not heading for a land fill, but now and again they get funny. Dont push it, it is theirs afterall. Also if you ask, they might have something else they mention you want.

Here endeth the rant, hope somebody finds it useful!

Steve

Artyboy beat me to it, but it is worth repeating: Buy your paint elsewhere! There is no reason to pay almost $4 U.S. for a few milliliters of Skull White, when you can get a full ounce of Pure White craft acrylic for a dollar at a discount store. And don't get me started on GW-brand PVA glue!

The only thing I buy from GW are the washes. Finally, they did something right! Now they need to sell it by the gallon.

A note on Army Painter (dip)- it's relabeled, satin-finish acrylic wood stain, guys. You can buy a gallon of it at Home Depot for about the same price Army Painter wants for a pint.


If you are looking at placing a large order online, ask your FLGS if they would match the price if you ordered through them instead. You may have to wait a bit longer, but you won't have to pay shipping, and you support a local business.

When buying on Bartertown, eBay, the Swap Shop, etc., try to buy large lots or entire armies. It may be a larger upfront investment, but you'll usually save money in the end. You'll generally get a much better price than if you bought those items individually. And then you can always turn around and sell off parts you don't want or need to recoup some of your outlay.

Also, don't be afraid to give the seller of a large lot a lower (but not insulting) offer. If they're selling a large lot, they may be motivated to sell and therefore willing to accept a little less to have it all taken off their hands.

Great idea for an article!

Here are my E-Bay notes based from my own buying/selling experiences (some of which have been mentioned).

1.) Get a PayPal account. Makes the whole process much easier. (Although I understand there are other good options now, as well)

2.) Decide what you want (even if only a part of something e.g. Nob Power Klaws, Stompa head, Lasguns, etc.) and save your search for it.

3.) Decide how much you want to pay, including shipping. For complete items/models, with shipping, if you're not getting it for at least 15% under retail, its not worth it. This is VERY important. I am constantly surprised that people will outbid others and end up paying more than retail BEFORE SHIPPING! Its just weird.

4.) If you find something you want, read the description thoroughly. Some 'creative' sellers hide clauses, caveats and hidden shipping costs in the details, thankfully not too often.

5.) As mentioned, look at the feedback. But, more importantly, examine the feedback. All positives with a HUGE amount of comments like, "Item as described" and nothing else could mean they are guilty of being a 'creative' seller as mentioned in #4 or not very fast with their shipping (Although now a buyer can look at this).

6.) Ask questions of the seller. Don't be shy, sometimes sellers put up lots of items at once and may have missed something or simply made a mistake. Most sellers are more than happy to answer. And the question and answer is posted above the description for all to see, check that first as someone may have asked it already.

7.) Be patient! I can't stress this enough! People get so anxious to have the item NOW and they forget #3 ( I have done it in the past ). Sometimes that item is just not available right now but eventually it will be. Chances are you have other models that need to be assembled, converted, painted or whatever. Your masterpiece will wait.

My experiences with whole box sets over the last several months (all including shipping and rounded up):

Ork Battleforce x 2: $72 and $75
Ork Battleforce (old Style): $62
Ork Boyz (Old box set, 16 Boyz each!) x 3 (one sale): $28
Ork Stormboyz (Old box, 9 figs): $14

Hope this helps.

Just thinking about the Ebay and Maelstrom type shopping, I'm currently in the market to procure an Imperial Guard army.

Do you reckon I could include the purchasing of the force via non-direct GW methods, for an overall price comparisson? I tend to design fairly unusual forces, so I reckon this could work quite well as an example. Especially as I've never stripped a model before, this could be included as necessary to show how much or how little effort is involved?

The only thing about stripping is you gotta be willing to put in the work. For me, its an annoyance and I try to stay away from it unless its a model or two. Whole units? Yee-uch!

Stripping is work? Just get a gallon of simple green and an old coffee can. Fill the coffee can 1/4 full with simple green (the gallon bottles are concentrated) and fill the rest of the way with water. Whenever you want to strip anything just drop the models in the can and forget about them for a few days. Take an old toothbrush or, better yet, a fingernail scrubber to them and the paint almost always comes right off. There might be a few spots here and there in hard to get to crevices. If that's the case just throw them back in the stripper for another day or so.

fellblade wrote:Artyboy beat me to it, but it is worth repeating: Buy your paint elsewhere! There is no reason to pay almost $4 U.S. for a few milliliters of Skull White, when you can get a full ounce of Pure White craft acrylic for a dollar at a discount store. And don't get me started on GW-brand PVA glue!

But but , arnt GW hobby product the best quality there is? i have always heard how MIRACULOUS these items are
especially their paints!

Actually im pretty dead serious. Every time when a new hobbiest ask what paint to get,
the moment i say "vallejo" i get stoned to death for not recommending GW paints.

In all honesty, GW's Paint ain't all that bad. It sure beats the Testors/Humbrol jobs many newbies go for.

artyboy wrote:Stripping is work? Just get a gallon of simple green and an old coffee can. Fill the coffee can 1/4 full with simple green (the gallon bottles are concentrated) and fill the rest of the way with water. Whenever you want to strip anything just drop the models in the can and forget about them for a few days. Take an old toothbrush or, better yet, a fingernail scrubber to them and the paint almost always comes right off. There might be a few spots here and there in hard to get to crevices. If that's the case just throw them back in the stripper for another day or so.

I realize I said, "...put in the work," but I meant more that it is an annoyance and I don't like doing a whole units at a time. One model is no biggie. I stripped a whole unit once. I don't plan on repeating it. I'd rather buy new (well, unless I find what I need dirt cheap). Now that I think about it, I got that unit at a good price but not dirt cheap. Maybe that's another reason I hated stripping all of them little bastards so much.

GoFenris wrote:

artyboy wrote:Stripping is work? Just get a gallon of simple green and an old coffee can. Fill the coffee can 1/4 full with simple green (the gallon bottles are concentrated) and fill the rest of the way with water. Whenever you want to strip anything just drop the models in the can and forget about them for a few days. Take an old toothbrush or, better yet, a fingernail scrubber to them and the paint almost always comes right off. There might be a few spots here and there in hard to get to crevices. If that's the case just throw them back in the stripper for another day or so.

I realize I said, "...put in the work," but I meant more that it is an annoyance and I don't like doing a whole units at a time. One model is no biggie. I stripped a whole unit once. I don't plan on repeating it. I'd rather buy new (well, unless I find what I need dirt cheap). Now that I think about it, I got that unit at a good price but not dirt cheap. Maybe that's another reason I hated stripping all of them little bastards so much.

'

Well I do feel your pain. Stripping is a big enough pita that I've gotten pretty good at "touching up" paint jobs to make them passable. I still end up tossing half of the painted or primed stuff that I get into the stripper. To be honest it's more of a pain to clean up the mess of paint chunks that fly all over the place than it is to get the paint off of the models.

As for the GW paint sentiment I do have to agree with the guy who said that their washes are awesome. They are. I make my own and I can't make them as well as GW. The finished product looks just as good but it takes a lot more work to do it the old fashioned way. With GW washes you can just slap on some paint, go over it with a wash and watch all of the details and highlights magically appear.

LunaHound wrote:
But but , arnt GW hobby product the best quality there is? i have always heard how MIRACULOUS these items are
especially their paints!

Actually im pretty dead serious. Every time when a new hobbiest ask what paint to get,
the moment i say "vallejo" i get stoned to death for not recommending GW paints.

The problem with GW paint is not really quality... it's price. GW paint is pretty good for acrylic, though I cordially dislike their paint-pots. And I am quite the fan of GW's washes and Foundation Paints. Now, for any brand-name accessory in any hobby, you are going to pay a premium price. Some people tend to get really passionate about one line or another; myself, it depends on what color I am looking for. I quite like the P3 paints, but they aren't much cheaper than GW. I personally haven't liked Vallejo, it usually requires more shaking than I want to put up with, but there are other painters who swear by it.

I just think that for certain basic, often-used colors, like white or black, a cheap craft acrylic is a much better value. I bought an ounce of Apple Barrel brand white for fifty cents (on sale) several years ago. I'm still using it, and unlike GW paints bought at the same time, it shows no signs of drying up.

woo, apple barrel, thats what i learned to paint mini's with.

spent like 6 bucks, and had the paints to mix any color i might need.

I'll put in my opinion.

For beginners who will be more learnign the rules and armies I think the cheapest army route is buying atleast one battleforce. For most armies I would even say two. Good example being the necron one which if you bought two of yould give over 1500 points and would just require a HQ choice. Others like the Dark Eldar though only give about 700 points from the models i think and you may need to purchase a few more boxes.

Others still have it even easier, Marines and orks are perfect examples. Get one Battlefore and the assault on blackreach box set and if you don't have anyone wanting the othe rarmy sell it on ebay and you can afford your HQ choice more than likely.

I do aknowledge though that 2 battleforces is not the best army in terms of killing power, but for starting an army fo beginners it does not need to be, the point si they get into the hobby cheaply and can enjoy learning the game as their confidence and skills grow they will learn what units they need and can buy them over time.

I believe most of the battleforces when bought twice give over 1k point armies easily... bar the dark eldar from my calculations... but add in a HQ for most and your set for 1000 to 1500 point games.


Terrain.

Beginners won't want to blow tones of money on getting terrain started and lets be honest... building your own is one of th emost fun parts if you have the time and skills. If not there are plenty of buyable alternatives.

The simplest two can be achieved by the following:

Cityscape
1x A1 5mm foamboard
2x A4 7mm foamboard
Glue ( I use a glue gun was about £8 and extra sticks were few £)
Textured stone spray
PVA Glue tub
Hobby knife

simple method, cut out each floor (I do 8cm height, doors are 3cm wide 5 cm tall, windows vary from 3 cm wide and 3cm high) form the 5mm foamboard

glue two sections together, add floor made form the 7mm foamboard on top, then add second floor to the building.

cut some strips of 7mm foamboard and use as corner work and ground skirting.

coat edges in pva glue.

spray texture spray on, and paint, your building is done.

---------

The second is ofcourse grasslands

a few hills made from an inch thick foam coated in green and flock sprinkled on is enough in my opinion for beginners, and forest can be made buy buying a tub of cavity filling stuff or speckle i think some call it, and dumping a bit on some thin wooden bases, pop in some twigs form outside (Dry them first) and spray the entire thing black. brush brown over the twigs and green over the base, sprinkle flock and there you go the terrain is complete.

----------------


Thats two aspects done for the game so far, terrain and an army. the thrid is painting which can be done by doing the army (Once primed) in their major colour (for example Red)

Then paint over the small details and do the eyes, that should be sufficient and cheap enough for beginner sin not needing too many paints. I would reckon for starting uot 9 colours would be the max needed including a white and black.

------------

Finding the models is the next point, as plenty will say you can get them from online retailers who offer discount and thus should be taken from over GW itself.. the savingc scan buy you more models.

The next and little riskier is E-Bay which you could find an army on, but its someone else's army which may not suit your style, though it is a cheap way to get an army done quickly if you buy unpainted stuff and becarefult o work out the cost and postage equals no more than 75% of buying it form an onlie retailer. I sometimes aim only at items which work out 65% or more cheaper since its someone elses and i know there will no doubt be things which i am not happy with or are missing etc.

The third option is poxying until you know what you want and then buying the army squad by squad until the poxy's are gone and your left with your completed army.

---------

This leads me on to the important points:

KNOW WHAT YOU WANT FIRST - work it out, don't go in feet first and buy stuff onyl to realise it won't work... this is where the second point come sin... know what army yuo want. get the codex and the rule book, read it, work out what you like and then draw up some army lists... come on line and check them on sites like this to make sur etheir legal and people can help answer your questions. learn and build th elist... then go buy the models once your happy.

Though do not keep altering the list to be someone else's its your army and you should ofcourse take in comments about units being crap or not a good combo with X but in the end its your choices... play an army you like at first then elarn the rules and expand it to what you want form the hobby.

and have fun.

Super long Duce post done.

.

I think my biggest tip is to always only buy stuff you are going to definitely, 100% guaranteed to use, rather than stuff you just fancy.

If at any point you feel your hand being pulled in the direction of your wallet at the sight of the latest New Shiney, then immediately run to your pile of unpainted and unstarted projects, pull something out at random, and start painting it... Keep on doing that until the urge to buy goes away...

OK for new starters that's not very practical, but for them I'd still say shop around and only buy something you are going to use. Most of us have poured £squillions away on figures we fancied at the time but will be unlikely to ever paint up or game with so learn from that!

Our wives buy redundant quantities of shoes and handbags, we buy redundant quantities of toy soldiers. For the same reason - it makes us feel better.

So what we need to do is find ways of making ourselves feel better without spending more money. As a grognard with a huge lead mountain I do that by turning to that lead mountain and chipping away at that whenever I can as an alternative to buying something new "just because".

EDIT: DAMN!!!! Orlanth can type faster than me!!

Ok, some nice pointers above but rule number ONE has yet to be mentioned. Thus expect a thoroughly hypocritical attention grabber to get the thread back in a logical order:

DONT BUY MORE, PAINT YOUR BACKLOG FIRST.


Got army?
Unfinished? -- Still in box!?
Ok why are you entertaining thoughts of buying new?

Any bargain is a rip off price if you wont complete the stuff you have already got.

Another way to slowly build your models up is how i got most of mine, which to paint stuff for other people and get payment in models, a very good way to build an army up, or to get the bits you need.
Also whenever your at wargames show (and not gamesday) always check out the bring and buy sale and the second hand traders, most of the time you can get a good bargin there (unless the seller use's ebay as a guide and is asking silly cash for his item)

Orlanth wrote:Ok, some nice pointers above but rule number ONE has yet to be mentioned. Thus expect a thoroughly hypocritical attention grabber to get the thread back in a logical order:

DONT BUY MORE, PAINT YOUR BACKLOG FIRST.


Got army?
Unfinished? -- Still in box!?
Ok why are you entertaining thoughts of buying new?

Any bargain is a rip off price if you wont complete the stuff you have already got.

The problem is, once you decide to do that you learn to paint faster.

And then you learn to spend faster.

ok i will ignore that last comment about paint what youve got before you buy more.

just purchased 1800 points of space marines from http://www.waylandgames.co.uk for around £280 including P&P, however for ever £100 you spend you get an additional 1% off the cost so my P&P worked out about £0.63 and the delivery time was not too bad either.

Make a plan and stick to it!

My plan involves painting one full unit to completion before moving on to another. I've skipped basing my models until I've got the entire army painted so I can have a level of consistency that I haven't had basing them squad by squad.

Use cheap, natural, and easy to find basing materials. I live in Florida and while the beach is only an hour away, our great state is made of sand. I get very fine sand from my front yard, sift it through a seive, and bake it at low temp in the oven to dry it out completely. If you need coarse sand, visit construction sites, beaches, or playgrounds or chip in with your buddies and buy a bag of "play sand". One bag runs about $3.00 and can base an entire gaming club's armies along with their tables.

On that note, pine chips make for great rock piles after being glued to a stand, primed, painted, and flocked. Much lighter than real rock and very natural looking. If glued together with wood glue, they're not going anywhere.

Use old garage sale signs for plasticard. These are generally only going to be up for a single weekend and odds are likely the posters are going to thank you for taking them down for you. Small signs are excellent thin card and the thicker signs are very sturdy. My Necrons on the Cheap tutorials make extensive use of old signs in place of more expensive name-brand card.

As stated before, one man's trash and all that. Look to your own discarded packaging for basing and terrain materials. Convince the wife, gf/bf, sig. other, roomies, parents, etc. that this is stuff that you need and promise to use (not leave lying around...). To help organize, get a bin to keep all such materials in one place and stop collecting once the bin is full. Take a break from painting and get converting and terrain building!

Im TOTALLY on the paint bandwagon. If I can convert just 1 person to the cause, Ill feel satisfied. Seriously I use strictly Americana paint (minus the boltgun but Ill check out that folk art silver for sure) Its 2 ounces for $1 and honestly you cant tell the difference from GW quality and Americana. Best of all it comes in a tube with a squeeze nozzle on top, which is perfect for mixing. Try it and youll love it

Although I don't personally borrow or lend miniatures, I know plenty of people who depend heavily on the availability of other people's armies. You could even call it cheap.

KingCracker, I started off using Apple Barrel and Folk Art paints and I do notice a difference in the consistency and vibrance of color compared to GW and Reaper Master Series. I admit that they're a great way to budget paint an army and I'd definitely use them for a first army, vehicles and troops but I hesitate to use them for quality paint jobs.

I'm pretty sure it's because the pigments aren't ground as fine as modelling/gaming acrylics. Reaper has some information about it on their forums somewhere, comparing the Master Series (which I use - the skin tone triads are essential to any painter, very easy to use and produce natural and accurate shades) with the Pro Series (which I'd like to use) with other paint formulas.

That being said, I budget my paints to keep it cheap and buy one or maybe two pots of paint per payday, for me that's about every two weeks. My wife got the wash set for me as a stocking stuffer for Christmas, but that's the only large paint purchase I've acquired. I've got a wide range of the Citadel paints and about half of the foundation colors, along with about 30 or so Reaper Master Series shades.

One way to help defray the cost of buying paint is to organize Painting Days at the local FLGS, encouraging participants to share paints. You might be running low on Rotting Flesh, but the guy across the room might have a full pot to lend.

I know I'm just reiterating some of these thingshere, but they are worth repeating, and there are a few other things to note:

1) BARTERTOWN.
Bartertown has been around since 1996. It's the oldest gaming trade forum online I know of. Currently, there is *just shy* of 16,000 members. Although, obviously, not that many are ACTIVE users, there is still a large base of traders there that cover the globe.
With the reference system that is built in and the extensive staff with unmatched years of expereince focused on Internet trades, it's a spectacular tool for those wishing to get into the hobby on a budget.
My personal Space Marine army came from there almost exclusively. It's almost all purchases (some trades) and was all NOS (new on sprue), NIB (new in box) or NoffS (new-off sprue). My total expenditure for the 5000+ point army was 50 to 60% retail.


2) Dakka swap shop.
For just being 1 thread, the Swap Shop here does a fair amount of movement of gaming items.


3) Chaos Orc.
He regularly has models that are 25% and more off.


4) Other Online Rretailers.
Warstore and MiniatureMarket BOTH offer 20% off and have SPECTACULAR customer service.
There is, allegedly, another online option, but their name escapes me. : )


5) Trade instead of buy.
Everybody has SOMETHING that someone else wants, it seems. Maybe you're new to 40K, but have an extensive D&D collection you don't use any longer. SOMEONE wants those books. What about that PS@ and related games you haven't touched since buying your PS3?
Even if someone doesn't have any models you want, you can always trade just to get better trade goods.
When I started trading, that's exactly what I did. I took a bunch of MK mini's, as well as M:tG cards and Pokemon cards my kids weren't using any longer and exchanged them for random MIB 40K stuff. I took that stuff and traded IN MY FAVOR for preowned models for the army I wanted to play.
I did the same with old AD&D books.
Although, there IS a longer time investment in doing this, it works. After all, the question is how to do it CHEAP, not FAST.


6) Buy on ebay
Duh.
If you can get great deals (and, in a couple instances, you can), then go for it.


7) Buy/trade for poorly painted items.
ANYTHING can be stripped (although I am not certain what the best way to strip RESIN is, THAT is a different thread).
Again, remember that we're talking about CHEAP options here, not QUICK & EASY. : )


8) DO NOT SELL ON FEEBAY.
If you have other things you want to get rid of in order to fund the 40K hobby, Feebay and their mutant offspring PayPal eat away at your profit margin like a flesh eating virus on a fat guy.
Sell them on Bartertown or on the Trade forum here. You might sell for less, but you'll probably end up ahead after factoring in the fees you aren't paying.
Accept USPS Money Orders exclusively, if possible. Only take PayPal from foreign buyers. A USPS m.o. can be cashed AT the USPS. This eliminating the possibility of you getting taken by a fake M.O. Accepting PayPal from foreign buyers DOES cost more, but you won't have the worries of getting ripped off by fake M.O.'s or paying fees to your bank (usually $20 or more) for depositing foreign items. Granted, PayPal has other things to worry about, but you're going to have to risk it if you're selling outside your home country (which, for MY example is the US, since it's where I am and what I know best).


9) If you MUST SELL them at auction:
If you feel the compulsion to sell them at auction, and can't be swayed, forget Feebay. Try www.games2trains.com. It is a VERY small and extremely underutilized auction site geared SPECIFICALLY for Hobby Enthusiasts (it was originally a gaming auction site). They do NOT charge for auctions under a certain value (either on a "by auction" or "monthly" basis or something. I can't recall the price structure). When they Do charge, it's nominal (especially in comparison to Feebay).


Your most important tool in this will be PATIENCE. It's not a fast way to grow your army. If you're looking to get into the hobby as cheaply as possible (or get an army as cheaply as possible), you've got to be willing to make certain sacrifices and do a little more work on the minis than if you bought them new. This way isn't for everyone. That's a given. For those who CAN do it, though, you'll save a fortune.

Eric

May seem ridiculous but if you for some reason like to sculpt things, you just need to buy putty.
Seriously It takes lots of patience and I consider this my main hobby now, good thing is I save tons of money.
Get some bitz, putty and its time to have fun, just dont espect a playable army to be finished soon.

The feebay/paypal argument is beaten to death on forums it seems. The fact is that it's very unlikely that you'll sell your stuff for anywhere near what you'll get for it on ebay. I just did the math on my last few month's sales and between paypal, packaging materials and ebay my fees totalled about 10% of total sales. Sure it sucks when you get that $30 bill from ebay fees at the end of the month but when you realize that you sold a few hundred bucks worth of stuff that might have sold for half of that on a message board then you quickly see that it's money well spent. Some people are just so dead set on getting something for nothing that they can't stand paying an associate to help them sell an item even if they end up making twice as much by using the associate. Some people don't like to do things like advertise or offer great customer service, either.

If you start selling a lot it'll save you big bucks if you save boxes, bubble wrap, bubble lined mailers, foam lining and other packaging materials that you get when you buy stuff. If you do have to buy boxes or mailers buy them in bulk off of ebay.

Forums can be a great place to buy stuff. Unfortunately, you have to sift through a lot of overpriced crap and stuff that you don't need to find the good deals on stuff that you actually want. It's not easy to search for the stuff that you specifically need. They aren't a great place to sell things, either. Anyone who does a lot of selling will tell you that they prefer trading on forums because people aren't willing to pay a lot. You can get some really good deals by trading, though. The biggest issue with forums is that there's little accountability and it's easier to get scammed.

Maelstrom games was nice. I live in Ohio and it got to me in about a week and a half I would say (ordered 3 Termy boxes and 2 LRC) and was packaged quite nicely to avoid the boxes flying around in the container.

Only cost me 200$ for that lot I think. Retail it would have been like 260+.

I experimented a few years ago with ebay. I set aside $200 and looked for 'lots' of minis. I bought my first one for much less than retail, kept what I really wanted out of it and relisted the rest, seperately. I ended up making almost $300 back. So I paid for my stuff, got all of my start-up money back and made an extra $100. PATIENCE is the key to this. Single items typically sell for more (once you add them all up) than large groups of minis.
As far as the paint goes, I, personally, will NOT skimp on quality paint. I own at least 30 different kinds of paint (airbrush textile-automotive, pinstriping, oils, acrylics, miniature) and they are all VERY task specific. Vallejo/GW are my paints of choice for minis. Just my 2 cents on that one.