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I am currently thinking about starting GSC near the end of the year (as I plan to close down some little projects (small MESBG stuff, rest of my Tyras, just the last few IG tanks) and opening up hobby time) and thought about just buying 5-6x the SC box and a brood coven, with 66€ per SC box (at an online retailer) this is already pretty expensive for just around 1k points. But then again, I have Imps and Tyras as allies/brood brothers.

Even more expensive is the thought of staring a (esp. Competetive) Ad Mech army. The laser chickens and doggos are pretty expensive. Thankfully I am not (yet) interested in Ad Mech.

 the_scotsman wrote:


What we've kind of settled on for a strategy is to play 1k point games, with the option of 2 players each bringing 500 or 1 playre bringing 1000. 500pts is most combat patrol boxes at this point.

That sounds very sensible.

 Gert wrote:
Just to ask, is it really that common for people to just immediately buy into 40k at 2k points?
I literally can't think of any person I've known who has started the hobby like that. Everyone I know started off with an Edition's Starter Box or a Battleforce (the old ones that got replaced by SC Boxes, not the £100 Xmas boxes).

I don't know about overall, but within the circles I play in it's not at all uncommon. I can name 5 people who who started 40k that way within the past year*.
One of them even started AoS like that nearly simultaniously. 1st he built a 2k pt AoS Lumineth army. Two months later he built a 2k pt SoB force.
Yeah, we joked about him giving GW all his $s.... Then when both of those forces gained additional stuff? He was all in for both. Now he has around 3k for each system. He went from having never played a minis game before to full speed in about 90 days.

What I see happen most often in recent years is that someone will join one of these games by building an army to whatever the most common size local games are played at.
After that they expand the force or buy into other forces within the same system more slowly.
Of course there are some slow build exceptions - the high school kids at the local shop simply lack the funds we adults can throw at a project/hobby. And alot of our AoS players who joined in 2019 started small as we were playing Path to Glory campaigns.

*2020 also had another factor $ wise going on here in the USA. The Govt. sent out several rounds stimulus funds to try & aid people while things were shut down/people out of work due to Covid. Nearly everyone got them, regardless of status.
Most of the people in my gaming circles? They were never out of work. In fact some were busier than ever.... So those stimulus funds? That was just extra $. Add that into vacation funds that weren't getting spent + overtime pay.... Yeah, they could afford entire armies in one go.
Not sure my Govt envisioned us stimulating the economy by buying toy soldiers, but that's what happened.

For me at this stage is a SC box and 2-3 other boxes. That gives you what would have been a full army in early 3e and I'm perfectly happy with that.

My necron army is SC plus Praetorians, Wraiths and a Spyder. That's 23 infantry, 3 large infantry, 2 vehicles and 2 leaders. Back in the day that was a pretty decent army! Maybe one more thing added to it and you'd be at 1500 points.

 Nevelon wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
Ultimately it's what's going to cause GW real issues as older players die off there won't be anyone to replace them.

The price of their mini's present a massive barrier to entry.

When I started you could buy models for £4 like terminators, characters were £7.

You could buy stuff for pocket money, now nothing's under £15.

Don’t forget to take inflation into account when you pull out the nostalgia glasses. I remember paying $20 for a box of marines, but in today’s dollars, it would be closer to $45.

I do miss blister packs. It made it easier to slowly build, and were more at a impusle buy or upsale level. The only thing you can walk out of a GW these days without spending “real” money is maybe a paint pot. They did do those blind boxes, which made decent stocking stuffers for Christmas.

Which inflation rate that you are referring to? The one that the central banks claim is inflation, or the inflation rate that Gee Dubs uses to justify a price hike on their plastic crack to us poly heads?

Custodes is cheap but get really expensive when you want anything other than infantry or bikes as they mostly live with forgeworld. Necrons on the other hand are crazy cheap due to being the unwanted child or the starter boxes. Also factor in the upcoming Imperium magazines, you’ll struggle to find a cheaper army.

Final consideration (if you’re being really tight) is the cost of paint. Necrons can use very few colours and still look good

 Da Boss wrote:
For me at this stage is a SC box and 2-3 other boxes. That gives you what would have been a full army in early 3e and I'm perfectly happy with that.

Agree, this is the point at which I feel like I have a coherent force, so ergo an Army. Now does it have enuff of whatever to meet all challenges? No. Is it an excellent base to build up from? Yes.

It's a shame that what was once an army, isn't even 2 squads, a vehicle and an HQ now.

The game is now undeniably way too expensive. For all the fuss of the "joy" of fielding a 2000 point army for a battle of 9th edition...the reality of that is an incredibly underwhelming and droll time sink of strategem babble and rerolls.

I would advise to spend the time exploring some of GWs other rule systems. Epic, in particular, holds up quite well and can be more or less proxied with 28mm models. Inquisitor is really cool too. I like 3-5th edition 40k as well, just feels like a better game with a lower model count.

TinyLegions wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
Ultimately it's what's going to cause GW real issues as older players die off there won't be anyone to replace them.

The price of their mini's present a massive barrier to entry.

When I started you could buy models for £4 like terminators, characters were £7.

You could buy stuff for pocket money, now nothing's under £15.

Don’t forget to take inflation into account when you pull out the nostalgia glasses. I remember paying $20 for a box of marines, but in today’s dollars, it would be closer to $45.

I do miss blister packs. It made it easier to slowly build, and were more at a impusle buy or upsale level. The only thing you can walk out of a GW these days without spending “real” money is maybe a paint pot. They did do those blind boxes, which made decent stocking stuffers for Christmas.

Which inflation rate that you are referring to? The one that the central banks claim is inflation, or the inflation rate that Gee Dubs uses to justify a price hike on their plastic crack to us poly heads?

Actual inflation.

I’m ignoring the fact that $20 got me 30 RTB01 marines, where a box of 10 interecessors is what, $60? GW is way ahead of the curve, no argument. But let’s not compare MSRP from ~20 years ago without some filters on it.

Even if GW went back to the old system, a blister pack would probably be $15-20 in today’s dollars for most of them.

 Gregor Samsa wrote:


I like 3-5th edition 40k as well, just feels like a better game with a lower model count.

What armies did you play? Because I played orks and Space wolves in 3rd and 5th and I definitely had more models back then. I basically keep all the lists I play, I'm not exaggerating, most of the stuff was cheaper in points in those old editions. The only real difference is probably the format as 1500 was quite popular at that time and in that case average games had of course lower model count. But many already played 2000 points.

For clarity when I posted about the cost of a 2k chaos knights army I was not talking about buying it all at once.

And with regards to 3D printers, I don’t know loads about them but from what I have read it’s not as if you just plug them in and you can start printing of GW quality models. Even the good models I have seen, printed off, need work before painting. And more work than the usual assent and mould line removal of GW minis

 Nevelon wrote:

Actual inflation.
I’m ignoring the fact that $20 got me 30 RTB01 marines, where a box of 10 interecessors is what, $60? GW is way ahead of the curve, no argument. But let’s not compare MSRP from ~20 years ago without some filters on it.

Even if GW went back to the old system, a blister pack would probably be $15-20 in today’s dollars for most of them.

comparing works in some cases
my old 5th Edi Army Book was 240ÖS, would be now 24€ including inlfation
but than, the book has less coloured pages, softcover etc.
you can compare it but it does not really work

having the box of 20 Cadians being the same price including inflation as the (now old) 10 model box is something different, speciall as those are the very same models

I have found space marines to be the cheapest if you don't mind buying 2nd hand badly painted job lots off ebay. I got 2000 pts for under £100. Units that aint 'meta' are also cheaper if you're not bothered about that.

On the flipside i'm building a retro metal ork army and sometimes paying £5 for a boy, because I love the models.

Those chaos knights are not really expensive compared to the joy they will bring - how many hours paintng and playing will you get? If you compromise and collect something you don't love based on cost you may regret it. Having said thatic lets be realistic, £90 is a lot of money. You could start with some cheap chaos space marines or alternate 3rd party model cultists and start playing, knowing you can ally with those knights when you eventually get them.

My Necron army is really cheap - it's Warriors (converted in many diferent ways to represent other units), Scarabs and rubbish.

 kodos wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:

Actual inflation.
I’m ignoring the fact that $20 got me 30 RTB01 marines, where a box of 10 interecessors is what, $60? GW is way ahead of the curve, no argument. But let’s not compare MSRP from ~20 years ago without some filters on it.

Even if GW went back to the old system, a blister pack would probably be $15-20 in today’s dollars for most of them.

comparing works in some cases
my old 5th Edi Army Book was 240ÖS, would be now 24€ including inlfation
but than, the book has less coloured pages, softcover etc.
you can compare it but it does not really work

having the box of 20 Cadians being the same price including inflation as the (now old) 10 model box is something different, speciall as those are the very same models

Looking at what I paid when I started it's about 35e if it was just inflation for box of infantry. So certainly 10e or so more GW addition. Then comes quality of model discussion. Now model details are better though monopose.

Sharpest increase on characters thanks to GW's fixation on everythings plastic even for models not ideal for plastic.

Big center piece certainly gone up in price though so has quality and size. Whether enough is matter of taste of course. Is Archaon now worth the extra money compared to say old dragon models? Price certainly has gone way up even beyond inflation but so has size and technically details are higher quality. Style of course is matter of taste(some might prefer less of those details).

Some kits have gone way up, some have actually gone CHEAPER inflation adjusted(solo vehicles/monsters that turned into plastic are particular common for these. Dreadnoughts for example) though those are minority Characters been big offenders. Cadian box is obviously another big offender(and other similar boxes that got repackaged into half the size).

I tried buying second hand models and to be honest they tend be in a state requiring so much effort to get them looking good that it’s not worth the saving

mrFickle wrote:
I tried buying second hand models and to be honest they tend be in a state requiring so much effort to get them looking good that it’s not worth the saving

That's the tradeoff

Myself been running into opposite issue. Can't find cheap 2nd handed. These days everything seems to get high price. And old models gets tagged OOP ULTRA RARE and price goes up the roof(boy did I get laugh when only copy of khamul the easterling on ebay I found was mounted+foot version for same price GW sells it + 2 other ringwraiths brand new...you REALLY have to love metal over finecast to pay that).

Certainly I pay attention to assembly+any damage. Paint job is whatever. It's easy enough to strip away as long as it's metal/plastic/FW resin(finecast is trickier).

I've never bought 2nd hand and not ended up regretting it.

My own building ability and expectations are now well above anything I can find for cheap, which means I buy it then either have to live with sub-par models or I just never touch them and buy a new model anyway.

Crispy78 wrote:

mrFickle wrote:
Steep sure but I tend to spend 20-30 gbp at a time so don’t notice it or buy the value boxes. Thinking about spending £90 per unit really hits home the cost

They're about £70 a pop on Dark Sphere...

This.

You needn't pay £90-100 per Knight, and nor should you. Dark Sphere are excellent, and offer about as deep a discount on new models as you'll find in the UK. When (if) the Renegades box is available, the price drops even steeper.

For Cerastus and Acastus Knights, you can find cheap examples on Ebay, so long as you're familiar with how to strip a model and re-finish any issues with the resin the previous owner may have caused.

If you avoid GW's prices, and spend wisely, Knights really are one of the absolute cheapest armies around.

+1 for recommending Dark Sphere.

As others have said, it varies from army to army, list to list and where you’re sourcing your models from.

Knights, with only a modicum of skill in magnetising models, are pretty flexible. Expensive at first? Sure. Even when buying and painting one at a time, £70-£90 is still a significant spent (other armies are more forgiving, as you might only do it a single unit or box at a time). But once that’s done, with magnetised weapons you can squeeze maximum flexibility, allowing you to change up your load out without needing to buy a whole new kit.

This is especially true of Chaos Knights, as they’re not as tied to specific load outs as their Imperial counterparts.

One can also shop smart. Indomitus for example was great for Necrons. Buy a single box, and swap contents with a Marine player and you’ve got a pretty solid core for about the best price you could hope for.

The overall expense also depends upon your gaming preference. If you’re into the tournament scene, you’re more likely to spend money keeping up with changes to the game. It’s by no means compulsory, but compared to someone just playing “friendly” games, you are more likely to spend extra.

The tighter your budget, the more I’d say plan ahead. Thinking of adding a new unit? Why not try proxying it for a game or two to see how you get on with it. Outside of an actual organised event, I suspect most opponents would be fine with that, as it can be a reciprocal arrangement. They may not need to do that themselves (everyone’s pocket is a different depth, and not necessarily limited to income constraints), but to know the option is there is encouraging.

A Knight army can be $500-600 with an extra little one for options. The GSC army i want is over 2k (USD).

It really depends on the army.

I am also in the 3d printing category but also buy one box per month of actual GW product be it a boxset (sometimes 3 or 4 a month is a cool box set like indomudus or beast snagga box) i think that is a better way to start a army if wanting to go pure out of GW models.
That said as mentioned you can do a custodes army for quite cheap and if willing to get some used models like contemptor dreadnaughts or land raiders off ebay and spray paint them gold they become even cheaper.

if willing to 3d print though depends on the printer, the highest detail printer small scale is ~$350 (phrozen sonic mini 4k) and resin ~$40 per kg for good high detail resin, with 2kg you could easily do a 2k point counts as army so that wins as far as price.

The game is officially supporting 500, 1000 and 2000 points missions.

Nobody needs to start right away with a big investment to play the game. Get a SC or combat patrol box of your liking and go ham.

TinyLegions wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
Ultimately it's what's going to cause GW real issues as older players die off there won't be anyone to replace them.

The price of their mini's present a massive barrier to entry.

When I started you could buy models for £4 like terminators, characters were £7.

You could buy stuff for pocket money, now nothing's under £15.

Don’t forget to take inflation into account when you pull out the nostalgia glasses. I remember paying $20 for a box of marines, but in today’s dollars, it would be closer to $45.

I do miss blister packs. It made it easier to slowly build, and were more at a impusle buy or upsale level. The only thing you can walk out of a GW these days without spending “real” money is maybe a paint pot. They did do those blind boxes, which made decent stocking stuffers for Christmas.

Which inflation rate that you are referring to? The one that the central banks claim is inflation, or the inflation rate that Gee Dubs uses to justify a price hike on their plastic crack to us poly heads?

Honestly, the pricing sucks but if the past 10 years of mobile gaming and Nintendo scams (skyward sword on switch for 60$?!?! They didn't even change it!) have taught us anything, it's that money isn't as big of a barrier to entry as you'd think.

Painting will always remain the single biggest barrier to getting new people into GW games.

a_typical_hero wrote:
The game is officially supporting 500, 1000 and 2000 points missions.

Nobody needs to start right away with a big investment to play the game. Get a SC or combat patrol box of your liking and go ham.

Just because you can play doesn't mean it works. Gw games are unscalable. The super wonky system works somehow in one size. Change from that and it goes crazy

 G00fySmiley wrote:
I am also in the 3d printing category but also buy one box per month of actual GW product be it a boxset (sometimes 3 or 4 a month is a cool box set like indomudus or beast snagga box) i think that is a better way to start a army if wanting to go pure out of GW models.
That said as mentioned you can do a custodes army for quite cheap and if willing to get some used models like contemptor dreadnaughts or land raiders off ebay and spray paint them gold they become even cheaper.

if willing to 3d print though depends on the printer, the highest detail printer small scale is ~$350 (phrozen sonic mini 4k) and resin ~$40 per kg for good high detail resin, with 2kg you could easily do a 2k point counts as army so that wins as far as price.

Provided you consider time+labor to be largely free. Cleaning and prepping even extremely high quality resin 3d prints for painting is far more arduous than cleaning a handful of moldlines and sprue burs.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 wrote:

mrFickle wrote:
I tried buying second hand models and to be honest they tend be in a state requiring so much effort to get them looking good that it’s not worth the saving

That's the tradeoff

Myself been running into opposite issue. Can't find cheap 2nd handed. These days everything seems to get high price. And old models gets tagged OOP ULTRA RARE and price goes up the roof(boy did I get laugh when only copy of khamul the easterling on ebay I found was mounted+foot version for same price GW sells it + 2 other ringwraiths brand new...you REALLY have to love metal over finecast to pay that).

Certainly I pay attention to assembly+any damage. Paint job is whatever. It's easy enough to strip away as long as it's metal/plastic/FW resin(finecast is trickier).

It takes months of checking and rechecking to find anything that's reasonably priced that isn't totally destroyed in most secondhand markets. Especially ones with an auction feature. People buying Penitent engines missing half their parts and done up with Sherwin-Williams for more than retail because they either can't do math or have a gambling problem...

Looking at when I started and now, prices are just above inflation on most kits.

When I started, minimum wage in my province was $8.00. Now it's $14.25- a bit shy of double.

Troops boxes, if I remember correctly, went for $30-35 at the time, and come in at $70.00 now- double or slightly higher.

As others have pointed out though, some boxes have significantly more than doubled and others have had the number of models in them reduced.

ERJAK wrote:
Provided you consider time+labor to be largely free. Cleaning and prepping even extremely high quality resin 3d prints for painting is far more arduous than cleaning a handful of moldlines and sprue burs.

Last time I assembled a box of 8 Genestealers it took an hour and a half to carefully scrape off the mold lines that were prominent and visible on every single part, then glue them together. I'll take throwing a print in isopropyl for three minutes and then breaking off the supports by hand over all that tedious mold line removal any day.

If you want to talk time and labor for 3D printing versus kits in general, then there's a lot more to look at than just prepping for paint.

tneva82 wrote:
Just because you can play doesn't mean it works. Gw games are unscalable. The super wonky system works somehow in one size. Change from that and it goes crazy

Anecdotal counter point: That is not my experience. We play a lot of <2000p (500 and 1000 mostly, sometimes 1500 thrown in) games at my local club lately and the tables haven't gone up in flames so far.