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Well naturally I got in with the Russian Mafia.

How else would one fund a hobby like this?

Overtime. Looootsss of overtime. Lots of 72 hour weeks. Quite a few 12 days in a row 12 hour shifts. But, that's how I paid for everything, not just Warhammer. American working class problems.

I can drop a big chunk of cash on a new army if I want but I usually prefer a decent-sized outlay to start, followed by smaller purchases over the next 3-6 months. I'll always look for second-hand or discounted models too. The only time I'd ever pay full GW prices is for the last one or two units/models if they aren't available elsewhere.

As somebody already in the hobby, there are a lot of costs I don't have that a new player would. I have plenty of paint and tools. I may need a couple of new paints for a specific colour scheme but even then I'll still have all the blacks, silvers, browns, washes, etc. Any spot colours to enhance the basic scheme will probably come from my current collection as well. I have scenery, a table, a mat and all the dice I could need as well, so those are not costs I need to worry about any more.

It can be expensive starting form nothing, but $8k seems high even if you're going way overboard and getting loads of paint, terrain, etc. If you're going into debt to do so I'd say it speaks more to poor impulse control than the cost of the hobby.

It took me 15 years to own every non-legend ork datasheet (and a bunch of legends). I started with a pair of AOBR and quickly increased my collection until I was able to play 2000 points. Afterwards, I spent some years chasing the meta, but after 6th stopped doing so.
From then on I only bought units when I wanted to play them and liked them visually. When I have money to spare it goes into my hobby budget, so when a new box or model is released that want, it comes out of money already set aside. I never spent money I didn't have.

Many of my most expensive units (garg squiggoth, stompa, mek guns, Mortarion) were either gifted to me or bought off ebay at extremely low prices. Large parts of my collection were added through GWs discounted boxes, often bought off FOMO victims at an additional discount. I also got a medium sized collection of orks from a friend who I basically had to force to take money from me.

DG in 8th were probably the cheapest army to ever start in the history of 40k - I got 3 dark imperium halves for a total of 60€ (including the BRB), and there was a flood of cheap ETB models coming out of the first hachette magazines - you could get the trio of plague marines for 2€, the MBH for 10€ and Felthius cohort for 12€. For DG, I probably spent more money on paint than on plastic.

I add everything up, including all the paint, tools, magnets, terrain and gaming table, I might just barely end up at around 8000€. Dropping that much on the first day is just completely insane.

Mostly slow burn over 30 years, averaging a new army every 3 years and probably about a kit a month.

For Genestealer Cult, I sold some Magic cards that had appreciated to pay for them in one go - but that was an exception.

You can definitely shop around for a bargain.

The hobby has people coming and going all the time. Teenagers especially will inevitably discover girls, and hopefully discover personal hygiene, and that’s the last you’ll see of them - sometimes forever, sometimes for a few years.

And they’ll often sell their models. Likewise, there are folks who chop and change their armies, selling one to pay for the next.

That all comes down to patience, and whether you’re a dab hand at stripping already painted models.

In the UK, I’d particularly recommend Car Boot Sales for such bargains. Not everyone knows or particularly cares that the kits tend to hold a decent resale value after all.

Certainly if I ever went completely insane* and wanted to do a Proper Proper 2nd Ed Army Only Using 2nd Ed Models? I’d be scouring boot fairs and jumble sales.

*Current status approximately 67% insane.

 techsoldaten wrote:
Met a guy ... Claims to be $8k out of pocket and is just getting started.

I haven't spent that much in the 14 years I've been back in the Hobby. See my sig for estimated points accumulated.
In the 80's and 90's when I started, it was paid for with pocket money and as gifts.
Since restarting in 2011, it is due to not having kids.

I might have spent as much as £1500 in total on the hobby, which is over about 35 years. Well short of "how the feck did you afford that?" territory, I reckon...

 techsoldaten wrote:
Met a guy who took out a home equity line of credit to pay for his Space Marine army, along with paint, materials, books, a desk, lights, etc. Claims to be $8k out of pocket and is just getting started.

I've spent ridiculous amounts of money on the hobby but never went into debt to do it.

Are prices really that bad?

If you spend only do bottle service at Vegas nightclubs, you can easily spend $10k on a bar tab. That doesn't mean that's the cost of getting drinks with friends.

Space marines are a mid cost army, generally netting over two points per dollar. Starting from scratch, at retail, a 3000 points of marines would probably be around $1500. We're in a world where a tournament army for most factions hovers around a grand, with some (Custodes, grey knights) being a bit cheaper and others (ad Mech, GSC, infantry guard) being more expensive.

A full set of codexes, datacards, rulebooks, etc. will be what, $1200? Nobody needs that and again, that's full retail.

A full set of Artis opus brushes (19 brushes) is $563.

There are 313 Citadel paints, most are $5, some are $8, and the spray cans are even more, so let's say $2400 for a complete set of Citadel paints, with probably some room for tools and stuff.

That's $5700, leaving enough money for a Herman Miller desk (~2k) and a couple of sunlight lamps ($300)

so yeah, real easy to hit $8k if you over buy way too much high end stuff.

 techsoldaten wrote:
Met a guy who took out a home equity line of credit to pay for his Space Marine army, along with paint, materials, books, a desk, lights, etc. Claims to be $8k out of pocket and is just getting started.

I've spent ridiculous amounts of money on the hobby but never went into debt to do it.

Are prices really that bad?

Nah, going into debt for this hobby is crazy. Or even buying models when you're living paycheck to paycheck, unless you manage to purchase a used army for cheap and then don't expand too much. In local Facebook groups, I've seen players selling their armies to pay for their dog's emergency surgery. Understandable! A dog is a family member, and worth more than some plastic minis. But while I've spent a lot on this hobby over the years, I have enough of a nest egg that I can't imagine having to urgently sell armies or models in order to cover an unforeseen expense.

I spend on average $300-$500 a year on the hobby (models, paints, codexes and event tickets), which is roughly 1% of my income. I haven't sold many of my models or armies, but I should get to it... not so much for the money as to declutter my apartment.

We love to complain about the price of models, but I think your perception of those prices depends heavily on whether you enjoy building and painting (not just playing). If you enjoy those aspects, you count them as part of the hours of entertainment that come with the box of plastic crack. If you don't, then they're just an additional cost, in time rather than money... and time = money. A box of infantry worth 75 CAD (60 USD) keeps me busy for 6-8 hours, during which I multitask by watching TV shows and movies. I find it relaxing and rewarding. Even if I end up hardly using those models in actual games, I still consider them money well spent.

I have a cousin who's a mountain biker. He spent 5,000 dollars on a custom-made bike, and on occasion he's has it carried by plane to other countries where he wanted to bike. Flying to Chile to bike down the Andes is considered a "cool" hobby, similar to sailing, paragliding or horseback-riding. People can respect that someone would be willing to spend a significant chunk of their income on this sort of thing. Wargaming admittedly isn't as cool, but frankly? In terms of dollars to the hour, it's a lot cheaper.

.

I've been collecting since I was 10, so nearly 25 years now. A little bit at a time, it really adds up. The main thing that attributed to my collection is getting large quantities of stuff cheap second hand, getting discount boxes, or selling other things that I didn't want anymore and converting them into 40k. I try never to by a normal kit straight off the shelf if I can avoid it.

Some things that had contributed over the years:
- I got a bunch of friends into the game in Jr. High, but many of them only played for a few years, then several of them sold me their armies on the cheap when they got out of the hobby.
- Realized I had a couple of MTG cards on the reserve list and flipped them for about 2k which I converted into Warhammer.
- I passively picked up a really large Wiz Kids Mechwarrior collection over the years on the super cheap, but never had anyone to play with, sold that on e-bay to a collector for about 2.5k which I also coverted into Warhammer. (I probably only paid about 700 for it myself)
- There was a FLGS (that is sadly closed down now) that had a customer rewards program on everything in the store (including GW products) if you spent more than 1k per year at the store, you got an extra 15% discount (over and above the 15% they marked down from GW). Was easily the cheapest way to get new Warhammer models.
- Keeping an eye on the secondary market. I'm part of a few buy and sell FB groups for Warhammer and every so often, someone's putting a big collection up on the cheap. Over the years, I've picked up about $2k worth of Space Marines, $1k worth of Tyranids, and a few various other smatterings for only about $500.00
- Second hand game stores that sell used models. There's a local collectors shop in my city that does a lot of this, but there's also Fenris Workshop that sells online, it's a great way to get models for about half of a new kit.
- Discount boxes. Sometimes GW does release some pretty good value kits (by their standards at least) so keeping an eye of for them when they come by. The old GSC Combat Patrol, some Christmas boxes, all the Starter sets, some of the Kill Team boxes if you want both armies and the terrain, ect...
- Only getting the codex for my competitive army and using waha for the rest.

That's about it. For me, I like playing a variety of armies in a variety of playstyles, so it's not too hard for me to take advantage of something pretty cheap when it pops up.

Polonius wrote:A full set of codexes, datacards, rulebooks, etc. will be what, $1200? Nobody needs that and again, that's full retail.

Read that back with a straight face. This is GW we’re talking about

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Polonius wrote:A full set of codexes, datacards, rulebooks, etc. will be what, $1200? Nobody needs that and again, that's full retail.

Read that back with a straight face. This is GW we’re talking about

Like Polonius said, though, this is just an example of something an unreasonable player might blow too much money on. Nobody is out there buying every codex.

Mission cards do irk me, though. I want physical cards, not some app, but they're way more expensive than they should be. Plus, they get obsolete so quickly. I wish my local 40k community were chill with using outdated secondary missions.

.

And even in Poloniu's example he still had to throw $2K on a table to hit the target amount. Again I can only feel that either the OP mistook $800 for $8K or the person they were talking too is in a country where the $ is worth a LOT less than in the USA/UK Equivalent which thus jacks up the apparent price.

Actually wait what would the costs be for a full Marine squad in New Zealand as their prices are always very high

 Overread wrote:
And even in Poloniu's example he still had to throw $2K on a table to hit the target amount. Again I can only feel that either the OP mistook $800 for $8K or the person they were talking too is in a country where the $ is worth a LOT less than in the USA/UK Equivalent which thus jacks up the apparent price.

Actually wait what would the costs be for a full Marine squad in New Zealand as their prices are always very high

yeah, $8k is a dramatic overshoot, but IT's also not like an order of magnitude off either. If buying retail, you're looking at $1000-$1500 to get an army to tournament standard, at least a $100 in paints, $20 for a decent brush, $5-$25 in primers, and then another $100 or so for supplies and tools like knives, cheap brushes, glue, clippers, basing materials, etc. Add on $60 for a codex, $50 for a mission deck if you can buy one, and $50 for a basic natural light desk lamp and you are looking at $1500-$2k to really be tournament ready.

-Guardsman- wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Polonius wrote:A full set of codexes, datacards, rulebooks, etc. will be what, $1200? Nobody needs that and again, that's full retail.

Read that back with a straight face. This is GW we’re talking about

Like Polonius said, though, this is just an example of something an unreasonable player might blow too much money on. Nobody is out there buying every codex.

Well....
I'm really close - all I'm missing is the BT codex

Back in the day I used to spend lunch money on models. Then I would paint my models, sell them for profit, and then buy more models. That was in high school. Later on I taught kids how to paint models at my FLGS, and they paid me in store credit. Hah! Later on I sold a huge portion of my models (maybe 95%) on ebay, then I started my "Last Space Marine Army" around 5th edition. Slow build on that one over time.

I've gotten a lot of stuff from old friends, or other people leaving the hobby. I've paid with salary money, allowance, or money I made from commission painting, depending on the time of life. My biggest purchase was a one-shot Genestealer Cult army with a ton of models for . . . I forget the amount. But at the time I had no bandwidth to build and paint an army, so I just bought a pretty nice collection on ebay.

Looking at the OP again, this might be the key issue

 techsoldaten wrote:
Met a guy who took out a home equity line of credit to pay for his Space Marine army, along with paint, materials, books, a desk, lights, etc . Claims to be $8k out of pocket and is just getting started.
?

Assuming this fellow is disconnected enough from how money works that an 8k Home Equity Loan for a hobby seemed like a good idea, the desk, chair and lighting might actually be the big ticket items. You can easily quickly drop a heck of alot on high end furniture.