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Asking around a couple of places,

Which army would you say are the cheapest (Financially) to buy and get a good/competetive army from (Say, 1500-1750pts?)

Any help is appreciated?

Grey Knights

Draigo, 3 boxs of Terminators(to be Paladins), and a codex.

Thats alot of points.


I don't claim this will be a totally awsomely good army, but it is cheap. It does take some learning to use right, but it can be effective.

Yeah, pretty much Grey Knight Draigo-wing. A couple boxes of terminators, one character, maybe another box of terminators or a couple land raiders, and you're done. With online discount sites you can get a 2k army for about $200.

What are some good online discount sites?

Dice bucket, and ebay.

I made my nilla marine army really cheap. All reach tac squads from ebay and tac termies from ebay, a rhino or two from GW and scouts and dev and command squad from Dice bucket.

Marshall Ragnar wrote:What are some good online discount sites?

There's thewarstore.com that always does a flat 20% off GW stuff, but you have to order over the phone since GW doesn't allow them to have an online shopping cart.

Take Kharn, and loads of khorne berserkers. 1500/1750 army for under £150.

Cheers guys,

Vaktathi wrote:

Marshall Ragnar wrote:What are some good online discount sites?

There's thewarstore.com that always does a flat 20% off GW stuff, but you have to order over the phone since GW doesn't allow them to have an online shopping cart.

And I'd recommend WaylandGames or Maelstrom in the UK.

Ignoring gimmick builds or going straight for the cheapest prices, the cheapest armies over time are likely, and this is a rough estimate, things can change based on what you wish to do.

Grey Knights are cheapest hands down, lots of high costs units and wargear all around.
Space Marines and all Space Marine variants (SW, BA etc...) they all cost about the same when it comes down to it since they have about the same mix of same cost troops and high point low $$ elites.
Necrons For all the same reasons as Space Marines, hell, they may be cheaper than Space Marines since they get free units in their bits (scarabs) that aren't useless like the Tyranid rippers.
Dark Eldar While they do need lots of transports, those transports have a higher point cost than other armies comparable transports, not to mention their units have a good point cost when compared to their monatary price.
CSM Once again, high cost troops and elites make a cheap army, though they have a large number of high $$ low point units that really drive them above those mentioned above
Imperial Guard You go unit heavy, they will be the most expensive, but you can go tank heavy which makes them abit more affordable.
Orks Sweet lord, high $$ vehicles, low point EVERYTHING make for one expensive ass army no matter what you do.

I don't know:
Tau
Daemons of Chaos
SoB (they're expensive, but I don't know how expensive)
Eldar (I imagine around DE and CSM prices)

Well so far it seems to be very GK biased XD.

One advantage of Tau, is they are (to the best of my knowledge) the only Battleforce in which you can (VERY easily) get an HQ from and therefore a full army (Approx 750pts)

IG going tank heavy isn't much cheaper than infantry heavy, it's roughly the same cost depending on build. Either way, it'll generally cost 1.5-2x what an equivalent point generalist MEQ army normally would.

Vaktathi wrote:IG going tank heavy isn't much cheaper than infantry heavy, it's roughly the same cost depending on build. Either way, it'll generally cost 1.5-2x what an equivalent point generalist MEQ army normally would.

Oh no doubt, but comparing a a few wargeared up unit point costs to those of tanks, and getting a ratio of point to $$, the tanks do come out abit ahead.

It's expensive all around, and far and away more expensive than any army save for Orks.

EvilTim wrote:Well so far it seems to be very GK biased XD.

One advantage of Tau, is they are (to the best of my knowledge) the only Battleforce in which you can (VERY easily) get an HQ from and therefore a full army (Approx 750pts)

Very easy to do this with the chaos box as well, if you like mutated, chaotic lords (imagine that for a chaos army...). Everyone hates possessed in games, but they have awesome models. Do some kitbashing in the chaos box and make yourself some chaos lords from it. With 15 CSM, 8 berzerkers, a rhino, and 5 models to create two HQs with and a bit of converting to get them in, you can legitimately field 5 troops and 2 HQ in that box. Is it a great army? No. But it's the most FOC you can make in a box, if done right.

You could also run death wing. Same idea as Gray Knights just different space marines. their a tad bit more expensive but you do get more options and in my opinion they offer a little more but thats just me.

Deathwing are very cheap if you want. You can just get the Terminators from Assault on Black Reach for like, $12 from any given bits store (Warstore, eBay) and just get close combat/heavy weapons sprues while you're at it.

Planning a GK army of a Stern, x5 Terminators, x10 Grey Knights, a Razorback, and a Stormraven. It's rather elaborate but still far cheaper then any other "elaborate" army.

IG and Eldar come off as the most expensive I think. For Eldar I don't really get why.

Harriticus wrote:
IG and Eldar come off as the most expensive I think. For Eldar I don't really get why.

Because all their specialized aspect warriors are metal/Finecast and as a result cost significantly more than plastics. Also $20 a figure Wraithguard.

I would second GK or SM as your cheapest bets. The more Termies the cheaper it gets.

That said, unless you don't care about models and painting at all, going with an army based on cheapness is a bad idea. Far better to go with an army that you will actually enjoy assembling, painting and collecting.

No GW army is cheap, but every army can be signifcantly cheap'er if you wait for the right sales, buy used etc.

Orks are cheaper to play than every one seems to think. The key is that you can make most units out of basic boys if you're willing and able to kitbash the crap out of them. 'Ard Boys, stormboys, ect. Before their most recent codex orks didn't have models for half their units, and every one just leaned to make them. Don't buy big shootas, cut apart two shootas and glue them together, don't buy stormboys, make something vaguely rocket like and glue it to them, don't but 'ard boys, just use the extra bits of armor on the sprue, and don't use any of it any other units (so the difference is more obvious). That being said, orks are still more expensive than marines.

A mostly jump BA army would be cheaper than mech BA, since they don't need rhinos (which are monetarily expensive, but cheap in points). Rhinos, chimera and other dedicated transports will increase the cost of your army very quickly due to their high monetary value and low points cost.

In general an army's cheapness is generally inversly purpotional to the points cost of it's troops. Cheapness is also generally inversly purpotional to the amount of metal/finecast, though this effect tends not to be as pronounced as the first. Also picking an army that updates less often tends to be very expensive in the short run, but as time goes on they tend to require less continued investment. For years it was joked that DE was the cheapest army to play, since you could just buy what you needed and nothing else would ever come out, until they did get a new codex. SoB is very expensive to start, but given they haven't gotten new models in this millenium, it kind of evens out.