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I've just started out with IG, and really want to do an infantry heavy build. My only problem is that I'm realising is just how expensive this will be even to just get a moderate sized army. I'm the typical college guy who has to spend money on such silly things like food, gas, and fixing my car (I know, crazy right? ) and if I keep trying to plop down $30 for every 10 guys I get, I wont have an actual army list until the end of 2012. Since I'd like to at least get a few games in before the end of the world, what kind of tips do you guys have for someone in my situation? I'm trying to be smart with my money and make the most of every buck I spend, rather than just throwing my money away when I dont have to.

Option 1: I've been thinking about doing conversions, and making unique guardsmen by buying other model sets that look like Guardsmen (except much cheaper, like WWII infantry models or other things like that) , and then just buying the lasguns, legs, and bases offline or from one of the 5 other IG players that are at my store (almost all of them play mech heavy, so I'm sure they have tons of infantry bits) That way I can hopefully get a lot more guys for less, and they'll be cool and unique as well (extremely important when I'm the 6th, and newest, IG guy at my store) The guys in my store are real big on conversions and making models look cool, and they said as long as they are able to tell what the guardsmen are I'll be fine. I also doubt I'll be joining a tournament anytime soon, so I'm not super worried on how "legal" conversion models are for the big tournaments.

Option 2: Looking into used armies online. Never bought any before and dont know if this is a good idea or not, seems like theres a good chance there could be broken guys. I also have no idea how to remove paint from models (plastic or metal) so that has me worried as well when I see painted armies. Am I just being a wuss about this or is this a legitimate concern?

Option 3: Buying several Battleforce boxes instead, since I can get the IG ones for much cheaper than buying the individual parts seperately (our store has some old ones that he's been trying to get rid of for ages) , and a blob guard can always use the tons of extra bits from the command squad. Wont have any commisars/priests/ specials come with that though so I'll still end up having to make them myself somehow.

What have you done to help keep from breaking the bank in the past? I'm all ears and could use all the advice I can get. I guess this doesnt really apply just to IG either, I bet there are plenty of ork and tyranid players who have had the same experience as I'm having, especially if they're new as well.

DISCLAIMER Yes, I know most IG players are going really mech heavy right now. Yes, I know about the magic of chimeras and vets and all that. No, I dont want to play that list (long story short, 5 IG players at my store already, they all do that list, I want to do something different). I'm not completely avoiding armor entirely, as I'll always bring a tank or some artillery, but I want the focus to be on "power blobs" or whatever you guys call them. Thanks for being an awesome community and the advice you've given me, I've learned ton already and its been a big help

Put simply, it can't be done.

Hey when i first started a year ago I was in the same boat. I saved up and bought 4 battleforces from my FLGS, its cheaper then $30 boxes of guardsmen. Also commisars can be made quite cheaply, I made mine by using the officer legs bolt pistol and hat from the command sprue, granted all my guardsmen, including leaders have helmets on, so they were extra. Also try to find local deals, i just bought 30 guardsmen for $30 from a fellow player since he was quiting the game.

Also its good to see another foot guardsmen, its nice to have non mech guard. I play hybrid.

Oh and what i did to convert a straken is take a standard guardsmen body and legs, the bald head from the command sprue, the cyborg arm and plasma pistol, form the command sprue, and a lasgun modded to look like a shotgun. Kit based it together, and viola. Straken, with a cadian look.

i play an infantry based IG army myself and have 80+ regular infantry and am still wanting more LOL. I would like to see a more efficient way than buying two battleforces. Oh and please say something more than it cant be done at least choose one of the options as being the most efficient

ObliviousBlueCaboose wrote:Hey when i first started a year ago I was in the same boat. I saved up and bought 4 battleforces from my FLGS, its cheaper then $30 boxes of guardsmen. Also commisars can be made quite cheaply, I made mine by using the officer legs bolt pistol and hat from the command sprue, granted all my guardsmen, including leaders have helmets on, so they were extra. Also try to find local deals, i just bought 30 guardsmen for $30 from a fellow player since he was quiting the game.

Also its good to see another foot guardsmen, its nice to have non mech guard. I play hybrid.

Oh and what i did to convert a straken is take a standard guardsmen body and legs, the bald head from the command sprue, the cyborg arm and plasma pistol, form the command sprue, and a lasgun modded to look like a shotgun. Kit based it together, and viola. Straken, with a cadian look.

How'd the battleforces work out for you? When I got one it seemed like almost every single bit in there would be useful, but that's just me. My only concern is that I'll have more sentinels than I'll know what to do with Hybrid is what I'll probably go for as well. I may use a couple of chimeras and customize them to look like command vehicles, but most of my motor pool will likely be artillery, leman russes, sentinels, and maybe some valkries/vendettas. My goal is to have at least over half of my points be in infantry though.

I'm trying to buy a bunch of guardsmen off of a guy at our store who switches armies roughly every few months (he sells them off really cheap too). He has a huge sandwhich bag full of guardsmen behind the counter, everything from basic guard (plastic and metal), HWS, and even a metal Creed. I didnt get to look at it for long, and I'm sure theres more goodies in there. He hasnt dropped by to get them in weeks, so maybe I'll get lucky and get a good deal. If I can get them cheap, I may use them as placeholders until I can make my own custom guys later, letting me take my time. Then when I dont need them anymore , I can sell/give them to the next new guy so he can catch a break too The owner said he'd talk to the guy and see if he wanted to sell them (which really surprised me, my FLGS owner seems to be a really nice guy) The only thing I dont like about this though is that I love building the guys from scratch and making them unique. If I wanted preassembled army men, I would go to the dollar tree and buy a bag of 100 for a couple of bucks. Oh well, beggars cant be choosers!

It worked out pretty well. I used most of it.

You can probably find some good deals on guardsmen on ebay. I lucked out and got a bulk of my guardsmen back when it was $35 for 20. Failing ebay, some online retailers have up to 25% GW prices, but even then youre still going to shovel out alot of cash.

Collecting a solid horde is spendy, simple as that.

My horde is orks, so AOBR helped a lot, and I picked a few WAAGHS up as their Bosses sold out/moved on, but i shudder to think how much money i've piled inot my orks almost as much as i shudder at the prospect of painting them all..

Ascalam wrote:Collecting a solid horde is spendy, simple as that.

My horde is orks, so AOBR helped a lot, and I picked a few WAAGHS up as their Bosses sold out/moved on, but i shudder to think how much money i've piled inot my orks almost as much as i shudder at the prospect of painting them all..

Ahhhh, the infamous "Grey Horde" ... My nickname for my guardsmen right now is "The Grey Tide", and at the rate I'm going, will probably be what they're called for quite a while

I really wish that IG had a "Black Reach" equivalent of their own. It would certainly make things easier on me since I dont even have a copy of the main rulebook yet

Try ebay or the swap shop here on dakka dakka, you may have to strip paint but it's alot cheaper

Ebay, 2nd hand, 3rd partie models are the way to go really at this point. Otherwise, you're often looking at ~$1,000 or more.

Horde armies have always been spendy, but have gotten rapidly more expensive in the last few years. Basic cadian guardsmen have gone up about 65% in price in just the last couple years, and in Australia with the prices there you might as well just go Forgeworld for the extra ~10%.

I you are going with hordes anyways, check out Wargames Factory's 1889 British Firing Line, they're basically Praetorians, which are my favorite guard, all you need is to switch the rifles with lasguns.
Also, when I bought my Cadians they only came in pewter. I have well over 100 of them. That made me sad when they came out in plastic, because the only reason I did that was to be unique and now everybody has them.

Do it over a very long time, be smart about deals on eBay and the Dakka swap shop, and only buy new from discounted retailers like Warstore.

Ebay and swap shop. I collected 1500pts of foot Mordians (metal collector ones, normally $50 for a squad off of GW) for an average of 50% of what GW sells it for. Its still expensive, but not nearly as expensive as it would have been. For a plastic horde, I bought a lot of Cadians in the swap shop for a song.

It can be done, you just gotta be patient and look around. Put a want ad in the swap shop and search for people selling stuff you want.

Buy things second hand, and in bulk. Craigslist is a fantastic way to find large amounts of cheap models.

azazel the cat wrote:Buy things second hand, and in bulk. Craigslist is a fantastic way to find large amounts of cheap models.

I'll second that. I bought a lot of my models online - especially from ebay. I specifically looked out for the ugly painted ones and already assembled that nobody wanted. Then I stripped the paint in brake fluid and the glue came off as well after a little push

For my Imperial Guard, I got a lot of it second-hand from my brother, who got a lot of his infantry back when the plastic infantry came in boxes of 20 models for 40 Canadian Dollars or so.

For my Orks, I bought most of my Slugga Boyz - who I may end up turning into Shoota Boyz, since I kept their arms and shootas in my bitz box - in boxes of 20, for the same price per box as the IG infantry mentioned above.

Sadly, they have long since gotten rid of the boxes of 20, so the models are now nearly twice as expensive per model as when I got mine.

If I had to start my IG or Orks over again for some reason, I dunno what I'd do.

Buy it piece by piece. Try to get as much as I can from places like Maelstrom, but in general ebay is of no use to me, as I am very particular about how I put my models together, and most of the time nib or on sprue Guard come up, they sell for more than I can get them off Maelstrom anyways.

Probably doesn't help I am using Forgeworld backpacks on all of my Guard this time, as I love the finished look it gives them.

Job security and disposable income. I started my IG while I was in the military (in fact one of my buddies got me into 40k in the first place) where I had a lot of disposable income. With my current job with the Government, and the fact that I own my car, I can comfortably afford the models. However, since I last bought 40 boxes of Steel Legion from my FLGS, I haven't made too many other major horde purchases other than my SoB, a lot of which necessitated using ebay for lack of availability of boxes SoB sets. The last bits I needed for my SoB I've purchased through my FLGS. Although I still need about 25-30 more Chimeras to mech up all those IG....


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Edit: I'd recommend trying to find deals on ebay/craigslist or going with the battle force boxes as they are not entirely a bad deal. Also, if you are planning on buying a lot more stuff, try to see if you can work out something with your FLGS if they know you have an interest in getting so many models; they may be able to work out a deal for you or some sort of discount.

I started collecting infantry IG when I had a job, then about a month later I lost it.
So yeah I feel your pain. One box set every couple of weeks sucks.
I did the maths the other day to figure out how many HWTs I'd need for an infantry 2k list. Made me upset.

Ok, so looks like a lot of people have experience buying secondhand and using the Battleforces. Noticing there arent many conversion comments though, so I figured I would do some research and see what people thought about this.

Here's some awesome sci-fi greatcoat troopers I found recently. Basically a cross between Helghast and DKok from the looks of it, and they're pretty cheap too! Roughly $20 for 18 guys, with multi poseable parts and weapons. This might be an option for a guy who wants to make unique armies, or just wants some cheap Stormtroopers.
http://wargamesfactory.com/announcements/shock-troops-sci-fi-greatcoat-infantry-up-for-pre-order

Also, someone mentioned how they loved Praetorians on here (I think, may be thinking of another thread) so here's some guys that would make awesome Praetorians from the same site. This one gets you 25 guys with multiple poses, heads, and gear as well, and looking at the sprues, they look just like the ones IG Guardsmen come on. http://wargamesfactory.com/webstore/war-of-empires/british-firing-line-zulu-war

Do you guys think buying kits like this that are 3rd party brands and just buying GW weapons/bits is a good idea? Or do you think they'd be more trouble than they're worth?

To OP: It really depends on what your intentions with this army really are. If you don't mind doing conversion work and can make it so that it is readily apparent what everything is, then yes buying 3rd party would be very much so cheaper. However, if you are interested in the tournament scene, be aware that there may be certain requirements about models, i.e. only Citadel models may be used etc. If this is just for casual play and you have no qualms about it then go the 3rd party route.

I personally would not do it, but that is me. You may want to ask your friends/local TO/ the people you would be most likely playing against how they would feel about you using non-GW models before you go out and buy a bunch of models that no one will play against you with. Just some additional thoughts to consider.

Evil Lamp 6 wrote:To OP: It really depends on what your intentions with this army really are. If you don't mind doing conversion work and can make it so that it is readily apparent what everything is, then yes buying 3rd party would be very much so cheaper. However, if you are interested in the tournament scene, be aware that there may be certain requirements about models, i.e. only Citadel models may be used etc. If this is just for casual play and you have no qualms about it then go the 3rd party route.

I personally would not do it, but that is me. You may want to ask your friends/local TO/ the people you would be most likely playing against how they would feel about you using non-GW models before you go out and buy a bunch of models that no one will play against you with. Just some additional thoughts to consider.

My store is very laid back about this kind of thing. Many guys dont even have painted armies, so one guy making a highly converted/detailed army wont be a problem at all. We have 6 IG players alone, and I think they're very happy that its not just going to be yet another cadian/catachan army to play against. Two of the other IG players at my store told me they'd loan me official guys for tourneys as well if I ever needed them since they play mech and only need a few. Heck, the store owner was the guy that suggested I try some 3rd party guys to make some unique guardsmen.

My main thing is I'll be using actual lasguns/special weapons/ Heavy weapons, and official GW vehicles. The only thing that will be third party is the guardsmen themselves, and thats it. They'll be labeled so a person can tell what they are as well. I'll also use standard GW bases. Shouldnt be too hard, as I'm going to make sure they're as close to the GW guardsmen in regards to height/width/ etc, as possible. This all provided I dont THINK I'll have any problems, but if I do, oh well, the 3rd party ones are cheap enough that I wouldnt be devestated by it.

MrMoustaffa wrote:My store is very laid back about this kind of thing. Many guys dont even have painted armies, so one guy making a highly converted/detailed army wont be a problem at all. We have 6 IG players alone, and I think they're very happy that its not just going to be yet another cadian/catachan army to play against. Two of the other IG players at my store told me they'd loan me official guys for tourneys as well if I ever needed them since they play mech and only need a few. Heck, the store owner was the guy that suggested I try some 3rd party guys to make some unique guardsmen.

My main thing is I'll be using actual lasguns/special weapons/ Heavy weapons, and official GW vehicles. The only thing that will be third party is the guardsmen themselves, and thats it. They'll be labeled so a person can tell what they are as well. I'll also use standard GW bases. Shouldnt be too hard, as I'm going to make sure they're as close to the GW guardsmen in regards to height/width/ etc, as possible. This all provided I dont THINK I'll have any problems, but if I do, oh well, the 3rd party ones are cheap enough that I wouldnt be devestated by it.

In that case, feel free to give the 3rd party minis a try. Also, if you want to stick with GW, check out some of the other IG lines available such as Steel Legion, Mordian, Tallaran, and Tanith as they are not seen as much these days compared to Cadians/Catachans due to the fact those models are only available in metal. The only other thing I'd make sure you are aware of if you decide to convert from 3rd party to WYSIWYG is that you understand the task that is ahead of you in working with gratuitous amounts of infantry models and the work that you will have to put into each individual one with converting to the right weapons and then painting. Hell, just assembling that many GW minis is a daunting task and is why I'm not done even with that part of my IG (some 400+ Steel Legion models still NIB). But best of luck to you in your horde army and welcome to the ranks of the IG. I'm glad to see someone else do something other than a Leaf-Bloweresque/Melta Vets List.

Evil Lamp 6 wrote:
In that case, feel free to give the 3rd party minis a try. Also, if you want to stick with GW, check out some of the other IG lines available such as Steel Legion, Mordian, Tallaran, and Tanith as they are not seen as much these days compared to Cadians/Catachans due to the fact those models are only available in metal. The only other thing I'd make sure you are aware of if you decide to convert from 3rd party to WYSIWYG is that you understand the task that is ahead of you in working with gratuitous amounts of infantry models and the work that you will have to put into each individual one with converting to the right weapons and then painting. Hell, just assembling that many GW minis is a daunting task and is why I'm not done even with that part of my IG (some 400+ Steel Legion models still NIB). But best of luck to you in your horde army and welcome to the ranks of the IG. I'm glad to see someone else do something other than a Leaf-Bloweresque/Melta Vets List.

Believe it or not, but rediculous amounts of effort being needed for tons of guys is what made me want to do it. I like making each guy look unique and different (hence why I didnt want to just buy 30 cadian boxes and call it a day) and I cant wait for all the cool conversions I can try out with these guys. Yes, it will take forever, but I think the results will be worth it. I may start one of those little blogs that a lot of guys have around here if it seems feasible, so other guys can learn how tI made a bunch of Guardsmen on the cheap. I'm going to order some of those sci fi guys I linked earlier tomorrow and I guess we'll see if they work out or not in time. Here's hoping!

Brother SRM wrote:Do it over a very long time, be smart about deals on eBay and the Dakka swap shop, and only buy new from discounted retailers like Warstore.

Basically this. Buy it over time, don't go out and buy it all at once.

The best thing about buying it over time is it gives you the chance to actually paint it before the collection becomes to soul crushingly huge you cringe at the thought of painting it.

Yeah thats what happened to my army. Their still mostly grey while ive already collected other armies and their mostly painted.

Find someone who's selling a horde army and sponge up what you need from them.

The other solution is look for Ebay deals

And ask for a buttload of horde troops for X-Mas, B-days.

I'm running a blob army, and really its not that bad. Sure if you go out and buy retail you will go broke quick.

- Buy used. Melta guns are the name of the game right now, so there's a bunch of basically NIB condition guardsmen kits floating around, only missing that melta gun.
- Buy online. Dicebucket and the like give like 30%. Look into this.
- DONT buy a battleforce unless you plan on using everything. If you're running blobs, you will use everything except the sentinel (which aren't entirely useless). So in this case, get a battleforce of the net, once again at like 30% off.
- Buy used. I'll say it once I'll say it again just becaues it's preowned doesn't make it bad condition. Even painted figures can be good as new after a week long soak in superclean. Worst case scenario the stuff is plastic glued together. Just ask about that before you buy.
- Also DONT buy snap together kits. It may look like a cheap way to increase your squad size, but it's not worth it.

I always look for great prices. I rarely buy I go to Gamesday and I build a ton at the conversion centers. Every time i go i build 25 marines.