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I honestly can't count how many times I've posted on one forum or another, when thinking about which army I wanted to start or when I was testing the waters of warhammer, how much individual armies cost.

We can all probably admit that the greatest barrier to entry for warhammer would be the cost of admission (I'd say at minimum 300 if not 5) to get your first army up and running however after that I can't say that I've stopped spending my paychecks on slowly expanding my army in $50's and $40's.

My main question is how much did you spend on the current armies you are playing, what spending do you predict for the future, and what do you think is the cheapest army to start.

I'm currently playing chaos and I started collecting over the summer after I got my first real job. I spent 300 to get things started but I feel like with additions I've spent well into the $650 mark. To get competitive with the new codex release, simply models will run me at least another $500. At least 150 on bikes, if I actually buy spawn which I wont (maybe looking into making my own) that's close to 800 right there, heldrake and the other daemon engines magnetized will cost upwards of 300 most likely.

I also suffer from the inability to paint so I usually either buy painted or have my friends paint models. I've also started saving to send a good portion of my unpainted stuff to a company that paints models and that generally runs up a cost of at least as much as the model costs themselves >.<

I've considered starting a non-powerarmor army for a bit now (well maybe grey knights) but I just can't get past the thought that it's going to be another $800 investment. So what do you collect and how much have you shelled out for your own plastic crack

Damn, I've probably spent around $3-4000 on all my armies. And thats with some significant savings plus a fair amount of Bday and Christmas presents.

And I've started Warmachine. Thats another $300

God help me...$3,000 to $6,000? I don't really want to think too hard about the numbers...

Nids 800. Dark eldar 600. Tau 200. New CSM 200. Sisters of battle 400. Orks 300 Warmachine menoth is next to start up. I also traded a lot of my armies past for present ones being chaos and sisters. So total in the sisters would be closer to 1000 msrp.

Forgot my Titan. Add another $450 to my total.

15,000 points of painted Ultras (less than half painted completely by yours truly), 3,000 points of painted templars (almost all bought painted), 4,000 points of IG (2.5k bought painted), 3,000 points of Tau (2k bought painted), 3,000 points of CSM (1k bought painted), 3,000 points of Orks (most unpainted)... 3,000 points of Ravenwing, 2,000 points in odds and ends

...I dunno, but somewhere between $4,000-6,000, though it would cost me way more than that to buy them new, let alone commission a paint job at the level I have them now.

I will say, that if you're super patient and able to play ebay at odd times, you can buy very well painted armies at less than the cost of new models. I've often had people stop and ask about an army I'm using at a tourney (especially my all bike army, my Ultras, and my guard) and how it did in the best painted category... because they figured it would do well, only to be shocked (maybe even horrified) when I explain that about half of them where bought painted and even more shocked when I tell them that I paid less than retail for the given unit (or barely over). The bargains/steals are out there for Ultras and Guard especially, you just got to hunt and wait for them.

Between Tau, Necrons, Space Wolves, Tyranids, Tomb Kings, Dwarves, and Warriors of Choas, as well as gifts for friends... Dark gods only know... Well into the thousands... Oh add in paint, paint brushes, basing materials, terrain materials. Yeah expensive hobby, Thanks for depressing me...

All Together probably 3k for me.

40k- Orks (1000 at least), Eldar, Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Chaos another couple hundred
Fantasy-Empire (2000?), Lizardmen (1000?), orcs, bretonnia, beastmen, and some random models another few hundred
Blood Bowl- a few hundred
Terrain and other supplies 1000 at least

Either away aside from college loans I've spent more on Warhammer Stuff than anything else

Over the last 27 or so years, I don't want to know.

Probably enough for a car.
Probably enough for the deposit on a house.

All I know is, that the car would have been replaced by now and I would have moved house anyway (I moved around a lot as a kid, and spending the rest of my life tied to one location is a foreign idea to me) but the enjoyment it has given me has been worth more than dollars ever can.

Lol.... Looking at over 12000.00 right now. ( Yep thats 12k. Kinda scary.) That's not counting the stuff I've gotten rid of in the past.

Selling my smallest army now. It's @ 2600.00 Msrp.

Frankly.



I cannot even estimate how much i have spent.

some of my things are scratch builds whcih each had their own costs or lack there of, some are not totally GW which lowests and varies the prices, some have GW parts which I bought specifically for the conversion and all sort of things...

4250 points of Black Templars, nearly 150 models

Started with
2x Dark Eldar Venoms($60), 10x Eldar Pathfinders($35), 1x Eldar Eldrad($15), and two Dark Vengeance starter sets one LE($81), one regular($75).

Traded Dark Vengeance Chaos halfs for Dark Angels halfs, recieved one additional LE chaplain.
Traded the venoms for 10x Assault Terminators, and 4x Cyclone Missile Launchers
Traded Eldrad and Pathfinders for an additional DA half of Dark Vengeance
Traded the Ravenwing and the librarians from DV, and some old MTG cards* for Chaplain Grimaldus, 2x Rhinos, and a unit of Sword Brethren
Traded a mini rule book from Dark Vengeance for a Rhino and a Land Speeder
Purchased Lysander, 20x CCW/BP Tac Marines, and 25x scouts/Neophytes for $88.
Purchased 2x Emperors Champion for $15

Final cost: $369 not including paint or shipping.

*maybe $50 in cards but I hadn't touched them in 4 years so I don't count them in the final cost

I've probably spent $1000- $1500 on my Eldar and chaos armies (each) and I got about 2k poins of orks (and a stompa) for $300 from a friend of mine. I still have yet to get any forge/maulerfiends or hell drakes for my chaos though, so that'll definitely be an expense. I'm also heavily considering starting lizard men.

I just started about 2 years ago.

250$ so far on everything.

One Tactical squad, one Terminator squad and Dark Vengeance.

protonhunter wrote:
My main question is how much did you spend on the current armies you are playing

I refuse to add up the total, but I play DKoK IG with the actual models. For example, I just finished a Basilisk that cost $100 for the base model, plus crew made using parts from various $30-50 kits, and that's just one of the tanks in the army.

Plus, if you count time as money I've spent a huge amount of time on the army, potentially 30+ hours on a single tank.

what spending do you predict for the future

Way too much. Among other things my long-term goals include an entire Marauder Destroyer squadron and at least one Manta.

and what do you think is the cheapest army to start.

GK, specifically Draigowing. It's the highest point cost per model you can get, which means the cheapest models for a given point level.

For my grey knights, manage to buy smart through ebay, only a fe things new so about $400 and that's about 1500 points with max upgrades. To get my decent 1500 army probably will be about $600 all up which I don't think is to bad

Oh please don't make me think about this again. I just totalled up over 9.5Kpts of CSMs, plus Bloodthirster and about 20 Bloodletters.... That also includes a Chaos Reaver titan in at 600 quid! never mind the paints...

AND I'm still waiting on a Forgefiend and Warpsmith to be delivered.

No WAY am I buying another army. GW have had enough already. Enough I say!

I have a spreadsheet that I log everything for 40k in.
So far, of the £3000 spent, more has been spent in paints, tools, scsenery, etc, than actual models.

3000£ in chaos space marine
300£ in lizardmen
2000£ chaos mortal
500£ Beastmen
750£ Daemons
100£ Space marine
100£ skaven
700£ terrain
400£ dwarfs
200£ tyranids
700£ Orks

Everything is still at my house, and most are painted.

Reason for edit: Forgog my orks

I probably drop between $500 and $1000 on the hobby a year. Ugh. I'm thinking about actually keeping track starting next year; I'm going to guess that it will curb my spending considerably. Except that I've finally broken my hesitation to buy from Forge World... damnit.

Entirely too much.

As far as the cheapest army to start, it depends on whether you're dead set on being competitive or just want to get a playable list going. Lists that don't use many transports are a better way to go for an inexpensive list.

Actually, assuming you build a plastic Terminator to use as Draigo you can technically get a 750pt legal Draigowing army (1 HQ, 2 Troops) out of one Grey Knights Terminator box, so that might be my choice for absolute cheapest to start. $170-ish gets you your plastic converted Draigo, a Librarian, two five-man Paladin squads, one three-man Paladin squad, and a Vindicare Assassin, amounting to around a 1750-pt force.

On my current army alot less than it could have been thanks to the gem that is Ebay.
If you shop around and bid right you can get almost anything at a good half price.
I got 15 terminators, Crowe, Draigo, a DK and 5 GKSS with lots of bitz for £90

Same with my tau, but then i lost it all by buying forgeworld

Some of us in the [DCM] forum are tracking our purchases for the year. It is really amazing how much money you wind up spending once you stop and take a critical look at it.

With my most recent purchase, and with things like paint and assorted modeling supplies factored in......yikes, I am probably passed the 3000 mark now. Ouch.

It's best not to think about this question if you what to have any self respect left

Just started getting in to the game less than a month ago and I've already spent around $600 on my first army (Orks). Granted, this includes the rulebook, codex, paints, battlefoam bag, and some forgeworld stuff.

About 250€ for 1850 pts of Necrons.

While not answering your current question, you might be interested in this Dakka Poll which asks how much you've spent on your hobby in total.

For my Chaos Army, I'm currently making a 2500 point list that I can pair down for 1500 and 2000 point games plus a super heavy to go with it. No idea what it will cost me at this point.

I've spent probably $800 - $1000. It helps a lot that most of my army was put together in a time when you got 20 cadians to a box.

Of course, I started in June of 2005, which means I've been going on for 89 months now. That comes in at about $11 per month. Not too shabby, really.