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So I recently offered to do commission work to the local 40k players, only a few actually paint. I'm also thinking of helping out the FLGS with attracting new players by buying/building/painting "Starter Armies". These armies would consist of the mandatory 2 troops and 1 HQ. The idea is to buy the models, build them, paint them, bring them back to the store to sell. These armies could be used for demos, or to sell to interested players who are a little intimidated to pick up a brush. Obviously, these starter armies would be a little more expensive than buying the models themselves(Gotta make some cash somehow lol). Has anyone else seen this done/tried something similar? How well did it work?

I think it's a fairly clever Idea, dependent on the additional cost of course.

It should be fairly easy to go Generic colors for factions, relatively quick and easy to do.

I'd rank it something around 3.00$ per 10$ you spent.

So Space Marines HQ-20, Troops 35x2 90$ sell for like 120$

Again paint shouldn't be amazing, but you'd need tabletop plus to catch an eye.

You may want to check with the store owner first. He might want a cut of the profits if you are selling items in his store. He would probably sell less paint and other supplies if you are offering pre-painted miniatures.

 Greenizbest wrote:
You may want to check with the store owner first. He might want a cut of the profits if you are selling items in his store. He would probably sell less paint and other supplies if you are offering pre-painted miniatures.

How so? As long as you bought the materials from him in the first place? Paint/Models. Should be essentially the same revenue, as well as gaining potential new gamers to spend their hard earned cash.

Regardless the store owner would have to OK it, otherwise you might be without a place to play haha

jdjamesdean@mail.com wrote:


How so? As long as you bought the materials from him in the first place? Paint/Models. Should be essentially the same revenue, as well as gaining potential new gamers to spend their hard earned cash.

Regardless the store owner would have to OK it, otherwise you might be without a place to play haha

Well a new player will probably buy many different colors to try out or he may buy more paint/supplies than he actually needs.. Someone who is doing assembly line armies will probably know exactly how much they need and has probably found ways to cut costs on paints and supplies by buying them online or from other suppliers in order to make more profit when selling. That's just my logic though.

If the OP is buying all his paints and models from the FLGS then the owner may not mind it.

But on the other hand, if the owner like the idea he might offer to sell the models/paint at a discount as long as he gets a cut of the profits.

The idea of selling pre painted armies at the store isn't new. The current owner, at one time, had a partner who was a good painter. Unfortunately, he is not a part of the business anymore so the idea fell through.

Obviously, I'm going to talk to the owner about everything first. I've known him for years so he should be ok with it. All of my supplies are bought from his store so that shouldn't be a problem. My current concernsl is whether or not people would interested. I wad thinking of starting with a Necron force of 2 boxes of Warriors and Imotekh. This is because crons are easy and I have noticed at least 1 person has been looking at crons the past couple weeks then not getting anything.

 l0k1 wrote:
The idea of selling pre painted armies at the store isn't new. The current owner, at one time, had a partner who was a good painter. Unfortunately, he is not a part of the business anymore so the idea fell through.

Obviously, I'm going to talk to the owner about everything first. I've known him for years so he should be ok with it. All of my supplies are bought from his store so that shouldn't be a problem. My current concernsl is whether or not people would interested. I wad thinking of starting with a Necron force of 2 boxes of Warriors and Imotekh. This is because crons are easy and I have noticed at least 1 person has been looking at crons the past couple weeks then not getting anything.

Just as a note, I would go with a generic overlord or destroyer lord over Imotehk. Tehk has a LOT of special rules for a new player and really requires that a list be heavily built around him to shine. If you are thinking of marketing this towards beginners than an Overlord is a MUCH better choice.

 l0k1 wrote:
So I recently offered to do commission work to the local 40k players, only a few actually paint. I'm also thinking of helping out the FLGS with attracting new players by buying/building/painting "Starter Armies". These armies would consist of the mandatory 2 troops and 1 HQ. The idea is to buy the models, build them, paint them, bring them back to the store to sell. These armies could be used for demos, or to sell to interested players who are a little intimidated to pick up a brush. Obviously, these starter armies would be a little more expensive than buying the models themselves(Gotta make some cash somehow lol). Has anyone else seen this done/tried something similar? How well did it work?

As a new player to 40k I disagree with this. No offense but 40k isn't really a game. It's a hobby. The only reason I pay so much money is because I enjoy assembling and painting the models. It is more fun than the game itself. The only way GW is going to get more customers is to either drop the price, or have a starter set on sale on FLGS. Since most new players are young teens who rely on parents to purchase and don't have the money themselves.

Not bashing 40k I enjoy it and feel like the money I have spent has brought me lots of joy as I really like working with my hands. But it is overpriced. For those of you who say "well all hobbies are expensive" some are, like collecting cars or great works of art. But 40k modeling is like my ships or airplanes or train tracks, which can cost a lot less.

Best method I can think of is to build a few distinctive small armies (500 or 750 point each, all VERY different from each other), and use them as display items, and rentable armies for players to have mock-games with (want bigger games? rent 2 armies!)

People are far more likely to join something they can test for nearly nothing instead of spending heavy $ just to get started.


I don't think pre-built and pre-painted armies will catch much attention to sell, as part of the fun is to build and paint your own models-but if you go the rent path, you can always have the rented armies with an option to buy them out of the shop.

@ktheNecron Some people are not as interested in the building/painting aspect. They are more concerned about actually playing the game. A good friend of mine is like this. Also these armies, while aimed to interest new players, could also interest current players. Many of us have bought pre built and painted models before. For new players who might not know how to paint or where to find a good tutorial these starter armies could serve as a visual tutorial. Even if other players buy them and repaint them, they still bought them.

@Boomwolf I was going to start with fairly basic armies, then if there is interest I could do more advanced armies. Something like Castellan Crowe with 2 squads of Purifiers or Commander Dante with 2 squads of Sanguinary Guard.

Well, I talked to the store owner this weekend and he was interested in trying the idea. We discussed the idea at length, and he is getting opinions from our current players as well as our magic players. With the current escalation league coming to a close, a starter army would be a great way to get more people to sign up for the next league while also giving them time to try out the game.

We also discussed the possibility of doing a Dark Vengeance set as the first starter armies, seeing as 6 or more players have CSM armies and Dark Angels are next to be updated.

KtheNecron wrote:

 l0k1 wrote:
So I recently offered to do commission work to the local 40k players, only a few actually paint. I'm also thinking of helping out the FLGS with attracting new players by buying/building/painting "Starter Armies". These armies would consist of the mandatory 2 troops and 1 HQ. The idea is to buy the models, build them, paint them, bring them back to the store to sell. These armies could be used for demos, or to sell to interested players who are a little intimidated to pick up a brush. Obviously, these starter armies would be a little more expensive than buying the models themselves(Gotta make some cash somehow lol). Has anyone else seen this done/tried something similar? How well did it work?

As a new player to 40k I disagree with this. No offense but 40k isn't really a game. It's a hobby. The only reason I pay so much money is because I enjoy assembling and painting the models. It is more fun than the game itself. The only way GW is going to get more customers is to either drop the price, or have a starter set on sale on FLGS. Since most new players are young teens who rely on parents to purchase and don't have the money themselves.

Not bashing 40k I enjoy it and feel like the money I have spent has brought me lots of joy as I really like working with my hands. But it is overpriced. For those of you who say "well all hobbies are expensive" some are, like collecting cars or great works of art. But 40k modeling is like my ships or airplanes or train tracks, which can cost a lot less.

No offense, but that's an opinion. I don't know where you play, but around here, it's mostly a lot of hoards of grey, all-comers builds. Only a few have painted armies, and most of them are just basic table-top quality. I'd say there are more people who are interested in playing the game and having fun doing that than spending lots of time painting their army at what they feel is sub-standard quality. Besides, if you are just in it for painting and modeling, there are much cheaper ranges out there. I'd say pre-painted armies are a great idea, especially for people who like the game for the game, but are intimidated by having to try and paint up a billion tiny little guys when they may have no sort of art experiance to begin with. This is why people commision, but lots of new players are a little intimidated at the idea of sending their new models off to be painted by some guy they don't know, especially after they just dropped a bucket load on them, and they have no idea what typical commision rates are and can't tell if they are being ripped off.

^This. We have a number of players that "converted" from Magic. The problem many magic players have is that while the game looks interesting, the idea of putting in so much time and effort into building an army is not worth it when they normally just slap some cards in shields and go. Presenting them with a starter force gets rid of the initial time and effort. This just leaves the problem of the amount of money needed to purchase the army and additional models.

As for price, I have let the store owner know that most pro painters require price of the model or more for their work. I on the other hand would only charge, at most, half the price of the model. Also, I've been going to the game store since it opened. I played magic for a time, so almost everyone from all sides know me and are able to get a hold of me VIA our Facebook group. This should hopefully mitigate an nervous feelings about letting me handle their models.