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A lot of people talk about buying 40k stuff from ebay, especially guard, who are somehow seen to be more prohibitively expensive without buying things from there.

I've been searching for various things for the past couple of weeks, though, and I'm starting to seriously question this strategy. The biggest problem I'm finding is the kinds of things you can get from ebay. If you're looking for out of production stuff, well sure, but for in-production things, it seems like eBay is pretty much limited to:

- "Pro" painted. Some of these look nice, but most of them don't. They're just painted. Which means that the first thing you've got to do is strip the paint. For the privelage of extra work (and not knowing how well the model was assembled), you often have to pay up to double the cost of the model, in order to pay for the labor that you're going to have to put your own labor into undoing.

- Junk. It was put together with plastic glue. It was assembled wrong. It's missing several pieces. It has some really, really questionable attempts at kitbashing or conversion work. You can actually get stuff cheaper, but how long is it going to take you to fix the other person's mistakes? Hours? Weeks? My time is more valuable than attempting to fix some teenagers botch job.

- In box stuff. It comes with a discount, not being at full retail, and you have none of the above problems... and then you have to pay for shipping, which makes whatever you bought basically the same price as if you had gone to your local store and just bought it. Except if you did that, then you'd actually be supporting your local businesses / the place you play 40k, which is certainly worth spending an extra dollar or two on something that already costs fifty bucks.

Probably the most egregious offender of this is bitz. Some of the people on eBay are flat-out absurd. You buy $2 of bitz, and it comes with $6 in shipping? You might as well just buy from a real bitz site like the war store.

Anyways, after trying in several ways to come up with an eBay solution to various things, I think I'm giving up. Why is it worth all the hassle just to save a few bucks?

It all depends. I mean, quite aside from anything else, where you might be saving a couple of dollars, I would be saving ~50%

It's all about finding and waiting. I just add the shipping and my max bid and keep it under what I would buy from another online retailer with free shipping. I've found some great deals on there- more that 25% off MSRP (shipping included). You just have to hunt.

I've only bought one set of painted minis- I could see that they were crap in the first place, so I didn't pay a lot for them. I don't think I'd buy any pro-painted minis- you're really paying a premium for that.

Ebay is also a great place to get loads of bits. That can get addicting fast though haha!

E-bay can be good for deals.

I bought OOP models on E-bay they came in a set it came with 4 bolter guys, 1 Missile Launcher guy and 8 Genestealers all for about $10

But usually with Ebay you can pick two of these three things. Cheap, Fast, Good

If you get models Cheap and Fast they will not be Good.

If you get models Good and Cheap the process will not be Fast.

If you get models Good and Fast they will not be Cheap.

I've found that the vast majority of the time it's far better to buy from Amazon.

eBay often costs more than retail for no reason. On the rare occasion you do save money it's usually on assembled models, which aren't always well done.

Depends, I got most of my fantasy orge army for about 15% off with free shipping.

Granted they came without the boxes, but I just throw those away anyway.

It depends on what you want out of ebay.

If you're one of the people creating the garbage models you don't care about quality, so you're happy to pick up the garbage models at a huge discount and just keep the cycle going.

If you care about the quality of your models you probably don't bother with ebay for anything but OOP stuff or hard to find bits.

I think ebay has one very special use. That rare, once in a blue moon 'find'. Some utterly unique or perfect bit or fig or unit that you've never seen before, or never seen setup in that particular way. Other than that I guess if you really want to challenge yourself to save a model or make an ork looted wagon...

Swap shop and Bartertown are much better than eBay.

Like some people have said ebay is a real hit and miss kinda thing. IMO its great for finding bits and oop stuff. Every once and a while you find a deal.

I got a rhino for like 17 bucks +5 for shipping and handling

and i got a tac squad for 30 bucks free shipping so i mean some times you get deals some times you dont, its all about being in the right place at the right time

 Ailaros wrote:
A lot of people talk about buying 40k stuff from ebay, especially guard, who are somehow seen to be more prohibitively expensive without buying things from there.

I've been searching for various things for the past couple of weeks, though, and I'm starting to seriously question this strategy. The biggest problem I'm finding is the kinds of things you can get from ebay. If you're looking for out of production stuff, well sure, but for in-production things, it seems like eBay is pretty much limited to:

- "Pro" painted. Some of these look nice, but most of them don't. They're just painted. Which means that the first thing you've got to do is strip the paint. For the privelage of extra work (and not knowing how well the model was assembled), you often have to pay up to double the cost of the model, in order to pay for the labor that you're going to have to put your own labor into undoing.

- Junk. It was put together with plastic glue. It was assembled wrong. It's missing several pieces. It has some really, really questionable attempts at kitbashing or conversion work. You can actually get stuff cheaper, but how long is it going to take you to fix the other person's mistakes? Hours? Weeks? My time is more valuable than attempting to fix some teenagers botch job.

- In box stuff. It comes with a discount, not being at full retail, and you have none of the above problems... and then you have to pay for shipping, which makes whatever you bought basically the same price as if you had gone to your local store and just bought it. Except if you did that, then you'd actually be supporting your local businesses / the place you play 40k, which is certainly worth spending an extra dollar or two on something that already costs fifty bucks.

Probably the most egregious offender of this is bitz. Some of the people on eBay are flat-out absurd. You buy $2 of bitz, and it comes with $6 in shipping? You might as well just buy from a real bitz site like the war store.

Anyways, after trying in several ways to come up with an eBay solution to various things, I think I'm giving up. Why is it worth all the hassle just to save a few bucks?

not really. maybe you didnt look very hard.
The saving are probably less shocking since youre paying american prices.
canadian price for most 5 marine kits is 39.50. from a good ebay discounter, it's less than 25 and they give free shipping.

alot of bits sites are a rip but some are great. you need to shop around for the right one and you order more than a single bit. obviously the shipping charge sucks if youre only ordering one 2 dollar bit. i guess you never heard of combined shipping.

I stopped using ebay long ago. Craigslist, the swap shop, and bartertown. Using anything else is just a huge waste of my time almost always.

Picked up 3 of the old Leman Russ kits with 3 tank upgrade sprues a couple of months ago, all brand new on the sprue, for a hundred bucks. I easily got 1 leman russ for free, and the tank upgrade sprues go for 15 bucks apiece these days. Not to mention that you can't buy the old style of tank anymore either.

That's why you go to eBay. To pick up the OOP stuff.

Everything else is either not worth the hassle or not much different than what we can buy it brand new.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
Picked up 3 of the old Leman Russ kits with 3 tank upgrade sprues a couple of months ago, all brand new on the sprue, for a hundred bucks. I easily got 1 leman russ for free, and the tank upgrade sprues go for 15 bucks apiece these days. Not to mention that you can't buy the old style of tank anymore either.

That's why you go to eBay. To pick up the OOP stuff.

Everything else is either not worth the hassle or not much different than what we can buy it brand new.

I would have killed for that deal. The new Leman Russes look out of place in my regiment, where the first company and portions of the second company are all the old kit. Regrettably I've already filled third and fourth companies with the new ones :(

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
Picked up 3 of the old Leman Russ kits with 3 tank upgrade sprues a couple of months ago, all brand new on the sprue, for a hundred bucks. I easily got 1 leman russ for free, and the tank upgrade sprues go for 15 bucks apiece these days. Not to mention that you can't buy the old style of tank anymore either.

That's why you go to eBay. To pick up the OOP stuff.

Everything else is either not worth the hassle or not much different than what we can buy it brand new.

I would have killed for that deal. The new Leman Russes look out of place in my regiment, where the first company and portions of the second company are all the old kit. Regrettably I've already filled third and fourth companies with the new ones :(

I would offer to sell mine to you but... well... I love the old style russes too

Now I'm stuck hunting them down as well. At least I already have 6 (7 if you count the executioner with the FW turret)

Also, do the full tank kits you buy from forgeworld still have the old tank bodies, or have they updated them to fit the new tanks? Because every pic I see on the forgeworld site shows the forgeworld turret tanks with the old tank bodies (the out of print ones)

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
Also, do the full tank kits you buy from forgeworld still have the old tank bodies, or have they updated them to fit the new tanks? Because every pic I see on the forgeworld site shows the forgeworld turret tanks with the old tank bodies (the out of print ones)

The pictures are just old and haven't been updated with the new plastic kits (why bother building and painting a new one when you have a perfectly good catalog picture already). All Chimera, Leman Russ and Valkyrie based models include the current plastic parts, and all of the resin components have been redesigned (where required) to fit the new kits.

(Which is a very good thing, since the old track design was invented by a sadist.)

 Ailaros wrote:
A lot of people talk about buying 40k stuff from ebay, especially guard, who are somehow seen to be more prohibitively expensive without buying things from there.

I've been searching for various things for the past couple of weeks, though, and I'm starting to seriously question this strategy. The biggest problem I'm finding is the kinds of things you can get from ebay. If you're looking for out of production stuff, well sure, but for in-production things, it seems like eBay is pretty much limited to:

- "Pro" painted. Some of these look nice, but most of them don't. They're just painted. Which means that the first thing you've got to do is strip the paint. For the privelage of extra work (and not knowing how well the model was assembled), you often have to pay up to double the cost of the model, in order to pay for the labor that you're going to have to put your own labor into undoing.

- Junk. It was put together with plastic glue. It was assembled wrong. It's missing several pieces. It has some really, really questionable attempts at kitbashing or conversion work. You can actually get stuff cheaper, but how long is it going to take you to fix the other person's mistakes? Hours? Weeks? My time is more valuable than attempting to fix some teenagers botch job.

- In box stuff. It comes with a discount, not being at full retail, and you have none of the above problems... and then you have to pay for shipping, which makes whatever you bought basically the same price as if you had gone to your local store and just bought it. Except if you did that, then you'd actually be supporting your local businesses / the place you play 40k, which is certainly worth spending an extra dollar or two on something that already costs fifty bucks.

Probably the most egregious offender of this is bitz. Some of the people on eBay are flat-out absurd. You buy $2 of bitz, and it comes with $6 in shipping? You might as well just buy from a real bitz site like the war store.

Anyways, after trying in several ways to come up with an eBay solution to various things, I think I'm giving up. Why is it worth all the hassle just to save a few bucks?

I dont buy anything that is already assembled. I stick to stuff that is either on the sprue, or merely clipped off the sprue.

I also don't buy anything where the savings aren't at least 10% (after shipping costs) below retail costs, as this is sort of my made-up threshold for where it's worth the savings to me...

lastly, bitz...bitz are only worth it if you plan on buying multiple sets and combining shipping (almost all of them will combine shipping costs). If you play an army that has something different about them that requires a special piece for each model (like black templars) then buying bits makes a lot of sense, because you circumvent having to buy a set of tactical marines, plus a squad upgrade box, which ends up almost doubling your cost.

So yeah, ebay at first glance isn't that great, but you need to learn how to use it and find ways to make it work in your favor.

ps. find a preferred seller...discountgamestore is my personal go-to for all things plastic, and for resin I have a few other sellers that I go through.(it's more difficult because there are lots of scammers who sell bad and illegal recasts)

 Peregrine wrote:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
Also, do the full tank kits you buy from forgeworld still have the old tank bodies, or have they updated them to fit the new tanks? Because every pic I see on the forgeworld site shows the forgeworld turret tanks with the old tank bodies (the out of print ones)

The pictures are just old and haven't been updated with the new plastic kits (why bother building and painting a new one when you have a perfectly good catalog picture already). All Chimera, Leman Russ and Valkyrie based models include the current plastic parts, and all of the resin components have been redesigned (where required) to fit the new kits.

(Which is a very good thing, since the old track design was invented by a sadist.)

Dang. That means it's going to take some serious finangling to get the rest of my tanks from the original kit.

Although those track assemblies can go straight to hell along with the madman who made them

I love Ebay. If it wasn't for Ebay I would have been priced out of the hobby a long time ago. These days I only buy stuff with the money I make from selling 40k on there.

Certain things are rare yes, and the past few weeks have been naturally slow because of the holidays.

But it all comes down to how much you want or need something, and how long you are willing to wait.

Good luck in your search.

Ebay is pretty nice for picking up the here-and-there Forgeworld deal too.

Granted, sifting through the china-casts can be a pain, but I've gotten some steals.

Though you forfeit FW's (imo) fantastic customer service and replacement policies by going this route.

I'd rather trade with other gamers to be honest. I don't like Ebay, screwed me a few times.

If I pay new, I'll buy in bulk from an online retailer and try to negotiate a small discount. Only if nobody at my gaming clubs can help of course.

Cadian Shock troops on ebay: £19.35, £1.35 more than from GW. Who the hell would buy that?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
£7.20 for 5 guardsmen - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Warhammer-40k-Imperial-Guard-Cadians-/281044430524?pt=UK_Toys_Wargames_RL&hash=item416f8daebc

Just..people have bid on this. Why?!?!?

 BryllCream wrote:
Cadian Shock troops on ebay: £19.35, £1.35 more than from GW. Who the hell would buy that?

Isn't there a quote that says a sucker is born every day?

 BryllCream wrote:
Cadian Shock troops on ebay: £19.35, £1.35 more than from GW. Who the hell would buy that?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
£7.20 for 5 guardsmen - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Warhammer-40k-Imperial-Guard-Cadians-/281044430524?pt=UK_Toys_Wargames_RL&hash=item416f8daebc

Just..people have bid on this. Why?!?!?

Because for Australians, thats still cheaper than buying it in the land down under.

Ebay is ok. It's a little hit and miss, granted, but i've found some great deals on there. I picked up a boxed copy of Epic 40k, with everything bar the scenery still on the sprue, for £40 inc postage. Thats a good deal

But, yeah, they are some jokers on Ebay. some of the 'Pro-Painted' stuff looks like it was assembled and painted by Orang-utans, and the deal may look good, but the postage is truly outrageous. Just shop around and find a preferred seller to vibe with and it can be cheaper than buying from companies like DarkSphere and Wayland Games. CAN BE. Just be cautious and, like all auctions, never bid above your ceiling.

The only time I have used ebay for 40k stuff was to grab some black reach terminators and tactical marines for a great deal. Other then that I wouldn't have bothered with it. Now that I think about it though I wish I had grabbed around four more of those terminator squads to used with my death-wing since I got them for 15 bucks each.

"Pro-painted" means less than nothing, most of those models are barely table-top acceptable.

I bought 4 NIB Meganobz for about $50 last month. You have to sort through all the "pro painted" and shipping scams to find the gems.

 Greenizbest wrote:
I bought 4 NIB Meganobz for about $50 last month. You have to sort through all the "pro painted" and shipping scams to find the gems.

Yeah, but time is money. Does it really make sense to spend a lot of time sorting through the garbage to save $20 over just buying those models from any random 20% off store? I guess if you're on a really tight budget and have lots of free time maybe, but otherwise I just don't see the appeal for stuff that's currently in production.

As already mentioned, it benefits us way more than you, even with shipping accounted for.