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Let's say you have just started, you are not ebaying. Your buying from GamesWorkshop itself. You want to at minimum have 1500 points. Across the board with all armies. What's the minimum amount of money (codex included), that you have to spend in order to start playing at 1500. This doesn't mean get around that 1500 points by substitution, for example saying Dark Vengeance then saying I substitute the Dark Angels for Chaos Space Marine.

The average I am coming up with is rather high, in the 300 to 400 dollars range, depending on army.

Now take that and nominate what's the minimum for just having a army with 1 HQ and 2 Troops which is the cheapest? What's the most expensive?

I'd say with my limited knowledge, Imperial Knight Titans could get you your minimum buy in.
If you go to GW, I think it's like $160 a Titan with shipping, and figure on at least buying 5, along with the codex for about $850
What army can you get in the 300-400 range? Grey Knights?
The question is, why buy from GW?

Well, not taking advantage of eBay is just silly. But if you insist...

Imperial guard 1500 point list:

Commissar Yarrick

Vets - grenadiers, forward sentries, demolitions, 3x plasma guns
Vets - grenadiers, forward sentries, demolitions, 2x plasma guns, grenade launcher

Executioner - Pask, lascannon, 2x plasma cannons, stubber, HK, camo net
Executioner - lascannon, 2x plasma cannons, stubber, HK, dozer blade, camo net
Executioner - lascannon, 2x plasma cannons, stubber, HK, dozer blade, camo net

That's 3 russes, 2 boxes cadians, 1 5-plasma weapon upgrade kit, and one commissar model.

$229.75 ($262.75 with codex)

As for the cheapest possible for guard, that's a lord commissar and two naked vet squads which comes down to a cheapest NiB price of...

$71.25 ($104.25 with codex)

But once again, this is all a bit silly. It's not taking into account second-hand purchases or conversion skills on the one hand, or the quality of army you'd produce on the other.

It's not really silly as Ebay is not a static price. That's like saying , well you can get a car for 500 bucks.. yeah you can if you tried.

This is just more of a "What's the buy in" what's expected of a new player to spend not from your or others personal view but what is expected of you as a new player to spend if you want to be at a certain point level and what's the best army that's good that you could have for that price.

Relapse wrote:
I'd say with my limited knowledge, Imperial Knight Titans could get you your minimum buy in.
If you go to GW, I think it's like $160 a Titan with shipping, and figure on at least buying 5, along with the codex for about $850
What army can you get in the 300-400 range? Grey Knights?
The question is, why buy from GW?

4 will get you around 1480-1500 mark. Using Dreamforge leviathans instead and you could probably halve the cost easy.

Without GW models imperial guard can be ridiculously cheap.

Depends on the taste of the buyer, but in my opinion avoid cadian boxes at all cost if you want value for money haha. I cant be bothered doing the math because it means id have to work it out in american .

Cheapest way in my opinion is 3rd party imperial guard.

If you include ebay, you can get just the DA or just the Chaos from the Dark Vengeance set quite cheaply. A Deathwing or Ravenwing army is REALLY cheap to assemble if you use ebay because there's many bitz sellers who break up the Dark Vengeance kit.

I guess if the point is to attempt to level the playing field then fine, but the results are still polluted by all the things that were cut out.

Because in the end orks will just be cheaper than list price because you can scratch-build all their vehicles and still get AoBR boyz from ebay for cheaper than a box of boyz costs NiB, and deathwing will have deflated prices for awhile now thanks to DV.

 n0t_u wrote:

Relapse wrote:
I'd say with my limited knowledge, Imperial Knight Titans could get you your minimum buy in.
If you go to GW, I think it's like $160 a Titan with shipping, and figure on at least buying 5, along with the codex for about $850
What army can you get in the 300-400 range? Grey Knights?
The question is, why buy from GW?

4 will get you around 1480-1500 mark. Using Dreamforge leviathans instead and you could probably halve the cost easy.

I had a bud just do a Blue Table battle report running bugs vs Imperial Titans, with Dreamforge scupts used as stand ins. Those are some gorgeous models.

Here's the link to the intro:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d-B0qIlhAVw

Full report:


http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ExTw9Z1TbrQ

Codex Marines you should be able to do for close to $300, codex included.

I’ve written lists around 1,250 with just the strikeforce. Which is $225. Codex is a large chunk of “ouch” at $58. While not the most Cash/Point efficient buy, I’d add a box of devastators for $35. They are a solid choice for any marine player buying NIB. Having more then just MLs on your marines is priceless. Well, technically, the price is $35, but you get my point.

So that’s $260 in minis, $315 if you include the rules. Should be able to make a decent 1,500 TAC marine list. You might be able to get to 1,500 with just the strikeforce, but I think it would require taking wargear just to bump points up, and stretching is never good.

Adding another 500 points to make a 2k list depends on how you want to play. It’s probably going to run another $100-$150. The Storm Wing box (2 talons and a raven) for $140 will do it easy, and answer the question about how you deal with flyers in one simple box. ~$125 will get you a LR full of assault terminators.

As for the minimum, a $15 HQ and a $40 tactical squad fielded at 2x5 man squads is the lowest you can go. So $55. Less then the cost of the codex. To be honest, you could make a captain out of spare bits from the tac box, you’d just need to find an extra marine body somewhere. The 3 for $10 box would let you do that, and lower the total to $50.

Just think what else you can buy for that, when I started £60 got you a starting army with rules, granted that was nearly two decades ago but when you look at how little income has gone up over that time it hits you why people are spending less.

What can I buy for $260? Well, the thread is assuming that you're buying a premium product brand new with no attempt to get things for cheaper, so it only makes sense to compare things as such.

So, let's see, for that kind of money, I can buy ~2 bottles of nice 12-year single malt scotch. ~1 box of nice cigars comes in at that price range. It also buys a decent set of oil paints, brushes and a single canvas or two. It buys an airbrush kit, but not a particularly nice one, and no paints to use with it. It also buys .03% of an eagle speedster.

It doesn't seem a bad value to me, given the dozens of hours I'd spend painting the minis, and the hundreds of hours of play time I'd get from them.

Hollismason wrote:
It's not really silly as Ebay is not a static price. That's like saying , well you can get a car for 500 bucks.. yeah you can if you tried.

This is just more of a "What's the buy in" what's expected of a new player to spend not from your or others personal view but what is expected of you as a new player to spend if you want to be at a certain point level and what's the best army that's good that you could have for that price.

Actually, ebay has MANY items at a static price. Most of the "buy it now" prices are around 15-20% off, and this is on sellers who sell a lot (i.e. have hundreds or thousands of transactions).

Also, many local game stores give even better deals.

For example, if you want dark angles (or your own chapter that has marines that use icons similar to dark angels) the DA minis from the starter set go for about a buck a mini VERY REGULARLY on ebay.
The terminators for about $2 a mini. The bikes, for about $5. REGULARLY.

A bit of research will help on some of this. I could make a dark angels death wing army for less than $100 on ebay (or spend a bit more, and get a few flyers or a quad gun etc.).
There is a 2500 point necron army on ebay, with about 18 hours to go, and its $150 bucks.

there is a space marine strike force (225 gw list) on a buy it now on ebay for $160 and $22.33 shipping. That is a STATIC price of $183. Thats almost $50 less than the gw price, and you are not paying tax.

Finally, "best army" is incredibly subjective - there are many other threads on that.

if you are going to buy new, as others have pointed out the new big battle boxes are decent deals, especially if you find a local game store offering a discount.

So, I welcome you to the hobby, and hope you enjoy it, but take some friendly advice from those who have gone before you - spend wisely.

best of luck and have fun!!!

go to games workshop, there are several "one click" collections (type that in the search box on upper right and hit green arrow). There are several armies in their own right, although they say "apoc formations." There is a $189 tyranid force (1200pts if done right for reg games), several in the $250ish to $300ish range (might need to buy a model or two for hq or transports), then a $366 Death Company (that'll make over a 2200 pt list easy)....and more collections expensive too.... I'd say $500, then hunt down a retailer that offers discounts...

For Tyranids -
Codex $49.50
Hive Tyrant - $53.75
Tyranid Swarm - $170.00

You can make a 1493 point army (by taking some pointless upgrades) all for the low low cost $273.75. Plus S&H.

You need the rules as well.

In UK prices, you need a £30 rulebook and a £30 codex, plus say eight units at an average £30 each, for a total of £300.

That's $437 assuming 5% sales tax and 1.6 dollars to the pound.

Safe to say 1 hq, 2 troops, codex, plus a few other bells and whistles (units), for about $400 to $500 range will get a 1750 pt avg force...

well for a start dont ever move to australia, prices over here are ridiculous because you have to use kangaroo shipping.

Most models, 1500-2000 point army will run you about $450-$750

Well, I know you said no ebay, but I just got a 2k GK army (only 14 terminators, rest are all PA), that included a Dreadknight and a Raven... unpainted, all in good condition, for $127.

Maybe you should look at ebay?

But I get your point, what is the barrier of full entry? I'd say about $600.

1HQ and 2 troops is pretty standard at around $100-$120(finecast HQ + 2 boxes of troops). That doesn't include paint or modeling tools.

Asking about cost is really iffy though, because it partly depends on WHAT troops for each army you're using.

That being said...If you're going for low model count, just getting the points in, you could do Grey Knights for $202. It'd be a very poor army though (9 models total, Draigo, Librarian, 2 dreadknights, 5 paladins).