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What is the cheapest, ITC legal, army.

I am looking for a cheap, low model count side project to do on the side of my Ynari, and I can think of a few cheap armies, any help? Only criteria - 1850 points, fun to play.

I currently have -

Flying Circus daemons ($200-$300?)

Assassins ($250?)

Thoughts?

Grey Knights if you go Terminator heavy.

Terminator/Dreadknight GK, Deathwatch. Ravenwing ($15 for three DV bikes NOS on Ebay). Farsight Enclaves and Cult Mechanicus would be a bit more expensive but they'd definitely be low model count.

GK are usually the cheapest army in terms of money, but many people (including me) don't like their miniatures and find them quite boring to play. That's why if you start a GK army and get tired of them wanting to start something else, chosing them wouldn't be the cheapest option available. Chose the army you like most considering the miniatures and the style of playing.

Tyranids.
3x Start Collecting Boxes $255
1× Hive Tyrant $54
2× Termagaunts $58
$367

Not the cheapest but definitely good fun.

Really depends. I know this post probably won't help much at all, but keep an eye out on eBay for the box sets/box games.

Dark Vengeance - you can get all of the Dark Angels or Crimson Slaughter pretty cheap if you keep an eye out for deals on eBay.

Death Masque - The Deathwatch part of Death Masque is quite inexpensive on eBay.

Ynnari - Triumvirate of Ynnead ($75 for three figures with total point value over 600), Start Collecting Eldar ($85 for 3 Scatbikes, 1 Seer on Jetbike, and 1 heavy tank), Start Collecting Dark Eldar ($85 for 10 Kabalite Warriors, 1 Raider, and 3 Reavers), Gangs of Commorragh ($60 for 6 DE Reavers and 10 DE Hellions). These are all prices for new, sealed product.

Just my $0.02

SG

[delete: misread]

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
Tyranids.
3x Start Collecting Boxes $255
1× Hive Tyrant $54
2× Termagaunts $58
$367

Not the cheapest but definitely good fun.

Dont take the 2nd Gant unit b.c the warriors comes with 1 base of Rippers, sense you have 3 starter boxes you will have a FULL unit of Rippers. Rippers ar 39pts and gants are 40pts. So you save a little money for same points, tho you actually want DS on rippers so thats 45pts instead of 39pts, DSing them onto Objectives is a good idea.

Or get the 2nd Gants units but take 1 of the boxes of Warriors and make them in Venomthropes (Very easy to do, just dont put the legs on or guns, use all the Lash Whips of venomthrope whips and your done). This will give you Bonus cover saves bubbles, having 3 Venomthropes is a good thing actually.

You can get Ravenwing fairly cheap on eBay or some such, but not very consistently. I've seen a lot of players pick up Necrons as their first army, then sell them off later, and in general Necrons aren't that expensive too.

Ooh, do Spruecrons count as an army?

 gnome_idea_what wrote:
...Ooh, do Spruecrons count as an army?...

If you're going that route (and you didn't want your force to be too scrabbled-together trash) you could also build a Guard army out of historical miniatures (this route doesn't help with the small model count configuration). Plastic Soldier Company has low-quality 28mm-scale Russians at $20 US for 50+ models.

(Your Russes in this case are T-34s at $20-30 each depending on source and manufacturer.)

If you are going strictly new in box, then Necrons are a pretty good value, points-to-dollar wise. What also benefits that is the lack of options for each unit - it has either Weapon A or Weapon B - which cuts down on repeat models you would need as opposed to needing so many Marines with Special Weapons or different Sergeant models for differing options and loadouts.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
Tyranids.
3x Start Collecting Boxes $255
1× Hive Tyrant $54
2× Termagaunts $58
$367

Not the cheapest but definitely good fun.

Dont take the 2nd Gant unit b.c the warriors comes with 1 base of Rippers, sense you have 3 starter boxes you will have a FULL unit of Rippers. Rippers ar 39pts and gants are 40pts. So you save a little money for same points, tho you actually want DS on rippers so thats 45pts instead of 39pts, DSing them onto Objectives is a good idea.

Or get the 2nd Gants units but take 1 of the boxes of Warriors and make them in Venomthropes (Very easy to do, just dont put the legs on or guns, use all the Lash Whips of venomthrope whips and your done). This will give you Bonus cover saves bubbles, having 3 Venomthropes is a good thing actually.

Good call - $29 and one point to spend on better upgrades. Very good call.

New models? Imperial Knight House.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 gnome_idea_what wrote:
...Ooh, do Spruecrons count as an army?...

If you're going that route (and you didn't want your force to be too scrabbled-together trash) you could also build a Guard army out of historical miniatures (this route doesn't help with the small model count configuration). Plastic Soldier Company has low-quality 28mm-scale Russians at $20 US for 50+ models.

(Your Russes in this case are T-34s at $20-30 each depending on source and manufacturer.)

OP already has an army, so if he saved all his sprues from that, worked carefully, and maybe asked around his LGS for any extra sprues people weren't using he could conceivably make an army for almost free. That is, if price is the only factor.

I don't know if it is the cheapest, but I went the Dark Vengeance route plus a couple of Desolator boxes. I painted the Dark Angels in black as the Fallen and count as Chaos Space Marine units.

This got me:

Chaos Lord
Dark Apostle/Sorcerer (Librarian count as)
20 Cultists
30 or so Chaos Space Marines
7 Chosen
5 Terminators
3 Bikers
2 Rhinos
Hellbrute

Not a competitive list by any means and some of the war gear is basically chosen for you. However, depending on which Marks and Icons you take it can easily cover 1850 points for just over $200.

Exacto blades $10
Super glue $10
Hole punch for rivets $20
Assorted plasticard and rods $35
Every odd looking piece of packaging/garbage $0

Scratch built Ork Dreadmob $75

Deathwatch can get an army out really cheap with a few copies of the Start Collecting box.

Alternatively and at even lower cost, ram-raiding your local GW would be free if you used someone else's car.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 gnome_idea_what wrote:
...Ooh, do Spruecrons count as an army?...

If you're going that route (and you didn't want your force to be too scrabbled-together trash) you could also build a Guard army out of historical miniatures (this route doesn't help with the small model count configuration). Plastic Soldier Company has low-quality 28mm-scale Russians at $20 US for 50+ models.

(Your Russes in this case are T-34s at $20-30 each depending on source and manufacturer.)

Because saving money is worth ruining the setting every time

I don't really think he'll get that many games with a historical army.

Tau are the cheapest hands down.
2 SS and 3 riptides and you are under 450 bucks. Ad a start collecting box and you are at 1850 for about 550.

There are no cheap gw armies.

Get a whole bunch of snapfit marines and just convert them.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Tau are the cheapest hands down.
2 SS and 3 riptides and you are under 450 bucks. Ad a start collecting box and you are at 1850 for about 550.

I was actually considering suit heavy tau...

Best part is I already have a stormsurge sitting around.

But isn't 2 stormsurge + 3 riptides uber cheese?

Yes. Yes it is.

Tetrad + Be'Lakor and some pink horrors. Comes out to around $270 at GW prices (4 daemon princes, Be'Lakor, 3 boxes of pink horrors). With upgrades you can easily get to 1850.

If you get 10-20% off of that you're looking at about $230 for a pretty competitive 1850 point army.

The tetrad and tau are particularly what I meant in the OP.

Thanks everyone!

morgoth wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 gnome_idea_what wrote:
...Ooh, do Spruecrons count as an army?...

If you're going that route (and you didn't want your force to be too scrabbled-together trash) you could also build a Guard army out of historical miniatures (this route doesn't help with the small model count configuration). Plastic Soldier Company has low-quality 28mm-scale Russians at $20 US for 50+ models.

(Your Russes in this case are T-34s at $20-30 each depending on source and manufacturer.)

Because saving money is worth ruining the setting every time

I don't really think he'll get that many games with a historical army.

I'll play him - I love the looks of historically-styled Imperial Guard armies. And that look is very much in-setting - have you ever seen the Praetorian Guard? They're so period themed they look like they just walked out of the Anglo-Zulu War and picked up a lasrifle. They even had official GW models.

morgoth wrote:
...I don't really think he'll get that many games with a historical army...

This is why they're going to squat the Guard in 8th. Too easy to take historical models and make them look sensible in 40k.

You should do Grey Knights but model them up as Eldar. That way to can take a Nemesis Strike Force alongside some Ynnari and say they are proto-type anti-deamon Wraith constructs.

That's what I did:
http://glennsgwmodels.blogspot.com/2016/01/eldar-terminators.html

 Galef wrote:
You should do Grey Knights but model them up as Eldar. That way to can take a Nemesis Strike Force alongside some Ynnari and say they are proto-type anti-deamon Wraith constructs.

That's what I did:
http://glennsgwmodels.blogspot.com/2016/01/eldar-terminators.html

Dude. Awesome idea. Well done

A lot of 40k players seem so naturally adept at adapting their fluff and models to fit an appropriate set of rules, I get jealous sometimes.

Hmmm I'd agree that Necron's are some of the more cheaper, but it doesn't really tend to be a low model count army.... and if you do want to go for the few low model count routes (royal court, destroyer cult) then the price starts to increase. However there are some clever things you can do with Necrons:

1. Build Command Barge as Annihilation and use the Overlord on foot
2. Convert Warriors to Flayed Ones
3. Utilise the Deathmark parts of an Immortals box with normal warriors to get Deathmark's as well

In terms of cheapest and low model count, we have the following options:

Tau w Battlesuits (Farsight)
Pro's: Tend to go quite cheap on ebay, Nice variety, Can be magnetised for future amendments to lists
Con's: Suits on ebay are usually already assembled in a god awful weapon combo, Requires a lot of Markerlight Drones which can be a pain to get ahold of and also makes it a higher model count army indirectly

Ravenwing/Deathwing (individually or combined)
Pro's: Fluffy as all hell, Bikes and Termies sell for damn cheap on ebay thanks to DV box, Can convert DV Bikes to Black Knights with ease, Easy to paint (raven at least), Good variety in mixing/matching or hosting individually
Con's: Limited weapon options from DV Bikes/Termies (grav guns are nigh impossible to find cheap and most DV bikes in lists choose them), Darkshroud is expensive for what it is and is pretty ugly (imo), Need to buy at least one norm Bike and Termie squad if you want pose and weapon variation on DV guys

Grey Knights
Pro's: Lots of sellers on ebay, Lowest model count out of armies I've listed, Easy to paint, Probably one of the cheapest
Con's: Lack of variety, Re-sell value less than other armies due to so many listed