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Swarm armies are generally more expensive because (for example) $100 of ork models may only be worth 200 points, but $100 of space marine models might be 400 points simply because the stats are different so you get more points per dollar with one army than another. If this is generally true, the cost to build a 2,000 point army in different based on the race. Has anyone thought about what would be the best army, point-per-dollar, would be to build?

Edit: on GW site, 11 ork boyz is $35 while 10 tactical space marines is $45 and 10 chaos marines are $60

How expensive are Custodes again?

When the renegade knight box was a thing 400cad got you 2k points.

1 renegade knight box and 2 custodes jetbike supreme command would be 340 cad for 2 k points

Dayvuni wrote:
Edit: on GW site, 11 ork boyz is $35 while 10 tactical space marines is $45 and 10 chaos marines are $60

Some of the price differences is due to the age of the kit in question.

Ork Boyz - Old kit, dates back to 3rd edition with one modification somewhere along the way to add heavy weapons to the kit.

Space Marines - Not as old as the Ork Boyz. The Grav Gun dates the kit to 6th edition I believe.

Chaos Space Marines - A brand new kit.

To have the absolute cheapest army you have to account for second hand models, recasters (not that you’d buy them, but they can affect the market price) and conversions.

One really good answer used to be necrons, because you can use a plastic troops kit to build high point immortals, lords, etc.

OTOH the internet is awash in discarded space marine collections. If you can strip the models you can probably make some very high point Deathwatch units for literally 50 dollars and some elbow grease.

Buying new, 500$ gets 7 Tactical boxes, 3 Devastator Boxes, and a Command Squad kit, or something like that. Build your Characters with the fancy bits, spread your weapons around and build up a combination of Tacticals, Sternguard, Devastators, and Veterans. You'll have 94 Power armored bodies loaded with guns and gear. Pretty good.

The thing is points change, unit abilities change etc. Also prices the second market can change drastically. For example, everything contained within the shadowspear box. It all has valid rules(*cough* Legacy because no model no rules * eh GW ?), but most of it is not sold separately.

The new chaos oblitz were selling dime a dozen when shadowspear was on sale because people were buying and breaking down the box sets. They are kick ass unit, now, they are really expensive if you want them because shadowspear is no longer sold so your only option is a limited supply. GW doe s a lot of weird things when it comes to their model sales decisions... Trying to predict the second hand market fuelled by meta chasers depends on GW random arbitrary models/rules decision.

For example, you could buy 4 wraith knights for about £150(ebay prices) to give you circa 2k points. Will it win against most armies ? Highly very highly unlikely..... Will it give you a 2k army ? yes.

You could just buy 2 Stompas and at £150 that's 2k points.. again wil it achieve 2k points and classify as an army ? yes. But will it win ? hell to the no..

Then you have a spectrum going down the different armies of game point efficiency = ££ efficiency and do some mental gymnastics to justify spanking your wallet to get units XYZ.

I don't think there is a single cheapest army in 40k. Because it depends entirely on how you play 40k and what models do you like. If you just want a 40k army worth 2k points.. buy 2 stompas.. If you want to build a balanced army for a faction you like? It will get expensive no matter what you pick.

So your best bet is to really think about which army faction you like, and start collecting those, based on the units and models you like the most. Rule of thumb is you will need some troops for whatever the faction.
An army will manifest over time, but if you want to rush to get the newest hotness on the cheap you will be left with a bunch of models that wont be so hot sooner rather than later..

All said and done, if you want a functioning relatively compettaive army and don't really care about its theme/identity? Id say get a couple IK apocalypse sets.. Low model count, high points, high effectiveness.

Yep, gonna have to agree with any of the major boxed sets, particularly if you can use them together. The HH boxes were by far the best army-building boxes I've ever seen from GW - because both of the boxes could be used as a single army.

Betrayal at Calth (MSRP $150, purchased for $108 shipped)

2x Hero Characters
30x Tactical Marines
5x Terminators
1x Dreadnought

This for $108 was exceptionally reasonable (ignoring the fact that the plastic Contemptor is a completely gak kit, the worst kit they've released in ....a decade maybe)


Is it a good army? Not really, but for $216 you could have picked up two of those boxes and had a decent army to start playing with. The tactical marines would actually let you field a squad or two of devastators, and you could pick up some arms/jump packs from third parties to make some assault marines, etc.

Burning of Prospero was less fantastic, mainly because it had more defined units, and you couldn't really cram them all into a single-faction army.

So yeah I'd argue the best you could do would be to find a boxed set, get it on discount online...and snag 3-4 "halves". You won't have a fantastic, mega-competitive force, but it's the only way to gather an army "on the cheap" (in terms of GW models).

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
How expensive are Custodes again?

a box of custodes guard is about 60 bucks USD. that'll get you a ~400 point patrol detachment which I think is proably the cheapest starter army as thats about what you get in a start collecting box.

Going with non-GW models, you can make a pretty cheap Guard army from cheap WW2 miniatures and 1/48 or 1/35 vehicle models.

I hadn't realized I had done that until I'd finished my German & American Bolt Action army and it dawned on me I could just use them as IG.

I'm rather amused that one of the cheaper 2k armies is just a Forgeworld Eldar Revenant Titan at £231. Clearly not worth 2k points and won't win anything, but their insistence on making any unit with "Titan" in its name at least 2k has made the £-to-points ratio on that thing pretty good!

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
How expensive are Custodes again?

£140 for twelve bikes, less 15% third party. Troops/Sagittarum and banner optional.
Valid detachment at 1150-1220pts. Could run it out at 1500 with the banner and infantry.

I built the following 2000pt army for not much more than £250

12 Bikes
10 custodian guard
1 box of allurus terminators

All from ebay quite heavily discounted.

With 10 bikes slpit into 5 man 2 squads, 3 hurricane bolters and 2 melta missiles in each and 2 shield captains to provide mobile reroll auras, it's really not a half bad army to play either.

The time where you get a new 2000 pt army for cheap directly from GW or a retailer is more or less over.
You could consider 3 Knights plus 2 Armiger Warglaives. Five models but cheap? No, not really.

Ask your friends / local game clubs & stores for old sprues.

Build a Necron army.




It's 100% official GW product as well

The Christmas bundles are usually good, the eldar battle force last year plus the eldar half of wake the dead would have been approximately £150 from 3rd party sellers.
That would give you three units of troops, two hq, a wave serpent, five wraith guard, a vyper, three windriders and a wraithknight.
That comes to roughly 1250 PTS for a battalion and a super heavy auxiliary. Not optimal but more than playable.

I am unsure the Bark looks more orky.

As for the rest. That ain't even that bad?!?
Use some filler Material and other bitz and you could make a decent robot army out of that using necron rules.

 wuestenfux wrote:
The time where you get a new 2000 pt army for cheap directly from GW or a retailer is more or less over.
You could consider 3 Knights plus 2 Armiger Warglaives. Five models but cheap? No, not really.

depends on how you define cheap. I mean it IS relevative.

BrianDavion wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:
The time where you get a new 2000 pt army for cheap directly from GW or a retailer is more or less over.
You could consider 3 Knights plus 2 Armiger Warglaives. Five models but cheap? No, not really.

depends on how you define cheap. I mean it IS relevative.

I guess you need about 500 bucks for a new army.
300 bucks is a bit too less but it was doable in former years.

4 x Imperial Knight Crusader. Knight kits are still going for $85 US on Ebay. So $340, you'll need some tubes to turn one of the guns into a gatling gun. Each needs an Avenger and a Rapid fire Battlecannon. 3 get a Melta gun, one gets a Carapace Rocket pod. 1993 pts. You'll have to find a carapace rocket pod. Etsy or Shapeways should let you find one cheap. Or find a missile pod from something else and use that.

 wuestenfux wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:
The time where you get a new 2000 pt army for cheap directly from GW or a retailer is more or less over.
You could consider 3 Knights plus 2 Armiger Warglaives. Five models but cheap? No, not really.

depends on how you define cheap. I mean it IS relevative.

I guess you need about 500 bucks for a new army.
300 bucks is a bit too less but it was doable in former years.

Bit mind blowing to be honest. people here with normal salaries do aroundd 450$ a month. And by people I mean adults with real jobs. Even stranger is the fact that this is unoptimised lists, In practice I would say that unless someone can spend 150-200$ per month on models, it is probably better not to start. And big splash of buying all stuff in one go, is probably the best, just after a CA drops in, so the chance of good stuff staying good for longest time is the biggest.

Karol wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:
The time where you get a new 2000 pt army for cheap directly from GW or a retailer is more or less over.
You could consider 3 Knights plus 2 Armiger Warglaives. Five models but cheap? No, not really.

depends on how you define cheap. I mean it IS relevative.

I guess you need about 500 bucks for a new army.
300 bucks is a bit too less but it was doable in former years.

Bit mind blowing to be honest. people here with normal salaries do aroundd 450$ a month. And by people I mean adults with real jobs. Even stranger is the fact that this is unoptimised lists, In practice I would say that unless someone can spend 150-200$ per month on models, it is probably better not to start. And big splash of buying all stuff in one go, is probably the best, just after a CA drops in, so the chance of good stuff staying good for longest time is the biggest.

The only reason you need to buy that much on a monthly basis is if you are chasing the meta on a professional level. At which point this is less of a hobby, and more like a second job.

There will always be shiny new models. They might be better at some things then models you own. But not always. You don’t need to use them. Heck, tactically, you might be better off with the slightly sub-par units you’ve been using for months and know all the subtleties of then the latest hottness that’s going to suffer from fresh paint syndrome. Unless you are playing at the top-table level, and/or your local community does nothing by practice games for such, there is no reason you need to aggressively refine your army list at that rate. Tons of gamers out there play with units they like the look of, old favorites, and fluffy lists. And have fun doing so with like minded people.

--

Your best bet for any army is to look for the bundle boxes. Not the “1-click, 0-savings” web offers, which are useless. But something wrapped in its own cardboard. How good they are, both price wise and table top vary wildly. The Betrayal at Calth box was a great one, with a ~1,250 point reasonably well balanced force, but the start collecting and holiday specials are also good. The “duel” boxes are great if you can split the army with a friend, but if you only want one half, loose a lot of their value.

There are a few advantages of the slow build. While you don’t get the money savings of the bigger boxes, you can spend in more manageable chunks. Easier on the budget. While it would be nice to save up monthly for the big box, they don’t always stay on the market, and then you don’t have anything while you save up. Buying slowly gives you time to paint as you buy, to help keep the pile of shame in check. It also lets you get small games in while you build, where you gain experience and work out your own style of play. Figuring out what you like and what your army needs can help you narrow down your next purchase. So you pay more per model, but in theory end up with something that suits you better.

And you can adjust as the rules change. For slow painters like myself, I’ve picked up stuff when they were hot, didn’t get a chance to built/paint them before the nerf, and then had them sit in the pile of shame. But sometimes, they come back. New edition, new rules, and the previous hotness which was nerfed to unplayable is hot again. Models don’t go moldy or stale. Keep them on the shelf, and as your collection grows you can weather the fluxes of the rules. Magnets help with this.

If I was to give a ballpark, I’d reccomend that someone set aside $400-$500 to start, plus painting/hobby supplies. It is a good idea to budget for upgrades, depending on how you want to grow. You might spend that much again over a year, but more like half of it would probably keep you in new kits and comfortable as a hobbiest and gamer.

Quite. I probably haven't spent $200 in the last 2 years, let alone the last month...

Bit mind blowing to be honest. people here with normal salaries do aroundd 450$ a month. And by people I mean adults with real jobs. Even stranger is the fact that this is unoptimised lists, In practice I would say that unless someone can spend 150-200$ per month on models, it is probably better not to start. And big splash of buying all stuff in one go, is probably the best, just after a CA drops in, so the chance of good stuff staying good for longest time is the biggest.

Going to be honest here. Not everyone feels the need to sit on top of the meta. There are certainly not 150-200 worth of models dropped for each faction each month. This year I got half the Shadowspear set for my SW, i might get a second half, or more probably I'll pick the models I want up on Ebay. That is it, the only thing I bought this year for that army. It wasn't necessary it was wanted. I'll probably pick up a warsuit at some point, but its so f@!##$@ing ugly. I've been looking for something I can use instead. Last year i bought a Repulsive, a Redemptor and split three Dark Imperiums. There hasn't been an actual SW release since what... the shoebox? i literally have not bought a guard model in years.

If you try to build a 2k army with $400, you are just getting the fewest models with the priciest upgrades on each model.

You end up with over costed models.

The correct approach is to think about, how can i convert basic troops model into fast attack, elite, and heavy options to make a well rounded army to tackle many other options?

Marines can do that the easiest. What is an assault marine, but a tactical marine with a jump pack? What is a stern guard but a tactical marine with fancier aquilla and special bolter? What is a devastator but a tactical marine with a heavy weapon?

Chaos Marines are even easier. What is a plague marine but a tactical marine with green stuff all over it? What is rubric marine but a tactical marine with blue and yellow headdress and loin cloth? What is a berseker but a tactical marine with red bunny ears? What are noise marines but tactical marines with gargoyle from the rhino sprues glued onto the bolters? What are chosen marines but tactical marines with spiker bits and 4 plasma guns?

Delving deeper, what is a predator tank but a rhino with a cannon turret? What is a vindicator but a rhino with a siege shovel and a big short barrel cannon you make from a jamba juice straw?

There are countless other examples of converting a cheap model into another more specialized model to counter your opponents.

cheapest way for new models... look at the current starter boxes and make offers to buy the faction that isn't space marines for 1/3 the cost of the box.

For example my starter army was Plague Marine army back in 4th ed and was very cheap.

It was 2 loyalist captains converted and painted to be Nurgle lord and a sorc. Each when upgrade was around 120 points or more.

Then it was 6 squad of 5 plague marines created from standard snap on single pose marines mostly used for paint demos.

Each plague marine was a whopping 23ppm (4th ed) so that was 690points on just troops. There was 2 plasma gun per squad. The plasma guns where just bolters with green stuff on top of barrel and painted to look like old tech plasma guns. So there was 12 plasma guns at 15 points (4th ed) making the cost 180 points.

Next i made havoc squads from any heavy weapons i had. Some time is i can make missile launchers from the tubes of a pen. I made lascannons out of glueing a coffee straw onto a bolter. I would make a squad of 5 man havocs with 4 heavy weapons and each squad would cost around 120-150points. 3 squads would be 360-450points.

Next i needed fast attack. The cheapest way was to take demonstration loyal marines and glue pen or marker caps on to their backs and make it look like jump packs. Bam! A small 5 man squad of raptors and 2 "archaic" plasma guns was also roughly 130points. 3 squads would put on another 390 points.

That was already approaching 1850 points (4th ed) standard tournament point range.

So essentially 62 throw away marines. Many were the bog standard mono pose marine with snap on hands and bolter guns. Many were from gank ebay sales of poorly painted models.

Crispy78 wrote:
Quite. I probably haven't spent $200 in the last 2 years, let alone the last month...

Damn this is my monthly

No kids and in my twenties but I'd easily spend 200+ on bars or other hobbies if I didnt play 40k

 G00fySmiley wrote:
cheapest way for new models... look at the current starter boxes and make offers to buy the faction that isn't space marines for 1/3 the cost of the box.

the 6th/7th edition starter box was a pretty nice box because you could convert the entire thing to chaos.

 Stevefamine wrote:

Crispy78 wrote:
Quite. I probably haven't spent $200 in the last 2 years, let alone the last month...

Damn this is my monthly

No kids and in my twenties but I'd easily spend 200+ on bars or other hobbies if I didnt play 40k

Kids. 41. Painting backlog as long as your, erm, boss-pole...