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Met a guy who took out a home equity line of credit to pay for his Space Marine army, along with paint, materials, books, a desk, lights, etc. Claims to be $8k out of pocket and is just getting started.

I've spent ridiculous amounts of money on the hobby but never went into debt to do it.

Are prices really that bad?

That’s certainly something. I managed to get the ball rolling as a full-time student, and getting a job has only made the hobby more accessible for me. That said, I had the advantage of living close to my alma mater.

Allowance as a youth.
Luxury money as an adult.

It’s not worth going into debt over. It’s a fun hobby, but finances matter.

Slow build.

Started as a kid, allowance from mowing the lawn, chores, etc. scrimping on lunch money to save for minis.

Summer jobs, student work etc. back when most of my expenses were still being paid by my folks.

Getting a real job, still living like a starving college student. Working part time at a FLGS for the employee discount as much as for the paycheck.

Being married and responsible, but still earmarking a little money out of the budget to keep me happy.

Divorced, full time job. Don’t need to justify my purchases to anyone other then myself. Don’t need to tighten my belt and be extra careful because the other half is not the most fiscally responsible person.

Never sell or get rid of stuff. 35-40 years of hobby adds up to a reasonably large pile.

I don’t eat….

Honestly I don’t really buy anything out of my budget.
I’m not even sure I could open enough 40K boxes to actually be in a negative. So going into any sort of dept is quite crazy to me. Also 8k seems extreme. That’s a lot of people’s lifetime army collection.

 techsoldaten wrote:
Met a guy who took out a home equity line of credit to pay for his Space Marine army, along with paint, materials, books, a desk, lights, etc. Claims to be $8k out of pocket and is just getting started.

I've spent ridiculous amounts of money on the hobby but never went into debt to do it.

Are prices really that bad?

Only if you want them to be. You can start WAY cheaper and most people do.
Indeed most would advise not even spending anywhere NEAR that amount getting started unless he's gone out and bought top end of everything brand new and loads of accessories. Even then he's likely bought way too many models and will have a mountain of them for ages which can set you back as a newbie. You can get all that guilt of not finishing very easily.

Honestly if you said $800 I'd believe it; that's fairly easy to do. But $8K is a bit nuts honestly.


As for debt; that really depends on income and expenditure. If he's got a 0% interest for X number of months and can pay it off - sure why not. Heck I use Paypal Pay-In-Three all the time to spread out costs. But for model stuff I've never spent that much on anything in one go

Heck even my most expensive hobby of photography I've never spent that much in one go and that can very easily hit those numbers and higher on a single lens.

Yikes. Do they think it's like lego as an investment?

Got into the hobby at the right time, I guess. Stuff I wanted wasn't insanely priced like now.
As a kid in the late 90's, allowance and gifts. As a teenager scrimping change from lunch money and summer job.
Getting reduced price stuff from other players getting out of the hobby.
Rare sales from flgs.
One remote store had this bitz-box thing where they'd sell out of the box sprues and in a few cases 90% of old metal special characters (usually just the body, missing the other stuff) but for a steal of what a new one would cost.
I have a few metal chars from that place that would have been $60 new, and paid maybe ~$15 over multiple lucky trips and converted the missing parts.
Often made stuff from scratch and greenstuff.

In uni, trades for painting stuff for friends.
Haven't played much since end of 5th or really bought any kits since then. Mostly just rulebooks from ebay and flgs.
Also haven't sold any of my older stuff.

Currently if I want something, I'll print it.

Well, along time ago when I was (poor) college student....
●1 part - $ out of my weekly paycheck (amount varied based on other expenses week to week)
●1 part occasional diversion of Student aid $.
●1 part occasional Credit Card debt.
Over the course of my University years everal hobbies were financed like this, not just a single army.

After college, as my income increased & stabilized?
It was just a matter of proper budgeting.
This continues to this day.

Additionally? I'm not one of those people who sell things off.
It's alot cheaper to put an army into storage in my basement or garrage than it is to build it, sell it, then re-bulid it later.
Nor do I feel the need to cycle out "old" models just because GWs made a new version.

Well my 30k army that got stolen before 2.0 came out was valued(insurance $)3k I'd say $3k


And due to GW price increases(used to buy FW gak in £) I'm not even close to replicating with $2k USD with shenanigans from GW.

Going into debt for wargaming seems really irresponsible. I've always just paid for stuff with my discretionary income. I've definitely bought stuff Iater felt was a poor decision, but I rarely have ever sold anything so now I have quite a large collection and don't buy much any more.

When I was a stupid kid it was from knicking 20 dollar bills from the household funds drawer.

Now that I'm well into being an adult my miniatures spending is supported by the fact that we have a two income household with no kids. At this point the limit for me is how much storage space there is for the pile of shame.

I honestly couldn't imagine borrowing for an army like that. There's so many other things I'd rather do with 8k to fix up the house.

Thats playing a chumps game, buying whaley loads in bulk.. Much better to collect stuff gradually IMHO. GW's release cycles are glacial, it sometimes takes years for them to release everything you want in the same scale. So I wait, and amass the collection with an eye towards the long game.. priritizing terrain and that due to terrain kits going OOP much faster than the model kits themselves.

I have bought the odd box with credit every now and then (what else can you do with some of the FOMO releases, either buy it or pay double/triple later?), but would never consider getting into serious debt over my toy soldiers.. That stuff is reserved for my serious hobbies

Living in a DINK config helps the finances well enough

With wages.

I’m in a decent wage, no kids, no missus, no pets. So I’ve a fair amount of disposable income

Give it a few months and I’ll be rent and mortgage free, meaning I’ll have even more.

I am getting a dog though.

I'm a cheapskate gamer, but I've probably still got 2-3 hundred dollars invested in each of the 40k armies I've built for myself.

On the other hand I've got a couple armies that are worth several times that which cost me almost nothing because they were acquired in larger lots that paid for themselves by selling of other parts of those lots.

I don't really see how you'd get close to spending $8k.

I think there are issues in Warhammer that its expensive to start. I have a friend who left the hobby 15~ years ago, and says he'd like to get back in - but is put off at having to spend a bunch on paints, clippers, glue etc, and probably a codex+rulebook, before he even gets his first mini. (Even then I don't think its the money, more just the aggro of deciding on all that.)

From my perspective I probably buy say 2 kits every 3 months - cost about £50 with FLGS discount. Buy a couple of pots of paint, maybe a brush/glue as required - call it £10-15. So call it £60-65 every few months, maybe £250 a year. It waxes and wanes depending on if I'm into a new army or not.

Sure its not nothing. But sadly in 2025 its also not all that much. I think I spend more than that a year on computer games. Far more on going to restaurants and bars etc.

 techsoldaten wrote:
Met a guy who took out a home equity line of

Are prices really that bad?

Yes they are, and if you wanted top end supplies, furniture, terrain, etc, you could get near 8k.

Of course the person you met would probably be better served starting small and buying and painting a single overpriced unit at a time, starting at his kitchen table.

Taking out a loan against your home for a massively depreciating luxury hobby is not wise.

I always bought larger armies piecemeal, as I would find painting an entire big force at once daunting, to the point of impossible anyway. So step by step they accumulated, and over time I had 4 WFB armies, 7 Wh40k armies, 4 WM&H armies, 2 ASOIAF armies, counting only systems with bigger model counts.

I also concentrated on buying second-hand stuff, as prices were usually very good for models in good to perfect condition.

As I stopped playing them I also sold them, which let me get back a varying % of the money originally invested.

 techsoldaten wrote:
Met a guy who took out a home equity line of credit to pay for his Space Marine army, along with paint, materials, books, a desk, lights, etc. Claims to be $8k out of pocket and is just getting started.

I've spent ridiculous amounts of money on the hobby but never went into debt to do it.

Are prices really that bad?

No, they absolutely aren't that bad. It sounds like this individual has built a dedicated office space for their hobby because just getting models/paints/required books is not going to set you back anywhere near that much, hell, unless you're deliberately buying the most expensive kits possible, even a 2k army won't break a grand and that's before you throw in FLGS discounts, the Partworks magazines where you can pick up chunks of armies or a bunch of paint for a fraction of the cost.

 Gert wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
Met a guy who took out a home equity line of credit to pay for his Space Marine army, along with paint, materials, books, a desk, lights, etc. Claims to be $8k out of pocket and is just getting started.

I've spent ridiculous amounts of money on the hobby but never went into debt to do it.

Are prices really that bad?

No, they absolutely aren't that bad. It sounds like this individual has built a dedicated office space for their hobby because just getting models/paints/required books is not going to set you back anywhere near that much, hell, unless you're deliberately buying the most expensive kits possible, even a 2k army won't break a grand.

Yeah even buying a Foregeworld only army wouldn't be that bad unless you bought well in excess of 2K points.

The only way I can come close to the number is that they either bought an entire marine chapter's worth of models or they've included a commission for someone ot paint/build a chunk of the models for them.

Or they are in a country other than the USA using $ where the values are very different.

I wonder how much it'd come to to buy the maximum a codex allows?
Ex: Space Marines
● 6 of each Battleline unit, max sizes.
● 6 of each dedicated transport.
● 1 of each Epic Hero tagged unit.
● 3 of each non-battleline unit, max sizes.
*Does not include any FW, Legends, or potential allies. Just pure Codex entries.

Perhaps cheating - but going LoV for the lower unit roster count.

1 Uthar the Destined - £26.
3 Karls - £26*3=£78.
3 Grimnyr - £28*3 = £84
3 Champions - £26*3 = £78
3 Brokyr Characters - £34*3=£102.
60 Hearthkyn Warriors - £37*6=£222
6 Sagitaurs - £42.50*6=£255
18 Thunderkyn - £37*6=£222
30 Berserks - £40*6=240
30 Hearthguard - £40*6=£240
3 Land Fortresses - £74*3=£222
18 Pioneers - £42.50*6=£255
30 Yaegirs - £34*3=£102.

Therefore: £2126. And it nets you 5705 points.

40k is definitely not a cheap hobby....

I'm lucky enough to stick to playing tabletop online with tabletopsim which means I reserve my miniature buys to things I want to paint and collect.

Its definitely extremely important to stick to something you like rather than meta considering the price of things.

I prefer to play escalation, starting with three units or so. Not that big a deal. Heck, these days I start with KT's.

Trying to buy a 2k point army all once always seemed weird to me- like there's SOOO many reasons not to do it that way.

But say you buy a Kill team. You get to start playing right away. Maybe at the same time, you buy an HQ and a transport to take that KT to a small point 40k army. Play for a while with that to learn what you like, and which direction you want to grow. Then start adding a unit every month or two. By the end of your first edition, you'll fairly easily hit 2k.

Taking advantage of boxed sets is also advantageous. If you were building an Drukhari army, the Poison Blade plus the old starter were great. Then you had the combat patrol (best in the game- a Raider AND a Ravager? Aesome!) but we also had Blood of the Phoenix and Piety and Pain!

I was thinking about how well the new Kson boxes compliment the collection from Hexfire. I didn't pull the trigger because I might have other places for 40k money to go: if there's a Typhon box at my FLGS or GW store, I might end up caving in and getting it; I have lots of Genestealers that I usually use for the Cult, but if the Typhon Raveners need back up, there's 'Stealers a plenty to join them. I also have Patriarchs/ Broodlords aplenty. There's also a box of termagaunts floating around, as well as a classic metal Hive Tyrant. He'd need some repair and touch up, but I also have a classic metal Screamer Killer.

On the Admech side, I've got lots of BSF Admech plus the servitors from the Inquisition KT.

On a side note: I don't yet have the Drukhari combat patrol, but it would probably be the smartest purchase I could make right now; when the dex drops, it's come with a new patrol- I'm hoping for a Coven themed bos including new Grotesques.

It won't be long now until GW starts to let the stock run out to prep for the arrival of new hotness.

Depends how you look at it.

Is the cost high? Kinda. I mean I’d never argue it’s cheap, I wouldn’t want to insult anyone’s intelligence in that way.

But I look at the value I get. Because it goes far beyond ‘I have bought a thing, and there my investment ends’.

When I buy a kit, I need to get it built and painted. And from there, use it in ideally multiple games.

So, if you breakdown the purchase cost by comparing it to the hours spent? It’s often pretty favourable.

Example. I’ve just bought a Chaos Knight army. Whilst I bought at discount, I’ll present the GW UK price. I got four of the Knight Ruinator kits (£120 each), Codex (£37.00), Cards (£16.00) and Houndpack Lance (£150.00). So that’s £683.00 paid. Though in case anyone is interested or consider it relevant, I actually paid £569.00 including postage.

I reckon I should be able to build and paint a Knight within a week, if I do a couple of hours each evening. Let’s call it 14 hours work, spread over 7 days.

Wardogs? Probably about three weeks at the same pace. I may be quicker there as I can knock out a Thanatar in a day, start to finish. But depends how motivated I’m feeling.

So 7 weeks to get the whole collection battle ready fully painted. At 14 hours a week give or take, that’s already 98 hours.

If I leave it there (I’m really bad at actually playing), that breaks down to an hourly cost of £6.96.

But let’s say over the remainder of a calendar year I play once a week, with each game taking 2 hours. 38 weeks left, so another 76 hours of entertainment and activity. That means the hourly cost is now £3.92.

There’s not an awful lot else I can really do for that sort of hourly cost. And so, to me I get pretty good value.

The dude borrowing $8k? Will depend entirely on what he does once he’s got his goodies. If it all gets stuffed in a cupboard to gather dust, then it’s a pointless endeavour. But, if he gets it all built and painted and gets a game in every week? Then maybe he’ll get his value. More so if he’s playing multiple times a week, going to organised events etc.

But hey, value is entirely subjective. If like me just collecting and painting an army for a display cabinet makes you happy? You’ve got your value!

The time it takes to build and paint an army can also vary wildly. I've been conceptualizing, collecting and building my army for years already, and haven't even started painting it yet! My hours of fiddling per dollars spent must be getting to ridiculous ratios by now..

The Mad Doc per hour of fun maths is good but do remember you actually have to build the models to start accruing time spent value with them!

Tyel wrote:

Spoiler:

Perhaps cheating - but going LoV for the lower unit roster count.

1 Uthar the Destined - £26.
3 Karls - £26*3=£78.
3 Grimnyr - £28*3 = £84
3 Champions - £26*3 = £78
3 Brokyr Characters - £34*3=£102.
60 Hearthkyn Warriors - £37*6=£222
6 Sagitaurs - £42.50*6=£255
18 Thunderkyn - £37*6=£222
30 Berserks - £40*6=£240
30 Hearthguard - £40*6=£240
3 Land Fortresses - £74*3=£222
18 Pioneers - £42.50*6=£255
30 Yaegirs - £34*3=£102.

Therefore: £2126. And it nets you 5705 points.

I think this is a good example of a modern 40k or AoS faction.

I think they came out late 2022 so you could have spent £1,012 in 2022 getting the first half then another £1,012 completing the collection in 2023. You'd have had the variety of playing tank heavy, terminator heavy, bike heavy or multiple small units, you could tone up or down your lists to match oppnents with something always being the weaker choice.

Then you would have spent the other £102 buying the new release Yaegirs in 2024.

You are probably looking at a new release in 2025 and buying the full 3 might be £102 to £255 based on other boxes. And quite a few LoV players will be grumbling that they didn't get at least two new releases so they could have spent £204 to £510 instead.

So your per year average spend (total spent divided by years) will be:
2022: £1,012.
2023: £1,012.
2024: £709.
2025: £659 (if LoV get two fancy £85 boxes and then buy 3 of each)
2026: £528 (no releases)

I take the point about value from time spent but I think it's also not the best way to calculate value. Because surely sculpting minis from scratch and then writing your own rules for them would be a far better return on hobby time for money spent? And GW models are expensive when compared to other similar models, so you could get better value per hour out of other minis too.

As I said, it is subjective.

Me? I can’t sculpt for toffee so that’s not an option for me.

Other games? Sure. But it’s the GW background and aesthetic I enjoy. And crap as I am about actually going and getting a game in? 40K is really easy to find an opponent for.

But the overall argument stands. A model army is a front loaded, cost wise. The more often you make use of it (building, painting, playing etc), the further that initial investment goes.

Yeah, I do sort of agree but that's also my point - it's more visceral for me. Like if you like GW stuff and that's the end of it, that's just totally personal taste and I'm like that too. Whether I'm happy with a purchase or not is really visceral for me and I can't calculate a formula. Like my Great Unclean One is the most expensive single mini I've ever bought, but I LOVE him even if I've used him all of once in a game!

Value is insanely subjective and its not even a constant per person nor per model. You can easily have two models that are the exact same model and; for different reasons, one is much more highly valued than the other for you.