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I got a bunch of Necron(and a carrying case, and a bunch of paints and modeling supplies) it was for about $200, it was at about a quarter of the cost of the models.

I got a bunch of tactical marines over time because they were significantly cheaper to just repaint.

If I remember right, the old Russes quite commonly had a gap that was just that little bit too small to stick another tread in there. It was rather annoying.

Kangodo wrote:
I saved myself around 420 euro, so I can live with little imperfections.

I don't even have a problem with imperfections, cause I'm an ork player! Just chop up a bit of plasticard, make it look roughed up, slap it over the spot with some super-glue and add some rivets and not only does it look better, it fits the atheistic even more!

I'm actually working on a used rhino right now. I originally bought it back around 1999 or 2000 or so and painted it to go with my Ultramarines. Whoever had it before me did a horrid job of putting it together. I just recently got the idea to rip it apart, take some sandpaper to the parts and put it back together with a bunch of conversion work along the way, this time making it a Chaos vehicle.

I've bought used models in the past. Usually all it takes is a fresh paint job and sometimes a bit of cleaning up. I pretty much only buy used stuff that I can either see close up pictures of or get to check out in person prior to purchasing. I've ever only had one bad experience.

Haven't really bought used stuff yet - except one single model that I got for free. Heh. Should strip it of paint, luckily it's metal which makes it easier. I'm hesitant stripping plastic, because the "sturdier" removal stuff can damage plastic, and the not so sturdy stuff is poor at actualyl removing the paint. Just had to start stripping the left side of Land Raider Crusader as I was trying to basecoat it but ended up with a nasty case of orange peel. Hopefully I get it stripped right and the next painting attempt goes better.

In any case, if I buy used stuff in the future, it's likely I'll try to stick to either only unpainted/undercoated stuff, or metal models.

Oh yah, this is how I supplement my armies for cheap. Lots of people selling very decent quality stuff for dirt cheap. I've bought a rhino, 3 space marine special characters, a rhino, a contingent of blood angels, and more for extremely cheap.

In fact just today I bought all the necron finecast characters, 3 cryptek finecast, a destroyer lord, a triarch praetorian box, a barge kit(Unassembled), an ark kit(unassembled), 32 warriors, 5 immortals, 2 metal spyders(1unassembled), and 15 bases worth of scarabs(not attached to bases) and a few other bits and bobs for 170$usd. That's like over 400 normally. The characters were assembled and primed as we're the warriors and immortals. The rest was open box still on sprue.

I got a unit of assault marines for $10. Couldn't pass that deal up. Only $1 per jump pack model!?! They were layered in absolutely the thickest paint I've ever seen. Soaked them in Super Clean for a week, started scrubbing and gave up. Put them back in, forgot about them, and then when I was getting ready to move a couple months later found them and figured I would try cleanign them up. This time the paint washed right off as well as all the super glue, so I now have an unassembled unit of jumpers which I can now much more easily convert to a Black Templar assault squad.

I've also gotten some rhinos and other models that just make you sit back and go WTF

xttz wrote:
I got a 2nd-hand Trygon from ebay that was 'held' together by the worst poly cement ever invented. Everytime I picked up the model a piece would fall off because the glue was so brittle. And because the glue was so bad, the model was slathered with it in places as if that would help keep it together.

It was the main reason I ended up pulling it to pieces to convert it (and spawn a 4-page argument).

Haha. I remember that thread. Personally I think your conversion looks fantastic. Way more menacing than the normal model. And your photographs showed that off well.

Someone carved FRED on the CC arm of my SW dreadnought. A thick paintjob and a decal make it invisible on the tabletop, but it was almost disgusting to paint over.
Don't tell me.
Overreaction.

A chimera that only had some of the hull lasguns in. The ones that were there had broken gun barrels. I realized the rest of the lasgun mounts were inside, because the chimera would rattle when you picked it up. I eventually pried the back door off and got them out. I took off the rest of the lasguns and just left the holes. So it would match, I took the lasguns of my regular chimeras as well. I like it better this way because the rules say up to six of any guns can fire from within, not just lasguns.

Nope. I've gotten a couple of hand-me-downs from my borther (namely a Land Raider and an old Predator in 3rd edition), but I've never bought a second hand model.

 Color Sgt. Kell wrote:
A chimera that only had some of the hull lasguns in. The ones that were there had broken gun barrels. I realized the rest of the lasgun mounts were inside, because the chimera would rattle when you picked it up. I eventually pried the back door off and got them out. I took off the rest of the lasguns and just left the holes. So it would match, I took the lasguns of my regular chimeras as well. I like it better this way because the rules say up to Five six of any guns can fire from within, not just lasguns.

Fiked that for you with the Underscore.

Worst second hand one I got was a customised wraithlord in a cool pose from ebay.
It arrived as a pile of snapped and mangled plastic in a box that looked like it had been driven over. Twice.

I've purchased quite a few second hand models over the years (15+) and I've encountered quite a few horror stories. In particular, back when the switch from second edition to third edition occurred and digital cameras were a wonderful dream (instead of being on every single cell phone). The whirlwind made from a rhino, straws and toothpicks, the third edition Land Raider that looked rather like the Proteus and my favorite, the Space Marine Tactical Squad that featured Sergeant Lego-Leg (no lie, his leg had been amputated and a Lego had been used to replace it). As for paint jobs, I don't remember the paint I had to spend hours stripping so much as I remember the super glue I had to hammer and chisel off of the paint that I had to strip.

Ah, memories.

These days, I have an actual job/career and I can afford to purchase everything brand new.

I bought a CSM Predator for $15. The guy that had it before me had caked on plastic glue on the destroyer blade, and sometime along the way the actual blades had broken off. He also had a lot of those little bits that come with CSM vehicles, and most of them were broken or damaged.

In the end, it wasn't such a big deal. I did a bit of jury rigging to make it look battle damaged instead of curb stomped.

the only used 40k models I bought was a SM half of an AOBR. I have to agree with the description that they were well painted.. My issue is they were painted METALLIC GOLD!!

needlessly to say... they all took a simply green bath...

Both my Defilers are 2nd hand as is a old metal Daemon Prince, 10 Thousand Sons, 18 Plague Marines, 10 Berzerkers, like 5 Terminators spread out through 3 bitz bundles I got off Ebay and like 20 basic Chaos marines... So yeah I have a few used models. Got 10 more Thousand sons and a FW Thousand Son Dread... I mean Helbrute on the way

ive yet to buy something that had such a horrid paintjob i had to deal with it right then and there. Everything so far has had atleast a decent one so i can ignore it till i finish the rest of my army (whichim nowhere near done with rofl)

I don't glue my rhinos together. They come apart so that when they get wrecked, they're actually wrecked.

Can you imagine if I sold one to you people?

i think i would notice that its intended to do that personally. I doubt it could stand up on its own if you had the ENTIRE thing like that or didnt use tiny magnets (hmm not abad idea).

I cant do that with my trukks or BWs because....theyre orks lol my stuff comes in bazillions of tiny bitz to begin with.

Rhino chassis are built not to be glued.

The entire thing? Weird.
Guess im just used to orks. First Trukk box i opened i went "DAFUQ?" cuz all i saw was random bitz i couldnt even picture how it went together let alone do it without the manual lol. Now im perfectly fine though.

I am perfectly fine buying used metal minis, and then stripping them down to bare metal. In fact, I am happy to get used metals over finecast.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
The entire thing? Weird.
Guess im just used to orks. First Trukk box i opened i went "DAFUQ?" cuz all i saw was random bitz i couldnt even picture how it went together let alone do it without the manual lol. Now im perfectly fine though.

I can second this. It took me something like a couple days before I had any concept of how the damned Trukk went together. But then again, you can't honestly put a trukk together "wrong." No wheels? PFFTT! Oh well! It just...hovers....somehow.. Write it off as ork technology!

I once got a model from a freind for $5.

Said model was a Rhino with a Sherman tank turret super glued haphazardlly to the top, but the problem was he had tried to strip it of paint by dunking it in pine sol.

The Pinesol worked on every other model he has stripped of paint (Leman Russ tanks and other things) but this one Rhion simply refused to have the paint stripped and he had put "snow" on the Rhino, which i think was some sort of putty or something to appear like snow. well..... it had congeeled on the tracks into some sort of orange sludge and the paint began to layer up to such a degree it just looked disgusting. It was ment to play as a Leman Russ Demolisher and he has bored a hole into the front and wedged a HWT lascannon into the hole. it was a nightmare.


well...... using a hobby knife i shaved off tons of paint and as much snow sludge as i could and wrenched off the sherman turret too. Rebuilt the turret and other parts until it looked decent. including having a fully rotating turret and after pulling out the las cannon i built a case mate on the front to house a proper looking lascannon. and built sponsons for it as well.

WHen i was done with construction it looked liek this.



note the horid color. that "red" was underneath atleast 5 layers of different colored paint remains. and the pinkish parts where where the pine sol attacked it and tried to turn it white (which failed), and on the tracks if you look closly is a tiny bit of that orange "snow" sludge.

I cleaned it up further during my own painting.




When i presented the tank. now named "Burning Vengence" (also a Leman Russ Demolisher convert, BUT BETTER) he freaked out and complained and tried to buy it back for $20+. I said no and in a match the little revived tank killed a ton of his units. sweet vengence I say.



Another one (that unfortunatly I don't have a picture of), Same guy gave me a Rhino while he was playing Grey Knights, he had glued the back door of a Storm raven to the rear of this poor rhino and the turret and upper section of the same stormraven to the front to give it guns to be a razorback with assault cannons.

I promptly wrenched off both horid peices and found he had buried a pair of argo flagulents inside the drivers compartment of this rhino, One has his arms inside the Rhino the other didn't have his arms and they were missing.

I rebuild the argo flagulents and with some glue, green stuff, pipes and blades made arms for the other. all while building a propper turret and such for the Rhino.

Sold the refurbished Rhino back to him for $14. and the agro flagulents, now refurbished as well... for $8 (4 each). cheap i know. but still. he gave them to me for free and i rebuilt them with his bitz.

The aformentioned freind, has long since left the local store but the reason for his terrible... constructions. was he was trying to replicate what I do. refering to my style of construction and troopers as "scrappers" he tried to put this concept to nearly every army he owned. which over a period was, GK, Eldar, Dark Eldar, IG, then Eldar again, then back to IG then he left. every time the conversion attempts were utterly god aweful. He demolished a Storm raven and haphazardly glued parts of it to a fire prism as "extra armor". and i don't mean in a tastful way. litterally gluing the storm ravens ramp to one side of the prism's hull and part of a wing to the opposite side like a 4 year old.


It was dreadful....

Constantly buing used models. Super clean and a tooth brush work wonders.

Friend of mine bought an old metal dread from somebody in town. thing looked like the guy had let a 3 year old paint it. it took 3 simple-green baths to fully strip it, and then it fell apart...

It is now painted up as an angry marine dreadnought.

ShadowMageAlpha wrote:

 Vineheart01 wrote:
The entire thing? Weird.
Guess im just used to orks. First Trukk box i opened i went "DAFUQ?" cuz all i saw was random bitz i couldnt even picture how it went together let alone do it without the manual lol. Now im perfectly fine though.

I can second this. It took me something like a couple days before I had any concept of how the damned Trukk went together. But then again, you can't honestly put a trukk together "wrong." No wheels? PFFTT! Oh well! It just...hovers....somehow.. Write it off as ork technology!

Actually im going to do that with some of my trukks so i can save the wheels for Kannon conversions (tourny-legal ones, not solid plasticard)
Just need to make the base "levitate" the trukk just slightly so it doesnt give it some kind of height issue (in my case, disadvantage). Make some plasticart fans in place of the wheels that are pointing down

.....i should totally do that with a BW too rofl

I'm the exact opposite of the OP.

I take a bit of pride in being able to resurrect the worst assembled/painted models and miniatures, and I've seen some doosies. I would compare it to furniture or antique restoration, and it's become an enjoyable part of the hobby.

It helps that I always pay bottom dollar for the stuff, and I expect to have to put work into it. When you can get 3 basilisks for 55 shipped (in really terrible condition), or russ's for less than 15, it makes it all worth while.

You can see how the Bassies and Russes turned out here:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-24779-13756_Melk%2037th.html

For the most part, it just takes patience, some skill with a razor knife and dremmel and the ability to creatively use bits to hide flaws.

Eilif wrote:
I take a bit of pride in being able to resurrect the worst assembled/painted models and miniatures...

I take pride in it as well. The issue I have is I try to understand things. I don't think the LandRaider model was bad, and in fact I'm happy I could get it apart. It'll help with making it my own model in the end.

The issue I had is I don't know how someone can have so little respect for their own model. ESPECIALLY a Land Raider. With as little glue as was on this thing, I feel as though the original modeler wanted the thing to be collapsible, but it wasn't anywhere near. Just very rickety.

I'm a (mostly)guard player with around 15-20k points worth, of which only about 2k I bought new(4 vanquishers, 1 executioner, yarrick, and some guardsmen)

I initially found it mildly irritating when turrets or sponsons on leman russes would be glued in place, but after the first 3 or so I got used to it. For me it doesn't matter too much as I play nurgle zombie guard, and if a turret or sponson won't move, that just makes it an apt spot to place some "nurgle love".