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Anyone gotten any really good deals on used army? Specifically on Ebay? Prices seem high and every time I put in an offer on something it gets rejected. If I wanted to spend close to retail I would support my FLGS and paint them to my liking. I have not found any great deals. Anyone have luck? Whats an army go for I figured 40-50% of retail is a good starting point am I wrong?

Well you can't undercut someone's price that much. This is a very expensive hobby and often times people sell an army to buy a new one. Getting less than half their return on selling something they put a lot of time and effort into and STILL needing a lot of money to get a new army up and running, it's not surprising they reject a lowball offer.

Try either waiting for the deals you are looking for or just buying at the price they offer it. 40% is an unrealistic expectation to get 40k stuff regularly. Anything under 70% retail is a good deal.

Most things in life depreciate. They are plastic toys that he who owns them has gotten some enjoyment out of painting playing them.
And I agree 40% may be low but much above that and I'm buying new personally.
Half the hobby is modeling and painting so unless its truly pro painted like everyone claims they would get stripped and re-worked anyhow. Maybe I'm in the minority on this one. Thanks for you input.

I got around 70% buying my Vostroyans and I have been slowly selling my existing Necron army. The well painted 5th ed stuff I've been getting a bit higher than retail usually (selling squad by squad) and the 3rd ed stuff I've been getting 60%.

Yeah, there are very few good deal.
Almost no one understand what "used" means... They all want to have what they spend back.
Seriously, what the interest when you pay 70% and then add the shipping ? It's almost full price, and you have absolutely no guarantee that your package will arrive.
It should be 60%, shipping included.
Once, I found a complete baneblade kit for 40€, or an Avenger for 50€, shipping included for this one ( Avenger is almost 120€ !).
Except for rare opportunity like this, you will struggle to find any good deals on eBay.

A new car is worth about 10k €. You can find some for 500€. Do you see the difference ? A price divided by 20....
And for toy soldier, not even by 2.

Nice to see I"m not alone godardc

My stance is that you just can't get used armies cheap enough.

For me to accept someone else's assembly and posing rather than doing it to my liking, no bitz and someone else's paint job to either match or remove it would need to be a really hefty discount.

Unless the model is VERY rare, it just never seems to be cheap enough to make it worthwhile.

If an item is pre-built and painted (tt standard or lower), and has no spare/swappable parts, you may find it going for 60% retail. NIB tends to hit 80-90% or even full price. OOP can range from nearly free to 1000% retail, seller depending.

Pricing ranges are massively subject to TT capability, GW sales (or lack thereof) and item quality.

Simple supply and demand. Some people find it worth getting stuff to strip down at 80% . If you aren't willing then someone else will or it'll get relisted. I just wait for the buy it now to be very low on a desperate seller.

It can be all over the place, painting and assembly can swing it a wide direction either way, if it looks amazing, it will be hard to get it cheap. if it looks terrible you will probably want to go no higher than 60% of retail.

I've both bought and sold. When I was deployed I bought 2 painted armies table top condition because I don't play with non painted models and I paid an extra $300-400 then get upset 6 months later that I didn't paint them and give them to my LGS. When I sell something on ebay I price it around/about 80-90% if its painted table top and include the carrying case always. It just depends. For instance some models I'd pay someone to put together because I hated putting them together.

 Spacewolverine wrote:
For instance some models I'd pay someone to put together because I hated putting them together. Just depends.

Land speeders, I hate assembling them so much, I payed someone to build mine for me.

50% seems to be a good price unless it is something special or you are trying to sell it on ebay

Yea 40-50% is good, look at barter town those people seem more reasonable than eBay for most everything except the occational NOS in my opinion, even then I've gotten some things rediqulously cheap

I try to sell for a little under half retail usually. Although when I offloaded my Guard out of boredom I went slightly lower than that, since I'd picked them up second-hand myself.

It can really vary. For example, if I had something professionally painted, it might cost almost as much as the price of the model (or even more in some rare cases). So my beautifully-painted bloodthirster who was purchased at retail price ($116 or something) and then painted for another $100 sure isn't going to get sold for $50 or less. But then again, I have a thing for Khorne.....

When I look to buy, NIB can go for 65% of retail just about anywhere. Even online retailers will sometimes go that low if you buy in bulk. From normal people, I can typically find things for 40% off and get free shipping (or around there) as long as it's not the new hotness.

When you're buying used, my value for painted models varies, but many times people will have a difficult time unloading models for a good chunk of retail because many people have a specific vision for what they want as their paint scheme (and not a lot of people like having odd models/units painted differently).

eBay (though I love it) is kind of a different animal. Too many people are all vying for the deals so it's a seller's heaven. Try local trading sites (I use barter town and dakkadakka) to try and find deals where people can ship locally (or at least within the continental US) to get a good deal. You skip out on a lot of people because shipping is expensive and sometimes complicated so you get much less competition and a much better deal. I can't explain what kinds of great deals I've gotten from places like this.

Even better is finding something local. You might be surprised to find out that a guy at your local club (or a nearby club if you're fortunate enough to have more than one) in fact DOES have an army or three that he doesn't play as often as he used to/would like. You can get 50% of retail right on the spot many times, no problem, in situations like this. Even for NIB.

And with the new Tau coming out, I found myself trading away a bunch of Nid models that I enjoy, but don't use much or at all anymore in order to get some more Tau. That's when the deals really start flying, and you can trade retail-for-retail, so your value really skyrockets when you only have to pay shipping and you find someone who wants what you want to give away, and vice versa.

It varies wildly... Patience is the order of the day - keep trying via ebay, and eventually you'll piece together a cheap army.

I've had luck here at dakka dakka. I bought a large, well-painted ork army for about $400 shipped, and once I'd tallied everything, I calculated that it was about 27% of retail. There were tons of things included. I got that deal because I was willing to buy the whole thing at once, and the seller had put it up months ago and it wasn't moving.

Then more recently I went to a minis swap meet. Wow, man there were crazy deals to be had. But the best one was purchasing a whole lizard man army for $50 - it included over $500 worth of models, almost all of which were still in shrink wrap or otherwise nearly new. 10% retail was just nuts. And that was the guy's *starting* price. I'm used to bargaining, but I was so flabbergasted, I considered bargaining *up*.

OK, but at this point, I'm just bragging.

Good luck with putting together your army. Take your time, there are good bargains to be had!

Grimlineman wrote:
Most things in life depreciate. They are plastic toys that he who owns them has gotten some enjoyment out of painting playing them.
And I agree 40% may be low but much above that and I'm buying new personally.
Half the hobby is modeling and painting so unless its truly pro painted like everyone claims they would get stripped and re-worked anyhow. Maybe I'm in the minority on this one. Thanks for you input.

But they don't depreciate. I am still playing with the same orks I bought in highschool during third ed. And they are working exactly the same as the newer ones. Models don't depreciate and are a fantastic investment in the long run. Depreciate means to lose value due to drop in effectiveness. Your going to have to compromise or get someone's army off eBay thats super desperate

Orock is right. Machines and equipment depreciate because newer versions come out. Cars Depreciate. These models are collectors pieces.

Grimelineman and every dakkanut i have tried to deal with are just appauling to me. You spit in my face with your 40% offer. Sure paying low for very garbage painted models are reasonable, but you are just straight up insulting if the models are painted very well.

Special case for Chaos Marines. CSM have a motley crew of several warbands. It is not uncommon for some world eaters and iron warrior and crimson Slaughter to be led by Black Legion. Similarly, night lords and alpha legion are a good team up because of their guerilla tactics. The buyers telling me they have to strip my paint job so it matches their army can go away. You can mix different warbands with chaos and its still chaos. In addition, i might not be a pro but I am definitely better than a majority of painters I have seen, because i have spent so much time painting. Its just so insulting being lowball offered, because I have had people compliment my work and even willing to pay a bit more than NiB price for my very well painted models.

Oh and if you can attend a swap meet then dont waste people's time with low ball offers. If they on a forum or ebay or Craigslist, chances are they cant attent a swap meet.

I have had some good deals on old unpainted (or 90s style painted) metal army lots that I plan to use.
But if someone is charging more for painted, I can respect that, as it also means I'm paying for careful treatment of the model.

ebay is how I've been getting my sisters recently. Every now and then I can get a whole squad of 10 sisters for less then $30 with shipping. Specialist models like melta guns or the like are a lot rarer to get for a good price that isn't .01 less than what I could get from GW bad paint job or no.

As a decent guide I start with 35% off gw prices but anything pre-primed, or painted that isn't matching my army I next to never look at anythng less then 40% off including shipping. Extra work of stripping/re-stripping is a pain.

Grimlineman wrote:Anyone gotten any really good deals on used army? Specifically on Ebay? Prices seem high and every time I put in an offer on something it gets rejected. If I wanted to spend close to retail I would support my FLGS and paint them to my liking. I have not found any great deals. Anyone have luck? Whats an army go for I figured 40-50% of retail is a good starting point am I wrong?

Unless I'm planning on simply flipping an army, I never buy pre-assembled stuff. It's not worth my time trying to fix other people's mistakes.

Filch wrote:
Grimelineman and every dakkanut i have tried to deal with are just appauling to me. You spit in my face with your 40% offer. Sure paying low for very garbage painted models are reasonable, but you are just straight up insulting if the models are painted very well.

I've never taken any offer as a personal slight, and I find people who do kinda funny. A polite "no thanks" via PM or e-mail to an offer that doesn't meet your expectations seems a lot less effort than carrying around emotional baggage.

 Filch wrote:
These models are collectors pieces.

No, they're used toys with minimal value. Stripping your paint off takes time and effort, and I'm still stuck with your choice of pose/options/etc because plastic glue is permanent. They might be valuable to you, but to me they're worth considerably less than NIB.

You spit in my face with your 40% offer.

40% is pretty generous. I'd start my offer at 5-10%, unless you have some OOP stuff I can't find NIB.

Sure paying low for very garbage painted models are reasonable, but you are just straight up insulting if the models are painted very well.

For many people it doesn't matter how well they're painted, they're going straight into the bucket of paint stripper as soon as they arrive. Even if your stuff is painted well it doesn't match the rest of my army, so all of your paint is just extra work for me to clean up before I can paint them myself.

The buyers telling me they have to strip my paint job so it matches their army can go away.

Sorry if the truth hurts, but that's how it is. Once you sell something you have no control over what happens to it. If you don't want your stuff getting stripped and repainted then don't ever sell it.

I've gotten lucky on some ebay lots for orks. I also got a great deal from localish guy on craigslist.

Grimlineman wrote:
Anyone gotten any really good deals on used army? Specifically on Ebay? Prices seem high and every time I put in an offer on something it gets rejected. If I wanted to spend close to retail I would support my FLGS and paint them to my liking. I have not found any great deals. Anyone have luck? Whats an army go for I figured 40-50% of retail is a good starting point am I wrong?

50% of retail avoid insulting the seller. Some of us get substantial discounts on our stuff, so it substantially reduces what we're willing to pay for used stuff.

For example theres a store here that gives 20% off all GW stuff, all the time. All of it. So I mean when you're already getting that deal, it's hard to go any higher than 50%

Best deal I ever got was a couple hundred for like 50~ fleshhounds (50$ per 5 normally) other than that Ebay sucks so bad for deals 99% of the time.