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You can get a core and six expansions for under £100 and field a tournament level force for x-wing in the form of a tie swarm.

You could build alot of 100 point lists for less than £100, bbbbz is another example.

You can't build 1850 armies for £100, your looking at £500+, so while individual expansions Arnt cheap for x-wing your fleets cost significantly less.

 Don Savik wrote:
What would you want in your display case, 3 warjacks or 3 wraithknights?.

Both...?


There's nothing inherently more impressive about a model just because it's a little bigger.

 Don Savik wrote:


I bought a box of Malifaux because hey, being able to start playing from a single box is great. But its a skirmish game that really doesn't lend itself to expansion. Same with Infinity, Frostgrave, Warmahordes, etc etc. If you wanted your force to look like a unified army instead of a bunch of cosplayers then you don't have that option.

While WM/H is certainly smaller than most armies in 40k, I don't think it's a bunch of cosplayers, whatever that means. It's on a much larger scale than Mali or Infinity, which are more necromunda sized.
A typical army can be 30 infantry, some solos and attachments, and a few warjacks. A typical marine army for me at 2000 points is a couple transports and about 50-60 guys since I use centurions. My eldar army is about the same, except instead of transports I use Wraith Knights. It's certainly bigger, that's true, but I find my WM/H models manage to look like an army, and often a fluffy one. I would say that WM/H is about 2/3 to 1/2 of your typical 40k army if both are built for competitive reasons. For horde armies it might be a bit worse, but I haven't seen a horde army in a long time since they are...well...pretty bad.

For me, WM/H is the perfect size. It reminds me more of a 3rd edition game, which is when I started playing. I would imagine that, for most players that started in older editions, WM/H feels like the right size and 40k feels bloated.
Especially since, in 40k, there are a ton of chaff models. Bolter armed marines, scouts on objectives, drop pods after they land, that are very expensive cash wise but don't do a whole lot to influence the game. WM/H has few if any chaff models. Every gun mage feels important, and every trencher can do something and his positioning matters.

 Don Savik wrote:

There's not really many options for the scale 40k players want. I like x-wing a lot but its a different dynamic than owning my own horde of orks. Visually its more impressive too and I think a lot of players want that. What would you want in your display case, 3 warjacks or 3 wraithknights?

That's not really a fair comparison is it? 3 wraith knights is $350 and 3 warjacks is about 45-90, not including box sets. So I guess the better question is, what would you rather have 12-20 Warjacks or 3 Wraith Knights?
Or just 3 colossals.
But yes, when you tilt the advantage heavily in GW's favor it does help.

 Don Savik wrote:

I don't think GW has good prices btw. I don't think their competition is offering any replacements though. Alternatives yes, but not replacements.

If the way 40k looks is very critical to you, yeah there won't be a replacement. But WM/H has decently sized games, similar model sizes of comparable quality, and is much cheaper. It can be sold as a replacement, and locally, that's how we pitch it to new players. A better, cheaper 40k. MK 3 actually makes Warjacks really good with nearly every caster, which helps a lot.

jonolikespie wrote:

Davor wrote:
This I find totally false X-wing can be played as big as you want, just like how 40K can be played as small as you like. So saying X-wing doesn't need as many miniatures is totally false.

Are you joking, or just trolling?

You can buy 3 ships and be done, ready to play X wing at the average size point levels quite comfortably, even able to swap around the upgrades on them to make multiple different lists with those 3 models.

That's it. 3 models. You're done, you have a fully playable force.

Being able to upend your entire collection on the table changes nothing, you can do that for any game in existence.

Uhm Jono, what did I actually say? If someone wants to play X-wing at 200 points you can. So that means you buy more ships. If someone wants to play 40K at say 400 points, you can, that means you buy less. If someone only wants to spend $100 on 40K then they can do so. You can still play 40K perfectly at low point games.

What does this you only need 3 ships to play X-wing have anything to do with what I said? It seems you are the one who is trolling now.

Buy saying you can play X-wing with only 3 ships, means you want to play a small point game. Also you can play with 8 ships if not more if you so choose to do so. Even more if you want to play a bigger point game. Just like in 40K you can play with a lot less if you so choose to do so.

Totally not sure what your point was.

That a 100 point X Wing game is the typical game size, like a 15-1850 game is in 40K, and there are a lot of quite effective lists that only require 3 ships or so at that level.

Akiasura wrote:

Did you miss the post where I did just that for WM/H? I compared cygnar to marines, looking at infantry, elite infantry, cavalry/bike models, leader models/characters, tanks and jacks, and larger models.

I saw your post where you compared unit to unit. Try comparing actual playable armies.

Define "playable."

Do you mean legal and functional within the rules, or do you mean "tournament level competitive." Or something in between?

Not that it matters, as I can't see the comparison being any different.

Oh I play 40k because it is so distinct in terms of aesthetics. I find most other popular sci fi games look so generic. Like they had a mix of Halo/Crisis/Fallout ground down into this generic sci fi paste and it bothers me a lot.

Same with the fantasy games. Even Warhammer Fantasy was pretty boring after playing Total War Warhammer.

Dust is the only newer game around that interested me enough to buy the rules and consider starting an army due to how unique it looked visually. It helps we have a small community. I also wanted to start Kingdom Death but the insane entry price and inability to find its core means that's a big nope.

 Scott-S6 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

Did you miss the post where I did just that for WM/H? I compared cygnar to marines, looking at infantry, elite infantry, cavalry/bike models, leader models/characters, tanks and jacks, and larger models.

I saw your post where you compared unit to unit. Try comparing actual playable armies.

Don't really see how that'll change the price per model at all for 40k, but sure. It won't be perfect, but I'll list a low point list and work my way up for both armies.

I'll stick with marines and cygnar.

Low Point Games
GW
Starter marine box is 140 for a dread, Captain, and 10 man marine squad. This isn't enough to get started (It's not 500 points nor does it have 2 troops slots, and most low level games are two troops HQ and a thing.
So let's add another tactical squad for ~60, for 200. This is about the cheapest I can make it, if we buy them randomly, it's going to be 120 for troops, 30 for a leader, and 60 for a dreadnought. The box set basically gives you the formation rules and ~10 off, not much else.
Also, keep in mind, tacticals are bad as are dreadnoughts. At higher games we will need transports. The leader in the box set is a terminator armor captain, which is garbage tier.
Also, 140 for the rules and 90 for the codex.

So that's 200 for models, 230 for rules, 430 total for a ~500 point game This is roughly 25% of a total force, which is how I'll compare it to PP
For price per model, I get 22 models for 200, 1 character model and 1 large model. That's about ~10 per model. Obviously rules make this way worse.

PP
The starter box comes with two lights, a heavy, and a commander for $50.
This is 9+12+10 points, or 31, out of 100 (Usually 75+warjack points is the standard, so this is about 1/3 of that).
This includes the rulebook and dice, but we can include $10 for box card sets (cygnar and mercs) from War Room.

So that's 50 for models, 10 for rules . The models here are so so, the charger and defender are good but the lancer might get dropped depending on the caster. The commander is not one of the best but is still really strong. There aren't many weak commanders in cygnar...most factions have maybe 1 or 2 that aren't good.
I get 3 large models and 1 character model for 50, so it's about 12/model. This isn't great but it's not bad, infantry would of course lower it.

CONCLUSION, PP is about 14% of the total cost to play a low point game when compared to 40k with rules, without rules its 25%


High Point Strong army
GW
Dev Cents 95 *2 for Full squad, for 190

Thunder fire cannon 94

White Scars Commander 50

Tiggy, 30

Bikes ~ 100 per squad, most likely 2-3 squads

And I'll stop here because this is already so much more expensive than the warmachine army will be. Please note it shares nothing in common with the original army, so these are all new models. From the original army, I'd probably make a gladius but that would be crazy expensive.

So this is 300 for bikes, 80 for HQs, 94 for TFC, and ~200 for Devs. 674 total plus 230 for rules for a cold 900. Please keep in mind, this is NOT a full army, I think you'd still need a couple hundred points. We can call it an even 1000 if you want.
I got 18 bikes, 2 commanders, 1 TFC (I'll count as 2) and 6 Cents. That is 28 models for 674, or 24/model.

This is not even the most expensive army I could build. Drop builds or rhinos would make this number way higher, and this looks typical for a decent marine force that doesn't abuse formations.

PP
The following is a competitive list
Captain haley (10)
Squire (10)
Stormclad (35)
Stormclad (35)
Hunter (15)
Hunter (15)
Journeyman (7)
Charger (18)
Arlan Strangewayes (14)
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages (35)
Black13th (17)
For a total of ~190, plus 10 for rules. So let's call it 200.
You get 13 infantry models and 5 tanks, for 18 models. So that's about 11 per model.

PP wins again.

Scott, in what world is GW cheaper? I didn't even use the starter box, which would have saved me quite a bit. There is some cross over, although it's small (if you wanted to save, you could sub out the Storm clads for Iron clad for example, and it would be fine).

Akiasura wrote:

 Don Savik wrote:

I don't think GW has good prices btw. I don't think their competition is offering any replacements though. Alternatives yes, but not replacements.

If the way 40k looks is very critical to you, yeah there won't be a replacement. But WM/H has decently sized games, similar model sizes of comparable quality, and is much cheaper. It can be sold as a replacement, and locally, that's how we pitch it to new players. A better, cheaper 40k. MK 3 actually makes Warjacks really good with nearly every caster, which helps a lot.

But it's not.

It's like saying Heroclix is a better cheaper Warmachine.
Heroclix models are cheaper, you don't need to buy rulebooks, the models are similar sized, and you can play decently sized games.

Warmachine is steam punk, it's not even the same same genre as 40K, and the battles are skirmished sized, not army sized.

I'm not saying Warmachine isn't a good game, or Infinity isn't a good game, but they are not the same scale of 40K. Mantic is the only one producing something similar to 40K and honestly I don't expect them to get it at least close to right until it's second edition.

As for X-Wing, the same people that told me they got into it because you only need 2-3 ships are the same people that own at least 1 of every ship made. X-wing is a miniatures game but people who take it seriously collect it like CCG players, buying all the new expansions as they are released.

It's like arguing that you can play 40K with a $25 mini rulebook and a Getting Started Box. Sure, technically you can do that, but no one does it for long.

As for X-Wing, the same people that told me they got into it because you only need 2-3 ships are the same people that own at least 1 of every ship made. X-wing is a miniatures game but people who take it seriously collect it like CCG players, buying all the new expansions as they are released.

You get that there's a whole world of difference between need and want, right?


It's not like many 40K players put down every model they own for every game. Hell, it's not like many 40K players don't have as many models still in the box as they do ready to be played.

Someone who's enthusiastic about a game may well want to go above and beyond what is needed, it has absolutely zero impact on what is required to play the game.

What would it even cost to own every single ship? A quick glance shows that an average price would be ~$30, maybe a touch more (lots of ships at 15, then some outliers at 80+, and a bunch at 20-40...so...) with some ~50 odd ships is in the ballpark of 1500.

I mean, that's roughly 2500pts of 40k depending on army, without thinking about the mandatory ~$150 in rulebooks/codices you need (that X-wing doesn't).

Wrong thread. Please delete post.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Someone who's enthusiastic about a game may well want to go above and beyond what is needed, it has absolutely zero impact on what is required to play the game.

True, but we are discussing about how much it takes to be in the hobby. What people typically spend is more important than the bare minimum that someone could spend.

You can play Pokémon with a 2 player starter box.
You can play 40K with a 40K Starter Box.
You can play Warmachine with Starter Box.
You can play Infinity with a Starter Box.
Hell, Battle for Vedros has Marine and Ork forces with abridged rules for $50, but no one is going to argue that it only costs $50 to play 40K.

You edited out part of my post that was relevant

AdamSouza wrote:Sure, technically you can do that, but no one does it for long.

 adamsouza wrote:
As for X-Wing, the same people that told me they got into it because you only need 2-3 ships are the same people that own at least 1 of every ship made. X-wing is a miniatures game but people who take it seriously collect it like CCG players, buying all the new expansions as they are released.

That's a terrible argument. Obviously some people will buy 10,000pts of 40k, others might buy 500pts, neither are good indicators.

The question is what is a typical game size and how much variety do you realistically need to play varied games. Tournaments are often a good indicator of what a typical game size is, we had a poll recently that showed most people on Dakka prefer to play in the 1250-2000pt range (60%) with another 20% in the 750-1250pt range.

The question of how much variety of miniatures you need to play interesting and varied games, I don't really know for X-wing as I don't play it regularly. I'd say for 40k you probably want 25-50% more points than you actually intend to play at if you don't want the game to get stale, though I also haven't played much 40k recently so maybe my thoughts are a bit out of date. Basically I think you want a solid core and then enough points of the support troops to change your play style from one game to the next.

 adamsouza wrote:

You edited out part of my post that was relevant

AdamSouza wrote:Sure, technically you can do that, but no one does it for long.

Which is a universal truth for every single game pertinent to the argument, making it a largely redundant statement.

 adamsouza wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

 Don Savik wrote:

I don't think GW has good prices btw. I don't think their competition is offering any replacements though. Alternatives yes, but not replacements.

If the way 40k looks is very critical to you, yeah there won't be a replacement. But WM/H has decently sized games, similar model sizes of comparable quality, and is much cheaper. It can be sold as a replacement, and locally, that's how we pitch it to new players. A better, cheaper 40k. MK 3 actually makes Warjacks really good with nearly every caster, which helps a lot.

But it's not.

It kinda is. Neither games are what I call skirmish games (check out the summary I did, one has ~20 models, one had ~ 30 models, most skirmish games I see are more like 5-10). Neither games are full on massive scale wargames either (historicals, for example, can have a ton of models, and warhammer fantasy usually got close to a hundred. My skaven was closer to 300). They are both in the same size category, one just plays a lot better, has less imbalances, and as I've shown is significantly cheaper.

About 12 of us are long time 40k players claiming this. I own over 3k points in the majority of factions in 40k, and used to play 2-3 games a week from 3rd to the launch of 6th. I've played a bit, we all have. No one locally disagrees, and the only disagreement I hear on the internet is usually size (when competitive armies are small anyway in 40k for the most part) or appearance. If you don't like the appearance, that's fine, but both are mini war games on roughly the same scale. WM/H is just cheaper with significantly better rules. I've already mentioned if you hate the appearance that's certainly a viable reason, but its subjective and doesn't really belong in a price discussion.

 adamsouza wrote:

It's like saying Heroclix is a better cheaper Warmachine.
Heroclix models are cheaper, you don't need to buy rulebooks, the models are similar sized, and you can play decently sized games.

That argument is pretty...I don't even know what to call it. It's wrong though.
In WM/H and 40k, you have central heroes. In Heroclix, every man is a hero.
Stats in WM/H and 40k are roughly static outside of buffs. Heroclix has models change with wounds.
WM/H has units and leaders like 40k. Heroclix is an army of solos.
WM/H has free movement like 40k, HC uses a grid.
WM/H and 40k uses cards or unit entries, HC has stats on a dial with a card I believe (been a while, did they have cards?).
HC is narrative driven a lot, WM/H and 40k are not. 40k used to be more narrative driven, but the above army I wrote is not even remotely fluffy, and isn't an uncommon core for competitive armies.

WM/H is much closer to 40k than either are to Heroclix. I'd ask you to say why you feel its any other way, WM/H constantly gets compared to 40k for a number of reasons. They aren't as dissimilar as you think. I can build a more tank centric force for 40k that would be comparable in models as my WM/H force, and I can go troop heavy and get close to a marine force in 40k. Probably won't get close to a guard, nid, or ork force, but those armies are having massive issues right now if played as a horde. At least in WM/H, my Khador/Cryx infantry swarm does work and is viable if you like to see a lot of dudes.

 adamsouza wrote:

Warmachine is steam punk, it's not even the same same genre as 40K, and the battles are skirmished sized, not army sized.

It depends how you define skirmish. WM/H is certainly larger than infinity, necromunda, mordheim, and several other skirmish games. You can't look at WM/H and Guild ball and say "This seem similar in size" like you can with all the other games you and I mentioned.
I also wouldn't call 40k army size. Look at historicals, that's army size. Historicals, and maybe this is what I've seen, hardly ever have 28 models like a competitive 40k army can have. At no point in 40k is your force supposed to be an army. It's usually defined as a section of a battlefield playing out, or a small mission taking place for most editions I believe. It's not skirmish, but it's not army. We can call it battle sized, and WM/H is supposed to be similar.

So yeah, they are comparable. Genre-wise no, but I already said if that's what is critical to you only 40k will do. You can say the same about steampunk though, so its a bit of a wash.

 adamsouza wrote:

It's like arguing that you can play 40K with a $25 mini rulebook and a Getting Started Box. Sure, technically you can do that, but no one does it for long.

Well, remember we are discussing price. And I think I've shown rather well that 40k is rather expensive at both high and low point value games. I mean, I can almost get the entire model line for a faction in WM/H compared to one 2k force + rules in 40k. That's pretty out there.

Basically what I'm saying is that the Getting Started boxes for 40k are crap and still over priced. The marine one seems to save $10 and a formation sheet (I think those are 5?). So 15 out of 160 value, not great. Everything in 40k is like this, it's very over priced and it's apparent right away. If you don't know what's good you might waste hundreds of dollars easily (imagine buying assault cents, or a vanguard vet swarm).

At least in WM/H, the getting started boxes are mostly okay to great. One jack is usually free, so that's about a 20 dollar value out of 70 if you bought them on their own. That's way more value. Most of the units can end up in competitive lists, while none of the 40k models will unless gladius.

 adamsouza wrote:

Hell, Battle for Vedros has Marine and Ork forces with abridged rules for $50, but no one is going to argue that it only costs $50 to play 40K

Given that Vedros is a different game that just uses some 40k minis, the cost of the starter would have little relevance to the cost of starting 40k.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Which is a universal truth for every single game pertinent to the argument, making it a largely redundant statement.

It's an entirely relevant statement because people are comparing starter-box level purchases in X-Wing to full-army purchases in 40k. It doesn't matter if three ships can technically add up to the 100 points of standard game, virtually nobody who plays X-Wing treats a three-ship collection as anything more than the very basic first-day investment equivalent to buying a 40k starter set. Most people who play X-Wing beyond their first couple of newbie games end up buying at least one of every ship, so that's the level of purchases you need to compare to a 1500-2000 point 40k army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 insaniak wrote:
Given that Vedros is a different game that just uses some 40k minis, the cost of the starter would have little relevance to the cost of starting 40k.

Ok, so $50 plus the cost of a starter-set rulebook on ebay (or $50 plus zero if you pirate the rules like most people do).

 Peregrine wrote:

Ok, so $50 plus the cost of a starter-set rulebook on ebay... ).

Plus your codex.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Which is a universal truth for every single game pertinent to the argument, making it a largely redundant statement.

It's an entirely relevant statement because people are comparing starter-box level purchases in X-Wing to full-army purchases in 40k. It doesn't matter if three ships can technically add up to the 100 points of standard game, virtually nobody who plays X-Wing treats a three-ship collection as anything more than the very basic first-day investment equivalent to buying a 40k starter set. Most people who play X-Wing beyond their first couple of newbie games end up buying at least one of every ship, so that's the level of purchases you need to compare to a 1500-2000 point 40k army.

I hear what you're saying but I think your conclusion is wrong.
This could be my crowd but I don't know anyone who owns exactly 1500-2000. Most people I know own double that, and a few own more than one faction with less points but can still play. I don't know many like me, granted, but I would say that's typical.
So can we compare say, 3k worth of marines and 1750 of another force to X-wing?

Basically you are saying that the "standard" x-wing player owns every ship but the "standard" 40k player only owns exactly what is required to play? That just doesn't seem right, do you have something backing that up?

Otherwise I think "standard game" is the best way to go. I'm not aware of what this is for X-Wing, but I think Scots comment about putting down a standard list you'd see that's competitive (so no gimmicks to prove a point) is a good way to do it. I mean, with my example, you could double the army (tournaments require 2 lists) and still be much cheaper than 40k. Even though, in reality, some characters and units would most likely transfer over (Menoth always takes Choir, Cygnar the Squire, Khador WGRC, etc etc).

 Peregrine wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Which is a universal truth for every single game pertinent to the argument, making it a largely redundant statement.

It's an entirely relevant statement because people are comparing starter-box level purchases in X-Wing to full-army purchases in 40k. It doesn't matter if three ships can technically add up to the 100 points of standard game, virtually nobody who plays X-Wing treats a three-ship collection as anything more than the very basic first-day investment equivalent to buying a 40k starter set. Most people who play X-Wing beyond their first couple of newbie games end up buying at least one of every ship, so that's the level of purchases you need to compare to a 1500-2000 point 40k army.
.

Im not, I'm comparing the cost to get enough stuff to field a standard sized list. As most 40K players purchase units beyond what they can field in a typical sized game, or even whole extra factions. As people do in WMH, Infinity, Malifaux etc etc. it's facile to rebut "you can start playing this game at the standard size for X amount" with "yeah, but you'll spend more on the game than just what it costs to get a standard size list." That happens with pretty much every game for pretty much every player that continues on past the very early stages.

You can field a standard sized list in X Wing for the cost of half a unit of some 40K models. For a standard sized 40K list you can probably purchase most of the entirety of X Wing releases to date.

That's not a favorable comparison.

Akiasura wrote:
This could be my crowd but I don't know anyone who owns exactly 1500-2000.

Sounds like this is just your crowd. In my experience most 40k players seem to have a single "core" army and a few extra things they can swap in and out. The people with multiple armies are the ones who have gone way beyond "getting started" and decided to make 40k a major hobby investment. That's fine if you want to make that investment, but it's not at all necessary to enjoy the game.

Basically you are saying that the "standard" x-wing player owns every ship but the "standard" 40k player only owns exactly what is required to play? That just doesn't seem right, do you have something backing them up?

There are two pretty major differences between the two, besides the price:

1) X-Wing's system of upgrade cards being spread across a bunch of different ships forces you to buy a lot more than the minimum for a 100 point game. Even if you only intend to play with a small subset of the total ships you end up having to buy almost everything anyway or you don't get to use vital upgrades. So the three-ship X-Wing player is almost guaranteed to lose every game they play, while the 40k player with exactly 1500 points of models can have a perfectly competitive army and win most of their games.

2) X-Wing's lower "unit" count makes taking a single 100-point list over and over again really boring for most people. With 40k a "standard" army has at least 5-10 units and it's easy to change configurations without much additional cost (swapping magnetized weapon upgrades, etc). So even a player with just enough to play a single 1500-2000 point list still has a decent diversity of options to experience. But the three-ship X-Wing player has only a tiny part of what the whole game has to offer. While the 40k player is doing all the cool stuff their faction has the X-Wing player is re-playing the same starter-box experience over and over again.

And of course, anecdotally, I can't think of a single person who stopped buying X-Wing stuff at three ships. Even the guy on a really strict budget bought a lot more than three, and most people very quickly went to a substantial fraction of the "one of everything" level. If you look at the subset of dedicated players like me most of us tend to have at least 2-3 copies of every ship, so if anything I'm understating the average cost a bit.

Akiasura wrote:

This could be my crowd but I don't know anyone who owns exactly 1500-2000. Most people I know own double that, and a few own more than one faction with less points but can still play.

The vast majority of 40k players I've met over the last 20-ish years have owned a single army of between 1500-2000 points, usually in some level of incomplete assembly.

Those with larger or multiple forces tend to be just the more fanatical players.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Im not, I'm comparing the cost to get enough stuff to field a standard sized list. As most 40K players purchase units beyond what they can field in a typical sized game, or even whole extra factions. As people do in WMH, Infinity, Malifaux etc etc. it's facile to rebut "you can start playing this game at the standard size for X amount" with "yeah, but you'll spend more on the game than just what it costs to get a standard size list." That happens with pretty much every game for pretty much every player that continues on past the very early stages.

And the point I keep making is that a three-ship collection in X-Wing is not playing a standard list. It's the equivalent of bringing a single 5-man tactical squad from the starter box to a 2000 point game. It's technically legal to do it but you will lose every game you play (except maybe against a fellow hopeless newbie), and you will not enjoy the game at all. You're comparing buying the minimum viable collection in X-Wing to finishing a viable collection in other games and then starting to expand into fun extra stuff.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
The question of how much variety of miniatures you need to play interesting and varied games, I don't really know for X-wing as I don't play it regularly.

X-Wing has a limited number of models, and periodically adds more. The new models come with cards that are usable with things other than what comes in the package. It's more like a CCG in that sense than a Tabletop Wargame. The setup encourages you to buy the new expansions to play interesting and varied games, as well as keep up with other players.

My point is that It is not buy a starter and your favorite ship and be done with it. If you play regularly you will find yourself picking up more and more regularly to get the variety of ships and cards to keep things interesting.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Im not, I'm comparing the cost to get enough stuff to field a standard sized list. As most 40K players purchase units beyond what they can field in a typical sized game, or even whole extra factions. As people do in WMH, Infinity, Malifaux etc etc. it's facile to rebut "you can start playing this game at the standard size for X amount" with "yeah, but you'll spend more on the game than just what it costs to get a standard size list." That happens with pretty much every game for pretty much every player that continues on past the very early stages.

And the point I keep making is that a three-ship collection in X-Wing is not playing a standard list. It's the equivalent of bringing a single 5-man tactical squad from the starter box to a 2000 point game. It's technically legal to do it but you will lose every game you play (except maybe against a fellow hopeless newbie), and you will not enjoy the game at all. You're comparing buying the minimum viable collection in X-Wing to finishing a viable collection in other games and then starting to expand into fun extra stuff.

I am not, I'm comparing the standard game size of both games.

By trying to argue the quality of the lists you're introducing a whole extra level of vagueness to the equation which can't be moderated to form a valid comparison. It's like making price comparisons using anything other than RRP, you have to take the base line otherwise somebody just says 40K is cheapest because my local GW left their back door open and I stole my army.

The quality of the list is utterly irrelevant, it's about the cost to get to a standard game size. Just because someone's spent a complete fething fortune on a 1500 40K list won't make it any good either.

 Azreal13 wrote:
The quality of the list is utterly irrelevant, it's about the cost to get to a standard game size.

No, the quality of the list is entirely relevant. It doesn't matter if you're technically playing the standard game size if you're doing it with a terrible list that is almost guaranteed to lose every game. Your experience is going to be so miserable that you're not going to play that standard size game anymore until you've invested a lot more money.

Which isn't the point of the discussion.

 insaniak wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:

Hell, Battle for Vedros has Marine and Ork forces with abridged rules for $50, but no one is going to argue that it only costs $50 to play 40K

Given that Vedros is a different game that just uses some 40k minis, the cost of the starter would have little relevance to the cost of starting 40k.

I was listing examples of starter sets that no one uses beyond their first few intro games, Vedros is 40K lite, but it suits that purpose.