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As it so happens, after thinking I gave up 40k collecting after I was married...

I have a 7 year old son now. He loves things like Lego, building stuff, fantasy, sci fi, you name it. I have yet to introduce him properly to 40k, mainly because it’s such an expensive hobby...I don’t want him having expectations I can’t meet financially.

Bearing that in mind, can anyone tell me what a great starter box is? I’m not sure what he will like, but I’m guessing space marines...I’m mainly looking for a cheaper army to collect, where I don’t need to spend 1000 bucks to get a full 1500-2000 point force (looking st you orks and astra militarum).

Any advice would be great!

 Gorgarak wrote:
As it so happens, after thinking I gave up 40k collecting after I was married...

I have a 7 year old son now. He loves things like Lego, building stuff, fantasy, sci fi, you name it. I have yet to introduce him properly to 40k, mainly because it’s such an expensive hobby...I don’t want him having expectations I can’t meet financially.

Bearing that in mind, can anyone tell me what a great starter box is? I’m not sure what he will like, but I’m guessing space marines...I’m mainly looking for a cheaper army to collect, where I don’t need to spend 1000 bucks to get a full 1500-2000 point force (looking st you orks and astra militarum).

Any advice would be great!

There are no armies where you looking at under £700 for a 2K force, even the starter sets will only take you so far.

Orks and guard are two of the most expensive because their infantry is cheap points wise, and so are the vehicles.

Well certainly Knights could get you there for under 700, and probably Custodes?

Go on eBay and find an army. It is easily achievable to get a 2k fully painted list for under £200, $400. Painted or non painted they exist and might circumvent the time consuming task of building for a younger person.

I honestly think the best you can do is to get the Kill Team game.
The starter box has everything you need to get running, and it's fairly easy and cheap to expand.
Plus it's fairly close to 40k 8th edition rules wise and modelwise it's a good way to get playing fast with the potential to grow into a fully fledged 40k army.

40k is expensive, if you look for a cheap game that's not 40k, unless you have some luck and find some armies on ebay.

If you can get the back issues, Conquest magazine is a nice way to get into the game gradually. Some of the early issues are stupidly good value.

Also, wholeheartedly support kill team. It's just as much fun as 'full' 40k, if not more, cheaper and faster to play. Plus the rules are fully compatible if one day you fancy sticking your kill team up against a land raider or knight.

You can save a ton of money using eBay, I built a 2000 grey knight army from eBay, didn't cost me too much money.

It's the side things that can also add up though, paints, brushes, codex, rulebook, dice, glue, undercoat spray etc etc.

By the way, you can safely paint strip plastics now.

@OP:

Don´t invest in any 40K army. It is just too expensive nowadays. Instead just buy a 40K related boardgame like Deathwatch and it will be fine. The action will be tense and their is a finite amount of models which beg to be painted which is fine because no one wants to amass a grey pile of shame.

I will always advocate ebay but those models often need resuing (stripping).

In terms of starter boxes the astra one is best value but your son would probably prefer the primaris starter box. The models are really nice and clean up easliy and are great to paint.

Primaris are sadly the space marine future as well. You can also pick up the primaris intercessors on ebay relatively cheap to get started.