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Budgethammer 40k- Buy Smarter, not Harder.

By Jack Stover | October 9th, 2013 | Categories: jstove, Miniature Wargaming Editorials

Dear Internet it’s Jstoveand I’m here to talk to you today about being a penny-pinching cheapskate with your hobby, because I’m pretty much the beggar king of budgethammer.

This is going to be a long one, so unless you’re interested in saving money and lots of hobby talk, just scroll right past and go click on the ad for discount hotpockets on the sidebar.

Now, when we talk about playing 40k for cheaper-than-GW, (and this article is strictly for cheapskates, not people who made good decisions in life and have real careers and disposable income, or don’t have families to feed, etc.) there are a few simple answers to the question of “How do I get away with financial plastic murder/not give GW a pint of blood?”

These are the best answers.

-Go to Ebay and buy all the sad homeless tyranids nobody loves BEFORE their new codex comes out at the end of the year and they become valuable again, then dump them in a vat of simple green.

-Go to Ebay and buy old rogue trader METAL BAWKS rhinos and dump them in a vat of simple green.

-Go to Ebay and buy all the sad homeless Eldar nobody loves BEFORE their new codex WHOOPS TOO LATE.

-Go to Ebay and buy all the sad homeless Tau YEP, TOO LATE FOR THAT TOO. RIPTIDE BANDWAGON, HO! Don’t worry, the vespids still need a home…

Well, it looks like only 2 of those are still valid, because 6th ed has actually been pretty kind to armies that aren’t marines so far.

In any case, these solutions, while being the best solutions for being a cheapass, come with their own contingencies.

First, they require that you dedicate the necessary time and effort to sniping the auctions out from under the other 5 Uncle Scrooges that are also hawking the same auction, and then if you win, they need to be shipped to you.

Second, they require that you have some kind of competence in modeling, because you will have to strip and refurbish the models, and those secondhand Ebay models won’t be cheap, unless they’re really sad and abused and in need of a long bath in a citrus-based solvent.

I’m not going to go over the finer points of paint stripping by the way, there’s articles for that everywhere. I’m sure Rob has an editor-to-the-rescue link for me right here…  http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/223827-product-review-simple-green/ (nailed it -MBG)

But enough about being a heartless miser who is trying to get in for the lowest common denominator. Let’s assume that you actually care about your relationship with your plastic crack vendor and don’t want to Ebay scalp for whatever reason, be it morality, impatience, or laziness.

Did I mention Rob, proprietor of Spikey Bits and FTW Games is a nice guy who won’t kill you and sell your organs, and I’m not just saying that because I get a discount for writing editorials for his blog?

Which reminds us, if you would like to contribute to Spikey Bits, you can follow this link into Rob’s giant heart- http://blog.spikeybits.com/2013/07/indy-games-writers-we-want-you.html

Oh wait, hold on, my behavioral control drugs are wearing off… Sense of compassion and camaraderie fading… There we go, let’s talk about being cheap again. Also, Rob won’t sell your organs on the black market, but I sure will. I need some purple land raiders for my 30k III legion.

Editors note about FLGS and the internets. (yup going to make this longer sorry guys- MBG)

At FTW Games (the home of Spikey Bits) we realize that while we may provide a super clean well stocked store, with tons of awesome terrain and monthly/weekly events, there will always be better deals somewhere else. 

Usually they can be found well here on the internet.  That why we feel like it falls on the store itself to offer discounts on New in Box product to help keep people for example from buying a sealed Riptide off say eBay or a competitor and bringing it in to play with.

We give back store credit on every purchase that can be used the next time gamers come in, and once you hit a larger total sale amount (which isn’t hard to do these days on say Games Workshop product), the store credit they get back doubles and honestly either way ends up being close to, or the same as, buying online with a discount and paying for shipping.

However stores can never compete with some kid selling a assembled rhino on Bartertown or eBay half off cause he wants something new. 

So as a store owner you just have to realize, there will be better deals out there, you just can’t win every battle IMHO…  


But if you do what you can, are a good shopkeep to the folks that walk in the door, and take the time to educate folks on how buying online is bad for the shop and how it’s almost the same price still to buy in-store, those customers should ultimately understand. Or they may in fact keep buying armies online and playing in-store for free, in which case another talk may be necessary with them… lol.

Ok, where were we? Right, the second best solutions for being a cheapskate without going to Ebay.

Invest in the workhorses

There are 5 great vehicles in 40k, and the good news is, they aren’t all space marines. These vehicles have been around forever and with a little work, they can be any vehicle in the game. These vehicles are the workhorse chassis vehicles of 40k, and with planning, a little bit of modeling skill, and orky kunning, they can be whatever you need them to be with a little work.

They are…

The Spess Muhreen Rhino.
This is an obvious one, but if you play any kind of muhreen, be it spikey, loyal, angelic, or furry, at some point or another your army will include some kind of metal bawks, with or without guns. Always look into acquiring rhinos, and magnetize or leave the doors and hatches unglued so you can swap the weapons to become any vehicle you desire. Buying a razorback kit or a predator kit even if you only need a rhino is generally a good idea because you hold onto the spare guns. Space marines put guns on everything, so if you don’t want all the extra toys today, you might tomorrow.

The eldad Falcon
The falcon is the titular chassis for all eldar skimmers, and by ripping up the turret or screwing with it, it can become any other variant on the chassis. Since wave serpents are the most popular tank ever since the history of the universe (or 6th edition) figuring out how to mess up a falcon is a good way to pinch pennies, because the falcon has been around for a long time and your odds of finding 1 secondhand are almost as good as tripping over old rhinos.

The guard Chimera
Oh hey look, one of the vehicles the Guard base everything off of. The best way to assemble a Chimera is to build the whole track and front assembly, but mag or leave off the crew compartment so you can slot gun decks for artillery in and out.

The guard Russ
This one’s pretty easy, and thanks to the fact that the newer russ kits also come with all the cannons, pretty brainless.

The spess muhreen dreadnut
Dreads tend to be poor-to-mediocre in most lists, but there are a few dread builds that are born winners, like the BA libby dread, the death company dread, and the AV13 Ironclad. Try to stay away from older pewter ebay dreads, but the newer generation of plastic kit dreads are a platinum hit because they have lots of interchangeable parts that don’t require a lot of skill or dedication to swap their loadouts.

If you learn to use workhorse vehicles, and write lists that include them, you’ll find your game is a lot cheaper and easier to manage, because most of these kits are readily available and easy to come by. They can be sniped secondhand, but are good enough and flexible enough in terms of parts and options that buying them new is not much of a sacrifice. Workhorse vehicles also consistently weather codex and edition creep and stay relevant as time goes on, and aren’t as prone to suffering meta-flux as  other models in your army. Even if Rhinos give up first blood, you’re going to be hard pressed to build armies that don’t include them.

Have a Plan to Lose your Plan

Writing a list and knowing what you want is good, but having a pool of good all-rounders and general purpose models that can be re-kitted with different loadouts to suit taste is better. The problem with building a specific list and then only buying the models on it is that eventually it will intersect with reality/dice and be destroyed. If you’re building on a budget, you’re going to be cutting corners somewhere and the first thing you’re going to compromise on is what you want the most. Your list will be tweaked over the course of your army’s life and you will find that what you originally had on your christmas list could be radically different from what actually ends up working.

To this end, there are a few good rules.

-Refer back to workhorses.
Remember, as above, the models are mutable and evergreen.
-Magnetize everything.
Because guard parking lot today with lascannons is orks with heavy bolters tomorrow.
-Never get rid of assault weapons, never glue them into their owner’s hands.
For most general purpose units in the game, the choice of support weapons defines the role of the squad. Always keep all your flamers, plasmas, meltas, (and gravs if you’re new marines) and be able to move them around as your list building dictates. Even if you never use them, keep them to trade among friends.

If you prepare your models appropriately, hold onto extra guns that come in all the boxes, magnetize your alternate loadouts, and keep your options open, you will have more options for multi-role units, and be less likely to need expensive single-role specialists.

Know the starter boxes

The models that come in the 40k starter box are typically the cheapest, remain the cheapest, and are easy to get a hold of. When you’re starting a new army, check to see if anywhere in recent history it had a starter box deal- The current starter is Dark Vengeance, which has Chaos vs Dark Angels. The previous starter was Black Reach, which was Orks vs Vanilla Marines. Before that, we had Suck Box, the Re-Suckening, which was a handful of gaunts, some marines, and a crashed airplane.

Let’s specifically only look at the first two. If you are interested in marines, or more specifically DAngels, then bargain units from DV and BR are looking pretty good. If you’re interested in orks, plenty of them are still floating around because DV is only a year old and all those greenskins are hanging out somewhere.

One solution that many folks propose is that you find a party interested in one of the armies in DV, then go halves on it and split it Chaos and DAngels.

This works if you’re already playing one of these armies and are looking to bulk out existing units you already have, but for new players, I’m not sold on this strategy. Dark Vengeance has some weaknesses new players should be aware of.

-First, the helbrute is the coolest looking model that has ever sucked in the 6e chaos codex and is fundamentally just a badass looking paperweight that will never be used in a real game.
-Second, Chosen aren’t far behind them, especially chosen without big guns.
-Third, Marines in a dark angel army aren’t going anywhere either, and the only winners for the DAngels are the bikes and the nators- For DAngels, green has never been best.

This means that generally, the chaos and the DAngel parts of DV don’t hold up to scrutiny and make poor, uncompetitive starter armies that do not perform on the table. The chaos side only really has the cultists, and the DAngel side only really has the nators and bikes.

The best way to get the most out of DV is to play it as chaos and keep all of it for yourself. You can paint the dark angels in their original black uniforms, and have them be Fallen traitors from the Heresy, and use them as Chaos marines. This will give you a substantial pile of troops to actually play a game with in the form of a marine squad and a blob of cultists, and you’ll have fun stuff in the form of bikes and terminators as well. The chosen and the 3 HQs can be filtered in where needed, and you can put the helbrute on the table if you’re feeling saucy… But don’t expect him to accomplish anything. When we lump all of Dark Vengeance into one chaos army, it actually starts to look like something you can put on the table- Just sprinkle with heldrake and season to taste.

Oh and finally, here’s a picture section.

 This Ironclad dreadnought has been converted to use a full array of loadouts and represent different configurations for both 30k and 40k games.

 The dual hunter killer missile system sits on a magnetized dimple on the carapace.

 the same magnet also sits a stormtalon missile pod to be used as a havoc launcher in heresy games where dreads can get havoc launchers.

 the dread equipped with traditional shooty weapons, a missile launcher and a gun arm that can be swapped to hold a plasma cannon, assault cannon, or ironclad seismic hammer.

 a shamefully blurry shot of the dual melee loadout for the ironclad/furioso

 these legion storm eagle gunships were converted from stormraven kits with cardstock extensions to the fuselage and added missile turrets, no expensive call to forge world required.

And of course, the honorable mention to the original cheapskate space marine weapon, the grav-attack tank made out of a speedstick. Older players know that there’s no school like the old school.

That’s it guys, i’m outta here, BUT checkout my other fun and exciting articles by clicking this link right HERE-Jstove

About the Author: Jack Stover