Get the confirmed Legions Imperialis cost breakdown for a full 3000-point army and see what players really spend when they build a complete force.
Everyone knows this hobby lives in luxury territory, so it helps to get a clear picture of what a Legions Imperialis army actually costs before you dive in. The real headache is that every wave hides behind another rulebook, so grabbing the new minis usually means buying yet another expansion just to use them.
Then the starter set showed up without rules for the first wave of releases, and hobbyists immediately rolled their eyes. So let’s break down the real price of playing Legions Imperialis from 2023, because the numbers get wild fast.
Updated August 8th 2026, by Rob Baer with the latest on Legion Imperialis costs and points.
How Many Points Do You Actually Get in Legions Imperialis?
Games Workshop recommends 3,000 points as the standard size for Legions Imperialis, but actually getting an army to that size is where things start getting expensive.
A lot of players end up closer to 1,500 to 2,000 points. Those games are faster, easier to fit into an event day, and a lot less painful for your wallet. The starter set technically includes somewhere around 1,450 to 1,700 points of models, but that number is spread across Legiones Astartes, Solar Auxilia, and Titan support.
So you’re not cracking open the starter box and walking away with one army that’s already halfway to 3,000 points.
Games Workshop has also released larger battle group and bundle boxes that look like a quicker way to build a full force. On paper, some of the point totals are pretty impressive. In practice, how much of that box you can actually use depends on the formations you’re building.
Legions Imperialis Bundle Box Points
- Starter Box: roughly 1,450 to 1,700 points. Legiones Astartes make up about 440 to 500 points, Solar Auxilia roughly 590 to 600 points, while Warhound Titans add around 330 to 660 points depending on how they’re counted. It’s a lot of plastic, but it’s split between several forces.
- Legiones Astartes Battle Group: roughly 1,000 to 1,200 points. Infantry, Kratos Heavy Tanks, Sicarans, and support units push the raw total up, although what actually fits cleanly into the formations you want may land closer to the lower end.
- Solar Auxilia Battle Group: roughly 1,200 points. There’s enough infantry and armor to build a solid core, but the total points in the box don’t automatically translate into a finished or optimized army.
- Saturnine Battle Group: roughly 1,640 points or more. Mastodons, Vindicators, Fire Raptors, and Arkanian platforms make the headline number huge, but how useful all of those points are depends heavily on the army structure you’re trying to build.
That’s where the bundle-box math starts getting messy. You can buy a box with more than 1,000 points of models and still need several extra purchases before everything fits neatly into a legal, coherent force.
How Much Does It Cost to Play Legions Imperialis?
In the 2023 LI launch issue of White Dwarf, Games Workshop had a full-scale battle report for Legions Imperialis, so we’ll be pricing out the costs of using those two armies.
Right from the jump, this first one will be the more expensive list, as it has a lot of drop pods. Either way, at 3,000 points, these armies are giant. Plus, while you can get a decent amount of models in each bundle box, there doesn’t seem to be many points in each expansion kit by themselves.
So how much do you think it actually costs to play Legions Imperialis- maybe a couple of hundred dollars? Should it be half as cheap to play as, say, Warhammer 40k, right?
A full 3,000-point army runs roughly $810 to $1,070 at MSRP depending on the list, and about $870 to $1,100 once you add the rulebook and templates.
That benchmark comes straight from Games Workshop’s own White Dwarf battle-report armies, and prices have only climbed since 2023.
Legions Imperialis Loyalists Army Costs:
Strike Force Argent Spear:
- Kratos Squadron $50
- 2 Predator Squadrons $100 ($50 each)
- Xiphon Squadron $50
- Sicaran Squadron $150 ($50 each)
1,460 Points cost: $350
Sky-Hunter Phalanx:
- Fast Attack Box $100 ($50 each, 1 box is 4 Javelins and 4 regular speeders- could be more, based on the infantry boxes)
- Bikers Box $100 ($50 each, looks to be a similar makeup as the Fast Attack Box with 4 of each type of unit)
460 Points cost: $200
Legion Support:
- Reaver Battle Titan $60
415 Points cost: $60
Legion Drop Pod Assault
- Fire Raptor Squadron $50 (similar to the Forge World World flyers revealed at launch)
- Drop Pods $200 ($50 for 4)
- 42 Infantry Bases $150 (2 and a half infantry box sets, barring separate box sets for Terminators, Jump Troops, Special Weapons, and Heavy Weapons, this seems the only way they will come)
687 Points cost: $400
Total MSRP for 3,000 points: $1010 (Actual cost is $1070 with a rulebook added in)
Yep, you’ll have to spend around $1000 for an army like this in 2023 prices, especially since it doesn’t use many of the minis that come in the starter. Plus, some units are only half a box’s worth (but you still have to pay for the whole box).
Lastly, with the rulebook and templates added in separately, this goes closer to $1100.
Legions Imperialis Traitor Army:
Death Guard Legion Garrison Force
- Infantry box $50 ($50 each. Marines are in separate detachments and two boxes worth of dreads)
- Legion Astartes Support Box $50
- Fire Raptor Squadron $50
- Rhinos $50 ($50 each, the army uses 9, and boxes contain eight rhinos spread across separate detachments)
648 Points cost: $200 (total box sets $300)
Armored Company
- Xiphon Squadron $50
- Predators $50
- Kratos Squadron $25 ($50 for full box; others are in different detachments)
635 Points cost: $125 (total box sets $175)
Armored Company #2
- Kratos Squadron $25 ($50 for full box; others are in different detachments)
- Sicarans $50
- Storm Eagles $50
560 Points cost: $125
Legion Support:
- Reaver Battle Titan $60
Emperor’s Children Demi-Company
- Infarty box $50 (Other Marines are in separate detachments and two boxes of dreads)
- Rhinos $50 (other half in separate detachment)
- Predators $50 (only uses a half box)
397 Points cost: $150
Solar Auxilia Pioneer Company
- Infantry $50 (about a third of a $50 box)
- Rapiers $50 (about a third of a $50 Solar Auxilia Support box)
- Leman Russ Squadron $50 (half a box)
331 Points cost: $150 (Everything but the Rapiers comes in the starter set)
Total MSRP for 3,000 points: $810 ($870 actual cost with rulebook/templates)
This army is a decent amount cheaper, but it has a lot of half-boxes, so the total cost still adds up (even in 2023 pricing). You would have a lot of models left over to swap around in this list, though.
Why Legions Imperialis Can Feel Like a Games Workshop Money Grab
The points situation is only part of the problem.
Every expansion wave brought more models, formations, and army options, but the rules for those releases were often tied to additional campaign books. The core rules don’t contain everything needed for every unit released for the game, so keeping up with the miniature range can also mean keeping up with a growing pile of books.
That makes Legions Imperialis a lot less straightforward than simply buying an army and learning the game.
- Want the newer units? You may need another book.
- Want to reach the recommended 3,000-point game size? You’re buying considerably more plastic.
- Want to use the big bundle boxes as the cheaper route? You still need to make sure the models inside actually fit the formations you’re planning to run.
Any one of those purchases can make sense by itself. Stack them together, though, and the game starts feeling like every solution creates another thing you need to buy. That’s where the “money grab” criticism gets some traction, especially compared with a game that puts more of its rules package in one place from the start.
Legion Imperialis Factions Doesn’t Help Get Veterans into The Game Either
The faction lineup doesn’t help get newer, mostly veteran Epic players into the game either.
A lot of longtime Epic players wanted the traditional Xenos and Chaos armies that helped give older versions of the game so much variety. Orks, Eldar, Chaos, and the wider Warhammer universe would have opened Legions Imperialis up considerably.
Instead, the game stayed firmly inside the Horus Heresy.
So most of the spectacle still comes down to humans fighting other humans, even when the armor marks, Legions, and army styles change. If you wanted the broader Epic experience, with Xenos hordes, Chaos armies, and wildly different factions crashing into each other, that’s a pretty noticeable hole in the game.
Final Thoughts on Costs To Play Legions Imperialis
Sure, Legions Imperialis has excellent miniatures and can produce some seriously impressive battles, but the value proposition gets harder to defend the further you go. Once the campaign books, extra army purchases, bundle-box gaps, and limited faction pool start piling up, GW’s recommended 3,000-point army begins looking less like a hobby goal and more like a running tab.
Plus, it looks like the costs for a real Legions Imperialis army are a minimum of $800 in GW money, which lines up with what their own battle report force would run you. Prices have crept up since 2023, so that number is only getting higher each year as well.
Funny enough, that is about the same ballpark for a standard 2000-point Warhammer 40k army when we broke down the cost of entry back in 2023 as well.
So if you jump into Legions Imperialis, you are basically signing up for the same investment as 40k, then tacking on a little extra for the yearly GW price shuffle.
The upside is simple. Grab your kits from a local store, look for money-saving bundles, and you can usually shave about fifteen percent off the total. That takes a lot of the sting out and makes building a full force feel way more manageable.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Legions Imperialis any good?
The miniatures themselves are excellent, and the epic-scale battles look fantastic on the table, so it delivers on pure hobby value. The catch is cost: between campaign books, bundle-box gaps, and a Horus Heresy-only faction list, a full 3,000-point force ends up costing about the same as a Warhammer 40k army.
Some people also don’t appreciate how many parts the small tanks are compared to larger kits either, but Most of that has to do with how the design is done, where they scale down the larger 40k or Horus Heresy kits into smaller versions.
đź”— Related Reads:
- Legions Imperialis Pricing & Starter Set Value
- How to Play Legions Imperialis
- Latest Legions Imperialis Articles
- Is Legions Imperialis Dead?
What do you think about the cost of building a Legions Imperialis army compared to, say, Warhammer 40k?
I love LI. Went a little overboard with it. LI and Necromunda are the two things i will buy new kits for, 40k and AoS are on the backburner till everything is build and painted. As is HH. I predict I will come back to them in about 10 to 12 years.