Intro to 40K: Building an Inexpensive Army

Continuing the 40K series, we’re going to look at a couple of ways to go about building your army that can save you the Benjamin’s in the long run.  The great thing here is that most of what we’re going to be talking about today isn’t strictly limited to Warhammer and Warhammer 40K.  Most of these concepts can be applied to any war game.  And just so you know, all of these ideas are things I’ve learned by not doing.  Ahh, the pain…

The first thing you can do to help you save money is to plan, plan, plan.  When looking at an army for 40K, or any game for that matter, the best things you can do is really read through all the units, consider what kind of list you want to build (for ideas you can look here, here, oh and over here), the grab some paper and play around with some different list compositions.  So for instance, when I’m looking to start a new army, Orks for example, I’ll go through and build at least twenty lists based around a couple of concepts.  Then I’ll go back and narrow down the lists until I find a base model count that will allow me some flexibility in my builds without deviating too far from my original idea.

After you’ve settled on a couple of builds, the next thing you should do is get a buddy and play-test the lists by proxying (using something that isn’t what it represents) the army.  This will allow you to get a feel of how the army actually plays on the field.  This is an important step because unless you really love a model and want to build it, then sometimes you can be unpleasantly surprised at how a unit actually works in practice, rather than on paper.

So finally after proxying and play-testing and multiple list builds, it’s time to start finding models. YAAAAAY!!!  Okay I got a little excited…my bad.  Anyhoo, now this can be a simple act of going and buying off the shelf of your FLGS, or sniping someone on eBay, or picking some up from forums or friends, or a combination of all of the above.  The important thing here is to consider what level of customization you want to do with your army and how interchangeable the models are within the line you’re working with.  This is one area that I have to Games Workshop (GW) props for.  Most of their lines of models are highly customizable and easy to swap out parts for really unique modeling opportunities.  This is one area where plastic models come in handy.  They are a lot easier to modify than metal or even resin.  Again we’ll look at the Orks, within their line of models it’s easy to switch out heads or other parts to maintain a cohesive look while making the most of the kits you buy.  This is especially handy if you’ve bought a lot off of eBay or from someone and it has models or bitz you may not necessarily use.  So you can kit bash those extra parts, use them in terrain and scenery pieces, or sell them off if you don’t want to use them.  More often than not you’ll get better deals buying used but then you may have to deal with fixing crummy paint jobs.  No worries though, it’s nothing a little Simple Green can’t fix.

So let’s look at another creative idea for maximizing model uses for those of us on a budget, or simply creative.  The idea here is for multi-use armies.  Now I’ll be the first to tell you that some people will call foul on this approach, while others will rush to your defense.  Some hardcore gamers or modelers don’t like the idea of running “counts-as” armies, models that aren’t necessarily the actual model but have some sort of viable similarity.

My rule of thumb for counts-as modeling is that it needs to be WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get).  This means that basically while the core model

Photo: Spikeybits,com

may not be the original, it’s obvious that that is a meltagun, or missile launcher, etc.  This is important because it prevents misunderstandings that the guy with a flamer actually has a lascannon…yeah, no thanks.  So as long as things are accurately represented I, and most people I know, are perfectly fine with counts as armies.

This concept comes into play with armies like my Blood Guard.  They are a custom Space Marine chapter built as a Raven Guard successor chapter, but I have representative models for all the unique characters and units of all the Marine codecies.  This allows me to be able to play all the marine codecies without having to have tons of the same models in color schemes I don’t like.  So now with one army I’m able to play five different armies.  Personally I’d rather have a fun modeling and painting challenge then move on to a new army.  Another great example of someone who has maximized this idea is the Looted Guard project over at Spikey Bits.  With a bunch of creativity the guys built a guard based ork army.  They have some really stunning conversions and if you get a chance go check it out.

So to summarize, some important concepts to keep in mind while your assembling your army:  First make sure that you read through the codex and decide on the style of\theme of your army.  Second, play-test.  Third, look for deals with second hand models from eBay, forums, friends, gaming clubs, etc.  Fourth, when you assemble make sure to make the most of bits and components from different kits.  Finally consider building a multi-purpose army, or at least one that you can get more mileage from.

Remember to try and avoid the “gotta get them all” mentality.  With some planning you can get a really good army for pretty cheap.  What ways do you try and save money when building an army?