Average cost to startup 40k

what would be an aveage cost to startup....say a GK 1500 point unit...probably not a very good question. i am just trying to see if I could get into this game cost wise.

There are several routes you can take. The easiest is Assault on Black Reach. For $60 (or $75 if you find a store paying attention to the GW price hikes) you get 500 or so points of Space Marines and 400 or so points of Orks.

If you like either army you can slowly add to your force and get a 1.5k army off the ground for $100-$150. If you really like one of the starting armies and not the other then you can split it w/ a friend.

Other than that, a battleforce usually gives you 500 - 1000 points (depending on the army), but you'd really want to read through the codex first and determine if you're going to use most or any of them due to the higher price point.

:edit:

Just saw that you said GK. I'm assuming Grey Knights on that. In that case, get someone to split Assault on Black reach with you, buy a land raider ($50), and a unit of grey knight terminators ($55) and you're playing 1k point games for $135.

Of course you can always look for bits and convert the terminators yourself for a lot lower price point.

ok then let me ask another question. How do i get ahold of a codex to read with out buying it to see?...

I would suggest going to your friendly local game store and browse through it.

If you go to Games Workshop's website, they actually have a store locater.

Otherwise - find a friend who has a copy.

Well..... other than obtaining an electronic copy through dubious methods, you wouldn't be able to get a grey knights codex. However if you go to the GW site, the Blood Angels Codex is free for download from their site.....

Its a space marine codex for you to take a gander at anyway.

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?community=&catId=cat410004&categoryId=1000019&aId=7000010

capnwoodrow wrote:

I would suggest going to your friendly local game store and browse through it.

If you go to Games Workshop's website, they actually have a store locater.

Otherwise - find a friend who has a copy.

Well i am ft. smith, so the closest game store would be up in fayetteville

One of the hallmarks of American life is the great nerd road trip.

The best advice anyone can give someone who is starting up is to don't overdo it too quickly. Its much easier to start and build an army a small chunk at a time, enjoying your progress along the way.

I would certainly recommend picking up an assault on black reach box set. You get a bunch of marines, some terminators, a commander and a dreadnought. Pick up another box of 10 space marines and you have all you need to field a legal army. Take those and work on painting them up. Prime them black and learn how to dry brush using boltgun metal, followed by badab black wash. You would probably also want red for shoulder pads, and a flesh color for skin followed by an ogryn flesh wash. I am thinking this box set, the paints, and the extra space marine box could be yours for about $120.00. Add another 20.00 to get the GK codex.

I would order from the warstore, since you are in Ft. Smith. They are a top notch mail order store and will give you 20% off. www.thewarstore.com

The assault on black reach will also give you a rulebook, and all the templates you need to play.

Additionally you will get a gob of orks in the box set. The best thing would be to find a buddy to either give these to, or to get him to go in $20.00 toward the box set. Either way you end up with an opponent to learn the game with! Its what the box set is designed for! Worse comes to worst you could put those up for sale here, or slap them on ebay.

Regardless, make sure you play some games along the way! Games are very fun starting at 500 points. Anything lower, and you can still play a variant of the game called kill teams.

Well, thats probably enough soap box. Let me know if you have any questions at all! 40k seems like an expensive game to play, and it is if you try to buy it all at once. I actually try to stick to a $15.00 a week budget and I usually get by! The key is to only buy as fast as you can paint, in my mind!

I've known people to build complete 1500 point armies solely out of multiple copies of Assault on Black Reach. Of course, they might not be armies you'd want to bring to a tournament, but it's probably the most cost effective way short of finding a really good deal on eBay.

As for the Grey Knights Codex, it's the Daemonhunters Codex, and I'm pretty sure that Castlehouse doesn't have a copy in the store. It may even be a direct order only item at this point, but I'm not sure. If you have a copy of Army Builder you can always browse the numbers in there, but you'll still want a Codex eventually. If you don't already have Army Builder, then it's probably cheapest just to order it for $22 from GW while they have free shipping, or get it from the Warstore if they have it.

Wildeyedjester has the best advice for playing on a budget... now if only I could follow it

Wildeyedjester wrote:

I actually try to stick to a $15.00 a week budget and I usually get by! The key is to only buy as fast as you can paint, in my mind!

I think this is great advice. You don't get overwhelmed by doing it this way.

You would think that being the 2nd largest city in AR that they would have a game store or even some kind of gaming club or something.......anything....

They've had several over the years.

bsimon wrote:

They've had several over the years.

I grew up in the Fort Smith area (Mansfield), and Mystic Domain was the Mecca of Warhammer and 40k in the state until about 2002. It was an extension of crazy earls and they carried ALL GW products, blisters and games. It was amazing. However, after some troublesome practices and low revenue the game store closed down.

However, if you make you way out to Crazy Earls near the back of the store they still have a large area of board games and older roleplaying games they used to carry. I was in there about 4 weeks ago and they had some outdated 40k materials too. BUT, if you are really thinking about getting into the games they also had a huge pile of back issue White Dwarfs! Alot of them were from back in the day when White Dwarf was awesome all the time. If you get the notion, you might like to swing by there and check out what they have in that stack.

Just don't go in thinking they have anything actually present day game oriented any more.....