November 12, 2009

Budget Army 1




This is the first in what I hope to be a series of articles. Not about tactics, but about building an army on a budget.

This came about as a bit of an accident, when I decided to do my Space Wolves list. My objective was to put together a good looking army that didn't cost me an arm and a leg.


So here are the rules (feel free to participate):
  1. Model substitutions must approximate the base model for 'Counts As' purposes. This is loose (I'm doing horses for wolves), but there so that I don't make baked Play-Doh mounts.
  2. Minimal conversion. Kit-bashing is fine. Whole fabrication is discouraged. (Yes, I know you can make a rhino from plasticard... but my time is worth more than the cost difference.)
  3. Try to keep under $350 (USD) - but we won't quibble over change.
  4. Assume GW Retail - 15% (can get 20%, but account for shipping/tax/whatever) 
  5. Don't factor in books - Codex, Rules, whatever
  6. Factor in all bits. Even if you own them already, figure what they would cost to acquire from eBay, or a bits site.
  7. Don't factor in supplies cost. This includes, but isn't limited to: glue, paint, plasticard, etc.
Space Wolves Army
Boxes
3 x Chaos Knights box set ($24.75 ea)
3 x Chaos Warhounds box set ($22.00 ea)
5 x Space Wolves Pack ($35.00 ea)
Blisters
2 x Space Marine Techmarine with Power Axe ($15 ea)
2 x Space Marine Weapons Pack - Meltaguns ($6.60 ea)
Bits
1 x Chaos Knight Horse ($2.99 from Battlewagon)
1 x Chaos Knight Legs ($2.99 from Battlewagon)

Totals: $364.53 retail, $309.85 with discount

This gives you the list I linked earlier. I saved quite a bit more by only getting 3 Space Wolves pack boxes, using other marines I already had plus adding some wolf bits from the pack boxes.
You will have left over 2 Chaos Warhounds, 5 Space Wolves Marines, 4 Meltaguns, and 4 Chaos Knight Legs (the pack from Battlewagon has 5, but you only need 1).

So this is my first, and the easiest for me to do since the research was already done. Share yours with me.

4 comments:

  1. Good article :)

    I'm not a fan of AOBR tactical marines, however you can get several of those models or even orks via trades for cheap. You could get a reasonable force for pretty cheap :)

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  2. I'm fond of figuring out cost effective ways to build fun and capable armies, so I appreciate what you mean to do here. I think that your cavalry build for Thunderwolves is better than the Chaos Hound Cavalry option, but I'm not terribly fond of anything I've seen yet. Certainly asking everyone to modify the Canis model is unacceptable - no one should have to have a unit of $50 models.

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  3. Umm blood Crushers are basically that unit.

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  4. And that is what I did - use crushers - but then my army is a chaos bent version of Space Wolves

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