NooBs guide to bang for your buck.

[Mr Mystery]

Evening all.

Just been looking at the Space Marine Devastator Sprues on the GW website, having read the thread about Gravcannons.

Not currently being a Space Marine player, I didn't realise just how many bits and odds and sods are on those three sprues. I knew about the various big guns, but not the near ludicrous pistols and hand to hand weapons.

And it got me thinking - if someone was to start out collecting an army, which boxed sets would say are essential to get the widest variety of armaments, allowing a modeller to avoid the surprisingly/disappointingly pricey mono-pose character kits etc? Are there complimentary kits out there - perhaps the five man Tactical Squad for the Devs - maybe the 10 man offers better value?

Are there some kits you just wouldn't buy - outdated example would be the Skyray and Hammerhead of yore. Both the same price, but the Skyray kit enabled you to make turrets for both, so just seemed a no-brainer, even if one version only occasionally (or indeed, in the end, never) saw combat,

I'm not going to set an arbitrary hypothetical budget, as I think that would place an unnecessary boundary to the discussion.

Right, have at it folks!

[Zaonite]

I would advise people to buy Razorbacks rather than Rhinos. As far as I can remember the razorback kit makes a Rhino but with the additional sprue to make it a Razorback. It can then, via a simple rear-hatch switch be either tank.

[Erik Setzer]

With Orks, the Burna Boyz/Loota unit is a good one. You can't swap out between battles, but you can grab a couple of those boxes, a box of regular Ork Boyz, and then you'd have eight Burna Boyz, eight Lootas, and four Meks.

IIRC, the new Mek Gunz have multiple guns in them, so you could get 3-5 of them (depending on how many you want in a battery), then grab some Grots (one or two boxes), and some plasticard to rig up frames for the extra weapons. Yeah, it takes converting, but come on, you're playing Orks, you're converting anyway, right? (I did hesitate on listing this, because the price on the box is still outrageous, which is why they don't exactly fly off shelves.)

[Houghten]

IIRC, the new Mek Gunz have multiple guns in them, so you could get 3-5 of them (depending on how many you want in a battery), then grab some Grots (one or two boxes), and some plasticard to rig up frames for the extra weapons. Yeah, it takes converting, but come on, you're playing Orks, you're converting anyway, right? (I did hesitate on listing this, because the price on the box is still outrageous, which is why they don't exactly fly off shelves.)

It doesn't just take converting, it takes scratch-building a whole new chassis. All the guns are built around the same core, a sort of wobbly conical bit, which means the only bits left over from the guns you didn't build are the muzzle and the worky bit on top. And if you're that good at scratchbuilding, you didn't need to buy the box in the first place; you can just make the muzzle and the worky bit out of plasticard too.

[Deacon Ix]

With Guard I have been buying one Cadian squad and 2 of the 5 man clip fit boxes.

The Cadian Squad box comes with enough for 2 of every special (sgt, weapon, vox) so the squads can be fleshed out with the 5 man snap fit boxes

Not a huge saving (£6 or so) but as I now have 120 troops (12 squads) it does add up

[Denzark]

Not sure what the current 'army box' has in it or if it even exists but the previous Space Wolf one was good value and allowed the easy kitbashing of grey hunters, blood claws, wolf guard, and most SW characters.

I think with a minor additon one could do almost anything in the codex that required power armour - box of bike - swift claws. box of assault marines? sky claws etc.

[Mr Mystery]

Space Woofs are also a decent mixer kit for Chaos Space Marines, whose main infantry kit is a bit dated now, thus lacking in variety of weapons.

Mix it up with the (in my opinion) brilliant Raptor kit for Chosen as well.

[CoffeeGrunt]

With Guard I have been buying one Cadian squad and 2 of the 5 man clip fit boxes.

The Cadian Squad box comes with enough for 2 of every special (sgt, weapon, vox) so the squads can be fleshed out with the 5 man snap fit boxes

Not a huge saving (£6 or so) but as I now have 120 troops (12 squads) it does add up

Do you mean the Cadian Command Squad? The Standard Cadian squad only has Grenade Launcher and Flamer.

I'd also recommend browsing bitz sites for finding that extra piece or two, and kitbash your Characters. Unless you're really enamoured with a particular mini, it's normally cheaper to buy a couple of bitz and throw a leader together to represent a particular HQ or Character model. :)

Not to mention that learning to magnetise is well worth the effort in ease of transport and customisation. If you're buying a Baneblade, take your time with it and magnetise it, then you can have every variant, rather than just building one! :)

[Ben_S]

Do you mean the Cadian Command Squad? The Standard Cadian squad only has Grenade Launcher and Flamer.


I think his point was that from the regular box you can make 2 sergeants, 2 special weapon guys, and 2 vox guys (plus 4 lasgunners). Add two of the cheap push-fit boxes and you now have two 10-man squads for about £30 instead of £36.

In actual fact, you may be able to do a bit better still, provided you want a mix of flamers and grenade launchers (or you have spares from the command squad). If you can scrounge/bits order the parts for a third sergeant then one 'regular' box (and four of the push-fit boxes) will do for three 10-man squads.

Also, if doing IG, you should be able to make about 5-6 heavy weapon teams out of a single squad box by using spare men from the regular squads.

[HarleyQuinn]

With some plastic and metal parts I was able to turn 2 Mek gun boxes into 5 Mek Guns. I could have done more but ran out of spare parts as soon as i get more scrap I'll have 8


With Orks, the Burna Boyz/Loota unit is a good one. You can't swap out between battles, but you can grab a couple of those boxes, a box of regular Ork Boyz, and then you'd have eight Burna Boyz, eight Lootas, and four Meks.

IIRC, the new Mek Gunz have multiple guns in them, so you could get 3-5 of them (depending on how many you want in a battery), then grab some Grots (one or two boxes), and some plasticard to rig up frames for the extra weapons. Yeah, it takes converting, but come on, you're playing Orks, you're converting anyway, right? (I did hesitate on listing this, because the price on the box is still outrageous, which is why they don't exactly fly off shelves.)

[Erik Setzer]

It doesn't just take converting, it takes scratch-building a whole new chassis. All the guns are built around the same core, a sort of wobbly conical bit, which means the only bits left over from the guns you didn't build are the muzzle and the worky bit on top. And if you're that good at scratchbuilding, you didn't need to buy the box in the first place; you can just make the muzzle and the worky bit out of plasticard too.


Oh wow... I thought there was more than that in there. Hadn't bought one because I couldn't justify the price when I can just scratch-build myself, but I thought there were more bits in there. Oh well.

- - - Updated - - -


Not sure what the current 'army box' has in it or if it even exists but the previous Space Wolf one was good value and allowed the easy kitbashing of grey hunters, blood claws, wolf guard, and most SW characters.

I think with a minor additon one could do almost anything in the codex that required power armour - box of bike - swift claws. box of assault marines? sky claws etc.

That's how I built up my Space Wolf army. Had a bunch of the old sprues that my dad had bought, and I got one of the new boxes and a couple sets of Stormclaw (also had Ork stuff I needed), and I've taken a bunch of basic Marine kits and made Space Wolf stuff with them. More Grey Hunters, Blood Claws, Scouts, etc.

[Mr.Gold]

A good one that a GW manager pointed out to me was: use the Kataphron Destroyers box (plus a few marine bodies and some guns) to make 3 thunderfire canons / the new quad mortar canons. make the base of them using the treads, mount guns on the top, (possibly combine guns from the box or he suggested havoc launchers - chaos vehicle weapons sprue) and use the kataphrons backpacks and the destroyers combat arms to attach to marine bodies for techmarines...

[Jewelfox]

The current box of Tau Pathfinders has all the pieces needed to assemble a shield drone and marker drone. You give up the kit's smaller unique drones (i.e. not the recon drone), but magnetizing them may be an option if you aren't fussed about how many antennas each has, and they're not supposed to be that great anyway.

Third-party miniatures may also be helpful if you want certain hard-to-find parts. For instance, there's this one store that makes "Kadesh" miniatures which are Expies of Tau, and they sell conversion parts like unhelmeted female Tau heads, which you can otherwise only find in Shadowsun's kit.

[Mr Mystery]

Oh wow... I thought there was more than that in there. Hadn't bought one because I couldn't justify the price when I can just scratch-build myself, but I thought there were more bits in there. Oh well.

- - - Updated - - -



That's how I built up my Space Wolf army. Had a bunch of the old sprues that my dad had bought, and I got one of the new boxes and a couple sets of Stormclaw (also had Ork stuff I needed), and I've taken a bunch of basic Marine kits and made Space Wolf stuff with them. More Grey Hunters, Blood Claws, Scouts, etc.

When the bulk of the modern Space Woof stuff came out around 2009/2010, my then colleagues and I were able to use a single Space Woof infantry set to kitbash Wolf Scouts, Blood Claws and Grey Hunters from other Marine sets. We may even have stretched it to Long Fangs, but I'm not 100% on that memory.

As for IG - I'm kind of surprise no one has simply made 3rd Party tripods and bipods for the Heavy Weapons. Chuck them out at say £1 a time and you stand to make a pretty penny for relatively little effort. Two additional tripods allow a hobbyist to make each of the five heavy weapons (Bipod is needed for the Mortar, Missile Launcher on a standing body, leaving the Lascannon, Heavy Bolter and Autocannon to squabble over the sole tripod).

I'm not normally a fan of 3rd party stuff, as the sculpt quality is usually pretty poor, or the models aren't much cheaper - but that sort of add on would certainly be useful!

[Erik Setzer]

Oh yeah, Long Fangs, too. Had a bunch of Devastators because for some reason my dad wanted ALL THE GUNS. He ran six Devastator Squads during 4th edition and *still* wanted more firepower.

In his defense, he was also suffering from pretty severe arthritis, and a gun line that doesn't move much is helpful to someone who, themselves, can't move much.

Also, for anyone who doesn't appreciate plastic Devastators enough, I urge you to go find the 3rd edition plastic/metal hybrids and try to assemble some of them. That was another reason they sat in a case unassembled for a long time.

[Deacon Ix]

I think his point was that from the regular box you can make 2 sergeants, 2 special weapon guys, and 2 vox guys (plus 4 lasgunners). Add two of the cheap push-fit boxes and you now have two 10-man squads for about £30 instead of £36.

In actual fact, you may be able to do a bit better still, provided you want a mix of flamers and grenade launchers (or you have spares from the command squad). If you can scrounge/bits order the parts for a third sergeant then one 'regular' box (and four of the push-fit boxes) will do for three 10-man squads.

Also, if doing IG, you should be able to make about 5-6 heavy weapon teams out of a single squad box by using spare men from the regular squads.


You are correct, in fact I have been mixing even more, I have 4 command squad boxes and have made almost all of the specials using extra torsos and legs from the regular squads, my basic rule of thumb is that any lasgun models are from the snap fit.

The heavy weapons are good as you said, with a squad of regular troops and some more bases you can make 3 of the tripod weapons (HB, AC or Lascannon) 3 Missile launchers and 3 morters.

[CoffeeGrunt]

All my Cadian bitz just go into one pool that I draw from. Hence Guardsmen with that cool Chimera Commander helmet with the visor, or Command Squad guys with the goggles and binoculars from the Heavy Weapons Team kit.

Generally speaking, you can build pretty much any of the Company Command Squad Advisors out of such bitz. A guy with binoculars, some techy bitz and a spare Company Commander Torso makes for a good Master of Ordnance, for example, and I kitbashed a guy in similar attire with a vox caster on his back, the telephone from the Scions kit and the satellite dish from the Manticore kit to make a Master of the Fleet as well. Saved me a fair few quid just from spare bitz lying around.

[Cactus]

A good one that a GW manager pointed out to me was: use the Kataphron Destroyers box (plus a few marine bodies and some guns) to make 3 thunderfire canons / the new quad mortar canons. make the base of them using the treads, mount guns on the top, (possibly combine guns from the box or he suggested havoc launchers - chaos vehicle weapons sprue) and use the kataphrons backpacks and the destroyers combat arms to attach to marine bodies for techmarines...

I thought of the same thing myself, only I was going to use some extra autocannon bits from my IG models to make a barrel. I've also got some Techmarine heads from my flyers to use on the salvaged techmarine.

[Mud Duck]

I've had the idea (but not the need), using Empire Flagellants mixed with the extra bits from the Electropriest to get both types of priest.

[son_of_volmer]

The Skitarii Infiltrators/Ruststalkers gives you a ton of bits you can stretch with some creativity. You get a ton of weapons, just not enough bodies to stick them to.

I used five chaos cultist and armed them with infiltrator weapons that were leftover after someone else built a squad with stubcarbines and power swords. They even left me an Infiltrator head!

If you wanna check it out...
http://www.modernsynthesist.com/2015/07/brass-tax-on-skitarii-leftovers.html

I've got enough transonic razors and chord claws to make 10 Ruststalkers (five with each type of armament). I going to build them off Necron Warrior bodies.