Affordable Miniatures

[Dia]

So I've been buying 40k minis from different sources for a little while now and I'm wondering where everyone buys their's or what the cheapest place to purchase them is.

Any suggestions?

[Servant]

Tie-up between Maelstrom Games and Chaosorc.

Forget about ebay!

[krispy]

Forget about ebay!

i hope you mean "Dont forget about Ebay!"....

just last night i got 2 vanguard veteran models for under 3£ - excluding postage of course but still - thats way cheaper than any shop.

[Aldramelech]

I get lots from Ebay. The trick is not to get sucked in to a bidding war, decide how much you want to pay and stick to it, you'll get what your after eventually.

[Dia]

Looking at those sites makes me think of all the wasted money.

Ah well, thanks for the leads and I'll see what ebay has to offer.

[sketchesofpayne]

They key to getting deals on eBay is vigilance and patience. Decide what you want to get, and what price you want to pay for it. Bid that on auctions and check for new auctions each week. If the bidding goes over your price let it go! If the item you want keeps going for retail price go down to your local game store and buy it.

The nice thing about eBay is you usually don't have to pay sales tax (which in my state is almost 7%). Just pay attention to the shipping cost.

The other thing to look for is older models. Not really old, just older. These will go for less than the latest, greatest thing. If you're willing to put in some effort, a very rewarding task is to buy someone's neglected, poorly painted army and restore it. It's like restoring a classic car.

Simple green the paint off it, put on a fresh primer coat, and paint it anew. Break off old arms and rearm them with new bits. Customize up the tanks with plasticard. It can be more fun than putting together a new army.

The other way to make your dollar stretch is to make maximum use of the bits that come in the kits. For example, my friend just got into Orks. The burnas & lootas set comes with the bits to make either, but only one set of bodies. The solution: buy a box of boyz and use the bits to turn them into burnas or lootaz. He also used to rokkit launchas to expand his tank bustas to a 10-ork squad. I gave him the hunter killer missile from my sentinel and he converted that to a rokkit.

If you're creative there are lots of ways to cut corners, customize, and refurbish to make a cheaper and unique army.

[Servant]

Ebay is good and all for OOP models and bits.

For everything else, especially used stuff painted badly, I find that the amount of extra money I pay for online discounters more than makes up for the time I waste watching auctions, stripping and cleaning up old models.

Besides, I love the smell of fresh plastic sprues. Nothing else like it!

Still, as always, YMMV.