Cost-Saving techniques for wargamers

Vaul

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Cost-Saving techniques for wargamers

« on: May 11, 2009, 07:16:31 PM »

I think this is an issue many of us feel strongly about - and it's one that that people new to wargames like warhammer fantasy and 40k need to know about. Love the models, hate the prices? Sadly, this is often the case - but if you dearly want to collect an army, the cost is somehow justifiable.

This thread is about lightening the load. Since getting involved in the community I have come across a broad range of ideas that have really saved me megabucks on the price of models. I would like others to chip in with their own tips if they have more to add (or to expand on the main ideas). Note that these ideas aren't my own, they are basic techniques that experienced players know about - and that new players ought to know about!

1) Get involved in the community and make friends who are gamers

Might not sound like a discount, but it is. If someone knows you, likes you, and trusts you - they are likely to tell you about the awesome deal they have for someone in terms of models they are trying to get rid of. I picked up some brand new stuff from glen, a tournament prize winner who didn't need his high elves. Simon bought some chariots and only needed a few parts from them that weren't even necessary for the type of chariot I wanted to make, so I got a significant discount from him (on an item he had already bought at a discounted price). Don't underestimate networking.

2) Shop online and on trademe

If you want to support your friends at games workshop that's great, but if you want to pay reasonable $$ for new or second hand miniatures, shopping retail is not the way to go. Bookmark the warhammer section on trademe, check it out every so often. You might pick up discounts on things like army books - items which don't really lose their appeal if they aren't in mint condition (not for me, anyway) whereas models you may or may not want first hand. You can use paint stripper to remove the paint from metal models - so buying metal second hand can be very very cheap as badly painted models are not going to sell very high.

I shop online from http://www.maelstromgames.co.uk/ - these guys including the costs of shipping in their prices, and ship fast. Sometimes they do deals. I ordered most of my high elf army over easter when they ran a special. I saved tonnes, and they arrived within a week.

3) Take advantage of the City Guard Vagabonds discount

I'm not sure if everyone here knows this, but if you were at the annual general meeting, wayde announced that you can get a 15% VIP discount up from their normal 10% if you are a city guard member. First, become a city guard member, then see wayde. 15% from vagabonds is still more expensive than ordering from maelstrom, but it is more convenient and is recommendable for those urgent buys.

4) Conversions & Scratch Builds

I can't really recommend this sort of stuff for the new gamers, but it is worth looking into and learning more about. Never forget that units in warhammer 40,000 and warhammer fantasy can be represented by miniatures other than the ones that you see in the army books and codexes with the captions underneath. Instead of buying a metal tomb swarm from the shops, I stuck some sand, bits of bones, skulls and weapons onto a swarm base. Viola! Didn't cost anything. With bigger and more complex models it is harder, but not impossible. Take a look at Derick's forest spiders army for example - he has used big spiders to represent things like a rock lobber, giant etc. I bet those didn't cost as much as the proper models that people normally use to represent those units!!

5) Miniatures from other ranges

Most of the time miniatures made by companies other than games workshop actually work out to be more expensive. It pays to check, though. There are a wealth of miniatures at the coolminiornot store, and many of them would make perfect substitutes for many of the units in the games workshop games. You might find that many of them are better. Just check that they are at the right scale. If you're like me, you might want to go with other model ranges because a) you're not shopping with the company that has the monopoly, and b) there's nothing like having a unique miniature - something that nobody else has to represent their dragon, or sorceress, that will really catch people's eye when they walk past.

http://www.coolminiornot.com/store/section.php?xSec=2&jssCart=3f7b423ea4510b6248703c870a563e3c

6) Unit fillers

This is a warhammer fantasy cost-saving technique, sorry 40k players! In warhammer, when models are ranked up into regiments called 'units', they are removed from the rear ranks as your unit takes casualties. Somewhere along the line, someone figured out that many of the models within the unit don't actually serve a real purpose when it comes to marking out position in terms of the game. Only the models on the outside of the unit create the edge which the enemy measures range to, and makes contact with during charges, etc. Therefore, you can use things other than actual figurines to fill in the space within the unit itself, while it is at full strength.

Take a unit of 20 men, for example. They rank up 5 wide, 4 deep. Take away the 6 men right in the centre, and you still have a square 'ring' of guys around the sides. You could fill this with a big block of wood; and when your unit has taken 7 casualties, and you need to take an 8th away but the block is there, that's when you replace the block with 6 of the models you removed earlier! That way you can keep removing models to show exactly how many models your unit has left.

This now gives an opportunity to give your unit an enhanced look and theme. Whatever you use to fill that block, it could be something eye catching and impressive. A statue of the god that the unit worships? A pillar of a ruined temple? A gnarled old tree that the wood elves haven't awoken yet? Next time you are planning on collecting a warhammer army, plan ahead and decide whether you want to put this technique to use.

Want 20 high elf spearmen for your unit, but mean old GW is selling them in a box of 16? - a completely irregular size! Get a 50m x 50m base and put something creative on it, and add it to your box of 16. Now you have a unit of 20, ready to game with.

Here's how a pro does it:

7) Illegal piracy

This is controversial, but I am only recommending it for the purposes of people wanting to learn rules. If you know you are never going to collect tyranids, but you would like to enter a tournament for the first time and don't want to be caught off guard by all sorts of unexpected rules and upgrades, should you really have to BUY the tyranids codex just for this? I say no. The rules for every warhammer fantasy and 40k army can be found online, on torrent sites.

I also recommend http://www.scribd.com/

This is a site that lets you read through a pdf online without even downloading it. That's hardly worse than going into GW, picking the tyranids codex up off the shelf, and finding out how many wounds a hive tyrant has. Brush up on your game, but don't accrue a collection of codexes (unless you really love them that much).


« Last Edit: May 11, 2009, 08:46:02 PM by Vaul »	Logged

Simon

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