Warhammer 40.000 is trendy, perhaps influenced —at least in part— by the highly successful release of the long-awaited Space Marine 2. It’s a great game, but as you may know, it comes from other formats: the grimdark universe of customizable miniatures for playing and Games Workshop books. I don’t blame you if you get the bug, and even less if after taking a look you think “wow, how expensive everything is“. But just in case it helps, I’m going to tell you how much I’ve spent on this so you have an idea.
Rules and codices
You don’t need to buy any of this to enjoy Warhammer 40.000, and in fact, many people simply buy units they enjoy painting or displaying on the shelf. Furthermore, if you want to play, you still have the option to go to the official website and download PDFs with the rules, corrections, or other relevant files for free.
Games Workshop offers many starter kits, depending on how you want to approach it
But if you really want to immerse yourself in the 40K universe and have a coherent army, it’s a good idea to get two key books: the Core Book and a Codex of the faction you want to play, in that order. The first one describes all the narrative context you need, as well as the rules of the tenth edition (which has been in force since June 2023) and the basics of the hobby; while the second one does the same for each major collectible faction, complementing the previous one with the stat cards for each unit at your disposal.
In my case, I bought both books from the official website for 102.50 euros. You can choose them in Spanish or English, and in my case, I had no issues with customs when shipping from the UK to Spain. To summarize:
- What you need here is (almost everything) free in PDF.
- Or you can buy the basic book of the 10th edition and the codex of your faction.
With this, you have the basic knowledge you need to understand other products and elements of the Warhammer hobby: series, books, games of different sizes or formats, etc. I won’t get into that, because we’re strictly focusing on getting started here.
Warhammer 40.000 Miniatures
Once again, you have countless options available to you to buy the units you want to assemble, paint, or collect. But Games Workshop offers many starter kits, depending on how you want to approach it. The most basic one costs around 15 euros, but for 55 you can get another one that includes two units (one marine and one tyranid) plus accessories to start painting and playing with the essentials. There is also an “ultimate starter set” for 170 euros with two quite respectable armies.
But everything I mentioned above falls into the category of entry-level boxes —a bit further from the core game— and in my case, I already had a few years of experience under my belt painting and playing: I didn’t need any of that.
So I went straight for a Black Templars army, one of the many space marine chapters, with a Combat Patrol box that cost me 110.50 euros (plus shipping) from Goblin Trader, 20 euros cheaper than on the official website. With that, plus glue and clippers, I could start: let’s say about 230 euros in total, including the tools.
You can slightly reduce that price by going to the second-hand market, which is quite popular in this hobby, or using resin miniatures from other brands that some people use as a cheaper alternative.
Starting to Play with Combat Patrol
Combat Patrol, in case you’re not familiar, is a full-fledged format in Warhammer 40.000. The idea is to give you a pre-designed army with which you can jump into action, similar to what we typically see in card games. That said, in terms of balance it leaves much to be desired and not all factions are equally interesting; but the Black Templars do have a fairly good patrol to start with and build upon easily.
Those who prefer Age of Sigmar are in luck, by the way, because the equivalent format of that game (Spearhead) is highly regarded among fans. But with 40K, it’s a bit more of a gray area: people generally prefer the traditional matches.
These boxes are good to start as a concept, but they are very irregular in 40K.
Regardless of whether you work with one of these Combat Patrols or not, standard 40K matches are usually played with armies of 1000, 2000, or 3000 points budget —each unit has a value, which in the 10th edition includes all the wargear— depending on how much time you want to spend on the table and how much money you want to spend; and to reach that point, you must buy new units because patrols usually stay at 700 or 800 points.
Some people choose units based on pure preference, but if you want to play, my personal recommendation is to rely on community resources like the Auspex Tactics channel. Let’s recap what we’ve covered:
- Several starter kits ranging from 15-170 euros, merely complementary.
- Combat Patrol (~130 euros) can be recommended for some factions.
- 40K starts from 1000 points: buy what you think you need.
Tools, Paints, and Accessories
This part is relatively easy to answer because we all start from the same base: Citadel miniatures are supplied unassembled and unpainted, and in most cases you will need (at the very least) modeling clippers and glue to put them together. After that, you can invest as much or as little as you want. My personal recommendation is to get an Army Painter tool kit, which is the brand for most of this stuff and costs around 35 euros on Amazon. It’s not the cheapest option, but it has the basics and is very easy to expand.
The Army Painter | Hobby Tool Kit | Beginner’s Toolkit |
* Prices may have changed since the last revision
If you want to get into painting and basing, that’s a bit of a deeper rabbit hole: you’ll want to buy at least one or two primer sprays, a set of wargaming brushes, and a variety of paints. How much does all of that cost? It depends on what you want, but in my specific case, I spent 101 euros on tools, including a miniature holder that you can replace with a cork stopper; plus 91 euros on almost thirty Citadel acrylic paints, which isn’t the only brand available, but it is one of the most popular and referenced (it’s the official one). Finally, I use a wet palette that you can make at home yourself with napkins and foam.
Starting is very expensive, but after gathering the basics, it’s in line with any hobby, like cards
To know what exact paints I need, I refer to ‘Eavy Archive, which is a community website where ex-‘Eavy Metal members share Games Workshop’s official recipes. But remember that there are many methods and strategies to do these things, and the simplest ones do not necessarily require such a large variety. One last detail about all this: storage. It doesn’t matter if you have three or four miniatures or if you plan a whole army, because if you don’t have a place to store everything, we’re in trouble.
This Jucoci box has magnetized trays where you can secure your miniatures.
You will see many boxes that include pre-cut foam trays, which make it easy for you to mold slots to accommodate your miniatures. Nowadays, a more popular alternative that personally convinces me the most is magnetism. It involves buying N52 5x2mm magnets and gluing them with superglue to the miniature’s base, then attaching it to a magnetized tray that you can buy or make at home by gluing magnetic sheets to a plastic box.
Between rules, paints and tools, and the army itself, I’ve spent about 600 euros which can easily be halved by making some sacrifices
Wrapping it up: between rules, paints and tools, and the Combat Patrol army, I’ve spent about 600 euros which can be easily reduced by half (or less) if you use PDFs, the second-hand market, DIY storage, and fewer paints. In the future, what I already have will allow me to acquire and finish additional units without extra expenses. These units have very variable prices, typically between 30 and 50 euros. As you can see, the initial investment is very large and what follows, a little less: in line with what we have in video games or cards.
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