How much does WARHAMMER cost? Entry price of EVERY game! 

EDIT: Since doing my research, it turns out the the Kill Team Starter Set DOESN'T contain full rules for the two included teams, only a cut down version. To get full rules you'd need another book, bringing it's cost to £95. However, it's place in the rankings would be unaffected!

There's a running joke in Finnish Warhammer circles, so old that I remember hearing it for the first time when I started in the early 2000s, that "Warhammer is much cheaper than other Finnish hobbies, such as ice hockey or drinking."

I really dislike the fact that 2000pts is seen as the standard, I think it can really put of players looking to get into the game proper, there should be more of an effort within the community to push 1000-1500pt games as a more acceptable standard

The Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game: The start box set "Battle of Osgiliath" comes with 2 armies, terrain, tokens, dice and full rule book for the game. It also includes a small pamphlet that contains the datasheets for the models in the box set and some scenarios you can play with the models provided. Both armies come up to approximately 370-400 points which is smaller than an average game of MESBG (averaging between 500-800 points, standard being 700) but are easily still playable against one another or in smaller games. These armies can be supplemented with either the Mordor or Gondor Battlehost box sets, however if you do get these you will probably need to also purchase the "Armies of Middle Earth" rule book to get the profile of the troops and heroes that aren't included in the box set. Battle of Osgiliath Box Set: £125 Battlehost Box: £55 each Armies of The Lord of the Rings Book: £37.50 As with all Miniature War Games the amount can go up or down significantly depending on what you are looking for, but this is a good starting place.

I think part of why we are all so fixated on prices in warhammer compared to other hobbies is the lack of logical (for a customer) pricing model. GW seams to price things depending on how many copies of it they expect you to buy over all so we can have single character model, unit of 5 elite models and unit of 10 infantry all with a minimal difference in cost in no way representing actual cost of material or something tangible. Also if you have playing with models in mid, buying them is only the beginning investment before you account for time most of us spend before having a box painted. While I love painting and other hobby elements outside of gaming I think the multi layered nature of this hobby can mess with perception of investment a bit.

This video is extremely helpful, primarily for kids like me who have about enough money to buy a new pair of shoelaces and maybe a slurpee on a good day

I think the cost issue rears it head more often around Warhammer (than other hobbies) as many of us start as cash-strapped kids/teens, where the cost does limit what you can do, and the mentality sticks with you. Also Warhammer has kept up with inflation, while the heavy Venn-diagram overlap of video gaming stayed the same price for over a decade (so got relatively cheaper and cheaper since the mid-90s, at least until the latest very costly generation arrived). As an adult it’s pretty much in line with other similar “scale” (something that uses up a few hundred a year and fits in a cupboard if you don’t go overboard) hobbies I think, if not a bit cheaper. I also think it’s really handy to have friends get into it with you who are happy to play smaller size games or split boxes, share rules etc.

A tiny thing to notice around the Warhammer Underworlds starter set, is that it contains everything needed to play the two warbands included against each other. However it does not include the magic dice (I have no idea why this was left out of the box). If you then buy a new Warband that includes a wizard, or face someone with a Wizard you will eventually need these dice, that I have no idea where you’d go about buying just the magic dice.

Got a friend who questioned the cost a while back. His main downtime seems to include trips to the pub. Nothing wrong with that, love a trip to the pub myself. But, I asked him how much he spends drinking every month. One month, ~ 4 times a month, 4 hours (approx) and 5-6 pints (approx) per time, at a cost of ~ £4 per pint = £80-96 per month. For ~ 16 hours of mostly good fun. Over a year, that's ~ £1k spend. I'm really labouring this point, but GW, per hour of enjoyment for me, comes out at a cost of pennies per session over the years. It's not buy it and consume it within a couple of hours. Once you have the minis, the cost goes down and down, every time you play a game. It's very cost-effective fun. PS. Kudos on the continued excellent quality of the content on this channel.

The biggest thing to remember with 40k and AoS is that the army doesn't "Rotate out" like say MtG you can basically use it forever.

This was an excellent video for explaining that the separate GW games are and a general cost of how much they are. After playing 40K and HH for about two years I have seen Kill Team, Necromuda, etc. but never really knew what they were. This video was great and I learned something new. I don't think GW spells out what they various games are either, at least I haven't run across a page that summaries them.

Back in the 90's I was introduced to Whammer by a buddy, we borrowed his big brother's boxed set and played on the floor of his mother's preschool. We had so few minis that we used the preschool toys as proxies. That orange block? That's a gyrocopter, that red one is a dragon. That gi joe is my runesmith, etc. Even bought a few codexes. Loved Chaos Dwarves because the bull centaurs had mobility regular dwarves lacked while still packing big artillery.

Worth noting, in many countries GW products are a lot more expensive, you're likely going to want significantly more paints/tools over time, and certain factions/list styles can be much more expensive. There are models that cost more CAD$ than in-game points!

I play necromunda and I have 2nd edition blood angel and ork armies so I buy a mixture of new (necromunda) and second hand (2nd edition). I think both are terrific value because I get to enjoy hours of painting and our weekly games usually last 3ish hours (lots of laughing and chatting) which probably equates to £1.50 per hour of enjoyment over the year. Furthermore I think the community is priceless. Gaming is so friendly, everyone at our gaming club are super friendly.

Starter sets that include two teams potentially work out cheaper. You need an opponent to play, so if you and a mate are both interested, you might be able to go halves on the starter set.

I'd recommend the second hand market. Armies like Space Marines, Orks or Necrons (and various other factions that have either sold well or were packed in bigger boxes) are commonly sold online for a fraction of the gw prices. You can probably get a competitive army for a few tenners if you are lucky. Sometimes new on sprue.

Edit - LOL, wrote this post before reaching the end of the vid! I'm mid-40s and last played 40k in 2nd edition. None of these prices I feel is extortionate for a hobby, when you consider that the priciest here is cheaper than a current gen games console plus games. It's fairly comparable to, say, annual costs for taking part in sports (club/ gym fees plus any gear/ clothing). If I was to pick out a barrier, I'd be more inclined to say 1. finding a nearby gaming group to play with! 2. deciding whether I actually find the game fun especially in the long term to justify the outlay.

Love this, particularly the cost comparison at the end! I've always felt the the price was reasonable considering the quality of plastic, amazing designs and hours of hobbying. I play Star Wars Legion and the starter boxes are really good value, but the individual unit boxes are both more expensive than 40k, as well as noticeably poorer plastic quality and sculpts. I also have RC crawlers - £550 for a starter TRX4 without batteries, and after replacing unreliable parts, buying a a decent charger and a few batteries you'll be £800 deep. Want a low centre of gravity crawler? You're probably pushing £1,500...

Pricing is always an interesting discussion. One thing I want to note is that while yes, games do tend to be played at certain points values, in my experience there are often veteran players who are willing to play at lower points against newer players. Glad you included things like video game consoles and a few sports activities at the end there also.

The biggest hurdle is the fact there's no cheap version you can start with to get up to speed. In most other hobbies you can always get a cheap pair of boots and gear or whatever else is considered the basics just to see if you're interested. Want to get into weightlifting? A pair of dumbbells costs like...30 quid, probably some cheaper ones too, they're just lumps of metal. If you don't like it cool, you just lost 30 quid. Could even just lift heavy objects if that's an issue. For warhammer there's all the paints, the model construction, the time required to put it together and paint (another hidden cost) before you can even play a single game. And even then you might just not find other players....It's a social game, you can't just do it by yourself. at least there seems to be no official rules to support singleplayer games in any capacity. So you then need to convince another person to try it. Anyone trying to tell you it's "cheap compared to other hobbies" is full of it.

As a person that has always been into the lore but never got around to painting minis and playing games, I find this video to be very useful and I feel like I will be coming back here during my decision-making process hehe. Thanks Arbitor.

"Most stores will sell this with up to a 20% discount" not over here in the US, my local game store ups the price ~25% they sold the HH starter box for about $350 + tax, the other local store had it for $320 + tax, and the closest GW store is 25 miles outside of the city. Ive literally never seen GW stuff at a discount in any private hobby story its irritating.

Even if 2000 are the event standard size I'd still recommend beginning players to start with smaller armies. Dropping 300 Pounds on a full sized army and turning up at a tournament with only a basic grasp on the game might turn out to be frustrating. Not to mention tjhat it's a daunting task to paint an entire army - I've seen lots of people who bought several boxes of models to start with subesequently turned off by looking at the seas of grey plastic they felt they had to paint. But in the end it all depends on the local community - I'd say asking one of the local store regulars if they would be willing to meet for a small-sized training game should definitely be considered before going in big...

Ian, I'm actually a little saddened you didn't mention the used Miniature market. While buying whole armies is still expensive, buying used, individual units are actually way cheaper. Buying stripper, and those used models is incredibly cost effective. I've seen full sized Heresy Squads go for half of what they cost at MSRP.

A great resource for people looking to get into the hobby! I like that you brought up how cheap Warcry can be even though the starter boxes are expensive! Love that all the rules are free (aside from new gangs) and super easy to pick up some AoS minis for cheap from a store or second hand!

As someone who enjoyed Aeronautica Imperialis when it first came out don't worry. GW and pretty much everyone else forgot about it too.

Beautiful work as always, Ian! An additional consideration for new players is 40k's two new "~500pt" initiatives, Boarding Actions and the upcoming support for playing Combat Patrol boxes as their own format. It's hard to say whether those are things people will actually want to play in a year (and Boarding Actions may not be any cheaper outside of a playgroup when you factor books and terrain) but it's an encouraging development that GW seems committed to finding a lower barrier to entry for full 40k.

Awesome job! This was super-helpful in setting a context for the WH tabletop games for a newbie like myself (2 years in). I am deeeeep into the lore and loving it, yet I’ve often wondered about the true scope and cost of the tabletop games. Morbid curiosity on my part. 🙃

I think its worth taking a moment to emphasize that if you're new to the hobby, it's actually worth to bite on GWs sales model and not try to resist it. You wanna play 40k? Well Kill Team and Boarding Actions are (quite explicitly) the beginner experience. Theyre your entry point. Drop $160 on a combat patrol or Boarding action box of your preferred faction. The viable kill team is included. You're now playing both Kill Team and a mini version of 40k and can have *years* of hobby fun while you start building a full 2K point army. Its really the best way to not feel like youre having to shell out $600 just to start. You drop less than $200 and then just buy a box here and there as funds allow. When you do it that way, its just another hobby that grows with you, rather than hobby with what feels like an insurmountable barrier to entry.

I’m gonna disagree on several points. In Japan you can get a new game console and game for less than a heresy starters set, it comes to just over 400$, and the 200$ for a combat patrol is comparable to a Nintendo switch. I can’t speak for others but any game I buy will be played for years on end and is playable right out of the box so it’s actually better value. And when I lived in Canada even independent retailers sold at the advised GW price. I think the major problem is that instead of doing equivalent pricing, GW just converts directly on the exchange rate and then tacks on shipping and taxes, so things become progressively more expensive. I basically had to give up Space Marines and switch to Dark Eldar/ Harlequins because it was the only affordable way to keep collecting, and this really holds the game back in Japan. Models are everywhere over here and you get a good gundam model for 3,650¥, about 36.50$.

If it's only you and a friend playing, or a group of friends, look at old versions of the game you are interested in trying out. Lots of the old rules are free online. Until relatively recently, the only way to play games like Blood Bowl and Necromunda was to use the free rules online. You can start playing a game like Mordheim for the cost of a box or Skaven Night Runners and two boxes of Freeguild Guard (one with Close Combat weapons and one with the ranged weapons), which get even cheaper if you look at the second hand market or none GW equivalents. All the rules are available free online - thanks GW. I wouldn't be surprised if you could start playing for as little as £10 if you know where to look and use the ol' terrain is stuff from around your house trick. I would also say that most people don't buy whole armies when starting to play these games. They buy a squad or two of guys and get them made and painted, then learn with a group who already know the game. No need to buy a starter box or anything like that. Start by learning the hobby basics and the basic rules - use proxies if needed. Don't go out and buy a whole army until you have slowly built and painted your first army and know that you love the game. Buying a whole tournament ready army will just put you off before you have even started. 1 box/unit/squad/tank/etc. a month is the best way to start building an army and see if you enjoy the process. Spending £30-50 once a month or every few months and getting that one box together and painted will lead to a completed army that you are excited about putting on the table. And more importantly won't feel like a huge investment or an overwhelming task to complete.

It would be cool if smaller games became more common. I've been building 2000 points of marines at a glacial pace for a few months because I keep getting distracted by other factions and painting a detachment or two.

I will say personally as someone who got out of the game around 5th edition. Price was always a huge limiting factor. Warhammer was always a hobby that seemed to demand other hobbies be set aside to make both the time and cost feasible.

Mate this is excellent. You have, honest to god, the most rational and chilled out smart Warhammer content on RU-vid. Thanks for posting, as always.

16:30 - Canadian here, I would disagree with that. While the price of a new system will set you back a bit, even a new video game priced at $70 would be the price of a SINGLE higher-priced unit (or two troops). Edit: And as for time, it depends on the type of game. If it's an action game, that could be done in a less hours, while an RPG will take up a good chunk of time to complete. And that's not even getting into the lower-priced indies - that themselves can provide hours of enjoyment - or official sales you can find.

Great video as always. As a long time collector, I was actually surprised by the numbers here. I thought it would have been way more! 👍

I’ve only just started, not finished painting and building yet, and haven’t looked at rules, but I’ve spent about 4 hundred pounds on not lore stuff, and that includes the elite edition, wrath of the soul forge king (I’m going for Dark Angels) as well as a Ravenwing upgrade sprue, loads of paints (starter paint kit for 40K, as well as a 10 pack bundle, and 3 or 4 more to get my The lion book into the free shipping) then I’ve spent about £10 on Amazon brushes, £15 on glue, I got the citadel water pot, spend about 20 in Hobbycraft on a knife pack and cutting board, about 5 on kit for a build your own wet pallet, as well as 2 citadel spray cans. It’s a high curve, but it’s going to last me for a while, and I’m going to expend further with a combat patrol, the lion (when he comes out for round 2) and the leviathan box. Edit: forgot to mention that I’ve not bothered buying any codexes, because of course, but that will also (depending on what happens in 10th) happen. What do people think and where did I go wrong/can improve/need to grab asap?

1500 hits the sweet spot for my group. Big enough to take some cool things and small enough to fit 2 games within the afternoon we have Great video as ever!

It's worth pointing out, you never buy full MSRP, that's just ridiculous. The way I like to go about it is, every paycheck I give myself about 50$ allowance to go towards warhamer. If I want to save up I can, so that way, once every other month I go big and look on ebay and buy a bunch of models really cheap. At this point at full MSRP every model I have bought would total close to 10k $ I have spent nowhere near that thanks to local store deals and sales, eBay, and friends.

Thank you for this insightful video. As a Mexican Warhammer 40K fan, it is very hard to get into from the hobby / miniature collecting side. Videogames and novels are a more accesible way for me!

I think the best way to get into warhammer is to not buy anything. Just find a veteran willing to teach you how to play one of the games. If you enjoy it then start small and work your way up.

The big issue on entry level fir the skirmish stuff is alot of the sets don't contain enough terrain any more. The first edition warcry set had so much more.

My current chaos space marine list would cost €582 today, note I’m buying in Euro and this is part of a Collection I’ve accumulated over years, I’ve never spent more that €85 on the collection in one go the entire time, but this particular list isn’t huge only 55 minis so I was a little shocked at how much it would cost today. That’s an average of 10.50 a model or 3.4points per Euro and again that’s just my current list not the entire CSM collection

Enjoyed this video a lot; I thought GW was expensive when I was first getting into the hobby and am glad I don't collect AoS. I do think another useful comparison to include at the end would have been a ttrpg; unlike video games and like tabletop games it's a virtually endless amount of content and a significantly lower price point for most systems.

I've more than once helped foster a culture at our local store of helping new folks with new armies. My marines and IG were helped along early on by other people's excess they may have just sold instead--I've gifted an old chimera and a squad to a young guard player awhile back who was just starting out and buying in parts off of a high school job. It's not for everyone obviously but it helped create a nice atmosphere and we got a couple of folks to play with we may not have--and of course, a healthy secondary market with good prices also definitely helped.

i think its a good idea to mention too that if you get a starter set you can split it with a mate. if you live close to each other you can obviously just keep the rules book and stuff where you play

Factor all this in to the US dollar and every game system is $100.00+. We have stores selling one pot of paint for $6-$8 depending on the store

Over the decades, I've collected several wargames: Ground Zero Games (GZG); which have Stargrunt 2 (25mm & 15mm) sci-fi rules (free), metal miniatures (very nicely sculpted). They also have Full Thrust (space ship battles), and Dirtside 2 (epic scale). Mantic: Deadzone, and Warpath Fireteam (skirmish). Battletech. There is also Warmachine.

It's a shame it wasn't included as GW's Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game is pretty affordable compared to AOS and 40k. The starter set gives 2 decent sized starting armies and the model range is cheaper with most troops coming in boxes of 24 models. The most affordable armies being The Fellowship and Thorin's Company as both boxes are £35

Even though each AT miniature costs a lot of money, you need so few of them for a full army including options, that it is the game I show people interested in scifi tabletop games.

Well, I discovered Warhammer when I was 36, in 2016 with the original Age of Sigmar 2 player starter set, it cost $125 back then. I thought it was very expensive for a board game, but the mini's looked awesome and it had almost everything I needed to play the game. I also bought a getting started magazine that included a miniature, and a hobby kit that included some cutters, glue, a brush and paints. So, for under $200 I got into the hobby. Little did I know I'd be obsessed with everything wargaming... but it makes me happy. I've never been to a tournament, I just played at the local gaming store before covid and at home since the pandemic.

Within my gaming group we often compare the hobby to golf, because that makes us feel better about the money we spend.

If you think being a Warhammer 40K fan is hard (for the miniatures hobbying side), being a WH4OK fan in Latin America is incredibly difficult.

Thank you very much for this rundown My friend has been playing for just over 25 years . I am slowly getting into the lore and slowly going to choose a path to build a decent set to play. This has been saved and will be using as a reference. Thank you 🙏🏻 Live Long and Prosper 🖖🏻

The reason 500, 1000, 1500 & even 1750 games exist but aren’t played is because GW doesn’t support them with rules. They expect you to play 2k rules with 1/4th the model count and anyone who knows the rules to the game knows how busted that is. I mean the current meta of 500 is running space marine troops because you can run through an objective, take it, and then leave because of the sticky objective rules where you hold an object until it’s taken away.

Warhammer is expensive compared to kids hobbies, but if you compare it to grown-up big boy hobbies, like say, Golf or Scuba Diving, Warhammer is basically a rounding error. IMO, it compares favorably in price in to Model Railroading. You have a few pricey models, the locomotives and bunch of fairly cheap models (all the freight and passenger cars), and a *lot* of terrain. Speaking of Age of Sigmar, I was looking at some Skaven army lists for that I a saw one that only had 37 models in it. Geeze, my Oldhammer Skaven army has single units almost that big. Of course, it's also never been completely painted... These days I'm mostly into Blood Bowl and Necromunda. BB *could* have been a much lower cost option. Except that I've got BB16, and BB22 and Dungeon Bowl and Death Match, and 8 different pitches, and 10 teams. And I've still got BB 3rd and the old BB 2nd Astrogranite edition box sets and teams. So far I've held it down to only 4 different gangs for Necromunda, not counting the Goliaths & Orlocks that came in the Underhive and Ash Waste starter sets that I'm kind of sort of considering trading off. Right now I'm working on getting a couple of BB teams painted up for the Warhammer Open Tournament at Tacoma in July.

Fantastic and very informative video. I'd definitely start with the cheapest option, because less models to paint and short game time. Thank you for making this video. Keep up the good work.

So magazine like age of sigmar stormbringer is worth the money. Paints , clippers, and two full armies and tarrain , 10 pounds a week for 80 issues

I have sunk way too much money building a big 2nd edition army. But the one time I played 9th, I disliked it, and then worked my way backwards. Best bang for the buck: go with One Page Rules, plus any models you want. It is going to be cheaper than basically anything any game manufacturer offers and is so much fun.

Aeronautica is a paint to get into now as there isnt a starter set anymore, the one rule book and boards goes out of print all the time. But if you can get a board and rule book, all you need to get into the game is a couple of boxes of aircraft. So to get started you will be looking at about £110. But as writing the board isnt even listed on the GW site, so affectively, GW is selling something that cant be played if you buy direct from them. 3rd party companies are selling neoprene mates but if you are in the UK they are generally from eastern Europe so once you pay customs you will be looking at about £60-70 for a board, increasing the cost to about £160-£170. It's such a shame as the game is great. Very simple to play but hard to master. GW need to get the synergies to gether when selling products and make sure that they have all the components needed to play the game available 24-7.

From my 40k/AoS experience, expect to spend a solid year accumilating everything you need to play the game effectively. Time and money can be significantly reduced if you arent new to model building and painting of course. GW does fortunately makes box sets for nice discounts. When I started I bought every box set that Necrons came in and its done me soo well. My entry into the game was a lot nicer than others. Its why I always tell new players to buy every box set you can find of a faction before getting individual kits. Also one cost effective way to get into Killteam/Warcry along with 40k/AoS is too see if your faction already has a box set for those skirmish games.

After months of trying to get my non-Warhammer friends to play with me. I guess I’m planing to buy the boarding actions terrain and play different games with my current models. Seems the best way to get them to play

Warcry Heart Of Ghur is the current edition starter set. It comes with everything you need to play (even the full core rule book).

Thanks, really useful video Ian. Was thinking of getting into 40K in some capacity with my son. Kill Team looks like a good starting point and not too bad on price.

love the inclusion of AUD. seeing 40 pound jump from 90aud to 100aud(from paint to underworld) hits too close at the speed of inflation over here.

I love warhammer. The lore, everything. But its the 3d printing comminuty and a cheap airbrush with some paint from the local artshop together with a dozen or so hours on youtube on how to do paintts excetra that made my entry in the hobby possible.

The way I tend to think is in terms of entertainment value. A box that costs $200 US but I spend 10 hours a week assembling and painting for 12 weeks (about how long Cursed City took me) costs me about $1.67 per hour of entertainment before we even get to the time playing the game, enjoying the books, etc.

As I’ve grown into the world of adulting, I have discovered that money is incredibly subjective, especially when it comes to hobbies and recreational activities. Warhammer really isn’t expensive when you consider just how far you can make a box of models go. Like really, really far. But aren’t they just little plastic toys? Someone might decide to buy a Gibson Les Paul, play it for a week, and then never pick it up again. Alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, harder drugs - use them once, that’s it. Literally drinking, burning, snorting, and injecting money. Yes, plastic crack ain’t so bad. Just don’t look at the pile of shame!

I've been thinking on the idea of cost vs. benefit for Warhammer since watching this and it's funny because it's a hobby where the concept of "what counts as a cost, what counts as a benefit, and how do you measure them?" is extremely nebulous. There's the cost of the models, paints, and rules, sure. But for some people, the time and effort of assembly and painting is a cost, while for others it's a benefit. Hell, for some of us, that's the ultimate end point of our participation. Similarly, a lot of people see play time as the benefit, but I've met some people who play games as cost because they feel that without the game, it doesn't have a point and the assembly and painting feels hollow, which is fair enough. And that's without even touching on the games in other media, engaging with the lore as a reader, watching RU-vid content on it, etc, etc, etc. Not trying to take away from or disagree with your video, talking about the economic cost of the hobby is important, it's just interesting to try figure out where your personal cost/benefit, accounting for all resources expended (incl. time and effort) and benefits received (like engaging in lore).

1:32 not to worry Ian, so did GW!

I do think that the starter boxes for 40k and AoS do a good job at keeping costs low. Picking up the Extremis or Elite edition set removes the terrain from the box for $99 USD total to split between yourself and a friend for $44.5 USD each, and you can share in the core rules booklet, and build off of it. For $44.5USD you have a Character and 2 or 3 units for just about 200-300pts per side, quite a bit more on the AoS side, and most army compositions really, really like what's in these boxes. Except Outriders, Outriders are okay

MESBG? The forgotten games workshop game 😅

This is a bit of a long one. I play Legio Custodes in Horus Heresy and since the start of the year my army has grown as such. x1 Shield Captain, x3 Aquillon Terminators, x5 (very kitbashed and custom) Hetaeron Guard, x1 Achillus Dreadnought, x4 Custodes Guard, x4 Custodes Guard, x3 Sentinel Guard, x4 Sagittarum Guard. With a bit of load out wiggling that's 1990pts with the intention this year to get to 3000pts. If it wasn't for my local game store that's given me 20% off of GW plastic and other websites that does super cheap resin models I'd be well on my way to the projected HH price point. Is that so bad, I've had fun building painting and playing over the last 3 and a bit months, I know everyone's situation is different and how you prioritise hobby spending is heavily subjective but Warhammer probably isn't my most expensive hobby. Brand new xbox series x on launch day and digital games amd online membership easily hit over 500 in a weekend, fairly high end gaming laptop and digital games ran over 2000, I do field archery in the UK and with a beginner bow, all my equipment, insurance and membership probably around 500, I used to practice HEMA all my protective gear ran about 500 and a fairly decent training sword(feder) was about 200 so like again it's subjective how you want to spend your hobby money and what you value to get out of it. That being said Forge World is ludicrous expensive even in the UK, maybe if they offered a pay in 3 or a klarna like service that'd make it seem more affordable but £75 as the going rate for 5 legion specific elite models will never feel like a good buy and I'll probably always buy my resin elsewhere/from recasters.

Am I the only one who enjoyed Blackstone Fortress? It was a gateway game for The Hobby for a few of my friends as well.

As a Tiny Plane Lover, your crime is forgiven

Compared to Kingdom Death: Monsters, warhammer still looks like a steal, the base game is about £400 then you've got the boss monster expansions which cost between £60 for the humanoid sized ones to £150 for the big boss monsters, to complete the entire thing you'd also have to look to the second hand market because there is some OOP boss monsters/kickstarter exclusive boss monsters. I think actually getting the full thing for Kingdom Death: Monster is like £1000+

I think there's another cost that needs to be considered: upkeep. Buy a historical army and a rule book (for example Hail Caesar from Warlord) and you're pretty much set. There will be a few expansions and there might be a new version every now and again, but that's it. And they won't invalidate units, or even entire armies, overnight. With the shift to seasonal play, Games Workshop has massively increased the amount of books and boxes you need to buy in order too keep up with the game. Are they absolutely necessary? Strictly speaking, no. at least, not all of them. But you'll likely find yourself at a disadvantage as you'll then be missing out on extra rules and concepts, not just for your own army but also for the armies you'll meet at tournaments.

Any real hobby costs about 500 bucks, no matter what it is: Instruments, sports equipment, kitchen tools, gaming hardware - whatever it is. Though I'd say knitting is probably cheaper. The starter boxes from GW are very different in their real value. Some armies like custodes pack a real punch, while others suck extremely (hello Deathguard, hello Thousandsons, hello Mechanicum) but cost the same. Also, GW tends to add free, crappy addons like vehicles (e.g. the free Rhino or that hover thingy Primaris have nowadays) or named characters or overpriced terrain to fake some value. The @Poorhammer channel discusses these boxes and compares them. Other hidden price increases come with new models; they are often monoposed and the boxes contain less models or parts than the previous version of that box. Just look at the new and old Orks or Cadians. You also don't want to buy HQ- or named characters because they often cost as much as a full box of dudes with a nice proxy in it. Why should I buy some leader for 50 bucks when I get a box with a leader and 4 dudes for the same price? You also may combine AOS models with 40k models - just compare the 40k Ork Meganobz with the AOS Aard Boyz - you get double the amount of miniatures for the same price and they look better too. If someone needs some different bits, those are also sold seperately from Bits-shops. I just bought a 1500 points Ork army with 28% discount and strategically combine boxes with interchangeable parts to get more squads out of the kits: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ezO8rDMcy-s.html I'd also never pay for 40k rules. I did that twice and the codexes and core rules went further before my army was even ready to be played. Also nobody forces someone to play the very latest rules. Just buy an old core book and old codex and play with that. What is it about the hype train to have the latest and bestest (which is never true)? Because there are 1000 tournament players in the world you never play with anyways? GW has great marketing, be careful guys. And every other company sells paints and tools that are at least as good or even better than those from GW, while being a lot cheaper. Also nobody forces you to follow a special paint scheme and even if you want to, there are paint equivalency charts on the web. So instead of taking Dark Angels Green from GW you take Dark Green from Vallejo, which is the frickin same paint in a bigger bottle and for a lower price. Afair they even manufactured the paints for them for a while.

I'm a fan of the lore, I read the book, I've played some of the tabletop RPG's and some of the videogames, but for the life of mine I could never bring myself to play with the minis, on account of my deep hatred for anything requiring me to paint stuff. I now know I could buy prepainted armies from people on the Internet, but by the time this became a viable option I was too old and too busy to get into another hobby.

Thoroughly well laid out explanation

When I started as a kid in 3rd edition. I had no idea all the random cadians, vostroyans, and forgeworld death korps I collected, would quite literally double in value by today, (though the forgeworld stuff evens out given the British pound was 2x the usd back in the day)

I remember the days of 2nd edition 40K. If memory serves in 1993/1994 it cost me about £25 for the full box which was a good starting point. With the new ones that contain 2 armies it does make it so if you want one and a friend wants the other, split the cost between you.

Ngl I've always loved though my friends. Never been able to afford and not until your channel did I have a reason to know the lore as much as I do now.

This is an interesting price comparison I rarely see them compared all in one go, usually just the newest release. Personally I like comparing the cost of starting a game to my actual pay check. If I can fit the starter into my the disposable part of my income for a month I'd call it affordable. I'll never actually start playing HH or AoS because I simply can't fit starting an army into my disposable income. 40k only can be viable because I already have an army I started 20 years ago so the upgrade cost of a new edition or a new list is generally 50 to 100 usd for my most generic white bread boring 40k army.

That is a perfect video. Like all your ohters. Always a mature point of view. But your caclulation only adds up if you are a robot and only buy the thing you realy need. For a hobbyist your numbers are never gonna hold. Their will always be some other models to buy. New rules. Next army. More paints... you can never have enouhgh paints.

I started this week with Warhammer Underworlds. Thank you for your content.

i love the topics you come up with, a real swiss army channel you’ve got here

I play Kill Team, Got into Bloodbowl and Age of Sigmar (Slaves of Darkness), I tried to find a group of people that play Underworld but its not many groups in Sydney plays it and Warcry, it's so difficult to play and get many people in Warcry events i dont get many games with people

Just built a knight list 2k points and it's come it for me at £330 that's models and codex which I got cheap luckly enough and with probally 20% discount on most or models Also I'm nearly £500 deep in HH thats box more models and my primarch Horus himself aswell as traitor codex

I think this is why games like Battletech have taken off. Lower entry price, consistent product ranges (GW keep cancelling games/products to push FOMO) and can be played at a much lower model count. And it also has a lot of Lore that is as engaging as 40K.

These figures are all a bit low, as Ian didn't include the cost of the necessary Warhammer Candles.

I can honestly say the hobby is quite pricey, but i don’t think i spend any more money on it than i do the other hobbies i enjoy.

US player here. 750 points seem to be the most common game size in my small town but we all dream of a proper 2000 point game

For me, a lot of the "it's so expensive" feeling stems more from the costs of character or leader or elite models. From GW, a box of Eldar Guardians is 70$ CAD or $6.36 each (if you count the gun platform.) Dire Avengers are 55$, or 11% per model; Fire Dragons are 60$, or 12$ per model. Leaders are 35 to 40$ *per model* and yet, they're JUST A DUDE. Okay, a slightly bigger and fancier dude, but still. 3 hours wages for ONE GUY is *expensive*. And yes, I understand that molds for injection molding cost a lot and the molds for the Farseer are probably not a lot cheaper than the molds for the Guradians; but knowing that doesn't make the Farseer more affordable. Whereas I could use Stargrunt II or Grimdark Future rules, pay to print them out, buy 50 Wargames Atlantic sci-fi troops, and have a playable force for about 150$ CAD. I could have fun working up some cool leader dudes from the extra bits in two box sets, no need for specialised injection molds. Granted it would be a bit more work to add vehicles and such but not impossible. Games Workshop does have the large pool of players. The actual cost of me playing Stargrunt II would be in convincing someone else to try it. But, like any other copany with a huge market share, GW is using that power to increase the cost to all of us.

Relative means of each individual aside (as an enjoyer of videos but not a painter or player), I think this survey has to be paired with the mental load video. That stuff strikes me as more daunting than costs, though I also wonder (as an apartment dweller) about space. These games look from this outsider kind like Yugioh--a game with gotchas due to sheer density--rather than say chess-like. But that's just a rough impression. Some board game cafes sometimes rent out space, so I wonder if a store with painted units could ever run a drop-in situation, or is the rules load and variation just too much?

Forgetting Aeronautica seems to be a theme in the Warhammer community! 😞 With the Horus Heresy Aeronautica book out I'm worried they've shoved into the Horus Heresy Sideshow area. A damn shame, I'm really eager to see Drukhari and Chaos and I have a painted Ork army and also a White Scars Heresy army almost finished.

Very informative. I've always been a fan of the lore but have been reticent to get into the tabletop due to the investment of time and money. This is a fantastic overview.

a decent comparison might be to see what playing a given GW game would cost if you bought as little as possible from GW but still weren't buying 2nd hand. Looking at 3rd party models might be interesting but possibly doesn't get you enough direct swaps to compare on all the games. Space marines substitutes would be pretty easy to figure out but other factions might be difficult.

Heroscape Starter set was like 40 bucks and had a plethora of models.

"This suggested list from... eurgh, SpikeyBits" - yeah, harsh but entirely fair, lol!