Poor Man's Army

Orkses nevah loos!

If you think that miniatures warganes/skirmish games is an expensive hobby to get into then you're mostly right. Miniatures tend to be intimidating due tot their size-to-price ratio but I willleave that discussion for another time.

However, there are ways to start a cost-effective miniatures collection for gamng and collecting. I'll not be discussing a get-around but more of a wise method of purchasing and planning. Note that I'll be transparent on the costs and will be using my current Warhammer 40,000 Orks army for this discussion but what I'll give out applies to most modern miniatures as well.

OK here it goes.
Prior to having an Ork army, I once had an old Tyranids (I had it since 2003) army which shelved and sold because I was not able to expand it. Fast forward to 2011, a friend of mine gave me his Orks from Game's Workshop's starter set 'Assault on Black Reach'  in exchange for painting his Space Marines. The set is $99/4,650 Php so it's safe to assume that the Orks there are worth about $49/2,200 Php.

The Assault on Black Reach (let's have it as AoBR from now on) Orks can be broken down into:
1 Warboss = around $20 - $22
5 Nobz (squad set) = $25
3 Deffkoptas (each is $33) = $99
20 Boyz (2 squad boxes worth $29 each) = $58 

Bought separately, the whole assemblage offered in AoBR is worth a bit over $200/8888 Php. So the set,despite having all in plastic is already more-bang-for-the-buck. And that's just the Orks, the set also has a good selection of Space Marines nad other game necessities like a rulebook digest, templates dice, rulers among other things.

Back to my army. So that ensemble is about half of my army which is playable in small game formats like Kill-team and Combat Patrol. I then decided to purchase an AoBR set for myself so that's $99/4,650 Php plunked down with no regrets. At least now I have all the other stuff and the Space Marines (which I'm almost through now). So my army's breakdown cost is now:

$49/2,200 Php = AoBR Orks (I'll have this at $0/0 Php since it was sort of a payment for a commission)
$99/4,650 Php = One whole AoBR set

Later on to 2011, I decided to purchase an Ork Trukk and a Chaos Rhino for my Orks (thanks to an early Christmas windfall). The Chaos Rhino APC is to be converted into a looted Wagon by the way. Which brings the army cost to: 


$0/0 Php = AoBR Orks (as explained above)
$99/4,650 Php = One whole AoBR set
$33/1,550 Php = Ork Trukk
$33/1,550 Php  = Chaos Rhino APC

Total = $176/7,750 Php. That cost is spread out into almost 6 months. Now with all this I got to Kit bash a Deffkopta into a Deffdredd and have a squad of Killa Kans proxied so that I can field all of them into a sizeable 1,500 (tournament legal) army. There.

So the whole point of this is: getting into miniatures is steep but if you consider other entry means like starter sets and first releases then it's not that bad after all. In the long run, gunpla and other plastic model kits would cost around the same so it's no different from spending on some little plastic soldiers.

I rest my case.
  
All prices are based on Games Workshop's price list.