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[sambojin]

Well, this is a "other games" forum, and WH40k is a game of sorts. Involving dice, and no lack of tragedy, in its vaguely and explicitly PtW model of a tabletop wargame.

So, discuss: (etc etc)

I'm going to earn enough money to buy several Leviathan boxes. At least two. And I am going to convert the miniatures into "actually good things".

Can I make my own rhinos/Razorbacks out of "whatever"?. Maybe.
Can I make my own giant-space-marine-fortress that shoots people several times in the head each turn with double heavy bolters, out of manilla folders and balsa wood? Maybe.
Can I make a drop-pod out of cardboard and glue and sprue pieces? Maybe.

We all know how cheap we are on this forum. A game had better be bloody good for $60-70, considering we know how many that are amazing for $5-15.

So chuck your cheapest tips in this thread of how to make WH40k cheap-af.
(And no, buying a good computer game isn't a reasonable answer)

[E. Albright]

We're living in the Golden Age of plastic waste. If I still did tabletop miniatures, I could probably find no less than one novel-shaped piece of junk plastic packaging that could readily become terrain, vehicle add-ons, or suchlike per week for the foreseeable future, without even looking. E.g., there's a type of Swedish ginger snaps I like whose tins come with an interior plastic sorter-thingy that I could see making a decent vaguely-gothic firebase if I cared to reinforce, base, decorate, and paint it as such.

Spoiler: Bad cellphone pic with soda can for scale (click to show/hide)

Which is just to say, don't limit yourself to balsa wood and cardboard. There's SO much fairly-durable but easy-to-cut plastic packaging, bottles, etc. out there - much of it with odd and interesting shapes when paired with 28mm heroic-scale miniatures - that there's no reason to deal with materials that are harder to assemble or might warp when painted, etc.

[Robsoie]

For people playing the game and finding the rules making it for battles taking too long to resolve, i often noticed people recommending some alternative to the official rules : less complex and allowing faster play to complete a battle in reasonnable time
The "grimdark future" part of "one page rules" :
https://www.onepagerules.com/

You can find plenty of video on youtube to see how it works, like by example
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBnnX_1j3AQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMoe__MyeNQ

[MrRoboto75]

I'd suggest playing a game more friendly to proxy minis.

Sure you could fabricate all that stuff but you'd be kicked out of any official game.

[AlStar]

I've often wondered how the hobby has reacted to 3d printing - it wasn't a thing back when I was playing ~20 years ago (I feel old).

At very least, it seems like you could make some killer customizations for your troops; if not print them outright. Given Games Workshop prices, I'd assume you could probably still come out ahead, even considering material costs.

[Robsoie]

You can also make "2D mini" to  some printer, scissor and etc.. to build your paper army, it works wonderfully to not ruin yourself if you're somehow hooked in tabletop gaming but can't afford those very expensive 40k things.
Did a lot of those (nothing 40k related though) for a nephew when he was a child and he had fun with that.

It also would work without any problem in a 40K settings as you could have your 2D mini correctly sized too, and doing that would allow even people without much money to have fun with only a cheap printer and paper.
Something like this ,  spotted on reddit :
https://imgur.com/aX9C6dW

[Funk]

Its cheaper to use other 28mm minis, there not really proxys but real minis, as in nicely painted they look right not like the deodorant rhino.
The trick is to pick a theme and mix in the parts, stick some thing like these [Anvilindustry, Tench Fighters](https://www.anvilindustry.co.uk/trench-fighters) in to your Death Korps of Krieg and you can cut the price per mini down a lot.

I'd suggest playing a game more friendly to proxy minis.

Sure you could fabricate all that stuff but you'd be kicked out of any official game.

What if you had official proxys?

Spoiler: like the rogue trader paper ones? (click to show/hide)

[sambojin]

Thousand Sons seems like a pretty good one for this. Mutalith Vortex Beasts are essentially just tentacles and claws and stuff with an icon on top, so melted sprue pieces and a bit of plasticine to hold it all together and they'd look ok. 3 of them and you've got about 400pts worth of heavy melee/ shooting.

It's easy enough to make a Daemon Prince out of any space marine, so that's kind-of-free. Probably another ~140'ish points.

A few spawn (again, a bit of melted plastic and plasticine, but smaller) if you're really digging for points. About 40pts per two, so 120 for three groups of them.

So you get about 650pts of fast'ish attack/ melee, all for free. Possibly all with stealth


Should be pretty easy to do some light conversions on 1/2 a box of Leviathan as well. You could pretty easily get 3x5 Rubric Marines, 5 Scarab Terminators, a Hellbrute w/missile launcher+ twin lascannons, a few mages, for about a 1200-1500pt force, that would even feel very 1000-Sons'y. Plenty of cabal points for casting, some fun effects/ gimmicks (mortal wounds auras and stealth blobs and cabal point refunds), and enough heavy weapons to do some damage to big stuff. A pretty good starter force for around $125US ($200Aussie). Could even creep it up to 2000pts for a full army if you can take two half boxes of Leviathan for more marines, for about $250US ($420Aussie for some reason...)

I'm not sure if it would be a powerful army, but ramming that much MSU melee down an enemy's throat will probably get you a few objectives each match.

(Kinda wondering how hard it would be to convert some of the Tyranids in Leviathan into 1kS. Maybe get a Defiler by adding a few extra weapon arms to a Psychophage, and a Forgefiend by adding a couple of autocannons or non-specific ectoplasm cannons to a Screamer Killer? Really lean into the weird daemon-engine side of things)

[MrRoboto75]

Aren't Daemon Princes typically larger than a standard marine?  Like near greater demon size?

You could totally slap demon bits on marines to make chaos possessed tho.

[Brotato]

40k player here. The first thing I did before even buying a single miniature, was buy a resin 3d printer with everything I would need for processing and clean up. Best decision I've ever made. For about $300 dollars I was able to print easily two full sized armies, one for a buddy and one for me. Since then I've printed many thousands of more points and all it cost me was a couple more bottles of resin.

And yes, I have taken my armies to many, many different tournaments so please ignore those people, they don't know what they're talking about. Games Workshop puts on maybe 5 official tournaments a year and you will probably never attend one, the vast majority are put on by hobby groups or LFGs who will not kick you out. I'm not saying be an asshole and brag about how cheap your minis are or make other people feel stupid for paying full price, you might attract bad attention that way. But on the few occasions where people have noticed my army is 3D printed, I have only received compliments.

[sambojin]

Aren't Daemon Princes typically larger than a standard marine?  Like near greater demon size?

You could totally slap demon bits on marines to make chaos possessed tho.

Well, they're daemons, so maybe not always? A bit of a waist cut and 3-4mm of filler, do the same to the arms, stick it on a big base with some raised gubbins, and it'll be bigger than normal marines, which is all you need. Weapon loadout is irrelevant, because DPs can't change theirs. Chuck some horns on if you want, and you're done 👍


If there's any chance of daemon allies, stuff like screamers are really easy to make as well, for more MSU fast attack shenanigans.

Oh, they do have those rules, they're in the daemon .pdf file. So that's potentially up to another 500pts of screamers and flamers and maybe even horrors. Hell, half of the smaller models in the Tyranid side of Leviathan would fit the bill for flamers and horrors, once you've cut a few claws off and hit them with a lighter for a few seconds to melt limbs into decent poses and to make them blobby/mutated.

Termagents for pink horrors, neurogaunts for blue, rippers for brimstone? Barbgaunts for flamers? Not sure what I'd use the Von Ryan's leapers for yet, maybe Tzaangor Englightened if I could make it look like they're holding a spear? Or use the claws to make a bone bow from? Chuck them on a disc and it'll be pretty obvious that they're something like that, even though they're just point fillers and a way to use up models.

Give the Winged Hive Tyrant a stick and a sword and you've got a Lord of Change. The Neurotyrant wouldn't make a bad starting point for some kind of large thing as well. I wonder how hard big robotic legs and arms are to make, because a War Dog titan might be fun? You'll get pretty good at making assault cannons if you run 1kSons, so the weapons won't be a problem.

So that's most of the box used, and probably another few extra hundred points at least out of the demons, tzaangors and maybe a titan. Chuck in a few units of screamers (that you can make from anything, I made up a heap from 40mm square bases for my WHFB chaos army years ago), and you should be sitting on 1500pts easily, from one Leviathan box. Maybe 2000pts if you really push it.

Yay! A fully playable army from one purchase! Fairly fast attack, with a mix of heavy stuff, anti infantry stuff, reasonable melee, and psychic shenanigans, so it's a pretty good base to build from. Can also play it as regular chaos if you want, so you get to mess around with a few more rules and play styles (although you lose the mutaliths if you do).

[Robsoie]

curious gw never partenered with lego, i'm sure those kind of things would certainly sell a lot of boxes for them.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/garry_rocks/15647207608/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/garry_rocks/15383388253/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/garry_rocks/14309613257/

[Brotato]

I mean, it makes perfect sense to me that Lego wouldn't want to partner with GW. Let's be honest: rape demons aren't exactly kid friendly and that's only the beginning of fucked up 40k shit

[Robsoie]

It's obvious they would have to do some lore tweak for the lego version

[sambojin]

For the purposes of this thread, I'm not sure if Lego is any cheaper than WH40k...
(It turns out offbrand Lego is. See below)

Anyway, here's my prospective 1000 Sons "all from one Leviathan box" list. I'll add points values when they come out, to see what it clocks in at:

1 Daemon Prince 210pts
  (From Terminator Captain)
1 Terminator Sorcerer 105pts
  (From Terminator Librarian)
1 Exalted Sorcerer 90pts
  (From Apothecary and a twig staff)
1 Tzaangor Shaman 60pts
  (From big neurogaunt, a pokerchip and a twig staff)
1 other character, maybe Infernal Master 75pts
  (From Marine Lieutenant and a twig)

2x5 Rubric Marines w/Warp Flamers + Soulreaper 190pts
  (From Infernus Marines and toothpicks)
5x Rubric Marines w/Boltguns + Soulreaper 95pts
  (From Vet Marines and toothpicks)
5x Scarab Terminators w/Soulreaper + Hellfyre miss 205pts
  (From Terminators and under-claw fist-kopeshes and kebab sticks for the missiles)
20x Tzaangor 130pt
  (From Termagants and putty beaks and a claw blade)
6-10 Tzaangor Englightened? Or maybe just more normal gors? Or maybe some blue horrors for some infiltrators? 90pts
  (From neurogaunts and poker chips and toothpick spears/
   bows, or just blobify for horrors, rippers for crimsons)

3x Mutalith Vortex Beasts 435pts
  (From sprue pieces, putty, random stuff, spare claws, even bodies/ heads, and costume jewellery/ earrings/ keychains. As well. Rippers in the blob? Free, random pieces models)
1 Hellbrute w/ twin Lascannon and Missile Launcher 145pts
  (From Dreadnought and spare head, or a neurotyrant's
    thingies)
1 Forgefiend w/ 3x Ectoplasm cannons 135pts
  (From the Carnifex and Psychophage smoke stacks)
1 Defiler w/ Reaper Autocannon, Cannon and Scourge 200pts
  (From Psychophage, more claws and scratch weapons.
   There is a cannon in the set, as a basing piece. And another
    Neuro-thingy)
3x2 Chaos Spawn 195pts
  (from random bits and melty-twisted sprue pieces and builder's putty.
    Neurotyrant's tentacles?)

Exalted Flamer 70pts
  (From big Barbgaunt, they're kinda good. I might run 2-3 solo some battles. They're like tactical flying rocket bikes or really split up devastator squads, with deepstrike)
3x Flamers 65pts
  (From Barbgaunts, just stand up and melt/bend arms+head)
An undetermined amount of Screamers, to fill to 500pt. 180pts
  (From sprue pieces, gaunt claws, drink swizzlers and putty)
Maybe a Lord of Change 230pts
  (From Winged Hive Tyrant, putty, a twig and costume jewellery. Maybe use a cocktail swizzler for the staff?)


Umm, that's 2725 points! So you'd actually have to drop squads and characters to make an army. Which gives you plenty of options and playstyles, which is pretty good for a starter box 😁

Still have 4? neurogaunts, 2? ripper swarms, a psychotyrant and his blobs?, and 3 leapers leftover, probably just for bits and claws and tentacles and stuff. Or more Tzaangors or some Horrors. Could conceivably stick the psychotyrant to a kid's robot toy and call it a war dog or a knight if I wanted to. All the leftovers should help model the rest up as a bits box though. Seems like a pretty reasonable project army, that might even go ok on the tabletop. Pity every imperial can now get anti-psyker 4+ on a unit with the inquisition stuff they just released...

Not sure if toothpicks or earbud cleaners would make better assault cannons, but I'll get some extras of both for around the house, and the cocktail swizzles and kebab sticks, and costume jewellery/ charm bracelet trinkets for extra WH40k stuff, at a dollar store. Probably a tube or two of really crappy builder's putty as well, because I don't want to use the decent stuff I have on models that are just blobs with spikes or claws. A $20-30Aussie conversion cost or so? For a whole army 😎
(For anything made from "way too much builder's putty over melted sprue pieces", just lather some $2 superglue on and dip it in baking soda or sprinkle some on. A surprisingly hard yet flexible "stuff doesn't fall off or crack or shrink" coating. Builder's putty too expensive? Buy kid's plasticine/ play dough/ anything. It'll probably hold for a few years with a covering of superglue and baking soda, especially with a coat of paint on it. It's texturing Jim, but not as we know it...)
....


Spray the whole lot blue, shade wash it, add gold bits "all over the f'ing place", chuck some silver or black/really-dark-grey on where it looks too organic and should be armoured or metal or just "bits", or mid-brown for the gors, shade wash that, drushbush it all (possibly just some/all in light metallic blue or green for laziness and "magic" and *every error-splatter is totally intentional, it's for "effect"*, or 7/8ths thinned white/black or blue if you do armour edging), and add a few details. Done!

(Might be worth grabbing a couple of "the cheapest" nail polishes at the dollar store, for detail stuff or metallics. They may even have some "GW quality" paints/ spraycans for cheap too! May or may not melt your miniatures a bit. Not a problem, happy little mistakes are Tzeentch's way of saying "thank god they're not going to unbreak some of the stuff on this list for over a year, exactly as intended")