How to make a Space Marine army for $200.

[bzarcher]

This is me getting a 40k geek on for one of my fellow Forumopolites, based on discussions of how to do 40k armies on the cheap. He made some good examples for Tau, IG, and 'nids, and asked for other army ideas...



I can think of several ways to do Marines on the cheap.

Dark Angels (I start here because I know them best!):

-This chapter is easier than it looks for two reasons: The Ravenwing and the Deathwing. You can get very creative with them, and in worse case, you can just make a "regular" army with a mix of this and some of the methods below.

Ravenwing Armies:

Take the Master of the Ravenwing as your HQ ($40 on a landspeeder, and I believe he's $10 if ordered on a bike from GW - but be careful, he can't be used unless you hit enough points...), or a bike mounted Chaplain or Librarian, which will let you use Ravenwing fast attack choices as your troops. Four boxes of assault squads, or an assault squad and some bikes later, you've got a fast base army that can be very, very nasty, especially if you equip the assault troops with meltabombs. I believe the assault squad box is about $25 now, so at worst, you could easily take 6 assault squads of 5 or 3 beefy assault squads of 10 for $150 + the HQ and have one hell of a fast, nasty force. If you feel more like bikes, it's about $35-40 for bike squads, and splurging to add an attack bike or two into the mix only makes it nastier, especially if you go the extra anti-tank mile and equip the sidecars with multi-meltas.

Deathwing:

Ever wanted to scare the hell out of an opponent? This will do it.

I'm going to reccomend buying a few metal pieces here - Deathwing Terminator Sargeants. 1 of these at $8 a pop isn't bad at all, and he'll make a great Deathwing Captain / Dark Angels Hero with some attention to the paint, especially with that awesome power sword / combat shield combo. If you want to buy a few more for squad sargeants with a nice unique feel, that's fine, but at least get 1 for your Captain / Hero.

Next, let's grab 3 of the new plastic Terminator boxes.
4, if you don't mind going a little heavy on our $200 budget limit. Since we can now take these guys as troops choices, with their Captain to lead them, we can either make 3 troops squads and a command squad for the captain, or four squads of hardened veterans, with their Captain bravely leading from the front! You'll be slow, you'll be stompy, but dear God, I wouldn't want to get in your way!

Ultramarines, or really any other Chapter:

I loves me the Combat Squad box. $20 and I get 5 marines, ready to go? Woot! You won't get template or heavy weapons unless you're pulling some bitz out from a box or recycling, but if you want to just put a fast and nasty mob of Marines onto the table, I can't think of a better way.

I'd go with a standard Chaplain or Librarian for your HQ, maybe purchasing the new command squad box if you want to be fancy, but at $50 (yes, the box is $35, but if you read it, it doesn't actually include the commander!), keep in mind that will take away a quarter of your availble funds for this project before you can even get into troops. The command squad has some nice and nasty forces, but it can just as easily be overkill.

Now, for our troops. Let's say we splurged that $50, and we have $150 to spend. (If not, you can easily turn that other money into upgrades - vehicles, bitz sprues, or even a Devastator squad box for some hard backup) At $20 a box, that's 6 squads worth of marines - a full troops load! A few painting tricks let you turn a "base" marine into a Sargeant without having to load on the bitz (White helmet and laurels for the Ultramarines, or the appropriate decoration for other chapers), and the other marines can be as simple or as ornate as you'd like.

Plus, if you decide to expand out and add more wargear with your leftover cash, you can easily bump these core squads up to full squads of 9 marines + the sargeant with a few Combat Squad boxes and some bitz, or just start buying some Razorbacks ($30 a pop) to make them into some tough and nasty Dragoon squads who can be carried into cover, dropped from their transport into the thick of the enemy, and supported by the heavy bolters and lascannon of the Razorback! Not a bad way to see the town!

Another easy option for marines on the cheap is to buy two or three Razorback + Marine squad sets ($50 each) and a standalone HQ who could later have a command squad buffed onto him, or an HQ squad, and that gives you another fast force option. Your HQ may have to run a little to keep up, but that's about the worst part of that organization.

If you're more a type who enjoys the Ruinous Powers, just invest in some of the same boxes (particularly the combat squad sets) and do some painting and conversions.

Comments

[flying-landon.livejournal.com]

I thought raven wing armies where completely mounted. All Bikers, Attack Bikes and Land Speeders.

Which is a shame, cause this is the army I'd play if it wasn't so obscenely expensive.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

The Codex says that -any- Fast Attack choices may be taken as Troops - it doesn't specify speeders and bikes specifically.

Sick, eh?

[flying-landon.livejournal.com]

Hrm. The pdf of the codex I have says on characters on bikes, bikes, attacks bikes and land speeders.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

Nn. Lemme look - I'd swear it was all fast attack. I'll go make sure. (This may also be in the 4.0 updates...)

[flying-landon.livejournal.com]

perhaps. But still, I have to agree with the guy. 40k is damned expensive. It's hard to make any well rounded army and stay under 300 dollars, unless you go with like, Chaos, and tool them out (Since a regular model can go a long ways in points)

But there really is no justification for the cost. I mean, look at what you get for a, what are they 35, or 40 dollar marine box set.

You get more plastic in a Tamiya model, and they aren't nearly as expensive.

But when compared to games like Warmachine, where you spend roughly 100 bucks on a full army, Warhammer is very expensive.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

I think it hinges on what you want to do - a 1500 point army in Warmachine gets just as expensive, just as fast. Plus, the start of more boxes like the Combat Squad that brings out less cost for the bang is a good sign in bringing that down (I hope.)

[flying-landon.livejournal.com]

Not really.

A combat squad is 5 models at 20 bucks, where as a tact squad is 10 models at 35, plus you get the heavy weapons and vet sarge.

If you want to look at something really neat, this is really close..

10 bucks buys you 50 points of army, ignoring characters and tooled out squad leaders. It's not dead on, but it's a rough average.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

Which "This"?

And, yeah, the Tac squad box gives you the larger amount of guys, but if you look at the model of "How can we get a player started for cheap", and emphasize started and cheap, then you can get that minimum of 2 troops choices and an HQ (2 combat squads and a single HQ model of some sort) for about $48-50 instead of $80-90. Which is 30-40 dollars that can be spent on getting the codex if you don't already have it, and if something happens to catch your eye from there.

[flying-landon.livejournal.com]

Unless you split the tact squad box into 2 units. Then you still save 5 bucks, if we're going for cheap.

But in all reality, to start for cheap, get the starter box. It's 50 bucks, and it gives you rule book that you need., then get a pewter guy to be an HQ, then the codex.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

I thought the tac boxes only have 9 marines in them, though, including the sarge. Isn't the minimum squad Sarge + 4?

And, yeah, starter box is the best way, really, but these were supposed to be sample army lists. *shrug*

[flying-landon.livejournal.com]

No, it's a full 10.

Of course, thing is, there's no requirement that the sarge is a vet sarge, or even equiped with pistol/chainsword. The sarge can just be a 15 pt standard marine with a bolter.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

Which is actually how at least 2 of my Sarges are handled - I just gave them nice red helmets to set them apart.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

I had thought the Tactical box was 9, since that's how the Dark Angels specific one is set up. Nifty.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

Odd - looks like you may be right. But, there is a merit/flaw for the chapters that will let you do a version witll all fast attack. Screwy.

[flying-landon.livejournal.com]

Not all fast attack, but just Fast attack heavy, if I recall. Does it replace troop choices, or just elites and heavy?

But at that point, you aren't playing a "True Ravenwing" army when you start throwing in Assault Marines. Because, you can go past that and drop in Devastators, or who knows what else, and it'd be legal. But that's just being fluff picky. :p

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

I think there's a lower cost one that lets you replace elites and heavy with fast attack, and a higher-cost one that lets you replace troops. And yes, if you did that, it'd probably be "some other chapter that works a lot like the Ravenwing", for example, the Raven Guard, but it'd work.

[duskpaw.livejournal.com]

I hate you 40k people and your cheap cheap armies.

Warhammer Fantasy. Dark Elves. I have a good $450 of metal in my case, and I -still- have to use proxies for a 1500 point game.

And don't get me started on chariots.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

The only thing I can suggest is that maybe some of the new wood elf plastics might convert?

Sorry. :D To be fair, this was partially written in response to a guy claiming that 40k was "stupidly expensive" compared to Warmachine, and that we should all sell our stuff and start playing THAT.

[flying-landon.livejournal.com]

Yea, the metal will kill you. If I play Fantasy, I'll likely play dwarfs, which is also a very pewter heavy army, I understand.

Actually, I think a large part is that our troops seem to go go a lot farther, points per model than Fantasy, save for armies design to be swarms (Bugs, Gaurd, Orks) And even then, my hormagaunts run 12 points a model.