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Miniatures Games Are Cheap
Vanguard
But now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
But now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
Before you hit reply to say, "No lol wtf are you talking about?", bear with me.
Before last year I was very much out of the gaming loop. Until about the age of 20 (I'm 24 now) I played a lot different games. Video games, tabletop wargames, roleplaying games, CCGs etc. When I decided I wanted to get back into these hobbies, I did a cost comparison. What I found is that miniatures games are often cheaper to play that many other types of gaming. Of course, all of this comes with a caveat: none of these things are actually cheap. You are still going to spend a lot of money, but (unless you're blowing an insane amount of cash on this stuff, in which case, this post doesn't apply to you) you will very likely spend less money on miniatures than some of the other options.
The perception that miniatures games are expensive is real and is somewhat based in reality. Out of all of the gaming options out there, it has one of the highest startup costs. You need to buy rulebooks, miniatures, paint, tools, terrain (or things to make terrain), etc. This will run into the hundreds very quickly. Let's look at two games, Warmachine and Warhammer (Fantasy and 40k).
Both flavors of Warhammer offer two-player boxes priced at $100. For that lump of cash you get two small armies, a condensed rulebook, dice, and templates. Everything you need to get started. If you split this with a friend, you've only spend $50 so far, which, isn't too bad. If you're not interested in either of these box sets, costs do rise considerably. Let's say you buy into an army that isn't offered at a discounted price. This is hard to gauge because what you buy can vary from person to person, but let's assume you by four things: the full rulebook, your army book, the battalion/battleforce, and a lord/hero. Now you're looking at about $200-250. Throw in some paint and you're right under $300.
Warmachine will come in a little cheaper by virtue that it offers more things bundled, requires fewer models, and doesn't charge you $70 for a rulebook. The two-player battlebox is also priced at $100 and offers you the same things that a Warhammer starter set does. If you want to start with an army not bundled in this set, you're still only looking at $50 for a battlebox, though you get less models. Throw in the full rulebook and paint and you've spent a little over $100.
At this point, we've spent anywhere from $100-$300. That's a lot of money on either side of the range just to get started. On the lower end, that's the cost of two newly released console games; on the higher, the cost of a new console. Let's look at other gaming options.
Magic: The Gathering, by comparison, has the cheapest start up costs. For less than $20, you can buy a premade deck and start playing. That's it. You're done.
Roleplaying games, like D&D and Pathfinder, offer starter box sets that will only set you back about $30-$40 and provide a few sessions worth of material.
When looking at startup costs, miniatures games look like the worst deal. You could buy a gaming/entertainment console for the amount of money, not to mention how much cheaper those CCGs and RPGs look. However, it's when you start looking at the cost of expanding that things work out in miniatures games' favor. Unfortunately, there is no way to quantify exactly how much someone might spend when they expand. Let's assume that the goal is to get to the level that most people play at (35 points in Warmachine, ~2000+ points in Warhammer/40k). The cost of that is likely to be roughly double what you already spent. I would set the total cost at this point at $300-$600. That's a whole lot of money for toy soldiers, but hold on a moment. You have an entire army! Not only will it take you a long time to paint, figures/units almost never cycle out play.
Again, let's look at other options.
You hit the higher end of that range pretty quick in a video game console's life and you're likely to exceed it. At $50/game, you're looking at a total of 6 games plus the cost of the console. Unless you rely exclusively on rentals and services like Gametap, you will probably hit that threshold within a year or two. You will play these games as long as they are fun.
Magic: The Gathering, if you keep up with the releases, is easily the most expensive of these hobbies. If you're trying to play semi-competitively at all, you can expect to drop $150 three times a year just to build a card base of each new set. If you get into the most competitive tiers of deck buildings, you could easily spend $300-$500 per deck. What's worse, these cards cycle out of being legal every two years, which means that over a three year period $450 (or more) worth of cards will no longer be useful. To put it other terms, you could buy an entire army every year single year for this kind of cash.
Roleplaying games look the best, in terms of monetary commitment. If you buy the three core books for D&D/Pathfinder, you've likely spend $100 or so. You don't actually need to expand beyond this to keep being entertained. Since editions retain players after new ones are released, you could conceivably spend only $200 forever. Of course, chances are you will expand at some point, but buying the odd book is only going to set you back $30-$50.
Anyway, this is already too long. What I want to do is turn this into a discussion of the perceived bang of your buck for gaming and dispel notions that certain games are cheap (M:tG) and some are expensive (Warhammer/Warmachine). What I'm not suggesting, however, is that cheaper equals better.
Some questions: What has been your experience? Is any of this stuff prohibitively expensive? Is my assessment just flat out wrong? Do you find one hobby to not be worth the investment? How can we make this cheaper?
Before last year I was very much out of the gaming loop. Until about the age of 20 (I'm 24 now) I played a lot different games. Video games, tabletop wargames, roleplaying games, CCGs etc. When I decided I wanted to get back into these hobbies, I did a cost comparison. What I found is that miniatures games are often cheaper to play that many other types of gaming. Of course, all of this comes with a caveat: none of these things are actually cheap. You are still going to spend a lot of money, but (unless you're blowing an insane amount of cash on this stuff, in which case, this post doesn't apply to you) you will very likely spend less money on miniatures than some of the other options.
The perception that miniatures games are expensive is real and is somewhat based in reality. Out of all of the gaming options out there, it has one of the highest startup costs. You need to buy rulebooks, miniatures, paint, tools, terrain (or things to make terrain), etc. This will run into the hundreds very quickly. Let's look at two games, Warmachine and Warhammer (Fantasy and 40k).
Both flavors of Warhammer offer two-player boxes priced at $100. For that lump of cash you get two small armies, a condensed rulebook, dice, and templates. Everything you need to get started. If you split this with a friend, you've only spend $50 so far, which, isn't too bad. If you're not interested in either of these box sets, costs do rise considerably. Let's say you buy into an army that isn't offered at a discounted price. This is hard to gauge because what you buy can vary from person to person, but let's assume you by four things: the full rulebook, your army book, the battalion/battleforce, and a lord/hero. Now you're looking at about $200-250. Throw in some paint and you're right under $300.
Warmachine will come in a little cheaper by virtue that it offers more things bundled, requires fewer models, and doesn't charge you $70 for a rulebook. The two-player battlebox is also priced at $100 and offers you the same things that a Warhammer starter set does. If you want to start with an army not bundled in this set, you're still only looking at $50 for a battlebox, though you get less models. Throw in the full rulebook and paint and you've spent a little over $100.
At this point, we've spent anywhere from $100-$300. That's a lot of money on either side of the range just to get started. On the lower end, that's the cost of two newly released console games; on the higher, the cost of a new console. Let's look at other gaming options.
Magic: The Gathering, by comparison, has the cheapest start up costs. For less than $20, you can buy a premade deck and start playing. That's it. You're done.
Roleplaying games, like D&D and Pathfinder, offer starter box sets that will only set you back about $30-$40 and provide a few sessions worth of material.
When looking at startup costs, miniatures games look like the worst deal. You could buy a gaming/entertainment console for the amount of money, not to mention how much cheaper those CCGs and RPGs look. However, it's when you start looking at the cost of expanding that things work out in miniatures games' favor. Unfortunately, there is no way to quantify exactly how much someone might spend when they expand. Let's assume that the goal is to get to the level that most people play at (35 points in Warmachine, ~2000+ points in Warhammer/40k). The cost of that is likely to be roughly double what you already spent. I would set the total cost at this point at $300-$600. That's a whole lot of money for toy soldiers, but hold on a moment. You have an entire army! Not only will it take you a long time to paint, figures/units almost never cycle out play.
Again, let's look at other options.
You hit the higher end of that range pretty quick in a video game console's life and you're likely to exceed it. At $50/game, you're looking at a total of 6 games plus the cost of the console. Unless you rely exclusively on rentals and services like Gametap, you will probably hit that threshold within a year or two. You will play these games as long as they are fun.
Magic: The Gathering, if you keep up with the releases, is easily the most expensive of these hobbies. If you're trying to play semi-competitively at all, you can expect to drop $150 three times a year just to build a card base of each new set. If you get into the most competitive tiers of deck buildings, you could easily spend $300-$500 per deck. What's worse, these cards cycle out of being legal every two years, which means that over a three year period $450 (or more) worth of cards will no longer be useful. To put it other terms, you could buy an entire army every year single year for this kind of cash.
Roleplaying games look the best, in terms of monetary commitment. If you buy the three core books for D&D/Pathfinder, you've likely spend $100 or so. You don't actually need to expand beyond this to keep being entertained. Since editions retain players after new ones are released, you could conceivably spend only $200 forever. Of course, chances are you will expand at some point, but buying the odd book is only going to set you back $30-$50.
Anyway, this is already too long. What I want to do is turn this into a discussion of the perceived bang of your buck for gaming and dispel notions that certain games are cheap (M:tG) and some are expensive (Warhammer/Warmachine). What I'm not suggesting, however, is that cheaper equals better.
Some questions: What has been your experience? Is any of this stuff prohibitively expensive? Is my assessment just flat out wrong? Do you find one hobby to not be worth the investment? How can we make this cheaper?
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do they? that idea is ludicrous.
Like, discussing making paper miniatures to substitute Warhammer armies. I wanted to see a photo of someone playing 40k with paper printouts, against someone else's painted army.
Drafting is kind of cheap if you compare it to movies, I guess.
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We can still make it that kind of thread. In fact, I welcome any discussion on how/where we can reduce the cost of any of this stuff.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hyacinthgames/a-tabletop-rpg-and-board-games-project-from-chicag
If you want to do tournys or competative play thats another story.
Hell back in my day they didnt even have precons. Thats hella easy to drop 10-25 for one deck.
Look at the flip side. It's very hard to go casual in a miniatures game (in terms of investment, at least), but for a large chunk of change you have an army which you can make competitive.
As it is, I don't think miniatures games are all that expensive. They have a large initial investment, but that investment usually pays dividends for many years between all the painting and gaming your models will see. Unfortunately (for your wallet), the shelf life of cards in MTG isn't nearly as long. Usually two years. Contrast that with Warmachine. Nothing in any of the lines has cycled out, and every model/unit fills a niche in the right list.
...?
I've looked into the costs involved in Warhammer quite a few times, and it's never seemed within reach for me, even when I had a decent wage. It's over $45.00 for a basic Space Marine tac squad, with 10 unassembled & unpainted guys in the box (so about 5 bucks a guy). If I'm spending that sort of money on such awesome sculpts, I sure as Hell am not going to use my untrained hands to paint them, so I'm going to have to pay someone to do that too.
And that's just a basic unit of basic guys. The set pieces, heroes, monsters & vehicles individually are often twice that cost (Land Raiders sell for over 80 dollars, for example, and from what matches I've watched on YT they seem like a staple vehicle), and presumably will cost more to have painted / ship around. Then there's the fact that you also have to buy redundant boxes of product in order to get special weapons.
Terrain costs are tough to quantify, dice & measuring accessories are lolz-cheap, and books you get get at bargain prices from used stores... but dem figs.
I just don't see how you could get a cool looking, playable army up and running for under a thousand dollars.
Could you do a price breakdown?
Codex: Space Marines $33
WH40k Rulebook: $58
Space Marine Battleforce: $110
Command Squad: $35
Tactical Squad: $35
Land Raider: $66
Dreadnought: $45
Terminator Squad: $50
Bike Squad x3: $45 (each)/ $135
This comes to $567, and would give you two tactical squads, a combat squad, an assault squad, a scout squad, all of your HQ, a Rhino, a Landraider, a Dreadnought, nine bikes, and five terminators. In total, that's 54 figures, two tanks, and the Dreadnought.Mind you, these are straight GW prices. If you go through a place like the War Store, it only totals $453.60, and you could easily buy up to a sizable army for another $150.
As it stands, with no upgrades or options, this clocks in at 1625 points. I'm guessing you'd have no trouble getting to 2k with gear. If you bought it at a discount, getting to 2500 would be no problem for under $600.
As far as painting goes, if you read some tutorials, it's not hard to achieve a tabletop standard paint job unless you have Parkinson's disease or something.
Of course, if you're in Australia, the prices are insane and I can understand feeling like it's out of grasp.
Then major game companies would stop supporting the games because they couldn't print off the mini's, and you'd stop having universally recognized games.
I hate this argument, because part of it is always "Just get the one army and the starting book, were good to go!". and then you have paints and supplies. and then you find out your army sucks and you need a different unit. and then you see this really cool other army and you want to put together one of those. then tournament fees(this is usually included when mtg is brought up) and in the case of warhammer, well new edition is in, time to pick up the new models/books based on my involvement level. You could sell your old stuff, but I think the market is kind of iffy on this stuff sometimes. If your stuff is nerfed, is anyone still going to want it?
People say M:TG is expensive, but really you can stay competitive for less then 600$ a year pretty easily. It means you are playing the game and buying/selling, not collecting however. People get hung up on getting caught in the middle, where they want to be competitive, but there still buying individual packs to throw the arm of the slot machine.
When I see the 600$ figure for a hobby a year, it doesnt seem that terrible to me, thats like 50$ a month. I can see how that could be pretty high if you are doing other things along side it/are in that financial gap of working retail 16-18.
I think we can come out of this with an agreement: all these hobbies can be expensive, depending on your involvement level.
While this is true, the financial commitment to the different levels of involvement are not equal across gaming platforms. That's really the heart of this discussion.
Playing competitive in M:TG is going to dwarf your investment in pretty much any other system. Each year, three new sets cycle in, and three old sets cycle out. You need to build a card base, which usually translates into buying a box set at each release. At retail, those go for $130+, depending on the set. After taxes, you're looking at an easy $400 per year just to say current. That doesn't include buying singles or any additional purchases, which I believe would easily add or exceed another $200. The real nail in the coffin is when a large chunk of the cards you own cycle out they tend to lose a substantial amount of their value. You either choose to sell them when they're useful, or put them into storage when they cycle out.
While you've definitely hit on the "flavor of the month" phenomenon regarding miniatures, I maintain that if you can afford to buy a new army/every new release each month, you probably aren't in a financial position where cost is much of a factor.
I've already given a breakdown of a sample Warhammer 40k army that comes in at less than $600 (I did not include paint, however, so, add about $50).
With a little bit of research, you could easily buy a well, constructed Warmachine/Hordes army for half the commitment of M:TG for one year. Let me do a breakdown for that. We'll look at Circle Orboros.
Hordes Rulebook: $30
Warpack: $50
Mohsar the Desertwalker: $10
Kreuger the Stormwrath: $14
Druids Deck: $19
Pureblood Warbeast: $35
Wold Guardian: $28
Druids: $35
Druid Overseer: $11
Tharn Ravagers: $35
Tharn Ravagers Blister (2): $14 each/ $28
Ravager UA: $18
Circle Paint Set: $18
Total: $331
Mind you, this is all at retail price. If you buy it from the War Store, you're looking at $265, meaning you could cram another warbeast, unit, or a handful of solos in before you hit $300. As it stands, this list would give you three warcasters, five warbeasts, and two full units.
However, that is all besides the point. Let's say you buy all of this Circle and a bunch of new models come out next month? It changes nothing, except for the threats you need to deal with on the field. None of your models cycle out, and with the proper tactics, you will remain competitive. Even if you do get the fever to buy a new army, you're still looking at a comparable investment.
Let's say you don't and just add to your Circle. Another $300 will give you a huge force to choose from in terms of building lists. The point is, you can take this tournaments, you can play casual, and in between all the playing you have a lot to paint. Anything you add is just icing on the cake.
Lastly, I agree that $600 is not all that expensive when taking the long view. What makes it expensive is whether or not those purchases maintain either their in-game or resale value. Miniatures often retain the former, but not the latter. MTG cards lose both.
I think GW stores require models to be some % made from GW parts. How much it is enforced varies wildly. Tournaments are another thing entirely.
Now 3D printing could be interesting, but until the consumer has access to industrial grade printers it's not going to be a thing
The issue is going to be the models. Creating a valid file requires a bit of specialized software that average consumers don't have.
Their plastics are so expensive mostly because of profit margins and overhead (advertising/design/whatever).
A consumer, with a free highly accurate model, might be able to get something like a land raider printer cheaper than they'd buy it for but not by much.
This will come down in time but we are quite some time away from cheap custom printed models of the quality GW delivers.
Edit: Also, I know plenty of competitive players who don't buy a box of cards at release, and just buy singles. Even if you were, a box pre-ordered before release is going to run you about $100, throwing that earlier cited figure off. Also, you can use that box of cards (as I do) to host drafts with your friends as you crack packs, getting added value out of them.
They aren't really selling the models at a fair price for detailed bits of plastic, they are selling all the stuff people take part in around the models and the models for a reasonable price. While I definitely think their is slack in their business model I don't think the industry is large enough to make it worth the capital costs of anybody to compete with them.
I'm actually a little hesitant to say rapid prototyping is going to doom GW anytime soon. Access to the models is no small thing and the current, cheap, processes produce nothing like the quality you get in a molded part.
Regarding singles, anyone here willing to price out one of the top netdecks? I just did one on eBay and cracked $400 for some Dungrove Elder deck. That's a lot of money for ~60 cards.
Non-Limited Tournament level play is expensive, period. Standard can have a hefty price tag, and the rotation means you're often forever chasing the new hotness. Extended/Modern are more stable, but they're not cheap by any means. As I understand it, Vintage is rarely played, but while being expensive, most of the cards have held up pretty well in terms of value.
Now I'm sure someone will pipe up that a sub $100 "RDW" landed in the top 4 at some recent tournament, but let's be frank here; most Tier 1 decks are packing some serious cash. Just because you can play a T2 or even T3 deck and maybe win an FNM now and then (and a starting player is not likely to be winning anything for quite some time) doesn't mean that there isn't a significant barrier to entry for the competitive side of the game.
Conversely, you can play at your local store or kitchen table for mere pennies. You could drop $5 on basic land and some commons and play without any trouble. Now, unless your opponents have similar card pools/decks built, you'll probably get wrecked, but the possibility exists. The popularity of certain formats and the release of Premium Decks, Duel Decks, and multiplayer products that contain prebuilt decks (Planechase, Archenemy and Commander) all give a baseline starting deck that's ready to be sleeved and played, and then altered. Throwing a few big money cards into a deck probably won't hurt, but you can upgrade a Commander deck for a couple of bucks and have a blast easily.
Anyway, rambling aside, I'd say that in terms of cost barriers to entry, the ranking would be basically "Most Miniatures Games" > "Most RPGs" > Magic. HOWEVER, with a caveat that you could decide to build a Magic tournament deck "with Power" that would make most Warhammer armies pale in comparison.
Late edit: and yes, the same could likely be said for miniatures games, but even just ebaying or craigslist hunting up a cheap army and a little painting is still probably vastly more expensive than an EDH deck with some revisions and sleeves. I'm trying not to compare old tiny apples to gigantic gold plated ones, but at the very least, it does seem that starting new, there is a higher cost of entry on the miniature end. And to counter my counter, the same deal hunting could lead to building decks for nothing, so really we have to look more at the day to day costs rather than the outliers, otherwise we should just assume all games are free if you're willing to work, look and beg hard enough. :P
With Magic the Gathering, every person would need sufficient start-up cards so that everyone is playing their own unique deck. It would probably cost a bit more than a Board Game or RPG. The costs would scale more or less linearly with the number of people in the group.
I can't begin to fathom how much more expensive miniatures or computer/console gaming would be when aggregating the costs of all the people in the group who play together.
I can go into any game store and look for the fattest, greasiest person there and ask if he has any MTG commons he'd be will to get rid of for a new player. Bam, there's a deck or ten for free. Perfectly enjoyable to play commons only with friends, honestly I enjoy it more than a lot of $40 board games. For the average person, though, you're going to move on to bigger and better things, namely Constructed. Depending on the type and the deck, that ranges anywhere from $150 to $1200 for a sixty card deck and fifteen card sideboard; and you better believe that those cards will rotate out/become less than competitive eventually.
Warhammer? Split two starter boxes with a friend and you can get anywhere from 500-1850 points for each person (40k, can't comment on Fantasy) at only $100. You can stick with that and enjoy yourself, or you could make your own chapter of space marines and 1,000 marines+tanks later you're several grand in the hole. Christ have mercy on your soul if you want to start another faction.
Warmachine clocks in at $40 for one person. You can then go drop another $80-200 to bring that up to 35 points if you want, or you can dish out $1,500 and buy multiples of the entire line so you can build literally any combination of army you want. Mo' armies mo' money.
They're all luxury items, you can't gauge them as expensive or inexpensive, because you can't compare them to anything else, because you can't quantify enjoyment. It's not like comparing fuels by their energy output against their cost of production.
You could compare it to video games, I guess. $600 for a PS3, $240 for four wireless controllers, $200 for a hard drive, and then another $60 for each game you get. Or pick up a Game Cube for $30, three extra controllers for $30, $10 for a memory card, and $2-30 for each game you want.
In conclusion, you're going to spend as much as you are able to stomach on luxury items. That might be $8 for a frisbee, or $6,000 for a chapter of space marines, or $200 for a PS2, some Madden titles, and $400 worth of pot.
Last year I added up what I spend on video games and systems. This included 2 PS3s due to one blowing up, a gaming PC, a Wii and a PSP. I averaged it at 20 games per system over 4 years (I actually have more on PS3 and PC) and averaged the price to $70au since I generally get games cheaper than RRP.
It came to about $10000au. Over about 4 years, basically since I got my first PS3. Granted, I rpefer single player video games and don't replay them often, so I buy them more.
I bought a Tyranid army last year. This comes to about 1200 points, pretty shy of a 'normal' sized game. It's cost me about $1000au. This army will not need replacing, will be useful every time I play a game, and after maybe a couple hundred more I'll have a 2000 point army, more than I'll use in a single normal game.
Technically, I can stop there, play games swapping units out in different games, and not get bored with the games. That's about $1500au all up including rulebook and codex. Now, remember, Australians pay double what people in the US pay for, well, everything, and it was all bought locally.
As Vanguard said, startup costs are high. But once you actually have that 2000 point army, you don't need anything else. Maybe one or two units when a new edition or codex rolls around with something new, or maybe something occasionally if you want to paint it. Wargaming has the best value for money out of most geek hobbies.
Think of it like selling off your army then buying the latest codex army every time one comes out. Yes you will need to put funds in but your not paying out the full amount each time.
For example magic recently rotated. I have spent about $100 since then in total on cards, tournament fees, drafts and the like. The cash value of my deck is about $300 approx, obtainted just by trading what I didn't own.
Caveat: playing magic (relatively) cheaply requires a large local playerbase and good trading skills so dosnt apply to 100% of players.
This is glorious.
Mistype when using the iphone, but you know what, its a pretty good typo, it gets to stay.
Will give more in-depth thoughts when it arrives.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
A list would be nice, I have had a few minis pressed and would like CAD files made myself so they can be freely distributed.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hyacinthgames/a-tabletop-rpg-and-board-games-project-from-chicag
...Also note that there is a thin line between 'good trading skills' and 'being the guy at the store who rips all of the new kids off'. One of my friends played Magic very cheaply - by essentially stealing cards from elementary school kids who had no sense of their cards' value.
'Skilled' trading tends to be a pretty seedy affair in M:tG.
...But then you don't have many upgrade options, do you? From what I've seen, the sprues in each individual box are pretty sparse, so you end up having to buy multiple boxes.
Yes and no. It used to be much worse, a tactical squad box used to only give you two weapon options. I'm not sure exactly what year it changed, but I think you now get multiple special weapons, close combat weapon options etc. in the same box. The drawback there is that you get more options than you can legally field at once in that squad, but if you buy extra bodies from somewhere you can build all your special weapon troopers and switch them in and out depending on what you need to field.
Plus, the parts are all nicely interchangeable, so a box of tactical marines and a command squad box should give you a lot of options. Imperial Guard sprues are pretty similar, I think.
Oh, okay. That seems pretty reasonable, then.
Tabletop roleplaying games are almost certainly one of the cheapest hobbies, but in fairness, they also don't tend to include much physical 'stuff'. No figs, no boards, limited maps, etc.
If you want to go all-out with 4E, for example, you need to buy a bunch of figs and dungeon tiles, and it can quickly add-up.
Not that this makes RPGs any less fun at all - I'm just saying, it makes sense that the price would be lower since you're mostly just buying books and dice.
I just saw this. I was referring to "models" in the sense of a CAD model. I do not know of any agencies that do 3D scanning though I'm sure there are some. I'm also pretty sure they're going to be expensive for a reasonable level of detail in a model. Really, going backwards from a physical model to a CAD model is probably more trouble than it is worth.
I was referring to rapid prototyping agencies, like xpress3d.com, that just work with people who have these rapid prototyping equipment.
As much as I hate GWs business practice, they did give you more options in each kit, but fewer models. I think Orks used to come with like 16 to a box, Guardians too. Now both are down to 10.
RPGs look the best over a long term situation. If you only buy the core books (usually 2-3), you can be set for a really long time. Unless you buy every new book they are by far the cheapest.
I recently picked up the Pathfinder books, a DM Screen and that Critical Hit deck, a few tubes of dice. All in all, I think it ran me like $170. Not bad considering how far all of this stuff will go.
Sometimes little flecks of the future slip past me, but that would have been a big chunk. Some day, though.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hyacinthgames/a-tabletop-rpg-and-board-games-project-from-chicag
first off, painting isn't really that hard, it will take a bit of practice, but it is kind of nice and relaxing.
second, one of the benefits of warhams, is that ppl do get burned out by it's cycle.... you can often find great deals on ebay.... i have gotten a complete necron and tau army off ebay for less than $200 each.... granted, it took a bit of work to clean up, but for two armies that i would never buy at full price, it was a decent deal.
It looks really, really difficult. The figs are so small, and what if you screw-up a stroke with one color when you've already painted another part, and now you've got two wet paints sitting on top of each other?