Anyone know any good aftermarket/off-brand producers?

[Zephaniah Adriyen]

I'm on the hunt for cheap AdMech. Getting a Knight (even at the decent deal of $100 even) and Start Collecting! Skitarii is like taking a bolter to the wallet, so I was wondering if there was anyone who made decent AdMech HQs for when I go to build my AdMech.

[Stray]

Sure, there are some really very high quality third party miniature companies these days, some of whom make clearly Ad Mech inspired models.

 

Creature Caster, and Raging Heroes are two who spring to mind where (depending on personal taste) it can even be argued that the sculpts are at times preferable over what GW provide. For example:

 

 

The problem with these though, is two-fold:

 

1. You really won't be saving any money (at least not with the companies that provide the better quality miniatures), prices tend to be pretty much the same as GW, or in some cases actually a little more.

 

2. You will never, ever, be allowed to use your army anywhere within a hundred miles of a GW store, or event that they have anything to do with. They're really hot on this - nothing but Citadel/ForgeWorld ever. So you place a great restriction on yourself for a saving of little to nothing (well, often).

 

For cheaper miniatures, honestly secondhand is usually your best friend. Look for the 'Ebay rescue' types. Intact miniatures that have a horrible paint job on them that someone has gotten bored with. Pick those up, invest in some Dettol, soak them for 24 hours or so, scrub them with an old toothbrush to remove the last of the paint that gets eaten away, re-prime and voila! Good as new!

[ValourousHeart]

I'd advise against piracy... there are lots of reasons why this is a good policy.  But since I don't know you personally, I don't know which reason to lead with. 

 

But taking your "Bolter to the Wallet" comment at face value it is hard not to bring up the cost of shady ethics. You'll be entering into a deal with a group you know is willing to rip GW off... what assurance do you have that they won't try to rip you off as well.  If you think that GW models are expensive, try to imagine how expensive low quality knock offs are when they never show up after they get your money.  I say that from personal experience.

 

I'd recommend setting a more realistic goal on the time frame required to collect the full army you want based on your income and expenses.  Set a little money aside each paycheck and wait.  When you have enough shop eBay for a good deal.  If you have a will power issue when money is in your pocket you can support the local store where you play by picking up a gift card and hold the money on that until you have the funds you need to make the purchase.

 

Additionally if you have friends and family that purchase birthday and Christmas gifts for you then set up a wishlist and let them know that you would either like something from the list or a gift card.  If you only have big expensive things on the list, don't bother telling anyone about the list, and just let them know you would like a gift card because you are saving up for something.

[MajorNese]

If it boils down to HQs - the Dominus has been in almost every boxed set so far. You find them on ebay a lot. Though the Start Collecting is otherwise a 100% useful thing, so it might be wasted money to first buy a dominus on ebay, then buy a SC box. Dominii are points expensive, one might be standard, but two are already expensive, and more than two is unrealistic if magnetized. Enginseers are something else - they are so dirt cheap in points, you might need a few more of them. But there are GW alternatives to the plastic one - the old metal ones are still around (and metal is easy to clean), or half a box of Delaque gang combined with some bitz to convert the maximum of 3 that you can possibly field. No wargear options, so no more than 3 models necessary.

 

Other companies might be slightly cheaper for one model, but besides being unable to play at any GW store, you'd pay for shipping too (with often longer distances), which eats up the price difference to just buying GW stuff. There are free stores with up to 20% discount on GW stuff too, so I'd doubt that third party sellers are a considerably better deal.

[synthaside]

I guess it depends what you are after , some parts of ad mech are very cheap legit Start collecting is pretty fantastic value third party sites sell them for as little as £37.50  and skitarii are dirt cheap used on sprue due to coming in quite a few boxes recently , typically 10 quid posted for 10 skitarri is the going rate ,  hell i've bought start collecting sets just to get another dunecrawler and sold the skitarii and salvaged the dominus for parts to kit bash a female engineseer from the new Genestealer cultist magos and been quids in.

Ironstriders / dragoons are another  story but finding a good third party counts as is pretty impossible , robots are reasonably priced for their points ...  Knights are often available for as little as 60 quid used , Skitarii are one of the cheaper factions ... Cult Mechanicus   is a totally different problem , Kataphrons an electro priests  are not cheap ....  but they are quite expensive points wise  its swings and roundabouts

I buy third party because i want some variation in my army  , I have raging hero's  models  Grim skulls miniatures models  and wargames exclusive i've never had a problem with taking my conversions or cool hq's to events ... i wouldn't take one to warhammer world of course but i have the real ones for when i need them.

[DanPesci]

As people have said the 3rd party sites/gaming clubs that offer 20% off are a good place to start...not sure about the states but in the UK we have wayland games and element games for example. Both will do the get started sets from 37.50, which is a total steal for what you get.

 

As synthaside has mentioned apart from dragoons, were actually a fairly 'cheap' army in some respects. Some of the models (priests, kataphrons, kastellans) may seem pricey, but they are taking up quite a chunk of points.

 

Heck if you run a full knight/armiger list we're probably the 2nd cheapest army outside of custodes.