Average cost for a standard 40k army for 10th edition.

[Uprising]

I was discussing this topic with a few buddies over the weekend, and was looking for some feedback for those that still play 40k.  What is the average cost (USD) for a 2000 pt army to play warhammer 40k?  I want to excluded bundle deals (army boxes, combat patrol, starter box, etc), and online discounts (only GW prices).  Please include rulebooks in the prices.  

[Frogian]

For which faction? And why would you exclude combat patrols? 

[NorthernUltramarines]

You're probably looking at around £600-700 in plastic models if you're ignoring 'bundle' sets and combat patrols. Rulebook, codex, tape measure, dice, tools, paints, glue etc. probably clock in around the £200 mark shortly after.

 

I'll use Marines as the base, because they're the most common faction.

 

For £598.50, you get:

 

Lysander 

5 Assault Terminators

 

Gravis Captain

6 Aggressors

 

Ballistus Dread

Redemptor Dread

Gladiator Lancer

 

6 Bladeguard Veterans

6 Eradicators

10 Infiltrators

10 Intercessors

10 Hellblasters

 

Imperial Fist themed it and got a few bigger units in, but you'd hit about the same amount (give or take £50-100) with most marine armies. Some horde armies will be more, some elite armies a little less. It certainly isn't a cheap hobby and I'd never recommend jumping in at that point. Normally you'd recommend a combat patrol/character two units and the tools/paints for around the £175-225 mark. Sigmar is considerably cheaper due to the spearhead boxes being so much better value than 40k ones.

 

[Karhedron]

Imperial Knights probably clock in a smidge under £600. 4 Big Knights and 4 Armigers will get you to about 2000 points depending on the exact configuration and come in at about £580 I think.

 

Having said that, it is pretty much the worst way to buy an army. Using Combat Patrols will save you a decent chunk, getting an edition box set will save you even more. 

[Tawnis]

Short answer, it depends wildly on the army that you want to collect. 

 

Long answer: 

People often go for Custodes because it's cheap, the models are very points heavy and many of the characters come bundled in with the basic units, saving a lot of cost. 
Blade Champion x1
Custodian Guard x5
Jetbike Captain x1
Vertus Praetors x5 (unit of 2 and 3)
Shield Captian x1
Wardens x4
Contemptor Dread x2
Allarus Catpain x1
Allaris Termis x5
Prosecutors x5
This is a pretty reasonable all around Custodes list and would only run you $679.00 USD, though as the combat patrol is fully included in here (not on purpose, they just had so few units) you could easily get it for $616.00 USD from GW.

You can build pretty chunky and cost effective armies from other factions too, though they tend to need to be spammy of a specific type of powerful and cost efficent unit, like Death Gaurd Termis for instance
Mortarion
Lord of Contagion x3
Deathshroud x18
Plague Marines 3x5
This list would be pretty miserable to play into and would feel pretty samy to play as over and over again, but it would only run you $889.00 USD. 

Going for more of a "normal" type army, Necron Capoptek is pretty popular right now, so here's an example of that without going too meta skew on the list: 
Technomancer x2
Wratihs x12
Doomstalkers x2
Plasmancers x2
Immortals x20
Reanimator x1
Geomancer x1
Macrocytes x5
Orikan the Diviner 
Warriors 20x1/10x1
Scarab Swarms 2x3
This list would run you a cool $1423 USD from GW as you run into one of the many issues of buying things directly from GW, Some key characters, like the Plasmancer are not sold individually, but only in a box set with other units, if you want that unit direct from GW, you gotta pay the big bucks, and it is a key powerful addition to the Necron army, especially in Canoptek. (You could also knock this down to $1395 USD as the Heirotek Circle Kill Team has both the Technomacner and 5 Immortals cheaper than getting them individually.) 

Sometimes though, you want to build a theme list, often being restricted to specific units, lets take the popular Kreig for example:
Lord Marshal Dreier
Deathriders x30
Kreig Command Squad x3
Kreig Infantry x120
Kreig Heavy Weapons x3
Combat Engineers x15
Commisr x2
This themed list would run you $1611 USD form GW and there aren't even any consistent discount boxes to rely on anymore that you could lean into if you wanted to. 

Lastly, you can be like me a madman like me and want to run a thematic spammy list that is tweaked to also match up competitively, so no cutting a few units here or there to lower the power level and make the army far less expensive. This is my Kroot Hunting Pack List
Lone Spear x3
War Shaper x2
Flesh Shaper x1
Trail Shaper x1
Farstalkers x36
Carnivores 1x20/4x10
Rampagers x18
Krootox x9
Hounds x10
All told, this list runs in at a heafty $1804 USD, however if you were to account for the new discount Kroot Combat Patrol, which fits 3 of in this list, you could cu that all the way down to $1601, as that kit as some pretty solid savings. 

So, as you can see, depending on the army (the popular Space Marines would fit in somewhere between the Death Guard and Necrons on this list) the cost can vary wildly. Also, I just realized that I forgot to account for the codex cost, so just add $60.00 to each of these totals. 

I hope that helps. 

 

Edited March 16 by Tawnis

[Lathe Biosas]

I just spent 265 bucks on the new Custodes box, which sits at about 850 points.

 

I figured that I will spend around 500 to 600 bucks for my 2,000 point army.

[Orange Knight]

On average? Over Nine Thousand!

 

I joke. But you're looking at £400 - £800 I feel.

 

 

It's why I suggest to people to get accustomed to the idea of playing smaller games, and slowly building their armies up. 750/1k point games can actually be super fun.

[Uprising]

On 3/16/2026 at 10:41 AM, Frogian said:

For which faction? And why would you exclude combat patrols? 

Every Faction.  Also as we have seen of late, combat patrols and army boxes do not stay in stock for an edition (or months at this point).  

 

From everyone else suggestion, It would seem to be around 600 uk pounds (800 USD) to 750 uk pounds (1000 USD) without rules, etc for the average 2000 pts army.  

 

I want to say thank you to @Tawnis for thier wonderful break down.  I know this is a vast question to answer but fun to think about.  

[Antarius]

I understand the logic, but at the same time, nobody buys an army without taking advantage of bundle deals, so I think you actually get a less correct impression of the cost by excluding those bundles.

[Frogian]

20 hours ago, Uprising said:

Every Faction.  Also as we have seen of late, combat patrols and army boxes do not stay in stock for an edition (or months at this point).  

There are limited run combat patrols, but every faction still has at least one at all times. It would be silly not to use say, the eldar combat patrol, just because the corsairs one might not last long. 

Edited March 19 by Frogian

[Blissful Brushes]

On the bundle thing, I think that unless you want to knock out 2k points in say 2 months kind of thing, your 2k points are probably going to take you a fair time to build and paint so it's likely you should have the time and space in your building to take advantage of a bundle set at some point unless you're pretty unlucky

[DemonGSides]

On 3/18/2026 at 9:55 AM, Antarius said:

I understand the logic, but at the same time, nobody buys an army without taking advantage of bundle deals, so I think you actually get a less correct impression of the cost by excluding those bundles.

 

Yeah it would take a real psycho to ONLY buy at GW  base prices. I get picking up a squad or a vehicle here or there at full markup just for convenience sake, but between the Combat Patrols and multiple times a year Battleforce Boxes that have become the somewhat normal, you'd be hard pressed to pay the full amount unless you were specifically trying to.

[lhg033]

Using the relatively recent Guard models available via Combat patrol magazine / chat gpt army list for 1500pts (no idea if the this is accurate)
2x command squads (5 models each)

1x castellan command squad (5 models)
5x cadian squads (10 models each)

2x Field Ordinance (2 models each

3x Heavy weapons squads (3 models each)
3x Armoured sentinal (1 model each)

£210 for the magazines if you were able to get them. Very unlikely now. 

vs £510 if buying individually at RRP

 

leaves 500pts for some tanks or other flavour

[The Yncarne]

Due to buying bundles you’ll probably run 10-20% over your game list points. If you’re in it for the long haul, you’ll likely expand the army in a similar fashion.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

Without too much thought assuming 2k points

between $400-600

 

after checking on things mid post using the new corsairs as an example.

 

battle force+CP box is $425 for around 1000points (NGL ran it through ChatGPT because its late and i don’t feel like checking for myself) assuming one of the karseth models is proxied as a farseer. So roughly $850 for 2000 points of corsairs.

 

1 Russ commander

3 LRBTs

3 demolishers

3 exterminators

 

is 1900 points and $700

 

edit

sooo…yeah it seems I was way off lol

$700-900 would probably be the proper range for an average.

Edited March 21 by Inquisitor_Lensoven

[Dr. Clock]

I'm just gonna say $1000, but the range is big enough that any 'average' could be pretty misleading. Some armies will be significantly over $1k, and even within an army your list choices can have a sizeable impact.

 

That said I'll also bandwagon on to the 'avoid buying individual kits, and avoid buying from GW directly as far as possible' train, since they are the easiest things to do to cut 10-15% off the price.

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.