Going to game on a Budget

Roight, time to budget the hobby a bit...

You see, buying a place, renovating it... it all costs heaps of coin.

So that means cuts have to made left and right, especially if travelling is on the menu as well, together with some other factors I'll come back to on a later post.  But just how much should I limit myself to?

Well, I have been compiling a list of all the stuff I want to get "sometime", and then saw at what was feasible to put aside on a seperate account just for that.  The added benefit is that the incoming models hopefully will be lower then the models I actually get finished over the coming 2-3 years, as I'm looking at a pile of almost 1000 models at the moment, and that is only a quick count of some boxes... there are more out there somewhere, and I just need to sort through all those as well still.

Now, a first list, using the retail prices at the manufacturers, brought me to this calculation of figures that catched my fancy, or better said, that I really want:

Titan Forge Dragon Empire - 379 euro

These should be all the models I will need to get started in the 9th Age with a fully build samurai styled Empire of Sonnstahl army.  Even though resin, at 18 euro for a set of 10 figures, their prices are actually quite cheap.

Games Workshop Hedonites of Slaanesh - 361 euro

In order to expand my demons to be suitable for Age of Sigmar, and if needed even for 40k, though that is not a goal as I'm getting fed up with the current edition, this mostly covers the expansion of basic units, as well as the shiny new stuff that was released a few weeks ago.  And Wayland Games for example automatically makes it like 20% cheaper anyways.

Raging Heroes - 38 euro

Okay, just the one set of Praying Mantis deamons with command to "spice" the above up a bit

Games Workshop MESBG - 1211.50 euro

Okay, this is THE big one, but keep in mind that the 440 euro Smaug is in my list as well for this system.  The rest is mostly units models (metal ones ofc) to flesh out regiments and armies, but also the knowledge I can get some of them cheaper on ebay and the likes, so the actual cost might be 200-300 euro lower.

Forge World MESBG - 119 euro

Because, shiney stuff!

Games Workshop Tau - 150 euro

Nothing fancy, just some battlesuits to round out my Gundam project

Forge World Tau - 193 euro

Like the above, but these are the more 'specialised' suits, which I'd love to include over time just because they look so frakkin' cool.

And that is the main list actually.  Certainly, there are unexpected costs that will come along, like new supplement books, small scale games that require a single box (like the recent Warcry game for example), stuff like that.  Add in terrain (new, mdf, printed, etc...) but those things aren't to be estimated handily.

On the other hand for terrain, I'm going for the Ender 3 (or 5) very soonish and will be printing and building a lot of suitable stuff for myself as a result, so that cuts down on the costs as well once I got the hang of it.  I already have a full folder of stl files for my terrain just for that purpose.

So, what have I decided then budget wise?  Well, a base of 50 + 8 euro every month, to be saved up for the bigger, more expensive orders.  The 8 euro is for my White Dwarf, but the other ones are to allow me to order a unit every month for example, and the associated shipping costs if needed.  The rest will be supplemented by 'disposable income' I might obtain from selling off older armies (like my Emperor's Children for example) to both make space and because I lost intrest in them.

The planned start date for this?  As soon as next month, september 2019, because I will be getting a heap of paint for the walls and ceilings, and bloody hell that stuff is expensive.

Let's see how we manage as you'll see a decrease in haul report contents for sure that way!