Tips for Gathering Your Troops

[ziggythetrygon]

Well, as this is my not-so-virgin post, I think it wise for an introduction. I am Ziggy the Trygon. I bet you can already guess what what my favorite unit is, if you are quick witted and gifted with swift mental faculties. I like dinosaurs, dragons, and swarms of big nasty things with teeth and killy bits. I am, as of a birthday purchase of 12 hormaguants, a Tyranid player.

Herein lies the problem. I can build my army quite slowly with allocation of funds here and there. If all else fails, I can and shall take that route. However, as I feel rather silly using an entire army of proxy plastic dinosaurs (as hilarious as it looks and as patient as my good friends are, I would prefer having the real deal on the board), I would hope to find some way of speeding the collection process up.

I need to collect:

60 hormagaunts (12 so far)

7 genestealers

3 Hive Guard (using warriors to build psyker caster versions, so count these as collected)

4 more genestealers (that will be psyker-caster converted in as Zoanthropes)

3 trygon primes

1 hive tyrant (which will either be a wrecker carnifex made nastier, or the tervigon/tyrannofex kit made awesome with other bits and interesting combinations of weapons)

That's a hefty amount of money. I happen to be working my way through college and am on the cusp of going to grad school. To this end, I have already opened a cafepress shop (small and dinky, but growing) to provide some funds for this army and the Blood Angels one afterwards (which is in the DISTANT future). My working hours are rather maxed at the moment. Aside from the obvious Ebay investigations, and selling/trading my old Space Marine bits (which i am trying to do), who here has any tricks up their sleeve for earning ready cash with which to purchase models?

I thank you all for your patience and time in listening to my introduction/explanation/query hybrid.

[Rakuall]

I don't know about making quick cash, but some ebay sellers (discount_games_store is one) sell bulk warhammer goods, often with free/reasonable shipping. I think the seller I mentioned does a 3-for-2 Trygon bundle with free shipping (North America), so you might be able to save some money perusing his shop.

Store
Tri-gon
Horde-a-guants

[ziggythetrygon]

Oooh, that three-trygon deal seems fairly interesting. Thank you for that.

[kippawah]

I must put down dicebucket as well as a great place to get cheaper models.

You can get a box of Hormies/Genes/Termies for under $20 each, sans box. (Just on sprues)

It's worth checking out.

[Overread]

Ebay is probably going to be your best bet for discount items.
warhammer stuff devalues pretty fast when its second hand, even stuff out of the box and not even built will devalue a little. If its already pre-made you'll get a bit more off - its its been painted its iffy.

If the paintjob is clearly very well done and the minis have good photos they'll go for a good amount on ebay - if the photos are poor or the painjob looks poor they'll be bargin prices. However you'll have to paintstrip them and start again (this process will cost a bit in paint stripping chemicals - which can differ depending on if they are plastic or metal minis or resin).

Also ask around your local gaming group - sometimes you'll be able to pick up leftover minis from them as well for a cheaper cost (though if your gaming group meets round the local GW store I'd respect the shop owners and not openly talk about second hand sales in front of them - even if they are fine with it I'd still be polite and chat out of the shop and the like.

[ziggythetrygon]

I'm glad you mentioned Dicebucket, kippawah. I remembered the site but not the name, and wished I could find it for some time.

Overmind, thank you for the advice, I'm actually doing all you have suggested. I have some old marines, lizardmen and orks to trade off from back when I wasn't seriously collecting/playing, so they will come in handy.