Every army, priced and dated

The Cheapest Warhammer 40k Army to Start

Every 40k army ranked by what its cheapest start actually costs right now — the lowest price we hold for each army's cheapest box, across every shop we track. Not RRP, not last year's guess.

The cheapest way in today is Orks, at €34.00 for Warhammer 40,000: Introductory Set. But the cheapest box is not the cheapest army to own: grown to a full 2,000-point force at the per-point rate its kits actually go for, Grey Knights comes out lowest at about €460.00.

#
1	Orks	Warhammer 40,000: Introductory Set	€34.00	—	€0.40	~€800.00 across 37 kits
2	Emperor's Children	Combat Patrol: Emperor's Children	€100.05	€0.22	€0.25	~€500.00 across 7 kits
3	Astra Militarum	Combat Patrol: Astra Militarum	€100.58	€0.35	€0.47	~€940.00 across 39 kits
4	Genestealer Cults	Combat Patrol: Genestealer Cults	€101.65	€0.27	€0.40	~€800.00 across 19 kits
5	T'au Empire	Combat Patrol: T'au Empire	€101.65	€0.32	€0.48	~€960.00 across 30 kits
6	Adeptus Custodes	Combat Patrol: Adeptus Custodes	€102.32	€0.13	€0.30	~€600.00 across 8 kits
7	Dark Angels	Combat Patrol: Dark Angels	€104.06	€0.22	€0.39	~€780.00 across 69 kits
8	Imperial Agents	Combat Patrol: Imperial Agents	€107.00	€0.30	€0.39	~€780.00 across 13 kits
9	Adepta Sororitas	Armageddon Battalion: Adepta Sororitas	€108.00	—	€0.43	~€860.00 across 30 kits
10	Aeldari	Combat Patrol: Aeldari	€108.00	€0.25	€0.35	~€700.00 across 44 kits
11	Chaos Space Marines	Combat Patrol: Red Corsairs	€108.00	€0.35	€0.37	~€740.00 across 47 kits
12	Drukhari	Combat Patrol: Drukhari	€108.00	€0.38	€0.38	~€760.00 across 19 kits
13	Grey Knights	Combat Patrol: Grey Knights	€108.00	€0.16	€0.23	~€460.00 across 5 kits
14	Leagues of Votann	Combat Patrol: Leagues of Votann	€108.00	€0.30	€0.40	~€800.00 across 19 kits
15	Space Wolves	Combat Patrol: Space Wolves	€108.00	€0.22	€0.39	~€780.00 across 72 kits
16	Thousand Sons	Combat Patrol: Thousand Sons	€108.00	€0.22	€0.23	~€460.00 across 5 kits
17	World Eaters	Combat Patrol: World Eaters	€108.00	€0.22	€0.34	~€680.00 across 7 kits
18	Blood Angels	Combat Patrol: Blood Angels	€109.41	€0.20	€0.39	~€780.00 across 66 kits
19	Black Templars	Combat Patrol: Black Templars	€109.55	€0.22	€0.40	~€800.00 across 65 kits
20	Deathwatch	Armageddon Battalion: Deathwatch	€109.99	—	€0.40	~€800.00 across 61 kits
21	Necrons	Combat Patrol: Necrons	€111.02	€0.26	€0.37	~€740.00 across 31 kits
22	Space Marines	Combat Patrol: White Scars	€111.02	€0.33	€0.41	~€820.00 across 57 kits
23	Iron Hands	Combat Patrol: Iron Hands	€112.09	€0.25	€0.40	~€800.00 across 59 kits
24	Adeptus Mechanicus	Eye of Terror Battalion: Adeptus Mechanicus	€112.22	—	€0.43	~€860.00 across 17 kits
25	Tyranids	Combat Patrol: Tyranid Assault Brood	€112.35	€0.28	€0.43	~€860.00 across 26 kits
26	Death Guard	Combat Patrol: Death Guard	€113.69	€0.23	€0.36	~€720.00 across 17 kits
27	Ultramarines	Getting Started with Space Marines: Warhammer 40,000 - 11th Edition - English	€113.69	—	€0.39	~€780.00 across 62 kits
28	Chaos Daemons	No starting box we can price today	—	—	€0.37	~€740.00 across 28 kits
29	Chaos Knights	No starting box we can price today	—	—	—	—
30	Imperial Fists	No starting box we can price today	—	—	€0.40	~€800.00 across 59 kits
31	Imperial Knights	No starting box we can price today	—	—	€0.32	~€640.00 across 4 kits
32	Raven Guard	No starting box we can price today	—	—	€0.40	~€800.00 across 59 kits
33	Salamanders	No starting box we can price today	—	—	€0.40	~€800.00 across 59 kits
34	White Scars	No starting box we can price today	—	—	€0.41	~€820.00 across 59 kits

7 of 34 armies have no starting box we can price today — they are listed at the bottom rather than left out, because an army missing from a ranking looks like an army that does not exist.

Which army gives you the most for your money?

Entry price and value are different questions, and the per-point columns answer different ones — which is why they rank the armies differently.

Start € / point prices the box itself: what one point of what is inside it costs. The spread is far wider than the shelf prices suggest — Adeptus Custodes gives you a point for €0.13 against €0.38 for Drukhari, 2.9× as much for the same points on the table, from boxes priced within pennies of each other. Points come from Munitorum Field Manual v1.5 (2026-10-07), and the column is blank for the 5 armies whose cheapest box we have not sourced points for — we leave it empty rather than estimate it.

2,000pt army asks the longer question, and it is the one worth reading: not what the first box costs, but what the army costs at the rate every kit of it we can price and point actually goes for. A cheap Combat Patrol can front an expensive range, and the two genuinely disagree. Each cell says what it was measured over, because a mean over sixty-five kits and a mean over four are not the same claim — and below 3 kits we do not scale one at all.

How this ranking works

"Start" here means the army's cheapest currently-priced box — usually its Combat Patrol. We compare the latest price at every shop we track and rank on the lowest, and the buy button beside each price goes to the shop quoting it. Rows we cannot price today carry no button rather than a link to somewhere we have not checked.

The last column scales to a standard 2,000-point game, the size most people are actually building towards. It carries a tilde because it is an estimate — but an estimate computed from points we sourced and prices we checked on the date below, at the per-point rate of every kit of that army we can measure. Every other figure you will read for this was arrived at by guessing, and was stale the day Games Workshop last changed the points. Armies do not scale perfectly evenly: characters and centrepiece models cost differently per point from the rank and file, so treat the ordering as sound and the exact number as a good approximation of a moving target.

33 of 34 armies have enough measurable kits to estimate that way. The rest show nothing rather than a weaker number in the same column: multiplying a mean taken over one kit by 2,000 produces a confident four-figure number out of a single data point, which is worse than a blank. Space Marine chapters are measured together with the Space Marines range, because that is where the kits a chapter player buys are filed.

Next steps: every Combat Patrol ranked by value · how much a Warhammer army costs · the easiest armies to paint

Already picked a faction? Build your list and see what it costs →

Prices were last checked 25 Sep and can change — the retailer's own page always has the final say. Affiliate links — how we make money.