Warhammer 40,000

What is Warhammer 40,000?

Warhammer 40,000 is Games Workshop's science-fiction battle game and the largest miniatures range in the hobby: two armies of plastic models, built to a points value, fought across a table of terrain. A typical force is thirty to sixty models drawn from one faction, and most people assemble it over months rather than in one purchase.

It is the game the rest of this site orbits. Most of the paint ranges we compare were built for its factions, and the majority of the kits we can price belong to it.

What does a 40,000 army cost?

It depends far more on how you buy than on which faction you pick. A Combat Patrol is a curated third of an army at a bundle price; the same models bought as individual kits usually cost more, sometimes considerably. Where we can price both, the box cards above say which way round it falls rather than assuming the box always wins.

Every figure on this page is what a shop was charging when we last checked it, in the market you are browsing. We do not quote a manufacturer RRP as if it were a price you can pay, and a kit no shop we track stocks says so instead of showing a stale number as an offer.

Where to start

Three sizes of first purchase, and they are genuinely different commitments. A Kill Team box is six to fourteen models and a complete game on its own. A Combat Patrol is a playable small army and the usual answer. A starter set adds the rules, dice and a second force, which matters if nobody you play with owns the game yet.

Pick the faction on the look of it — every one of them is a viable army, and the paint scheme is what you will actually be living with. The faction strip above goes straight to what each one costs.

Where next

Kill Team, the small way in · Combat Patrols compared · 40,000 paint schemes · The cheapest army to start