40k/Warhammer/tabletop wargaming is at best described as a money sink, at worse financial ruin waiting to happen.
There are a lot of different ways someone can engage in the hobby from simply building and painting models to actual battles vs someone else but regardless of what someone does it still requires having something to battle with.
Now there are several different scales at which people can play although the most common is the army level with individual soldiers either as stand alone models or sometimes grouped up into units where small "plates" can be used to place an entire unit on simply so you can move an entire cavalry group as one rather than having to move each mounted unit one at a time. Sometimes this is also important due to combat rules as the plate will be considered for attacking ranges in melee.
However there are also "larger" army options which include mountain sized vehicles named Titans. Now while there are Titans scaled to the common army models there are shrunk down versions so you don't have to lug around a 3 foot tall models that would be at risk of falling over and breaking. Essentially you just swap 1 inch tall soldiers for 1 inch tall Titans and play that way. There is also space combat which is a bit weird at times since space is 3D but whatever.
Regardless of what someone does with whatever models they go for it still all can cost an absurd amount of money.
It absolutely can cost an absurd amount of money but it is one of the open and future-proofed hobbies you can have.
A model from 30+ years ago can still probably be played today and will be able 30+ years from now if the world is still around. Even if Game Workshop lit itself on fire tomorrow there's still decades of rulesets, scales to play at, specialist games, skirmish games, etc and that's if you just want to play the game. You could easily just paint miniatures and never touch a single die or rulebook.
You could easily just paint miniatures and never touch a single die or rulebook.
Pretty much what my dad did when he was into it. Mostly collected the fantasy stuff and even then only really a few pieces like a Skaven bellringer or something. Never intended to battle anyone and he was more than fine with that.
40k/Warhammer/tabletop wargaming is at best described as a money sink, at worse financial ruin waiting to happen.
There are a lot of different ways someone can engage in the hobby from simply building and painting models to actual battles vs someone else but regardless of what someone does it still requires having something to battle with.
Now there are several different scales at which people can play although the most common is the army level with individual soldiers either as stand alone models or sometimes grouped up into units where small "plates" can be used to place an entire unit on simply so you can move an entire cavalry group as one rather than having to move each mounted unit one at a time. Sometimes this is also important due to combat rules as the plate will be considered for attacking ranges in melee.
However there are also "larger" army options which include mountain sized vehicles named Titans. Now while there are Titans scaled to the common army models there are shrunk down versions so you don't have to lug around a 3 foot tall models that would be at risk of falling over and breaking. Essentially you just swap 1 inch tall soldiers for 1 inch tall Titans and play that way. There is also space combat which is a bit weird at times since space is 3D but whatever.
Regardless of what someone does with whatever models they go for it still all can cost an absurd amount of money.
It absolutely can cost an absurd amount of money but it is one of the open and future-proofed hobbies you can have.
A model from 30+ years ago can still probably be played today and will be able 30+ years from now if the world is still around. Even if Game Workshop lit itself on fire tomorrow there's still decades of rulesets, scales to play at, specialist games, skirmish games, etc and that's if you just want to play the game. You could easily just paint miniatures and never touch a single die or rulebook.
Pretty much what my dad did when he was into it. Mostly collected the fantasy stuff and even then only really a few pieces like a Skaven bellringer or something. Never intended to battle anyone and he was more than fine with that.