Miniatures Cost Calculator
Calculate the true cost of your Warhammer or tabletop army including models, paints, brushes, tools and painting time. See cost per model.
Model Kits
Paints
Brushes
Primers
Materials & Tools
Cost Breakdown
Summary
| Total Models | 10 |
| Models Cost | £45.00 |
| Supplies Cost | £176.00 |
| Total Cost | £221.00 |
| Cost per Model | £22.10 |
| Total Paint Hours | 30h |
How to Calculate Your Real Warhammer Cost
The headline price is rarely the real price. A Warhammer 40K Combat Patrol box costs around £85 and gives you 20 to 30 models, so on paper that is £3 to £4 per model. Add paints (typically 20 pots at £3.50 each = £70), three primer cans (£24), five brushes (£25), basing materials (£10) and clippers/files (£40), and the same starter set climbs to £254 plus your time. This calculator separates the model cost from the supplies cost so you see both the per-box hit and the cost-per-painted-model.
Default supply estimates here match what most beginner painters actually spend in the first six months: 20 paint pots cover the standard Citadel paints needed for one Space Marine chapter; 5 brushes cover base/layer/detail/dry/large; 2 primer cans handle 60+ models. If you already own paints or brushes, set those to zero. The model row repeater lets you stack multiple boxes (Combat Patrol + Battleforce + a hero) and totals it all in one number.
Why Painting Time Should Be in Your Budget
Three hours per model is a reasonable estimate for a tabletop standard paint job by an intermediate painter. A 20-model Combat Patrol is therefore 60 hours of painting. At the UK living wage of £12.21/hour, that is £732 of labour you are giving yourself for free. This is fine if painting is the hobby; it is a problem if you bought the box thinking 'I'll paint it on the weekend' and have not factored in eight to ten weekends.
Speed-painting techniques (Contrast paints, Slapchop, batch painting) can drop the per-model time to 30 to 60 minutes, which makes 20 models a 10 to 20 hour project. Show-quality painting goes the other way, often 8 to 15 hours per model. Set your hours-per-model honestly based on your actual standard, not your aspirational standard. The [D&D cost calculator](/dnd-cost-calculator) does the same exercise for tabletop RPG outlay.
The Cost-Per-Model Reality Check
Once you total models, supplies, primer, brushes and tools, the cost-per-painted-model for a first army usually lands between £8 and £15. That is much higher than the box maths suggests because the supply costs spread thinly across only the first 20 to 50 models. By model 100, the supplies are mostly amortised and the per-model cost drops to roughly the per-model box price plus a few pence of paint.
This is why veteran hobbyists tell newcomers to plan for two armies, not one. Your first army absorbs all the supply infrastructure costs. Your second army uses the same paints, brushes and tools, so its per-model cost is closer to £4 to £6. If you only buy one army and quit, the per-model spend looks awful. If you buy two or three, the average normalises. Track this over time with the [hobby cost tracker](/hobby-cost-tracker).
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a starter Warhammer 40K army cost in 2026?
Combat Patrol: £85. A second box for army size: £85 to £120. Supplies (paints, brushes, primer, tools, basing): £150 to £200. Codex book: £37.50. So expect £350 to £450 for a fully painted, playable starter army. Add £35 to £40 for a hard-cover army case if you want to transport it without breaking your work.
Do I really need 20 paint pots to start painting?
For a colour-flexible starter set, around 12 to 15 is the practical minimum. Black, white, a flesh tone, two metallics, two browns, two greys, two highlights of your faction colour, and a wash. The 20-pot default in this calculator allows for two or three accent colours and a contrast paint or two. If you are painting a single faction in a single colour scheme, you can get by with 12.
What is the cheapest way to start the Warhammer hobby?
Buy a one-off Combat Patrol on sale (occasional 15% discount), use a £30 Vallejo or Army Painter speedpaint set instead of the £70 Citadel range, use Cheap Joe's brushes (£3 each) instead of Citadel artist brushes, prime with a £6 supermarket spray. Total starter outlay drops to around £180. The result is the same painted models on the table; the savings come from skipping name-brand premiums.
Should I include the cost of a hobby case or storage?
If you are tracking total cost honestly, yes. A KR Multicase or hard transport case for a 2,000-point army costs £40 to £80. Add another £20 for foam inserts. Magnetic storage cabinets are £100+ but reusable. The calculator's tools cost field is the right place to add these; treat them as one-off infrastructure costs that distribute across all future models.
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