Warhammer Army Cost: Cost of Top Age of Sigmar Armies (2020)

What does a Warhammer Army cost in Age of Sigmar?

Our analysis say that the average cost of a 2000 points top 10 army in Age of Sigmar costs around £350 and will on average contain 56 models. But it can range from £550 to £210.

What you are going to read below is an analysis of the costs of the armies that landed top 3 in some big tournaments at the start of 2020.

After that you will find a table with the cost of all armies in the top 10 of those tournaments.

At the end you will see a table with the average price for an army of the various factions in Age of Sigmar.

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Methodology used to calculate the cost of each Warhammer: Age of Sigmar army

We have looked at the top 10 ranked armies from:

This article will consider only the cost of the miniatures used and the price from official Games Workshop stores. We will not go in the details of the tactics, spells or artifacts used.

The cost also does not include battletomes or other books as the information can be found in different formats including the digital store. The miniatures will also be considered out of the box, so no conversions that may make an army cheaper or more expensive. We did not include the cost of paint and hobby tools used.

The information about the different lists is available thanks to the hard work of many people entering the various results and making them publicly available, wherever possible the site where the information was found will be credited in the section itself.

Remember: our calculations are all based on standard GW prices. If you buy from online stores, you can often save 15-20%.

Cost of the top 3 Armies at Las Vegas Open

Las Vegas Open 2020 (LVO) was one of the last biggest events still running in US before the total lockdown so it seems appropriate to start our analysis from the end. The lists and winners are available thanks to Beast Coast Pairings.

1. Place: Slaanesh – £560.5

The winner of LVO 2020 was a Slaanesh list heavily relying on Keepers of Secrets. As all summoning armies, the cost of the entire army is difficult to calculate because if you want to have few choices available you need to have a considerable bench, but let’s start analysing the starting list and its cost.

The list included:

Syll’Esske
3 Keepers of Secrets
Sayl the Faithless & Nightmaw
3 units of 20 Chaos Maurauders
Fane of Slaanesh (scenery piece)

The total cost would be £409.5, however Sayl is a ForgeWorld model out of production and therefore its calculated price (£27) would be subject to the limited availability of the second-hand market.

In the final match the player summoned 2 units of Daemonettes, a Bladebringer on Exalted Chariot and an Infernal Enrapturess adding £101 to the cost for a total of £510.5.

Most likely the player had other units ready to be brought in but Daemonettes and Chariots are good summoning choices as are other Keeper of Secrets.

In this case some money can be saved with the Start Collecting! Daemons of Slaanesh containing 10 Daemonettes, a chariot with multiple assembly options and 5 Seekers. So, for 1 pound less you would have a unit more.

A second Start Collecting box would give you 5 more seekers, another chariot, or potentially two depending on which you prefer to assemble, and the second unit of Daemonettes at a discounted price.

£560.5 would give you the full starting Slaanesh list winning LVO 2020 plus 7 more summoning units.

2. Place: Fyreslayers – £472.5

The second place, losing to Slaanesh in the grand finale, was an army of Fyreslayers with no big monster.

The list was:

Runefather
Runemaster
Battlesmith
Runesmiter
Grimwrath Berzerker
2 units of 20 Hearthguard Berzerkers
1 unit of 10 Hearthguard Berzerkers
2 units of 5 Auric Hearthguard
Plus the Magmic Battleforge (the infamous pizza oven scenery).

The theme here is clearly a Lords of the Lodge battalion and the overall cost of the army would be £472.5.

The Runefather and the Runesmiter can only be found in the Start Collecting! Fyreslayers box where there are 3 different hero options, one mounted and two on foot.

The assumption here is that buying that set the Auric Runeson was mounted on the Magmadroth leaving the other 2 options to walk to the battlefield. Buying two sets separately would increase the cost of £60 but for this specific army would not be necessary.

The final cost of the second place Fyreslayers army is £472.5

3. Place: Skaven – £452.5

And for the third place we have a tide of Skaven…

The list contained:

Grey Seer on Screaming Bell
Grey Seer
Warlock Engineer
3 units of 20 Clanrats
1 unit of 40 Plague Monks
6 Stormfiends and
A Hell Pit Abomination.
As Endless Spells he had available Soulscream Bridge and Prismatic Palisade and we imagine Skaven Gnawholes were also used as scenery piece.

The total cost of the single pieces would total £460 but we need to make some considerations.

A Start Collecting! Skaven Pestilens set would provide the Screaming Bell and half of the Plague Monks required for £55 saving us £7.5.

A second set would give us the second half of Plague Monks and another Grey Seer but buying them individually would be cheaper (and we don’t need the rest of the box for this army).

The second consideration is that the Warlock Engineers are sold in pairs so technically its cost would be only £7.5 but in our calculations, we assume you buy every single model directly from the store as it is.

Finally, the Soulscream Bridge is an Endless Spell available in the Forbidden Power expansion containing 3 more spells and a scenery piece for £45 so the relative cost would be £11.25 instead of £45 (a fourth of the box).

Same applies for the Prismatic Palisade available in Malign Sorcery at the same cost with 11 other different spells (relative cost of £3.46).

To conclude the cost of this Skaven army would be £452.5, considering some items would allow you to have much more in stock.

Cost of the top 3 Armies at Call to Glory (CanCon)

CanCon 2020 was the biggest gaming convention in Australia this January. Hosted in Canberra, the Age of Sigmar tournament, Call to Glory, had more than 220 participants, becoming one of the biggest Age of Sigmar events in the world.

The full list with all details is available at Down Under Pairings.

1. Place: Tzeentch – £386.5

On the wave of the new Tzeentch battletome, the winner of CanCon 2020 is a Tzeentch player using the Eternal Conflagration coven and the Changehost battalion.

The list included:

Lord of Change, Fatemaster
Gaunt Summoner on Disc of Tzeentch
The Blue Scribes, Changecaster
The Changeling
10 Pink Horrors of Tzeentch
2 units of 3 Flamers of Tzeentch
2 units of 10 Brimstone Horrors of Tzeentch
Endless spells: Emerald Lifeswarm, Aethervoid Pendulum and Darkfire Daemonrift.

The overall cost would be £374 but the Start Collecting! Daemons of Tzeentch contains already the Changecaster, a unit of Flamers and a unit of Pink Horrors allowing us to save a bit.

Aethervoid Pendulum and Emerald Lifeswarm are in the same Malign Sorcery box setting the new total to £364 plus summoning.

Tzeentch can also summon different daemons, but in the final game only 10 Pink Horrors off the Gaunt Summoner was brought on the table for another £22.5 but we suppose many other units were available including most likely an Exalted Flamer to buff the Flamers units (also available from the Start Collecting box if the Herald is built instead of the Burning Chariot).

The cost includes also at least 20 Blue Horrors already in the Brimstone box set.

So, the total of this Tzeentch list would be £386.5 playing only with Horrors as summoning, but more summoning options may be needed.

2. Place: Ossiarch Bonereapers -£367.5

From one strong army to the other, this is also the one with the least number of models and one of the first podium for Ossiarch Bonereapers.

The bone boi list was:

Nagash
a Liege-Kavalos
3 units of Kavalos Deathriders (15, 5 and 5 models each).
In addition, Nagash had available the Bone-Tithe Shrieker and the Emerald Lifeswarm Endless Spells.
And of course, the Bone-Tithe Nexus.

Simple enough with no discounts available anywhere.

While it is not that easy to paint a big model like Nagash, the rest could be done in a painting marathon.

Total cost: £367.5

3. Place: Fyreslayers – £445

Finally, for the third place we have the Fyreslayers. Another Lords of the Lodge army means no Magmadroth even in this case.

The army was composed of:

Runemaster
Runefather
Runesmiter
Battlesmith
3 units of 5 Auric Hearthguards
2 units of 20 Hearthguard Berzerkers
A Runic Fyrewall
Fyreslayer terrain

Same considerations apply here as with the other Fyreslayers army:

Runefather and Runesmiter can only be found in the Start Collecting! Fyreslayers box and can be assembled on foot if the Runeson is assembled on Magmadroth so our assumption is that one set is more than enough.

You will need however 11 (!) Hearthguard kits complemented with the Magmic Invocations.

A total of £445

Cost of the top 3 Armies at the Norwegian Masters

The Norwegian Age of Sigmar Masters is the top competition in Norway played by the 14 best-ranked players to crown the champion.

The full ranking with all lists is available at Tabletop.to.

1. Place: Flesh-Eater Courts – £265

In the first place we find a Flesh-Eater Courts army that was missing from some time.

This is a classic Gristlegore Courts using a Ghoul patrol battalion and fields:

Abhorrant Archregent
2 Ghoul Kings on Terrorgheist
A Crypt Ghast Courtier
50 Crypt Ghouls (divided in 30, 10 and 10).
As endless spells he had available Cadaverous Barricade, Chalice of Ushoran and Prismatic Palisade plus
A Charnel Throne.

Normally this army would cost £305 but the presence of the Start Collecting! Flesh-Eater Courts box makes it even cheaper.

The 2 Terrorgheist and 20 Ghouls can be found in this box lowering the cost to £290.

Two of the Endless Spells are also found in the faction-specific endless spell box and the Crypt Ghouls are sold 20 per set. From the second set you can then obtain the Crypt Ghast Courtier and an extra 9 Ghouls.

Archregent and Ghoul Kings allow summoning but the assumption here is that we can use the 6 “Knights” available in start collecting mentioned above for 0 extra cost.

Alternatively, 3 Crypt Horrors or Flayers are worth £30 more and 20 Ghouls an extra £25.

Assuming the bare minimum required and with the newly available Archregent, the total number of boxes needed is then 8 (including Malign Sorcery and Charnel Throne):

A total of £265, one of the cheapest armies and a winner too!

2. Place: Fyreslayers – £397.5

Second place once again for a Lords of the Lodge list of the Fyreslayers with the difference that we finally see a Magmadroth fielded.

This army presents a

Runefather on Magmadroth
Runemaster
Runesmiter
Battlesmith
2 units of 20 Hearthguard Berzerkers
2 units of 10 Vulkite Berzerkers
Plus a Runic Fyrewall.

The overall cost would be around £492.5 in line with the other lists seen, but once again the Start Collecting! Fyreslayers provides us invaluable savings allowing us to get the Runefather, the Runesmiter and 10 Vulkite for 60£.

Assuming the presence of the Magmic Battleforge the total is then £397.5, a bit lower than the other Fyreslayers list analysed so far.

3. Place: Legions of Nagash – £366.5

On the third place we found another of the big contenders a year or more ago and slowly relegated to a niche side of the meta: Legions of Nagash, in particular Legion of Blood.

The army was composed of:

Neferata,
Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon
Necromancer
40 Skeleton Warriors with Blades
2 units of 5 Dire Wolves,
10 Blood Knights
Corpse Cart with Unholy Lodestonea
A Balewind Vortex and a Penumbral Engine.

This army has the greatest cost in the Blood Knights (worth by themselves £123), the rest is difficult to find on retailer stores and direct order from Games Workshop would be your only option.

A Start Collecting! Skeleton Horde gives you a Mortarch, in this case Neferata, and 10 Skeleton Warriors for £55 saving you some quids. The Dire Wolves are already in boxes of 10 so you need only one.

The Penumbral Engine is in the Forbidden Power expansion, a bit pricy box (£55) for a scenery worth 100 points that gives you 50% chance of a free command point per turn (with 33% chances to change behaviour every turn). The Balewind Vortex is no more available online, therefore you will need to scrap your favourite retailers or chase the second-hand market.

The total then comes to £366.5, mostly to be purchased directly from GW.

The cost of the top 10 Warhammer Armies at the major tournaments

Below you can find a summary table of all top 10 positions in the tournaments analysed.

For position 4 to 10 only the cost of the starting army was included. Summoning for the top 3 armies would be an extra cost mentioned in the notes when we talk about the specific army above.

Position in tournament	Tournament	# models	Total cost in £	Faction

A summary on the findings from the different army costs

To summarize, to do well in a tournament in 2020 the cost can really vary from the £550 of a Daughters of Khaine army, to the £210 of an Ogor Mawtribe.

On average the cost would be around £350 for around 56 models.

Armies like Slaanesh and Tzeentch have summoning to consider in their hidden costs, and Sylvaneth has Wyldwoods that can spike up their overall cost.

Tzeentch also has one of the cheapest most effective units in the game: the Flamers at £17.5 included also in the start collecting box.

Another popular option is the Knight-Incantor (can be found as cheap as £5) with Everblaze Comet (£20 for Stormcast Eternals Endless Spells).

Another incentive are the Start Collecting boxes, but not many are available for the armies in the top 10 and almost none has all models included relevant in the top tournaments.

The best Start Collecting Box would be Deamons of Tzeentch, the worst one probably Fyreslayers, especially if only the foot heroes are extracted from the box (£60 for 2 small foot heroes).

The smallest number of models can be found in the old Beastclaw Raiders, becoming once again devastating with the new Ogor battletome.

The highest number of models would be in a Skaven army, Cities of Sigmar following soon after. Endless spells can also inflate some numbers, but they can be recycled across several armies.