Vostoryan and Steel Legion. IG on a budget.

[Mr Mystery]

Yes. Really.

No. Not some third party 'counts as'.

Actual GW models, from out of off their website. Its true. Check it.

Vostoryans. £20.50 for 10, including Heavy Bolter Team

[url]http://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Vostroyan-Firstborn-Squad[/url]

Steel Legion. £20.50 for 10, including Missile Launcher Team

[url]http://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Steel-Legion-Squad[/url]

Cadian or Catachan? £18.00 for 10, no heavy weapons. Those are £9.50 each.

£7 cheaper to buy the metal/finecast squad (not sure what they're made of).

Bit of an oddity I though I'd point out.

Though has to be said, each plastic HW kit can yield three weapons as is (tripod, Mortar, Missile Launcher), so kind of possible to make the plastics the better value.

But for those on a strict budget, who can't be too bothered with converting, observation stands!

Odd huh?

[Patrick Boyle]

Ehh, the prices have been that way for ages, and this really being a great deal probably depends entirely on whether you want your infantry squads to be armed exactly like the SL minis come. If not, lets see....

Suppose you just want the one special weapon, no heavy, per squad. Suddenly that 10 man SL kit isn't really doing that great for you as you're already paying $6 more than for Cadian shock troops, with no options and 2 of your 8 men being unusable in your 10 man squad. To get 10 man sarge-special-lasguns squads out of the steel legion kits you're looking at buying 5 of the kits as they come which will result in four 10-man squads with a CCW+pistol sarge and grenade launcher, and 4 spare missile launcher teams, so 4 infantry squads, 1 heavy weapon squad and 1 stray heavy weapon team for $175.

$155 in Cadians gets you the same, minus the spare missile team, except rather than being limited to Grenade Launchers and missiles, you have all of the options, in multi-part pose-able plastic. Yeah, $20 bucks isn't a terrible difference, as long as you don't mind every squad being identical in pose and composition. If not you're looking at either time spent converting(and money on bits), or signficantly more money on the heavy weapon team and special weapon minis for your IG flavor of choice...assuming they even have a mini for which choice you want(no SL mini with a flamer or melta, for instance), if not you're right back to converting square one.

tl;dr Yeah, you're sort of right, if you want the one specific build for every squad presented in the metal 10 man kits.

[Ben_S]

Steel Legion. £20.50 for 10, including Missile Launcher Team

Cadian or Catachan? £18.00 for 10, no heavy weapons. Those are £9.50 each.

£7 cheaper to buy the metal/finecast squad (not sure what they're made of).

Not quite true, because you're comparing the cost of twelve plastic Cadians (£18+£9.50=£27.50) to the cost of only ten Steel Legion models. It does still work out as *slightly* more per model, but the small premium is probably worth it for the choice of weapons options - or indeed may be entirely eaten up if you buy the heavy weapon squad (three teams) and then use spare regular models to make six teams out of it.

[Katharon]

You also forget the fact that you can buy a 5-man box of lasgun totting Cadians for $10. If you buy two, you are buying an entire squad for $10 cheaper than the regular infantry squad box. Of course you are missing out on the extra options and the fact that the 5-man box is only one physical pose -- but if you need to buy a crap ton of Guardsmen, real fast, then they're perfect.

[Mr Mystery]

Very true that. Though you would need to sort out a Sergant model for each unit as well.

Though they fill in admirably as Conscripts.

And if I went Steel Legion, would also stand out as 'similar but different' enough.