Quote Originally Posted by Callos_DeTerran View Post
This is gonna sound like a bizarre question, but it's almost entirely for Tyranid players, but what's a decent cheap (model wise) army that can be assembled? I'd like to start playing this but my money is...limited at best so I want to make what I get count.
Well, vanilla Space Marines have lots of plastic models, which are far cheaper than metal models; on the other hand, there are approximately 7 billion Space Marine players so you might want to avoid them. Space Marines also get tons of battleforce type sets with lots of models discounted.

Daemonhunters can get away with perhaps the fewest models, but those models will cost you an arm and a leg, since they're all metal.

Cadian-styled Imperial Guard will give you lots of models relatively cheaply, but you also need lots of models to play. They have a good amount of plastic, and though commanders and the like are metal, you can fairly easily convert plastic models to represent them instead (although I was helped by the Forge World upgrade parts, and converting commanders otherwise would be a pain).

The Tau Empire and the Tyranids both have a combination of metal and plastic sets, and the Tau would probably be cheaper because you need a lot of Tyranid models. On the other hand, you could save on your HQ choice for the Nids, thanks to the Broodlord.

Orks also need a lot of models, and they have quite a bit of metal spread about their ranks, but the standard Boyz are plastic. Also note that the new starter box set gives you a bunch of cheap Orks if you can find a Marine player to take the Marine bits.

Those are the armies that come to mind, but somebody will probably point out some cheap army that I've missed. Don't touch Daemons, Witch Hunters, or Dark Eldar, because they all ask for lots and lots of metal models.