Where Oh Where Can My Baby Be ...

I had, at one point, a Tau battle force box floating around somewhere from 4th ed. It has since disappeared. I doubt I'd be able to salvage the whole box anyway since I had at one point been working on it, but it'd be nice to be able to get something out of it. Getting this army off the ground is going to be expensive enough as it is.

Lemme break down the costs I'm staring at:

Battle Force Box: $120
Full blend for primary color (White): $22.20
Full blend for secondary color
    (Grey, Blue/Black, or Black, haven't decided): $18.50
Full Blend for tertiary color (Blue): $22.20
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Paint cost so far: ~$60.

Add in metals: $18.50
Add in secondary leather/cloth: $18:50
Add in textured base paint (mountain snow): $3.70

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Total cost for paints: $99.90 - call it $100 since it'll definitely be that after taxes.

Also need brushes - brush set runs $60.15 from Citadel. Probably can find something cheaper, but GW is kind of like Apple - things run better when you keep it all the same product line.

Ok, just about done. What else? Mm. I have an X-acto knife, and I can pick up a clipper tool from Home Depot for cheap. Glue, need glue. GW Glue for plastic runs ... $6.60. I'd probably get the thin version with the applicator nozzle for convenience. I can get Gorilla Superglue (which bonds to metal as well as plastic) for $5.97 from Home Depot ... yeah, let's do that.

Oh! Let's not forget the main book and Codex. Don't want or need the base set since I have no interest in marines (regular or chaos variety):

40k Rule Book: $74.25, $64.95 on Amazon.
Tau Codex: $49.50, no real discount (new release).

Ok, tallied up thats:

$120 for the Battle Force.
$100 for paints.
$60 for brushes.
$65 for main book.
$50 for Codex.
$6 for glue.

$401 for a 500 point army.

Now, I could easily drop the cost of the paints from ~$100 if I took short cuts and didn't do a full five or six step set up for each color. The thing is, I've been cutting corners for a long time and I'd like to do this right. If I kept to three steps only (base, color, highlight) for the primary three colors and even less for the alternative/metal colors I could probably drop that down to about $50 for the paints. Still, that'd be $350 for a 500pt army. 40k is NOT a cheap hobby.