Giving Old Greenskins a Second Life
There’s something in this hobby that just hits differently when it comes from the second-hand market. We’ve talked about it a lot lately, and Michał put it perfectly: buying old used models and giving them a second life is just fun. Not only practical, not only cheaper sometimes — just genuinely satisfying.
For us, that’s a very different feeling than 3D printing. Printing has its place, sure, but it doesn’t give the same buzz as digging through old collections, finding weird forgotten minis, hunting for bits, and then turning all that into something new with a bit of cleaning, kitbashing, and paint.
Michał is fully leaning into that vibe right now. The plan is to order some bits from Patryk, do some kitbashing, and build new models the fun way — out of old parts, odd finds, and hobby optimism.
And because this is how these things always go, the moment second-hand Orcs and Goblins came up, Staś immediately went: if you see any orcs, let me know. Fair enough. Once you start looking at old Warhammer lots, greenskins show up everywhere.
Apparently sometimes in truly unreasonable quantities.
Recently there were even 5000 Night Goblins.
That is the kind of sentence that only makes sense in this hobby.
The kind of listing that makes you stop scrolling
Then Michał found one of those offers that instantly makes the group chat more dangerous for everyone’s wallet:
Staś quickly calculated that he could build almost his whole 1250-point force out of it, which is exactly the sort of dangerous math we all do when looking at army lots.
But then came the other side of the hobby brain: yes, buying a ready-made painted force is tempting, but giving up the painting part would hurt a bit too. Even if — and this is a very relatable aside — nothing has actually been painted for three months.
Painted second-hand is not the end of the story
Of course, painted models don’t have to stay painted forever. Michał immediately dropped the practical hobby tech:
- 5 litres of IPA from Castorama cost 89 zł
- throw the minis into a jar for around 2 hours
- scrub them with a toothbrush
- job done
Honestly, this is part of the charm too. Old paintjobs are not an obstacle — they’re just another stage in the rescue mission.
Some listings really do feel like archaeological discoveries:
And yes, the offer had only appeared that day, which probably made it even more tempting.
The package arrived
Then came the best moment in every purchase story: parcel day.
Michał’s new package landed, and honestly, this is exactly the kind of hobby energy we love — fresh plastic or old models, doesn’t matter, as long as there’s something exciting to open and plans start forming immediately.
And maybe the most relatable line of the whole exchange: Michał is already at the stage where he just wants the tournament to be over so he can finally paint something other than dwarfs.
We know that feeling very well. Sometimes even a cool project starts making us dream about the next cool project.
So yes — second-hand hunting remains one of our favourite parts of the hobby. It’s part treasure hunt, part restoration project, part army building, and part excuse to send each other increasingly dangerous links. And if some old Orcs, Goblins, or random bits get a second life because of it, all the better.
That’s proper hobby joy.