What Are the Best Cthulhu Wars Miniatures to Collect First?
Start with the O4 Edition core box, then move to Great Old One Pack 1. The core box gives you 72 miniatures including 5 colossal Great Old One sculpts and the four base factions in one purchase, and Great Old One Pack 1 adds five more neutral colossal figures that work with any faction you already own. That order gets the most table presence and display value for the fewest separate purchases.
Everything past that point is about matching expansions to how you actually play. Below is the priority order most collectors land on, and why each tier earns its spot.
Why Start With the O4 Edition Core Box?
Because it's the only purchase that gets you a complete, playable collection on day one.
The O4 Edition ships with 72 detailed 28mm miniatures, including 5 colossal Great Old One sculpts, roughly two dozen cultist figures, and around three dozen monster units spread across four fully asymmetric factions: Great Cthulhu, the Crawling Chaos (Nyarlathotep), the Black Goat (Shub-Niggurath), and the Yellow Sign (Hastur). Every faction reads visually different from across a room, which matters as much for a shelf as it does for a game table. At $249.00, it's the single most efficient way to build a Cthulhu Wars collection, since every other expansion assumes you already own this box.
Skip straight to an expansion before owning the core, and you end up with beautiful miniatures that don't have a base game to plug into.
Which Great Old One Sculpt Should You Buy First?
Great Cthulhu. His sculpt is the one collectors photograph first out of the box, and it's the figure most players already recognize before they know a single rule.
That said, all four core Great Old Ones earn their place on a shelf. Nyarlathotep's Crawling Chaos sculpt reads alien and angular, a sharp contrast to Cthulhu's wet, tentacled mass. Shub-Niggurath's Black Goat figure carries the fertility-cult grotesque the mythos is known for, and Hastur's Yellow Sign sculpt has a brittle, decayed elegance none of the others share. If you're collecting for display rather than just for play, arrange all four together. The visual contrast between them is the whole point of owning the set.
Which Expansion Miniatures Are Worth Collecting Next?
Great Old One Pack 1 is the strongest second purchase, and it's not close.
For $39.99, the pack adds five colossal figures: Abhoth, Chaugnar Faugn, Cthugha, Mother Hydra, and Yig. None of them belong to a single faction. Each one is a neutral Great Old One that any faction at the table can recruit. No new player slot. No new rule set to memorize before your next game night. It just works with whatever core factions you already own. Five colossal sculpts for one purchase is the best miniature-per-dollar ratio in the whole Cthulhu Wars line, and that's why serious collectors treat this pack as the natural next step after the core box.
Compare that to a faction expansion, which adds one new playable faction and asks your whole group to learn it. Great Old One Pack 1 doesn't ask that much of anyone. You just get one more figure worth recruiting.
Should You Collect the Cosmic Terrors Miniatures Early?
Once you've got Great Old One Pack 1, yes. Cosmic Terrors ($29.99) introduces a different unit class entirely: Terrors, not Great Old Ones. The pack includes the Great Race of Yith, the massive Dhole, and Quachil Uttaus, the treader of the dust. Quachil Uttaus is also sold as a standalone blister ($8.99) if you just want that single sculpt without the other two.
These figures don't slot into the same recruitment logic as the Great Old Ones. They're their own category of unit with their own rules, which makes Cosmic Terrors a good third or fourth purchase: distinct enough to feel like new territory, small enough in price to be a low-risk way to try a mechanic that plays differently from anything in the core box.
Are Faction Expansions Like the Tcho-Tchos Worth Collecting Right Away?
Hold off until the base game feels comfortable. The Tcho-Tchos ($59.99) are their own human cultist faction, distinct in sculpt style from every core faction, and one of the best-selling expansions in the entire line despite being what the store itself calls the most controversial one. They don't field Hastur's forces or answer to the Yellow Sign. Their whole playstyle revolves around worshipping other players' Great Old Ones and interfering with someone else's plan rather than building toward their own gate count the way the core four do.
That interference-based design is genuinely fun once your group understands the core factions well enough to notice when a Tcho-Tcho player is quietly undermining them. As a first faction, it teaches the wrong lessons. As a fourth or fifth faction added to a group that already knows the base game, it's one of the most distinctive miniature sets Petersen Games makes. The companion Tcho-Tcho Tribes mini-expansion is worth adding once you commit to the faction, since it rounds out the unit options.
The same logic applies to The Sleeper, a separate expansion faction built around Tsathoggua, the God of Entropy. It's a different sculpt line entirely from Great Cthulhu and worth chasing once you're deep enough into the collection to want a faction with an entirely new visual identity.
How Should You Build a Cthulhu Wars Miniature Collection?
In order, most collectors build their shelf this way:
- 1. O4 Edition core box ($249.00): 72 miniatures, 5 colossal Great Old Ones, four playable factions. The non-negotiable starting point.
- 2. Great Old One Pack 1 ($39.99): Five neutral colossal sculpts, works with any faction you already own.
- 3. Cosmic Terrors ($29.99): A new unit class (Terrors), including Quachil Uttaus, the Great Race of Yith, and the Dhole.
- 4. A faction expansion that matches your group's taste (the Tcho-Tchos, The Sleeper, or another), once the core factions feel familiar.
Nothing here says you can't skip ahead. If a specific expansion sculpt is the one that made you want to collect Cthulhu Wars in the first place, buy it. This order just reflects what gives most collectors the most table presence and playable variety for the money, in the sequence that avoids owning miniatures with nothing to plug them into.
Where Cthulhu Wars Fits in the Wider Miniature Hobby
Cthulhu Wars sits in the same conversation as premium miniature wargaming lines, where 28mm has long been the collector's scale of choice, detailed enough for careful paint work and large enough to read across a full table. The colossal Great Old One sculpts break that scale on purpose, since these are meant to feel like environmental threats, not standard troop figures. The Cthulhu Mythos, the shared fictional universe the entities are drawn from, is public domain source material; Petersen Games owns the specific designs, sculpts, and game systems built from it, not the underlying mythos itself.
The game's own BoardGameGeek listing is worth a look before you buy your first expansion. Years of collector photos and painted-miniature threads there give a real sense of how each faction and Great Old One looks once it's off the sprue and on a table, which is useful context no product photo fully captures.
Ready to Start Collecting?
Everything above starts with one purchase: the Cthulhu Wars O4 Edition, the current definitive version of the base game and the only miniature purchase you need to make before any expansion decision matters.
From there, browse the full Cthulhu Wars collection to see every Great Old One pack, faction expansion, and Terror miniature currently available, and build your shelf in the order that fits your group.
FAQ: Building a Cthulhu Wars Miniature Collection
What is the best Cthulhu Wars miniature to start collecting?
Great Cthulhu's colossal sculpt from the O4 Edition core box is the best starting point. It's the most recognizable Great Old One on the table, and you already own it the moment you buy the base game, so there's no separate purchase decision to make before you start displaying.
How many Great Old One miniatures come in Cthulhu Wars O4 Edition?
The O4 Edition core box includes 5 colossal Great Old One sculpts among its 72 total miniatures, alongside the faction cultists and monsters for Great Cthulhu, the Crawling Chaos, the Black Goat, and the Yellow Sign.
Should I buy Great Old One Pack 1 before a faction expansion?
For most collectors, yes. Great Old One Pack 1 ($39.99) adds five neutral colossal sculpts (Abhoth, Chaugnar Faugn, Cthugha, Mother Hydra, and Yig) that any faction can recruit, so it delivers the most new table presence per dollar and works with whatever factions you already own.
Is Quachil Uttaus a Great Old One?
No. Quachil Uttaus is a Terror, a separate unit type from the Great Old Ones. The miniature ships in the Cosmic Terrors pack ($29.99) alongside the Great Race of Yith and the Dhole, or as a standalone blister ($8.99).
Are the Tcho-Tchos miniatures worth collecting early?
They're worth collecting once you know the base game well, not as a first purchase. The Tcho-Tchos ($59.99) are their own human cultist faction with a distinct sculpt style, and their interference-based playstyle rewards players who already understand how the four core factions behave.
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