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Hey guys,

I have interesting feelings about my first army (Blood Ravens)... I'm kind of ashamed of them tbh.

I bought them with no understanding of the game, and there're a lot of units I'll never use... some of them are poorly assembled, some of the painting is TERRIBLE and agh, I *really work hard* on my Imperial Guard and then when I glance over to the SM I'm filled with raaage at myself

I was wondering if anyone else has any similar feelings toward their botched childhood 40k attempts?

How did you resolve those problems?

I mean, in my case, I LOVE Space Marines in the fluff and I think they play well... I'd just murder for a CSM or Dark Angels Army but I feel like I've already made too large an investment.

Would you guys recommend cutting my losses and just heading for e-bay? Retaining a few salvageable models to strip paint from?

Ofc that shan't be on my mind for another 10 years or so, since that's how long it's gonna take me to finish my Guard!

You can always give them the Emperor's Peace (by way of a bath in some simple green) and repaint them.

If you do it a unit at a time, it's a manageable project.

I still have the first few ork units I did-- an ugly as sin deff dred and a looted Leman Russ.

I started out with SM (as you do); I quickly decided on SW for my colour scheme, collected about 1000p, then they released codex SW back in 3rd. My two squads of scouts, and squad of scout bikers quickly became a hassle.

I turned to painting a horrible green / camo colour scheme over the top of the grey. Then they sat in the cupboard, where I didn't unearth them for about a decade. A few quick metho washes later, and most of them have found a new life as vanilla SM scout army. I've sinced played a few games with them; none successful but I am no longer ashamed of them.

I like to think they never spawned into a 'proper' army until now; and hence my first 'real' army was an Alaitoc craftworld one (which I am proud of).

My first army was an Ork army for 1st edition epic (I know, I'm showing my age ) and was a classic example of why you should never do anything other than what you really want to do in wargaming.

I've made a career of it...

I only picked them because I was introduced to epic by two guys, one with SM and one with Eldar. At the time, Orks were the only other army (seriously ) so I picked them, even though I preferred the look of the eldar.

I then spent 2 years getting roundly trounced by marines (and as I learnt later the fact that my 'friend' was blatantly cheating the whole time) and sold them when 2nd edition epic came out. This was a bad move as well, as Orks got a lot better...

Anyhoo, moral of the story is make sure you only get what you really, really want and you'll always feel good about your first choice.

My eldar army... I love the eldar, but I hate my army. How it is painted. I can't make myself paint it again, as I have too much work with my other armies... Where should I find the time?

Maybe I should just bath them and start again...

My Templars were really poorly painted before, but now they're starting to look pretty decent (repainting). Something that still bugs me though is that I started my army before the Crusader Squad box was released, so my army lacks a lot of "Templar flava' ". I have used green stuff for chains and such, but I still haven't begun making tabards.

I started in middle school with ultramarines. My first few models were downright fugly, but by the time I quit in 9th grade I had amassed about 1800 points (of which about 1200 was assembled and painted).

Fast forward a decade and I've gotten back into the hobby hard-core. But, like you I already had a pretty sizable investment in my original army, so I've stuck with it and added about 1200 more points (in addition to assembling and painting the old unfinished minis.

Luckily, by the time I had quit the first time, my painting skills had improved significantly, such that most of my old minis don't look too bad next to my new ones. Though I did strip and disassemble my terrible terminators (I have rebuilt them... stronger).

I recommend either paint stripping, or cleaning them up if there are some that are salvageable.

Well one of my guys holds a bolt pistol as if it's a bolter and another has two bolters in a dual-wield style... eurgh...

I love my Tau. I occasionally dig them out and re-do units and the paint jobs. Still having a hard time getting them working in 5th ed though. The local GW only has 4 x 4 boards so you just can't get away from flocks of pesky Blood Angels that swarm the place...I swear, the other week there were five blood Angel armies and muggins, sitting playing Grey Knights (yeah, I'm a masochist) with each of them swearing up and down that they'd been playing/had Blood Angels for ages they just didn't like the old rules.

Since im still working on my first army i quite like it

My first army was Space Wolves.
Started with the 2nd edition starter pack and Bjorn the Fell handed. The old starter pack models are now just cannon fodder models for apocalyspe, but Bjorn has been stripped and repainted at least 7 times. The current incarnation looks pretty good IMO, fully magnetized, and soonish I'll buy a "new" plastic dreadnought kit to get more arm options for him.

my frist army was tyranids. i loved them with their old codex+4th edition. i lost interest in them in 5th edition. I played swarm and was over whelmed by the number of models i had so most of them never got painted. 3k pts of them are sitting in the drawer next to me, awaiting the return of the dakka fex

My first army was 3rd edition Tau, back in 2004-ish, and I'm actually really proud of the units that are actually painted, though I wish I'd painted the others which are still just primed.

I'm less proud of the first space marines I painted when I decided to start a second army, they're the basic ones you got in the old starter paint set, and had a pretty basic colour scheme on them that revolved around the five colours you got in the set.

At some point I'll likely go back and re-paint them in my new chapter colours, as I do still like the look of the classic minis.

I liked my 1st Guard army. Then I sold them to buy a friends necron army. Then I wanted my guard back, so I started again! I'm now at 2000 points for each army and have started a chaos army (i love buying cheap stuff from friends, especially when it's nice and cheap).

First army was ultramarines. Even painted them with Ultramarine paint. I bought every unit I could, predators, scouts, dreadnoughts, tons of troops, all without really looking at the codex to set them up properly points wise.

I burned out on marines in general and they've been collecting dust. I gave away the nids that came with the Battle for Mcragge set I'd bought and now the SM units I have left are up for trade.

Love the hobby but still feel the sting of spending all that cash on units that in the end I don't use.

Still on my first army five years later. Luckily I had been painting a long time before I started it. Of course it probably shouldn't take five years to hit 1700 points, but I tend to treat most models like a center piece. It is a lot easier to find painting time than playing time. But I sure was dying to try a second army.

Luckily I got married a few years ago and got my wife interested in Orks, but she isn't as much into painting as I am. Now I have two armies.

I started an Ultramarines army when I was 13, since my favorite color was blue. This was before I actually even started playing 40k, and they were used for a homebrew system. Most of them were Ultramarines Blue drybrushed over black, with splatterings of Scab Red and Chainmail here and there. You can bet I was proud of them at the time though! Once I was 15 I started playing 40k "proppa" and started up a Dark Angels army.

Fast forward a few years, I'm 19 and the new Blood Angels codex is out. I figured I may as well try my hand at a Flesh Tearers army, since they look pretty badass. I dug up a bunch of my old Ultras and they should be tearing flesh before you know it...

Brother SRM wrote:I started an Ultramarines army when I was 13, since my favorite color was blue. This was before I actually even started playing 40k, and they were used for a homebrew system. Most of them were Ultramarines Blue drybrushed over black, with splatterings of Scab Red and Chainmail here and there. You can bet I was proud of them at the time though! Once I was 15 I started playing 40k "proppa" and started up a Dark Angels army.

Fast forward a few years, I'm 19 and the new Blood Angels codex is out. I figured I may as well try my hand at a Flesh Tearers army, since they look pretty badass. I dug up a bunch of my old Ultras and they should be tearing flesh before you know it...

Good luck with that

I find myself flirting with the Dark Angels... but I have no idea how they play and I can't get my hands on a .pdf, pretty badass fluff though, might even persuade me to recolour the Blood Ravens and use them as a codex army!

Pluss green stuff'ing robes sounds fun.

Dark Angels play like any codex army, because the Dark Angels codex is terrible. Less options, higher points cost, and often inferior wargear. Unless you want to run Deathwing, it's not worth it. The DA veteran sprues are awesome though.

i feel the same way. my first army was CSM and i had no real knowledge of them. With the huge amount of options that come with CSM. i can't help but feel angy looking at my old, mould-line covered, poorly painted units. But i come across the same feeling that i put in to large of an investment, and to simply start over would seem like a waste.

I miss my first army.

My poor Emperors Children, somewhere in the states. I just hope they haven't all broke,

My 1st army was the Orks but I didn't start until 5th edition was out. I hated bikes, battlewagons, and loota boyz but loved Zzap guns, Big Meks with SAG, Burna boyz, etc. Regardless to say my army kept getting crushed and I when I figured out how much it would cost me to "update" them, I decided to call it quits and just go with an other army I picked up along the way (Necron!).

I want to repaint my SW but all tips on how to strip the paint doesn't work as well as I would like it...so for the time being I am trying to find another way to make them likable.

Shame.

Technically my first army is Eldar. Which I only bought because one of the "helpful" guys at the FLGS said they were awesome, but no one there played them. I went back the next day to watch some games, turns out he was the ass of the FLGS, and just wanted someone to play Eldar so he could beat up on them as well, thus completing his "I can smash every army!" tour with his CSM Lash spam list.

I hadn't even cut them off the sprue yet, and I shelved them. Switched to 'Nids, built and painted them, got a few good thrashings in with them, then the new codex came out. Shelved 'em.

Now I'm almost done with my Daemonhunters, and I'm about to shelve them until the new codex hopefully this year.

Now I'm working on a Raven Guard successor DIY. Curse my army ADD.

My first army is still my main army I have been adding to over the years 8000+ pts of marines. The ones nearer the beginning are pretty terribly painted. I sometimes wonder of paint stripping them all, but the prospect of repainting close to 200 marines + vehicles is not a happy one.

My 1st army is still my current army after a year of playing! My Orks are coming along nicely and will soon hit the 2500pt mark! Let the Waaagh Continue!

The very early generation Kommodos were absolutely shocking. Who knew you had to cut the grips off of bolters?
The silver chest eagles and attempts at weathering them also went horribly wrong now I look back. Later generation (especially the final squad) look half decent, but I'd probably want to repaint them if I ever use them again.

What is truly shameful was the fluff I wrote for them. Own up, who else wrote a story where the Emperor got directly involved?

Back around the turn of the century, when I was in middle school, my mos boyfriend and his son started to collect 40k. One was Dark Eldar, and the other was Space Marines. I though it looked cool, and wanted to give it a try. So my mom and I went out to the local GW, and I picked up some Catachan's(thinking I wanted to have a lot of humans on the table kicking everyones butts!). Well I assembled my Chimera, captain, and 30 guardsmen, and started to paint them, had 10 guys (badly) painted, and then we ran out of primer. My mom never bought me any, and her boyfriend and son kind of stopped getting into it. So I didn't really have any materials to finish painting them. And as such they kind of fell into hiding in my closet for years. Recently, some of my friends expressed interest in starting to play, or getting back into it. Then we all decided to start building armies. I now have started to build Orks, and have played a few games, and I love it. I am so glad I got back into the hobby, although I don't like how much it's cost me, over $700 in three months(including Black Reach starter set, hard cover rulebook, a box of Nobz, Boys, Chaos Marines for conversions to 'Ard Boys, Deff Dread, Killa Kanz, subscription to White Dwarf, and hobby supplies)

I still own my first army (Eldar) and play it from time to time. I bought pretty broadly, so lots of options and definitely a keeper. It's got great, classic sculpts, and will, one day, be repainted for consistency.

My first army was Tau - I didn't know anything about the game when I started collecting them, and I'd have preferred if I hadn't picked them. Potent in the hands of a good player, but assaulting is more fun.