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Among those who play multiple armies, I've seen two primary groups of people. First, the people who pick up one army, and move to another army with a completely opposite style and strategy. Myself, for example, I picked up orks and ran battlewagons with Ghaz, Snikrot, meganobz and Grotsnik. From there, I've begun a footdar wraith army.

The second group I've noticed tends to be set on a single playstyle. They might grab additional armies, but almost always play the exact same way regardless. My roommate, for example, who is huge on rushing everything in transports to close combat no matter what he plays, and sticks to wolves, CC marines, and grey knights.

Anyone feel this trend holds true, or is it just me? What do you play, and do you feel you fit either of these descriptions? What reason did you have for picking your additional armies?

One of our guys tries to play everything like Eldar, with hilarious results. It's kind of tragic sometimes.

I have IG, GK (started with DH), SM, and Nids.

I started with IG, I like GK because I feel like they play much differently (I play them like oldschool DH), I still don't understand SM, and I'm surprisingly good at Nids.

I consider myself versatile, and tend to play each army in the way that makes the most sense to me. My roommate went from Orks to CSM to IG to Blood Angels. He's now playing GK for his 1000 in the Adpeticon Team Tournament. Frankly, he's probably one of the best players I've seen as far as someone with the ability to just pick up an army and start playing, without much prior consideration.

I suffered from Shiny Model Syndrome in 2nd edition and played Tyranids, Orks and Chaos. I didn't get particularly far with any of them. So I now make myself stick to an army. For 3rd/4th edition it was Salamanders. I've had my fun with them, now they're in a box.

Now I'm going with Tyranids, and while I occasionally get the urge to dig out my Salamanders, fix them up and expand them, I won't let myself do it while my Tyranids are unfinished. When I hit about 3000-4000 points of Tyranids, I might have a go at fixing up my old Salamanders.

I stop myself from jumping armies by making myself only do it if I'm picking up a new game system. A new army is a big investment, so adding new rules, terrain and other bits on top is a good way to deter myself from jumping and stick to finishing an army.

The only real problem so far has been now that I've jumped to Infinity, a new army isn't an investment. I can spend $100au one week and have a whole new 'army'. This is going to take some serious self control.

The biggest thing I've found for sticking to an army is I can only paint what I enjoy aesthetically, and a lot of GW armies just don't do it for me. Salamanders have a visual style that other Space Marines don't that I like (the whole 'hand crafted wargear' approach). Vampire Counts are literally the only Fantasy army that I like the whole model range of. Haqqislam lack a lot of the anime vibe Infinity has (though that's starting to grow on me). Outside of these armies, I find it hard to stick to a project because I like playing with at least a mostly painted army, and 90% of GW's models simply aren't visually appealing enough to make me want to paint them.

I play two very different styles of armies. I play an infantry heavy necron army and a Draigowing army that at 2k points consists of 2x10 paladins, librarian, Draigo, and a dreadknight. Although both are foot slogging armies, they play very differently, with the necrons needing to use synergy with each other and the GKs having units that can operate very independently of each other.

For a while my main armies were Thousand Sons and White Scars, but honestly I played just about everything except Inquisitorial forces at one time or another.

I started with Daemons since I could really go nuts on conversions and painting. I figured it would be the easiest way to have loads of paint possibilities and therefor a chance to get back into it and improve my own skills!

Right when I got back into the hobby though, I knew Id pick up Crons once they got updated and thats what I did. So now, the CDs are basically my hobby and painting fix, while I game with the Crons as much as I can. It works well for me

My 40k armies - footslogging Orks, shooty Tau, old Necrons, CSM - had a pretty big variety in play style, although that wasn't my intention. I just liked those armies for their fluff/flavor.

However, once I started WHFB, i did take the "play opposites" approach. I started w/ Dwarfs and decided on DE to satisfy that "polar opposite" aspect. Ultimately, I'd sell my DE simply b/c I did not like their fluff/flavor. But while fluff/flavor is arguably most important to me, I still try to have as much variety as possible when determining what armies I play.

I play horde Nids hybrid IG and use to play logainwing SWs.

I kinda play what I like. I love tanks so obviously I had to get Imp Guard. but after really like the idea of the Catachans not being a tank heavy army I am rethinking them, luckily I have Cadians to make the tanks. And my 2 armies are different for sure.

Also have Black Templar, which is really different from IG for sure. Also thinking of picking up some Tau from my friend.

I think I just like collecting everything.

I play Orks mainly, with occasional games with Necrons and Tyranids. But I do have some Space Wolves/Space Marines.

Generally my play style is assault - Orks/Tyranids, and Space Wolves I guess.
I can't play defensive armies, I just suck at it, I have to charge in. And I can't win with Necrons at all, not even with the new Codex. Shooty just doesn't work for me so I stick to what I know and enjoy.

-Loki- wrote:... and 90% of GW's models simply aren't visually appealing enough to make me want to paint them.

LOL, I'm the opposite. There are lots of GW models that appeal and I have to keep stopping myself from starting another army which I probably won't play.

I have 4 40k armies.

Eldar and SM (oldest two armies, had them from the RT days - both have had additions over the years). My eldar is my lone CC army. Sure, SM can do it, but it's not the way I run mine.
Imperial Guard (work in progress now stopped because I've given up on 40k). Stand back and shoot the enemy to smithereens.
GK (started with the DH codex in 3rd ed). Have added a couple of models to it (two space-apes). Otherwise is as it was in 3rd-5th ed. GK and henchpeople. Move and shoot. Assault if I have to.

None of the other armies appealed - and when they did, they didn't appeal to me more than what I had (I have to get rid of an army to fit another one in due to space limits), so these are the 4 I'm staying with (should I ever get back into 40k maybe in 7th).

I also have 3 Infinity armies (PanO, Yu-jung and Aleph), one WHFB army (HE) and a random and motley collection of other minis accrued through the years.
The PanO are the shootists, the Yu-jing the CQB specialists (not necessarily CC, but close in shooting as well). The Aleph are the bots. My WHFB are High elves. Magic and shooting. And a defensive CC army (come charge my spearmen!)

If I was starting now, I wouldn't have ANY of the 40k or fantasy armies. GW have priced themselves out of the hobby here and the other games are picking up the slack.
A number of former hard-line GW gamers have taken up infinity and spend around $300 a month on it. The difference is that in infinity, that gets them an army of up to 450-500pts (tournament is at most 300pts) as opposed to a box and a half of GW minis.

I'm a self-confessed magpie, having at least 3000 points of every 40K race, including multiple Marine armies. The downside is you become a jack of all trades, master of none. In my case, I'm equally rubbish whatever army I play, partly because I'm not really a gamer at heart and partly because I never spend enough time focussing on one particular army to the point where I am comfortable and knowledgeable enough to use it effectively.

I've never quite understood the people with several very similar armies.

I play:
CSM - Black Legion with a little bit of everything
Eldar - All holding up in their sturdy skimmers
Daemons - Khorne mono-god list, its really aweful
DE - Mostly in their flimsy transports with 1 or 2 foot squads
Tyranids - mega horde, only 1 MC, everything else in swarms.

The only thing that my lists have in common is that none of them are imperial

To be honest, if I was starting now, I Wouldn't have anywhere near as much as I do, GW price grumbling aside. It's only from 20 years or so of collecting and accruing, as well as various Ebay job lots over the years that I have the stuff that I do.

The 'hobby' for me is more about the painting and collecting, so as a result I'm playing with three different armies for 40K and 2 for fantasy. Which I will note that I'm not very good with any of them.

However this is more due to my lack of competitive streak when playing. I build theme armies, to WYSIWYG with an aim to be fully painted. The meta game, and swapping around my army list depending on who I face at this stage in my Hobby lifespan is something I don't concern myself with (Yet!).

I will say however that I'm having difficulty playing the correct style for the correct army.

I was actually sort of lamenting this last night. My Crimson Fists and Iron Warriors armies are both "Marines in Rhinos" and while I love painting Marines in different colors, I'm curious how much different I could really make another Marine army from that. I do have IG and Orks who play much different from my Marine armies though.

I started playign Chaos primarily because al my friend were playing marines, and i liked to more customisable look. I have always preferred a shooty army to a CC heavy army so i went with Iron Warriors.

Still wanting a "baddie" shooty army the obvious choice to me was Necrons. Where Chaos is infintiely diverse in the look of the armour, decoratiosn etc, necrons presented a strictly uniformed look that i liked.

havign gone from IW to Necrons i am slwoly reducing my shooting range though, maybe next i will try a more CC army......but i avoid marines liek the plague pretty much on principal (had a Crimson Fists army briefly that i used 3 times and didn't like playing).


Anyway, for it tends to be 2 criteria: Shooty and "Baddie"

Playing different armies with different aesthetics is enough for some. I tend to prefer different playstyles, which is why I've sold of my CSM (too similar to my SM), BA (see CSM), and soon, Wolves, once I paint them all. I currently run:

Guard (using modern tactics; the army is based around the MAGTAF, Marine Air-Ground Task Force philosophy)
SM (transports/Assault Marines/Land Speeders, oh my)
Deathwing (razor's edge)
Tyranids (gotta make creative use of buffs and such!)
Tau (...very hard to win with. Unit synergy is a must)

My original army was Tyranids, and I love them. I picked up Daemonhunters a few years back simply because I loved the Grey Knight Terminator model. Then I got a really damn good deal on a large force (for that codex) and kept 'em around. So I just play the armies I like, either visually or play style.

But I play them both about same, with mid-range firepower followed but devastating close combat.

My criteria is:
"Will it look good in a paint scheme/colour I've never really used before"
and
"Does it play like one of my existing armies?"

The latter is less important than the former but is still a factor. My current 40k armies are footslogging Space Wolves, Khorne Daemons, Orks and Farsight Tau. All have a different playstyle, though 3 of them lean towards HTH, all have somewhat different colour schemes (The Tau army was an excuse to do an Iron Man scheme )

My Warmahordes armies are all drastically different in playstyle and colour scheme. All were picked as a result. Khador, Retribution and Legion of Everblight. Khador was my first faction and have stuck with them since the beginning and have thus influenced what other factions I bought into. Ret mainly as no-one locally played them and they play very differently to other WM factions, plus, just like my Tau I wanted to try out the old "superhero scheme" on them. In this case Green Lantern.
Legion were, quite appropriately a case of, if I was going to flip games (to Hordes) I might was well completely flip the playstyle of the chosen "main" faction for that half of the game. Hence why we have the beatstick of Khador on one side and the fast but fragile LOE on the other.

Hmmm...

For 40k, I started with Tyranids. I played that as long as I won, casualties didn't matter. I buried my enemy under bodies.

Then, I changed to Dark Eldar. Fast Raiding fleet, still fairly close combat oriented. Doesn't take casualties well, but moves fast.

So, in 40k, I play two close combat armies of radically different flavors.

In fantasy, I started with Dwarves. Slow, shooty. I got sick of shooting.

So I switched to Lizardmen. Lots of big monster, cavalry, skirmishers. It was mostly invalidated when 8th hit, so I changed again, this time to a rolling anvil with lots of cheap harassment units and magic buffs.

Finally, I am adding an ogre army. It works similar to my lizards, but trades the skirmishers for a faster anvil.

I started out 40k with Eldar since I really loved their fluff, though being around in middle school and not having any experience before on putting together lil models like that, the guardians really killed me with their split legs..

So I left those for a bit and went over to chaos, mainly because of the betrayed and wanting revenge aspect to them instead of just the evil space villan thing. I went around for colors and making up my own fluff for them til i finally have settled on a color scheme for them (possibly ).

While having fun converting up my chaos, I've been building up a lil tau force, just a couple squads and battle suit to mix things up a bit.

And more recently, I've been working again on Eldar, finishing those evil old guardians and much more pleasing to build newer kits.

for Fantasy, I had picked up a set of Brettonian knights to paint for fun, and I've got a unit of cold one knights and Spearmen for the Dark Elves for a kind of Malus Darkblade tribute.

Mostly I just pick up what I like, and occasionally do something odd like a play on four gamers.

Currently I have two Ork forces, Deathskulls based on a solid mix of units, flying in the face of you must follow a particular style for Orks. Also Bad moons which is basically a vehicle based rush army.

I also have Imperial Guard which is probably my all time fave 40K force. Only restarted with it six months ago, so its around 1500-1750pts, barely got going. Its content is based more on batleforces and what I've been given as gifts rather than a dedicated plan. It'll probably be a vehicle heavy gunline when I'm done.

Plan on doing a tale of two gamers with Aurelia later in the year with 6th edtion, where I will be hopefully taking on Dark Angels and it is likely in the long run I will add more Imperium themed forces to my line up.

Previously over the years, I have owned pretty much every army except Necrons, Daemons and Tyranids in 40K, and Tomb Kings, Wood Elves and Chaos Daemons in fantasy.
Due to boredom, money factors and general decesions to withdraw and re-enter different games, all of that is sadly long gone.

Well... I'm in the first group. My first army is Necrons... mostly shooty/defensive.
My second army is going to be different. Raven Guard and Salamanders appeal to me. But then again... I may just tackle Orks

I think you'll find as many reasons as you will people.

In 3e, I started with Nids because the models looked cool. At the time, though, I was the "every model has to be painted to showpiece quality" guy... So, I ditched them fast for Necrons because I thought they looked cool (I was new - give me a break LOL)
I played them a while, but they didn't really grab me. I got "new shiny" syndrome when Daemonhunters first came out and traded off the Necrons for DH... but they didn't really work for me, either.

In 4e, I met up with a new group of players who REALLY knew what they were doing and had a TON of armies. I swiftly realized that Chaos (in 4e - the previous codex) were the style I was looking for. I ditched the DH for CSM.

Next, I started collecting Space Marines (previous codex). I liked that I could tweak the army from what was book standard & shape it to what I liked. Lots of Devastators and bikes. Yum.

Eventually, the new Orks came out. I got ahold of the leaked pdf and thought they looked fun to play. I already liked the models. I also liked that they were a different kind of force than MEQ.

Same thing happened with Dark Eldar & the new codex. I'd always been interested, but didn't like the models. New codex, new models, new army for me. I also liked that these were, yet again, a new play style of army.

Now, I"m collecting Necrons. I like the versatility, in that they can be vehicle or infantry heavy and be competitive either way. While there are similarities in the stat line, this is a very different army than the ones I've got.

I still have all my other armies (CSM, SM, Orks & DE). Only the CSM and SM don't see regular play, as I'm not fond of the codices (Marines is okay, but doesn't inspire me).

Eric

I have a ton of different fantasy armies simply because Mantic has made it so cheap.

I have literally bought their models for 25p each at times.

As I stated before, I began with orks. I got into them because, hey, orks. I love the comedic yet ruthless feel, and the real versatility. You can be a sneaky git or come stompin' up front to krump them head on. I love converting, too. Orks just have it all and will always be a favourite. Eldar have helped me develop my painting skills. They were a challenge, and I love the harlequin models. The wraith units have a great flavour, and the change in playstyle was a fun challenge as well. I like fielding armies in unconventional ways.

I'm debating picking up Tau to try a completely shooty army, and to try new paint schemes again. My armies are done mostly with washes because it produces a fairly realistic colouration. I'd love to do cell-shaded tau, though.

I'm in both camps, I do have quite a few armies that play in a very similar style. I do find though, that when I buy an army to fit a group of minis that I like I end up with a more interesting force. I am also more likely to keep coming back to it as it is more of a change and challenge. I suppose it depends how I'm feeling when writing the list or looking at the FW website

I pretty much go with an army I like the look of/like the fluff.

My armies and their current states of completion are in my sig.

I always seem to get drawn back to daemons though, they are pretty fun.

I think the common factor between all my armies is that they work best on the offense, I really dont like defensivly played armies that castle up.

Ugavine wrote:

-Loki- wrote:... and 90% of GW's models simply aren't visually appealing enough to make me want to paint them.

LOL, I'm the opposite. There are lots of GW models that appeal and I have to keep stopping myself from starting another army which I probably won't play.

I didn't word that well.

There's lots of GW models I want to paint. Even that 10% I want to paint don't comprise just Tyranids, Vampire Counts and the Space Marine models I like. There's models in quite a few ranges that I want to paint. None enough to want to paint an army of them, which is what saves me from multiple armies.

Like, I really like some of the Tomb Kings constructs. But I don't like the TK basic skeletons (proportions are hideous). I like some of the Dwarf regiments, but the army itself is pretty boring. I adore the Beastmen infantry, but hate basically everything else in the Beastmen range. I like Imperial Guard tanks, but don't like any of GW's infantry (and FW'a fantastic infantry are thankfully too expensive).

The models I do like are the Tyranid range, most of the Vanilla Marine range, (there's a few models in there I don't like), the VC range and random models in other armies. Not enough that I'd want to paint entire armies of them, which stops me buying them. I'd say that comprises about 10% of GW's range.