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Never lost any of my stuff really, one or two thefts, but i got the stuff back or money to replace cost. It would suck, but it would give me the perfect freedom to never touch any of this stuff ever again. Heavily invested now, so much addiction..etc. If all was gone then I'd have no reason to keep at it.

Just thinking about it, and to be honest, it would be a huge weight lifted on my shoulders. Maybe its time to quit?

I'd be pretty pissed.

I got into this hobby with all my mates. They all gave it up almost simultaneously after I (the only one) read the rules properly and started pointing out that they dont get a save from this Ordnance PiePlate I just dropped etc. I had noone to play the games with, but I refused to sell off £100 of stuff because it cost me £100 (<-- small total, but this was 2009 crons Battleforce, Dex, Lith and Lord)

It was actually coincidence when I found a few of my other mates played the game. I gladly went along to what is now my FLGS, and I promptly took back to the game like fuel to a fire.

I have since spent the thick end of £1200 on various armies (expanding my Crons, started a Tau force, some Dark Elves, looking into Cryx).

Ive also spent roughly 3 months in assembly/painting time across my collection(s).

So, yes, I think it would be pretty bad.

Stuff is stuff and the loss of stuff is of no great concern to me.
The work I put in to my models was all part of the pass-time and for all intents and purposes already lost.
As long as I was returned the money that the models were worth, I'd be just fine with it.
Honestly, the only thing that could bother me about it, would be losing the actual value of the models.
Mostly because I plan on selling off my army when I'm done with this hobby and hoping to get a little bit of a profit from doing so.

My cat inadvertantly crashed my display shelf once, resulting in several hundred broken minis... it was nearly a year before I had the heart to actively paint anything again. Some were salvagable, some were just wrecked. The financial loss was nothing compared to the loss of hundreds... maybe thousands of hours I spent painting them over the years. So I'm definately in the "bad" camp.

 TheCaptain wrote:
Lose thousands of dollars worth of models?

Nah. Nah.

I would not be happy about that.

pretty much this, when I think about just how much I've spent on this hobby and if were to all go in a puff of smoke.....well I would really rustle my jimmies

I imagine for the first few weeks I just wouldnt have much of a will to rebuild but I guess that after a while I would pick 2 armies (fantasy and 40K) and just get back to work rebuilding :/

Well, I'd not be the happiest person on the planet for sure. I'm rather like most other folks here in that I've taken the time to paint three armies, done conversions, tracked down the models I wanted and taken the time to store them well.

That being said, while I'd be pissed and somewhat sad, my natural inclination to be awesome would take over and I'd move on. That would basically entail some pretty detailed planning and painting of a new project of some sort.

Losing the stuff would be a disappointment, for sure. But, I'm primarily a hobbyist. I'd start a new project. It may be GW and it may be something else, but life would go on. Realisticallly, I'd probably find the loss of my paints and Ottlite the hardest to deal with.

Extremely depressed, I would start over with a new army most likely but it would take a bit. Just thinking about it makes me all hollow inside. thanks a lot now im gunna have nightmares

If you are looking for freedom to start something new, then you just need to understand sunken cost fallacy. You already have the freedom. Just start the new thing.

But I don't want to lose my stuff to start something new. I'm amazed at people who can trade/sell/or get rid of things all the time. I know a lot of them do it mainly for financial reasons. But I'm a collector, and keep my toys. I don't sell or get rid of any of my models and would be incredibly crushed to lose them. I've been buying and collecting since 1979 - so I have a LOT of stuff. That would be a lot of stuff to replace. I also get out old armies from time to time to play them (and admit it is sometimes fun to see some people's faces when they see some of my older stuff). I have been buying figs for lots of different games for many years. I will admit to not getting into all of the systems I would like, because eventually money for the bills and family come before my toys - but I have been able to experiment with all of the rules that I truly got the motivation to play (and the armies to go with them).

Now there have been may times in my life when I went a long time with no real gaming - either work, having a baby (now 2), traveling, etc. These do tend to be temporary- months, and not years like several people on these forums. But a lot of gamers have a trend - discover gaming as a kid, leave when you find uni or girls (and beer), come back for a while when you get a job, leave again when you get married/kids, come back. Like MAd4Minis above, almost all of them have a story about their first stuff. And most of them are talked about with regret.

So no - I'd hate to lose it all. But I can get that feeling of freedom by just deciding to start something new.

Given the amount of time and effort I've put into my army, I'd be pretty damn devastated if I lost it, even if I was compensated for it. That won't give me back the time, or the effort, that I put into my little plastic man-dollies. Not just painting, but customising, converting, sculpting, magnetising, all that. Also the plotting, planning, consideration, the individual characters and backstory I've developed for my army.

I got into this hobby for the backstory of the Sons and the 40k fluff in general. I have absolutely no interest in other systems, and very little interest in other armies in 40k, so losing the army I have now wouldn't give me any sort of sense of freedom or fresh start at all.

I'd be pretty annoyed, but I'd really only miss a few rare/nostalgic mini's I've got, the rest is just stuff and replaceable. Of course it helps that 90% of it isn't yet painted.

And since I've got so many sets from so many random half-finished projects, I probably wouldn't bother replacing most anyway. It'd be a good excuse to refocus my collecting obsession.

If I lost my undead or space wolves, I'd be really upset as I've been using those constantly for the last 20 years and they are MY armies, especially now the models are long superseded.

Everything else could go and be replaced, no problem.

I would be pretty annoyed at the amount of money I had lost in those models as opposed to the physical models.

If I was given money to replace them, say through insurance, then I would happily treat it as fresh start and start again.

No. No no no nonononononoooooooooooo. This would be unimaginably bad.

For a start there is the shear amount of funds that have been placed into this. My forces have been collected over roughly 10 years. They have totalled out to a lot. I do not have a lot of money and as such even rebuilding my precious Skaven would take years. Then there is the hours i spend on them. To give you an idea of time spent on some i have so far clocked in at around 10 hours with my Witch Coven of Garlghast and i still have much to do. This is because i put such details into my models that re doing them could take years. The only force that i could really have any hope of rebuilding soon ( I.E. within a year) is my cryx and that would take time. So no whilst it would be no where near in any stretch of the imagination as bad as loosing my family, friends or loved ones it would still be a big no no.

Besides rumor has it that whilst you still have minis to paint you are imortal. But should at any point you run out then you will either become a Brony(shudder) or a Furrie(Dear sweet Lilith no!)

Yeah maybe... I was thinking about this the other day. I have stuff that I bought 16 years ago that I still haven't gotten around to painting. It just keeps mounting up. I could probably build a whole bunch of armies out of stuff that I haven't even assembled.

On one hand it's cool because I've got more than enough to be getting on with for the foreseeable future. On the other hand it can start to feel like a chore when you think about how much you still have to do. At the back of my mind I always feel like there is something unfinished. Then when I think that I've been carrying that feeling around for 16 years... I start to wonder what it would feel like just to not have that. Maybe it would be really liberating.

I guess it's like the saying in Fight Club: "The things you own end up owning you".

The exception would be my boxed miniature games. Things like Space Hulk and Fantasy Flight games SDE. Those games are satisfying in their own right. Painted/unpainted doesn't matter. I would be gutted if I lost those.

I wouldn't care too much. I would be sad that 'some' stuff I painted was lost but at the end of the day, I would just do something else with my time. I wouldn't get back into it.

I would be absolutley gutted. Not because I spend thousands of pounds on my minis or I'm materialistic, but because my army has a lot of sentimental value; I have had good times building and painting it, I am proud of how hard I worked on it, I have won painting competitions with my army, played at tournies with my army and also made plenty of friends through the hobby as well.

 itsacoyote wrote:
Just last month, I had a client ship me his 2500pt SoB army, along with an extra 40 some SoB models for payment. I managed to pick up a mangled box that had an entire side torn open, 90% of the figures gone, and someone else's present stuffed inside. That was quite a loss :<

Oh, and that doesn't even include the whole nightmare of trying to deal with USPS, them telling me I'm SOL, and the "professional" call by my local postmaster whose first words were "It ain't our fault, it's yours."

I feel your pain dude.
I shipped my entire collection to my new home with the USPS. 5000pts of ultras, 3500pts of nids and 7 lord of the rings armies got "lost" for a month. They showed up a month later, every side of the box bashed or torn, many models broken and the post office responded that i should have paid for insurance. Nice.

Another time i was shipping stuff from Maui to California via the USPS. The box arrived taped up and with only about half of my stuff in it. The rest belonged to someone else. The same response as you received. Sorry. Not our fault.

Moral of the story is the USPS sucks. Get insurance. Also, dont ship anything important to you.

As far as how i felt when all of my models were lost in transit. I was pretty upset. I was MORE upset when the box arrived all broken up. It made me wonder what they had done. The address was correct. I just couldnt fathom where and why they had sent my box all over the globe. It looked like monkeys had jumped on it for days.

I ordered some stuff from ebay one time.. I am sure the seller packed everything acceptably however when it arrived ONE WHOLE flap on the box was gone and the tape was clinging aenemically to the remaining flap and sides. Fortunately all the items were inside, intact and miraculously otherwise undamaged.

Today I received a package that felt a bit crushed and the corners were frayed out of the box as though someone had run them across a belt sander. Obviously the package wasn't shipped in such poor repair.

Considering I have several one of a kind sculpts I commissioned for character models, as well as 9 years of my life's pride and joy, I would unleash FETHING HELL down onto those responsible.

I'd be annoyed as hell.

It's not so much that the models that I have are especially valuable - most are straight out of the sprue or conversions that are simple to redo. I can buy nearly every one of them again because I only started doing this in 2007. The models that have been redone by GW are better in nearly every way - Metal Easterling Kataphrakts vs Plastic Easterling Kataphrakts? No contest.

It's the fact that I've emotionally become attached to them that would annoy me. I've played with my Easterlings and Chaos armies for so long. I've invented little names for the divisions in my army. Losing them would really sad.

In addition, there's no way I can replace them with my current funds. It would be hell.

I think it would depend on the situation for me... if someone were to destroy them or steal them I would be pissed off for a bit, but say my shelves collapsed, the house got flooded, or some other freak accident; it would be rather refreshing. Not having to be burdened by the models and have the ability to start from scratch again. My only complaint would be the lost labor and expenses, but I think the good times and experiences would really make up for it.

I'd probably be upset for a bit, but I'm finding that with all the kits I've accumulated with the mantra "I'll build it all soon" that it's a bit overwhelming. If I lost it all, I'd be able to start again and maybe stop myself buying stuff before I'd built what I already have.

I don’t have any of the models I originally purchased or painted when I first started playing WH40K, My paint skills were atrocious, literally glue mini together, hit with space wolves gray primer, paint eyes yellow, paint metal boltgun, paint eagle gold. I usually get tired of armies pretty quick after building, painting, and playing. I am always working on new projects and would rather just sell the other armies I have that usually would require me to buy new models to work with current Editions and Codex. A clean slate would be amazing preferably one that got me what I originally paid for the models.

Assuming insurance covered the 3000+ points of every single 40k army (other than orks) and the 2500+ points of Warriors of Chaos, I'd live. Otherwise, worlds would weep before my hate.

If anyone else finds the loss not too bad, I'd be happy to cover the shipping of helping you lose them :3

If it was my own fault I'd be torn about it, but probably reconcile ways to avoid it in future.

If someone else was the culprit I think I'd probably go to prison for one reason or another, or at least a restraining order.

Lemme lay out some real experience for you.

In the space of 3 months, this happened to me:

Break-in robbed me of 2500 points of Dark Eldar (painted), 50 points of Scyrah (painted), 3000 points of Warriors of Chaos (painted) and roughly 1500 points of Sisters of Battle (unpainted)

UPS shipping error irrevocably lost 3500 points of Dark Elves (painted).

That was effectively all of my collection.

There was no spark of inspiration to go again. It was utter and complete misery.

 curran12 wrote:
There was no spark of inspiration to go again. It was utter and complete misery.

Yeah, I have never lost the sheer volume of stuff you had, but even when a bunch of my stuff got "lost" I had very little inspiration to go on with the hobby. Hundreds of hours and hundreds of dollars of miniatures lost, my first emotion was anger, followed by depression, followed by "who gives a " and me taking several months break from the hobby. If I didn't have close friends still in the hobby, I probably just would have quit outright.

But, then, I'm the sort of person who loses a save game file in a video game and just ends up buying a new game rather than restarting. Don't have much patience for that sort of stuff. I need to feel like I'm making progress, not just banging my head against a wall.

Well you've proposed a unique situation. If the government was doing a project to bring miniatures to life to fight wars, not only would I be completely for it, I would be honored to have my army chosen to conduct said experiments!

Depending what was lost and if I was reimbursed at current market price, I would be perfectly fine.

Of everything I have, the only things I would be slightly upset about would be losing the rarer stuff. Things like my almost perfect 25th anniversary model and kickstarter exclusive stuff.

Otherwise it is just time I spend enjoying watching a movie with my girlfriend while I scrap stuff. Everything is replaceable.

I would have a lot more storage space.