Players with large (4,000+) armies! A few questions.

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**Not Online!!!**

Peregrine wrote:
Easy. The point total goes up really fast when each model you finish adds another 3-500 points. I just added a ~400 point Macharius to my DKoK just because it was a good fit for the monthly painting contest theme. Repeat that kind of thing a few times on top of a standard ~2-3000 point army and you get up past 4-5k without even trying.

Ayy.

Additionally if you like marines or other elite armies, and build regularly new stuff kitbash etc then it also expands fast.
I do have over 5000 pts csm since the update.
One was a 2000 ghost themed csm project, the other just an update.

**Rolsheen**

My second largest army was 18,000pts of Nids but it had the most painted probably 15-16000pts of it, All in one scheme, no super heavies. The stupid thing is I think I only played like two games with them the entire time I had them (both old Apocalypse games) because I get more enjoyment out of collecting, building and painting than I do playing so some specific points goal doesn't have any real meaning.

**Breton**

-Guardsman- wrote:
From the signatures around here, I see that many players grow their armies past the 4,000 pt mark, even into the five digits. (WisdomLS lays claim to 30,000 pts of Blood Angels!)

I understand why people collect up to 3,000-4,000 pts; it gives them more options to build a 2,000-pt list, and allows them to take part in Apocalypse or a 2v1. But I am genuinely curious (not judging!) about why someone with, say, 7,000 pts would want to push to 8,000. Presumably they already have all they need for any game size they will encounter or any army list they may want to field. I know that if I had the money and the time to buy, build and paint 8,000 pts worth of models, I would branch out into other factions instead of collecting the same one.

What drove you so high? Did you manage to snag 2,000 pts of Tyranids for very cheap from another player, and add them to your existing 3,000? Do you feel the need to get updated models whenever they get remade? Do changing rules and new editions force you to constantly re-invent your army? Or are you just addicted to plastic crack (or paint fumes!) and unable to stop growing your army?

I am also curious... Is your army a patchwork of color schemes and basing materials (due to various previous owners or the evolution of your painting skill or personal preferences), or has one of you managed to build and paint a visually cohesive 12,000 pt army?

How large is your army, and how long have you been collecting it?

Have you ever taken a picture of your entire army? I know if I had such an army, I would! Feel free to post your pics here.

.

I'd imagine for most people, their large army is Marines, and it took a couple decades to do it. Or Forgeworld. Or both. I'm north of 5,000 points of Ultramarines. You get so many "free" Marines in starter sets, its hard not to given any length of time. At a certain point you realize you're just over halfway to a full company, and then you get a new goal. I realized I was a couple Tac Squads and an Assault Marine squad away from a full Second Company, so the rest was simple. Going from the original Land Raider Crusader with the Pain in the butt metal Hurricane bolters that constantly fall apart to a fully plastic one is another way people get more models. I'm not throwing away the metal one, but I'm not using it anymore (unless I need to for a theme list) The shocking thing was realizing how close I was to a full First Company between Terminators, SG and VV. Throw on a Thunderhawk that jumped from 700 points to 1800 and it just gets easier.

**Vankraken**

Spoiler:

My Orks are rather numerous (as Orks tend to be) as I like to run various lists in 7th and they tend to not have a lot of model carry over. My Blitz-a-waaagh list for example is 2k points of 5 Battlewagons, 3 dakkajets, roughly 38 boyz, 12 Tankbustas, 10 Gitz, some meganobz, and my Mega Armored boss. Other times I run Killa Kan heavy lists with 18 Kanz plus all the support Boyz, grots, etc mixed in. Could run a Boyz list with 150+ Boyz or mix it up with some dread's, nobz, stormboyz, lootas, bikers, lobbas, burnaboyz, etc. End of the day you end up with a lot of options but a lot of Orks to build and paint.

Same can be said for my Tau as I have tons of Fire Warriors and Pathfinders for infantry heavy lists, devilfish for them for mechanized play, Hammerheads for armored lists, tons of crisis suits for XV8 focused lists, plus the support elements like broadsides, riptide, ghostkeel, stealth suits, kroot, commanders, ethereals, fire blades, etc plus so many drones. More models give more flexibility to variety of playstyles which was one of the great aspects of 7th edition as lists could play completely different depending on unit composition and formation despite it being all from the same faction.

**Ratius**

My collecting was likely a combination of:

- having legacy models/armies from 2nd ed. When pointing them up for 5,6,7,8th ed they came out to value of X. I then just added on new models I thought would fit.
- wanting the ability to make diverse 1500-2000 point armies rather than the same build over and over
- seeing new cool models and buying them even if in-game they kinda suck (t-fex, ork bikers, wraithknight etc)
- wanting to have somewhat balanced points across 7 armies rather than 8000 for X and 2000 for Y
- buying stuff for my old Nid blog on here as I enjoyed writing it and updating it
- wanting at least one super heavy/titan for each faction I own

**Haanz**

I've got a bit over 10,000 points of Heresy Space Wolves and over 6,000 points of Heresy Iron Warriors as my two large armies, with a number of other projects ranging from relatively large down to super small/skirmish.

I've got a page over on my blog with pictures of (almost) all of my complete armies, but the big one is my Heresy-era Space Wolves:

Photo:

Spoiler:

Long winded story with links to army in different stages of growth:

Spoiler:

So, that pretty much answers how the army ended up growing to that size, I think. The TLDR is that I don't really like selling painted minis (if I'm bored of them now, I might not be in 6 months, and I don't want to spend a week retreading ground) and I've never really gotten bored with my Wolves - I love them in Heresy, and they're "good enough" to enjoy 8th 40K until Sisters of Battle come out. Eventually, if you keep adding things, you get big - even if you switch gears to other projects and come back.

Re: painting/basing/consistency - they've all consistently kept the same basing scheme throughout. My Wolves weren't my first army - I'd also done a Stormcast army and a Bloodbound army for Age of Sigmar, and a Chaos Space Marines army for 40K (all around 2000pts), so while I have made a huge amount of improvements to my quality of painting throughout (the most notable is seeing how much my flesh/bare heads have improved - it's a lot brighter at a glance and with better depth now) and you can see some differences in my earlier work and newer work, it's not so massive that the army doesn't still look consistent throughout. In fact, I still use the same basic technique across the army for units I paint even now despite knowing some of my earlier approaches were a bit rough, specifically so that I can keep consistency - which ultimately looks better IMO than having some nicer looking tanks or squads with an entirely different tone/aesthetic.

Funny thing is, even growing it to that size, I still don't feel entirely 'done' yet. I've got armour marks II-IV represented in various roles in the army - dependent on fluff - but I still need to represent some MKV and MKVI armour - for that I'm planning on adding a unit of MKV Assault Marines (as I've not any jump packs in the army yet either), and I'm extremely tempted to make some MKVI Beaky Veterans or something just to get them represented in some token fashion. But that's entirely a 'collecting an army' decision - one I'm making because I want those models in my collection, and because I'd like the excuse to build and convert and paint those armour marks - rather than one that's based on a need for more units for gaming with. I'll be looking for a role for them that fits in the fluff of the army and the armour mark, with the decision to pick a unit/battlefield role I don't have fulfilled yet as a secondary influencing factor.

**A.T.**

Don't know exactly how many points of sisters I have, but the bulk were purchased back when they were practically being thrown away on ebay. Started as allies for my daemonhunters

Low bids on everything based on a model budget - 50p for a bolter, £1 for a special weapon, etc. Less if shipping, paint stripping, or backpacks were needed.

Picked up the better part of 200 sisters that way and filled out the gaps and vehicles from GW. My actual army at the time was ~60 sisters and 11 vehicles at 1850, the rest were just excess bolter sisters, seraphim that I swapped in and out, alternate weapons and repentia.

Later on it was fewer but more expensive purchases for custom projects like forgeworld demios immolator/exorcist conversions, drying up as the faction died through 6th and 7th.

**Amishprn86**

I have insane amount of points for many armies, 10k+, for all my aeldari together its more like 20k points, my old nids that i just sold was over 10k, my BoC for AoS is now at 7k and i'm working on getting 10k kinda soon.

I am a completionist for the most part, so i want at least 1 full viable unit out of the codex/battletome.

My Nids, Harlequins and my BoC are all 1 color scheme. My CWE/DE is however are multi colors, but i'm working on getting them to 1 color. My SOB (my smallest army) is something like 10 colors b.c it all was second hand.

How do i get so much? Well been collecting from 5th fantasy, 4th 40k, so its been over a decade of collecting, and i also get a 25% discount, or i get from second hand for literally 10% the cost at times, i am very good at hunting down old armies that others cant sell. Like my Nids and SOB at least 70% of those armies was about 25% the cost of retail. For example someone had about 700pts of SoB, i told him i'll give him $100 right now for them and he said yes,

Here is a picture of my nids at about 9000 points, i sold 3 Tervigons, 1 Exocrine, some gants, some genesatealers, and some others before this picture was taken.
List here >

Spoiler:

I'm working on getting all my Beast of Chaos together for 1 picture and my Aeldari as well

My BoC will look much like the Tyranids List >

Spoiler:

**Imateria**

I've got about 8000pts worth of Drukhari, give or take. Like most people that collection is about choice for games, and that unless we're talking super-heavies (of which the Drukhari have none) having only 1 of a unit tends to be pointless as they tnd to die before having an effect on the game. The biggest jump in numbers for my army though came when 8th edition effectively squated Corsairs and the 3500pts I had there got rolled back into my Drukhari and Craftworlds armies, with about 2K going to the True Kin.

**Inquisitor Lord Katherine**

Because I like tanks, so I collect and build them and they accumulate slowly.

I had about 5000 points of IG, I never really counted. Oddly enough, with points cuts and models that bear upgrades I don't buy anymore [squad lascannons and plasmaguns, vox casters, etc.] it's probably several hundred points less. [which clearly means that I should buy more Leman Russes, yes

?]

My army is comparatively small next to a lot of people I know, though, because I have 4 [started 5 as Grey Knights, but it hasn't reached a fully army status yet] armies, and one of them is Sisters of Battle. If you have only one army or two armies, I can see it being incredibly easy to wind up with 10000+ points.

In terms of $$$ outlay, my Sisters are my most expensive army, probably. I think I have around 3000 points of them; which is somewhat limited by the fact that I rarely buy things that would be over field allowance and there aren't that many options.

**G00fySmiley**

For me the bhobby is more about painting and modelign than playing these days. i often scrounge ebay for cheap models or badly painted ones for significant discounts. I do fully admit that a majority of my collection has never seen a tabletop and is unlikely to. I do have a 7 tier shelf behind my desk that has several armies what I consider well painted and displayed, but that was more a I have thousands of painted minis in boxes why not display them.

As an example I have over 100 terminator models alone. I have never paid (outside of buyign box sets) more than $2 per terminator. I have some old metal ones, some of the old box game ones with the hilariously huge shoulder plates that look like little circle minis etc. Do i need more terminators? no... would I buy more if I found catifracti or tarteros termies for $2-3 per model... probably.

I guess persionally I just like building and painting minis. I have a 3d printer and now churn out tons of terrain/minis there as well (in fact I do for DND minis some of which I have taken to designing myself from scratch) l. some of us just like our hobby time. i can sit back, relax, listen to a podcast once my kids are in bed and have a few relaxing ours of painting.

ntoe it also helps that my local area we sometimes do large narrative games so I have been able to for example manage to field a 12000 v 120000 point imperium vs orks game where literally I jsut made lists for 3 other players and provided all of the ork models for the game. had I not had that many ork models we likely would hav not been abel to do the battle for armageddon.

**captain collius**

Honestly I had about 4k of lizardmen and then people just started giving me armies. Before the AoS changeover I was planning to add about 2k more.

My DA are based around my old 3rd company face squad with twenty additional sergeant builds a bunch of varying devestators, 3 predators 4 rhinos 1 whirlwind. 40 terminators 4 land raiders 5 dreadnoughts 1 contemptor dread 15 bikes 1 attack bike 3 land speeders and a sammael. Along with all the characters in every armor

Automatically Appended Next Post:
When I out like that I might have a problem

**Cornishman**

I've got just shy of 11k of marines in my main collection.

This collection started way back in the days of 4th Ed (so early 00's), though it has an odd throw back to older stuff (like a lead dreadnought). I’ve also got a load of stuff (noyt sure how many points) from when I played during Rogue Trader and 2nd Ed but the two are kept separate.

This 11k primary army is all painted consistently (except some odd things which I haven't got around to [finish] painting), and is based in similar way. It's not all new, some of it was e-bayed and assimilated into the main army

As for why so many... well time really... though it hasn't grown much since 6e.

Whilst some can stop at 2k… is easy to keep going because of the increased variety it offers, or as a simply for the hobby (I've got a 10 man honourguard units inc. Champion and Ancient that I think hasn't seen action on the tabletop but was very fun to build).

I do admit I find it difficult to regularly use large parts of the collection, but I do try to spread the table top time.

It was getting large then came along came Apocalypse… which provided the impetus to round things off and be able to run a full battle company. Or enlarge my vehicle pool to make it 2 predator squads of 3 tanks…

Thus I seem able to field what seems like most non-Primaris of the units in the SM.

Whilst there's a lot of stuff (the relatively) newer models like Centurions and the returned Grav-weapons aren't present and curiously whilst I’ve got 6 predators I’ve got no Vindicators...

**Racerguy180**

My Salamanders are divided into different paint schemes depending where on Nocturne they're from.

Hesiod gets extra bling
Ignea gets extra details
Themis & Epethemis both have Mediterranean paint schemes
etc...
The units that make up the ones from each city have a specific theme to them.

I didnt plan on having as many points as I do but I need at least 3-4k more Astartes and 2-3k more Primaris(that'll probably change).

**generalchaos34**

well its complicated....

for me buying stuff was fulfilling a psychological need that I was having for years (I still buy stuff but its only when I actually need it)

For my guard it was a combination of good buys and they fact there isnt just ONE guard army.

I currently have a vast amount of cadians, but then I picked up armageddon steel legion.....now I have a ton of them. Later one day I decided to start a clean army planned with purpose and I bought what is essentially a dedicated 3,000 point army of Valhallans with a ton of fun 3rd party stuff. Along the way I also came into a loyal 32 of vostroyans, a handful of catachan, mordians, and tallarn, and finally about 100 Scions.

Frankly its an addiction sometimes. Other times I just enjoy building stuff and cruising ebay auctions, especially the Bit Lots.

If it wasn't for the fact I have to save up a lot for a life changing procedure next summer I'd be buying all the new hover rhinos and invictus suits plus sisters to boot.

**ManTube**

I have over 4000 points of orks and I'm still growing with little intention of stopping. Originally it was just a plan to have a cohesive 2000 point army instead of playing with the mish mash of old models that had little theme or synergy to them. Then the 2000 point army got more play time and didn't fair particularly well on the tabletop, so more models were bought to add flexibility and give me options to run a more competitive list.

Purchases after that have been made with table top viability in mind as well as for modeling and painting desires. Sometimes I want to run a list that sounds fun but I don;t have the models for it, so I expand that way. Other times I just want the models; I haven't run any of the models I got in the speed freeks box for an actual game of 40k, but I loved building and painting them all the same, and they see some play when I do some old-school gorkamorka with friends.

I started playing orks specifically because I love doing conversions and the like, and I really dislike having too many duplicates of the same model. So, I often end up seeing units released for other armies that I look at and know that I have to lot it at some point. I will definitely be picking up a GSC goliath rockgrinder at some point in the future to be converted into a deffrolla battlewagon, for example. One of my two gorkanauts is a looted Nemisis Dreadknight, and I'm currently working on building a morkanaut from the chaos knight desecrator kit. I rarely buy models used for this reason, because my favorite part of 40k is building unique models, so it's really important to me that my dudes get built the way I want them to be, and I want the extra bitz that come left over with the full kits as well.

As for paint schemes, my ladz are currently entirely painted as Bad Moonz, but I'm working on a free bootas detachment of 30 boyz and 15 flash gitz to add to that. Luckily for me, orks allow for a bit of leeway when it comes to color schemes even within the same clan, so some of my units are traditional yellow with black, others are more black with yellow, and many are mostly exposed, weathered metal and scrap with yellow and black (and occasionally red) highlights. Keeps it interesting that way.

Like I said, I don't really see myself stopping with orks any time soon. There are lots of other types of lists I'd like to run and lots of other kits in other ranges that demand to be looted. I do believe that when plastic sisters come out I'll commit to buying enough for a full killteam with reserves for flexibility, and I imagine that may eventually turn into an army of its own, but i doubt it will stretch past 2000 points because any more investment would tear me away from my first and true love, the boyz in green (err, the boyz who ARE green but so happen to be wearing yellow... or black... or a few of dem free boota gitz in stripey pants...). It would be nice to own a second complete army though, just to allow friends to play games with me without forcing them to join me in this plastic crack addiction.

**Da Boss**

My biggest armies are my Orks. They were my second 40K army. I started collecting them around the tail end of 2nd edition, and really got into them once the 3rd edition codex with the new Ork Boyz came out. For a long time my army was just a few mobs, a few vehicles and some HQ choices. Then the eventual update to Orks at the end of 4th edition happened, and I was so excited I bought basically one of everythng and some new mobs. In 5th I got into tournament play so I sometimes doubled up on units to try weird builds out (like having loads of kommandos, or full mobs of burna boys and lootas and tankustas, or just a massive horde of boyz, or gigantic bike armies, or Nob armies, or battlewagon rush, or kan wall). That is when my collection got really massive. Then I just stopped buying new models, I have sat out the last couple of Ork releases.

**AdmiralHalsey**

I'm suprised no-one is talking about the collecting side of the hobby.

I measure my collection not by it's points but by my goals are a collector.

My Space marines for example, I wanted to be able to own a complete first, second, and tenth company, so that's what I set out to acquire.
For the Imperial Guard, it was about fielding a reduced regiment, so whatever the narrative of the battle, I was able to provide the appropriate army

I have only extremely rarely fielded anything close to my complete collection, but that's what it is, a collection.People going to be compeltionist.

Also remember 6,000 points only allows you to field exactly 3 2k lists with no overlap, and that's assuming they're all playable. I own nearly 500 points of rough riders. You can guess how often I get to put those on the table.

And then there's super heavies. Titans add a massive ton of points onto your collection size, but they're of zero pratical value to most 40k games.

**Jim**

I've got a good sized IG army. My finished army comes out to about 40,000 points of WYSIWYG. Didn't plan on it being 40,000 points, just sort of happened that way.

To answer your questions:

Why? Started off just wanting a 3,000 to 4,000 point army. Then it became wanting to field any unit I wanted in a standard game without using proxies. Then it became wanting to field any unit I wanted in an Apoc game without using proxies. During that time I discovered Forge World. That didn't help...

How? I purchased a couple chunks of the army on eBay. But every time the models were glued together differently than how I do it. Infantry would have have superfluous nick-knacks on them, tanks looked like they were glued together by a 5 year old. And I wanted consistency. After all, presumably the entire army came off the same factory line, so the tanks should all look the same. So I eventually went back to just buying individual units from GW and Forge World.

Do you feel the need to get updated models whenever they get remade? That's a question for SM players. Guard units don't get remade.

Do changing rules and new editions force you to constantly re-invent your army? It became part of it. Conscripts got nerfed, so I don't use them as much. But they may come back in vogue. Same goes for other units such as ratlings and rough riders. Now, if GW updates the IG rules, I don't have to worry about going out and buying a crap unit because it's good now!

Or are you just addicted to plastic crack (or paint fumes!) and unable to stop growing your army? Probably. But my Guard army is officially done unless new units come out.

Is your army a patchwork of color schemes and basing materials? All one color scheme! Which was tricky. As my painting skills got better I would have to "dumb down" my painting techniques in order to get units I painted towards the end to be consistent with units I painted towards the beginning.

How large is your army, and how long have you been collecting it? I think this army took 7 years to put together.

Have you ever taken a picture of your entire army? Here's a link to gallery with more images of the army. https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-58452-61727_Finished%20Ig%20Army.html

Enjoy!

**slave.entity**

Love seeing all the pics in this thread.

**Engine of War**

I don't play much anymore, mainly due to simply not having time or anywhere to play.
I have alot of fun building, converting, customizing, and making lore for all my different units (the tanks mainly, only a small handfull of infantry have customization, names, etc).
For game play the sheer number of things allows me to almost bring any combonation I want (of IG, Ad mech or Space marines).

Beyond that I just love to build the things. I have sold a few but those were special cases (like a Kil-bursta built for a freind). Most of it is covered in my blog as the army grows.

I could not tell you the points off hand. I am frankly too lazy to sit down and WYSIWYG everything.

I want to start building again, but like playing I don't have time at the moment. My backlog is extensive and I want to get back to work.

Spoiler:

In my gallery are more upclose pictures of the army.

**vict0988**

I only had 6 Destroyers, so I added another 12 in case I wanted to run 18, no amount of Warriors or HQs will let me field 18 Destroyers. The ultimate quest is being able to field 3 of any unit in the codex, 6 for troops, that's somewhere around 20k for Necrons, but then there is always FW.

**Eldarsif**

Many reasons.

I have been playing since second edition and things just kept being added. Each edition had different metas which meant different units were added to each force. Then I have had friends and coworkers who have left the hobby and given me their stuff or sold for cheap so it was easy to "accidentally" get more and more.

**MrMoustaffa**

Honestly with IG it's incredibly easy to get to 5,000pts and not even realize your horrible mistake until it's too late. You can take 9 of almost everything in the codex, many units even more than that, and in the lore almost every unit you can think of can exist in its own regiment. Then you get into FW, or stuff like baneblades which crank up your pts count extremely fast, or FW superheavies which are a special kind of sickness, and it quickly gets out of control.

The most dangerous part with IG though is the temptation to collect multiple regiments. I'm on 3 different infantry regiments, an entire air wing, and most of the way done with a tank company. And lore wise, it's completely acceptable to mix those in any way I wish, so I can run all kinds of weird stuff if the mood strikes me.

That said I have no idea what would possess someone to collect say 10000pts of sisters. That seems a lot less likely than IG who are known to have big massive battles all the time

**Mr Morden**

I have a few but as i tend to collect all armies in 40k, AOS and other systems my armies are not, compartively, huge but the collection is vast.

Why? Cos I can

**captain collius**

Cheers to both Jim and Engine of war those are gorgeous.

On a tangent engine what is with the blimp

**Elbows**

Here's a sample breakdown of my armies (note: a handful of units/models are calculated but not pictured in these photos as it's been a while since I bothered with army pics)

Spoiler:

Not pictured: 6x Warp Spiders, 10x Wraithguard, 2x Hornet, 1x Wraithlord, 1x Wave Serpent, and 1x Fire Prism

Yderis Warhost

Headquarters: 1,583 points (25%)
Troops: 932 points (15%)
Elites: 1,280 points (20.5%)
Fast Attack: 700 points (11%)
Heavy Support: 1,267 points (20%)
Transport: 480 points (7.5%)

Total: 6,242 points[u]. Note how small the Troops number is, even though I own three squads of Dire Avengers, three squads of Scouts, and four squads of Guardians? Troops are pretty cheap. Heavy Support is pretty expensive, and I own all the Phoenix Lords, an Avatar and a handful of psykers, so my Headquarters options are a full quarter of my point total (even though I only use 2-3 characters per game). I don't own more than three of anything beyond Guardian squads, and in most instances only own two of each type of unit. The points above are generally done with minimal wargear, so you could toss another 100-200 points on there just bumping shuriken cannons to heavier weapons, or throwing vehicle bits onto things.

For contrast here is my CSM Renegades Force:

Spoiler:

Not pictured: 2x spawn, 7x Veterans, 1x Chaos Lord, 14x Cultists, 1x Chaos Lord Terminator, 7x Plague Marines

Headquarters: 1,447 points. (24%)
Troops: 786 points. (13%)
Elites: 708 points. (11.5%)
Fast Attack: 487 points. (8%)
Heavy Support: 1,900.points. (31%)
Typhon: 752 points. (12%)

Total: 6.080 points. Again, I have a large variety of heavy support and headquarters units which I pick to accompany my fairly routine troops choices. I have little in the way of elites and even less fast attack (not many great options for the CSM book). The Typhon is absurdly priced and almost never worth its cost...but it's there in the army. I have two Leviathan dreadnoughts which almost artificially inflate the Heavy Support category by nearly 600 points themselves.

Both armies more or less feature 6+ units of basic troops (in both cases being rather inexpensive) with a large variety of headquarters and support units around which I build armies. As with the Eldar, my Renegades almost never have more than two units of any one type - no spamming, etc.

Both of these armies were purchased and painted within the last four years. Since the start of 8th edition, both armies have lost around 300-500 points just in points reductions via Chapter Approved.

**Engine of War**

captain collius wrote:
Cheers to both Jim and Engine of war those are gorgeous.

On a tangent engine what is with the blimp

The War Zeppelin, named the "Rage of the Heavens" is based on the Kirov from Red Alert. Only with more dakka, more bombs, and more purging heretics through countless bombs.
I built and wrote rules and a small snippet of lore for the monster years ago. Its 3 feet long (roughly)

When written the rules were decently balenced (At least I think lol), it was basically a Manta but with Imperial firepower (Quake cannons, Battle Cannons, countless Heavy Bombs, Promethium Bombs, and even Collosus Bombs)
But the rules are way out of date now, and its never seen combat.
It makes a great centerpiece alongside the Ordinatus Majoris, Atomic Cannon, and P-1000 Ultra Heavy Tank. It like a lot of the army needs some repairs and I just don't have the time at the moment.

I had an absolute blast building and painting the monster, even though compared to the other creations it has fewer modifications, probably due to its scale. The lore I wrote was a small blurp of a mission the airship goes on, full of Red alert lines

. Its in my blog somewhere.

Its always awesome to see other giant armies, I love these threads.

**AngryAngel80**

Some armies here to rival my own large forces. Makes me feel a bit less crazy, just a bit.

I'd say mostly armies get so big by accident. You want to try something, add something and before you know it. You're lost in the sauce.

**Grimtuff**

Of the armies I have that are absurd points levels, both simply grew organically from that.

My Death Guard, which was a bit of a passion project at the start of 8th. It was a combination of seller's remorse of selling a previous incarnation of the army and GW having lured me back in after sitting out both 6th and 7th. I had a whirlwind of ideas of what I wanted to make. If an idea struck, I built it. If a concept was sound, I built it. For example I found a neat and quick way to make Dreadnought sarcophagi out of old WHFB bases and Defiler leg plates. Now I had 7 Dreads. I've never used them all together but these things happen.

It just built up from there. Some of the stuff I have used fairly frequently, such as the 3x7 squads of Blightlords; but a lot of stuff was built out of a combination of having a massive bits box and not wanting to pay GW's absurd prices for the DG characters, not having used said bits box that much in the intervening time due to playing WMH and my preference for not magnetising stuff (I think it makes the models feel like toys. "Moving parts! Action! Excitement!"

) so if I wanted an alt build I would simply build a new mini.

I've never actually totted up the points, but it has to be in the region of 9-10k pts.

A lot of the above reasons are the same for my Khador army for Warmachine. If I liked a model, I'd buy it and find a way to fit it in some lists. Buy a new Warcaster, then find you need this unit to go with them. Rinse and repeat. I got so many Merc units and solos that I could build an army for them by simply buying a Warcaster for them. So I did.

Then that spiralled into another overly large force.