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I have 20 years of shame backlog and since 2 months ago I even have the ability to 3D print my own shame at home.

A good first step would be to NOT start any new full-blown armies this year.

Contrast does make things easier now. I am churning through Gloomspite Gitz at a respectable rate. Hopefully I paint 2-3 armies in 2020 plus some skirmish factions.

 MegaDave wrote:
I was one model away from having banished my pile of shame.

That was a brush with death.

Remember, you can’t die when you have models left to paint. Some say you die when you finish the last one. Best not to take the chance.

You want to have some workflow, but not a massive pile of shame. You can't let it run out though.

Reading other people's piles and seeing how much more in control they are, I think I need to post mine in chunks so I don't get too depressed with myself! Edit: I had to add more minis I remembered...
Warhammer Fantasy


While writing this I realised I have the entire Red Box Games kickstarter stuff to catalogue still.

Da Boss, you'd feel better if I posted my backlog. I have it all logged in a kanban board. Honestly I should probably just sell most of it, since I don't actually have much opportunity to play 40k or Age of Sigmar anymore, just Kill Team on occasion, and the board games like Silver Tower.

That said, I'm currently painting Blackstone Fortress stuff and some Kill Team terrain. I still have more Kill Team terrain to finish assembling and then painting.

ccs wrote:
Chipping away at the unpainted masses (40k or otherwise) is the never ending battle.

That I can commit to continuing in 2020.
I will not lie to you & say I won't be buying more models.

Ditto here.
New Sisters are going to have to get gotten, sadly enough,
but I do hope that they do not sit as long as the old one's had -
I have been carrying metal Sisters from country to country for the past 20 years,
waiting to be painted once the collection is collected.

This should be the year that the collection gets collected.

Otherwise, i can promise to remain cognizant of my pile of (petrified) shame,
and to limit unplanned purchases accordingly.

I actually did fairly well near the tail end of 2019 to finish up several of my existing armies, but of course I did the thing where I ended up buying into two brand new armies: Ossiarch Bonereapers and Infinity Combined.

As it stands, I have three outstanding projects that I intend to complete by the end of 2020:

Ossiarch Bonereapers

Infinity Combined

Adeptus Custodes (1k for Adepticon)

I can't promise I won't buy more for any of those projects, because I know with absolute certainty that's not going to happen (in fact, I'm going to be buying some more stuff for my Ossiarchs tonight as I finalize my list). But the goal is that by the end of the year, regardless of what else I add to them, those 3 armies will be done.

From there, I do have a sizeable (re: over 10) backlog of display pieces that I've slowly collected because of sales, impulse buys, etc. I resolve not to buy anything that contributes to that pile until I have reduced that pile to 0.

In an ideal world, and I am going to push hard for it, I want to end 2020 with no unpainted models. I'll more than likely fail, as I have a few Creature Caster models I know will eat up more time than I can afford this year. Maybe. But that's what I'm aiming for.

I mostly scratchbuild since getting back into gaming a few months back, and so I have hoarded a load of trash (empty packages, pens, broken electronics etc) that I at the time thought could be useful for something. It's reasonably tucked away, but an utterly shameful display for anyone opening the cupboards

I realize it doesn't qualify for this as I can just toss all of it without remorse, but that is my hobby "pile of shame" and something I will need to downsize. So basically, clean out my god damn apartment.

Any pile of shame welcome in this thread. My terrain building similarly has a lot of stuff collected together in a big transparent plastic container.

My major projects I've got lined up:

- Gloomspite Gitz army: one I look to and wonder why I would do such a thing to myself, and then I see the models are remember... that's why...

- I need to do a major update to my 40k collection. I've drifted through 8th with a Knight and loyal 32 to support my Deathwatch, but now we finally have Sisters in plastic and I really want to field the different aspects of the inquisition.

- Wavering on whether I should paint Godtear. Leaning towards yes, but the models are quite playable as is.

After that, I start to get into the real backlog of unpainted stuff. Lots of Warmachine units or Malifaux masters I picked up for that one list over the years and stuff like that. Planning beyond the above though is what gets me in trouble. Get something for my next project but by the time that comes around something new has my undivided attention. Been trying to focus on one thing at a time so when these new shinies come up, I can buy them and get them painted rather than put them in the queue. I'd just like to also get that queue out of my hair.

I only got back in to the hobby last year but decided to not buy any new minis and paint the pile my brother and I collected as kids. It went pretty well as I painted/finished/repainted 100 minis... but I also grew my pile by 49 by buying Blackstone Fortress along wit the Dreaded Ambull and Traitor Command still a net reduction of 51 ain’t bad! 2020 hasn’t started too great as I also bought Blackstone Fortress: Escalation and haven’t finished anything yet!

However, I’ve decided to get organised to correct my -13 score for the year by bagging up my projects;

The columns running left to right are;
Requires stripping
- Bjorn the Fellhanded
- 2nd Edition Box Set Marines
- Mordian Iron Guard
- Space Wolves Long Fangs and a Wolf Guard Captain,
- more 2nd Edition Box Set Marines
- RT Terminators (not shown as bathing in dettol)
- Space Wolves Terminators (taking a bath with the RT Termies)
Nearly compete old painjob, but needing rebase
- High Elf Archers inc Champion,
- High Elf Repeater Bolt Thrower,
- High Elf Spearmen inc Standard Bearer, Champion, Musician
- High Elf Silver Helms inc Mage on Unicorn, Champion and Standard Bearer),
Ready for painting or tarting up
- BattleMasters Chaos Archers
- BattleMasters Chaos Knights,
- Orks & Gretchin inc Ghazghull Thrakka,
- Blood Angels to finish my first squad plus a Standard Bearer),
- Blackstone Fortress good guys (not shown)
- Ambull and babies (not shown)
- Space Wolves Iron Priest and Njal Stormcaller (not shown)
Need priming and/or building
- Dwarves,
- Ork warbikes,
- 1 High Elf Silver Helm
- High Elf Spearmen to compete earlier listed units
- A box of Ork boys

I doubt I’ll get through it all but If I get through another 100 I’ll be chuffed!

Good luck to all for getting through their pile and showing some restraint on their credit card!

 gobert wrote:
I only got back in to the hobby last year but decided to not buy any new minis and paint the pile my brother and I collected as kids. It went pretty well as I painted/finished/repainted 100 minis... but I also grew my pile by 49 by buying Blackstone Fortress along wit the Dreaded Ambull and Traitor Command still a net reduction of 51 ain’t bad! 2020 hasn’t started too great as I also bought Blackstone Fortress: Escalation and haven’t finished anything yet!

However, I’ve decided to get organised to correct my -13 score for the year by bagging up my projects;

The columns running left to right are;
Requires stripping
- Bjorn the Fellhanded
- 2nd Edition Box Set Marines
- Mordian Iron Guard
- Space Wolves Long Fangs and a Wolf Guard Captain,
- more 2nd Edition Box Set Marines
- RT Terminators (not shown as bathing in dettol)
- Space Wolves Terminators (taking a bath with the RT Termies)
Nearly compete old painjob, but needing rebase
- High Elf Archers inc Champion,
- High Elf Repeater Bolt Thrower,
- High Elf Spearmen inc Standard Bearer, Champion, Musician
- High Elf Silver Helms inc Mage on Unicorn, Champion and Standard Bearer),
Ready for painting or tarting up
- BattleMasters Chaos Archers
- BattleMasters Chaos Knights,
- Orks & Gretchin inc Ghazghull Thrakka,
- Blood Angels to finish my first squad plus a Standard Bearer),
- Blackstone Fortress good guys (not shown)
- Ambull and babies (not shown)
- Space Wolves Iron Priest and Njal Stormcaller (not shown)
Need priming and/or building
- Dwarves,
- Ork warbikes,
- 1 High Elf Silver Helm
- High Elf Spearmen to compete earlier listed units
- A box of Ork boys

I doubt I’ll get through it all but If I get through another 100 I’ll be chuffed!

Good luck to all for getting through their pile and showing some restraint on their credit card!

Beatiful collection of vintage stuff that you have a history with. Enjoy the work sir. Im very envious.

Wish I had the warhams from the days of childhood and not sold them for nickles and dimes beer money

 Nevelon wrote:

 MegaDave wrote:
I was one model away from having banished my pile of shame.

That was a brush with death.

Remember, you can’t die when you have models left to paint. Some say you die when you finish the last one. Best not to take the chance.

You want to have some workflow, but not a massive pile of shame. You can't let it run out though.

If that’s the case, I will live forever.

My pile of shame, some 30+ years old, has been fluctuating up and down this last year. I have made great strides on assembling and painting, but have been busy accumulating too. I don’t even bother to count my board game minis.

I have been keeping on top of keeping my Tau army painted, but just picked up a handful of 3rd party speeder bikes to assemble and paint.

On my stack to try and complete this year.

Castellanand Armigers (Apocalypse set)
Admech Transports (2), Ambots, Onagers (2) and Ruststalkers
Necrons from Forgebane
Imperial Guard Heavy Weapons
GSC Goliaths (2), Familiars (2)
Gates of Antares armies (to use as Gu’vessa for Tau)
Stormcast from boxed starter(as Custodes)
Complete frigate, brigantine and troops for Blood & Plunder
Crossing my fingers I can get to my guest Eldar army by the end of the year. This is my goal for this year, still much more to tackle

The big thing for this year is to get over my fear of the new airbrush I bought and use it to help me power through some of my minis.

My first effort to get the pile reduced: Start Collecting Beastmen fully assembled. Just need to texture the bases and I will get to painting them. These guys jumped the queue because my student dungeons and dragons group are investigating a ruined city over run with beastmen, and the Cygor is the centrepiece monster for that quest.


I always find painting stuff for a gaming use to be a huge motivator.

I am part of this also.. working on my plasma pipes terrain and will follow it with working on death world stuff..

My biggest problem is I can only prime outside, so getting weather that is not below freezing during the next few months is my stumbling block.

Kicked off my effort by trying to make something passable from all the goofiest bits from the Possessed sprues.

I was thinking about this myself recently, so I'll join in. My plan is to complete at least one model per month. This might seem like setting the bar awfully low, but the models could be anything from tiny Reaper miniatures to full 1:144 kits.

Got through the Endless Spells for Gitz over the weekend. Painting all that up will clear a huge chunk of the pile. Sadly, its not the best time of year for a mass priming session....

I finished my 16 Genestealers, still not bought anything new, even with the new sisters being released. I'm thinking of setting myself a realistic challenge before I start buying SoB. I might see if I can get to 100 painted models before any purchases. That should take me a few months.

Yeah I think it is a good idea to set a goal that keeps things fun and achievable. I am only going so hardcore because I have been pretty badly behaved and want to prove I can do it.

Still weirdly tempted with Dark Eldar, but I know it is just the mad completionist in me and it can wait a year.

It’a the Christmas battleforces that always get me. I bought 4 this Christmas gone (2 nids, 2 chaos) and i’m not even going to say how many the year before.

Limited supply, large discounts...it is a toxic brew! Same for me when I heard the Start Collecting sets were gonna increase in price. I ended up getting Greenskins, Stormcast, Beasts of Chaos, Slaves to Darkness and Nurgle Demons...that's before I look at my 40K stuff.

Knowing that Brexit is coming down the line and it might be more complicated to ship from smaller British producers also niggles at me, but I am telling myself that that is irrelevant until I have eaten into my pile of shame significantly, and I have til the end of 2020 to order stuff and the transition will probably be extended anyway.

Haha, it does have a tendency to lead to monumental piles of unpainted plastic.

People get me to buy more.... It's not my fault!
Beastgrave: I now have 4 sides to play.
AoS: Looncurse Sylvaneth expanded to >1000 points, and now Aether Wars Drop-Dorfs.
Deadzone: which we all bought into ages ago, and has kicked off again. A half-painted set of Enforcers, so far.

But, I forget what is in the pile so far anyway, and it gets bigger.
My WiP stacks of take-away tubs are overflowing, and the boxes of sprues are forcing my foam cases off the shelf.



So first, Harlequins. I bought 2 sets of troops with transports, 2 packs of bikes and one of each of the bosses. That can't be too hard to clear.
Then, onto Guardsmen. I have no HWT ready to use, so my IG get pasted most games. That, and a 2nd Chimera.

My pile of shame is monstrous and overwhelming. KSs really did me in. I will just never get HATE all the way painted and the same goes for Zcide Invader. I already promised my better half that I wouldn't buy any more miniatures for six months... Almost half way through month one... But I will make it
I have made good progress on my ASOIAF miniatures with three units of FreeFolk close to done and two units of Nights Watch about 60% done.

Too much to list on here so for my sanity I’m sticking to a couple of projects this year.

1. Build paint the Lotr box set, was given that one for Xmas and felt like a child on Christmas Day again opening up that box.

2. Team Yankee, more us stuff coming out later in the year. Apache gunships and Bradley ifvs on the way so it’s full speed ahead for desert storm.
Then will have to add an Iraqi force although trying to not buy many minis this year.

3. Build the rest of the Star Wars legion starter set.

Also have some 40k stuff I wanted to build but just not feeling that one at the moment. The amount of extra books needed that take up space just isn’t worth it for me. Still disappointed with the lack up miniature update the Black Templar’s had. So maybe in the future il take another look at 40k.

I made progress on what I wanted to get done this year.....



.... a unit of 10 Greek Peltasts for Men of Bronze. They still need basing, but I will do that when a couple more Greek units get done. I also assembled two more Hoplite units, a Lizzie Blood Bowl team, and some assorted D&D miniatures for my group/generic Fantasy games.....

Okay, let's do this

My yearly (hopefully monthly) project is:

1- Painting my 5 Flash Gitz
2- Painting my Warboss on Wartrike
Maybe I'll prime and paint a Snazzwagon too, depends on the time

Moved in the wrong direction this weekend, but Sisters box essentially necessitated that. Got it all built at least and can really focus on getting my Inquisition painted now.

Crisis Protocol also briefly returned to an unfinished state, but we have Venom painted and are all good again.

Nice work on those Greeks!

LunarSol: I have been wavering a lot on Minotaurs, because I am currently thinking about my Beasts of Chaos a lot.

Haven't made any progress because I have basically just been working and sleeping for the past 10 days (report season, so I have been grading papers constantly for weeks now). Hoping to finally be free of taking work home this week and can crack on with my beasts of chaos. Very excited to paint them for Age of Fantasy and Dungeons and Dragons.

Painted more last year than I ever have. Year before I was glad to have got the Shadows Over Hammerhall painted along with some other stuff. Last year I painted the Sisters army box (finished it on the 30th December I think), a bunch of Death Guard and some Blood Angels from the Conquest magazine, and a fair chunk of Chaos Marines from the new kits and the Dark Vengeance sprues. Long ways to go on some of that.

If we're going strictly on what I've bought this year vs what I've painted, I'm way ahead so far. I bought the base box for the Batman Gotham City Chronicles game just before Christmas and it arrived New Year's Eve, in time for me to get a couple of models done by Jan 1st. So far on that I've done around 40 models. Still about 120 to go. Haven't bought anything new to paint this year. Sisters are probably going to be my first purchases, but pay day is a while away yet so I'll just be painting Batman stuff til then.

My pile of shame is pretty large though, I have roughly 500-750pts worth each of Tyranids, Tau, Guard, Necrons and Death Watch, and a little more of various flavours of Eldar. Some Ad-Mech which are probably going to be conversion fodder, and a couple of squads of GSC. Most unbuilt. There's older models I either haven't painted or want to bring up to date. Half of Blackstone Fortress as well. The Kill Team starter terrain, and most of the terrain from Conquest is unpainted still. And the Rampart Kickstarter. A few ebay buys, Calth and Prospero Terminators and 20 Marines, I'm not even sure what else is lurking...

Definitely looking to cut down on how much I buy until I paint more. Tau aren't even touched yet, and I think I am happy holding off on them for now. Going to get more Sisters, but they're going to be maybe a larger project. First lot went together and painted up in no time really, so might just get them as a treat/break between other stuff. My Chaos/Fallen project is quite expansive, that and my BA being my main armies, there's going to be stuff from both of them but I don't actually need to buy anything new for a while. I really want to get my hands on a Custodes Jetbike to finish off the allied detachment I have built and painted. Kinda wish they were sold as singles, but might be just as cheap and easy to buy a whole squad.
With GW pricing the way it is I've been strongly considering mostly just getting bundle boxes, or at least SC! sets for the time being, but every now and then stuff does come along that I really want.