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Depends a lot on what army. Something like custodes I could see stopping at 3k-4k. With orks...well before I sold them I had like 12k points of them and I had lots of units I had zero models(no kommandoes, no squigbuggies, no death koptas etc).

In AOS side I have 2 armies that are 12k and both have units I'm missing or could have little more for more varied units. OTOH fyreslayers have barely broken 4k and...well are almost done. I don't need much more than 2 blisters and one box and I have nearly complete collection for anything I can come up with. Unless I aim for getting them to 6k game like I played yesterday with orcs

ccs wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:
depends on the army adn what you want to do/have. I just get and paint what is interesting or fits an army theme i want. As an example I am working on painting an ork killa kan group and its 45 killa kans, more than you can run outside narrative, but I wanted a gretchin list of grot tanks and killa kans for narrative/open play of cowardly terrible grots.

You'll find that in play an armored Grot force is neither cowardly nor terrible.

i already have an all grot army with a bunch of converted cans, grot tanks, mek guns etc. its fun and looks great, against other liek minded themed players it does ok, but i say cowerdly because i lose as many models to morale as i do to opposing fire. they are also not really great if against a list of any well built list. that said had a battle vs a penal legion conscript based guard list and we had a blast both losing crazy numbers to morale and trying to fight over what in story was basically worthless side objectives to the main battle. A mechanicus priest left his favorite spanner so pulled an IG favor to have them go get it, and the warboss saw something shiny over there so sent the grots since it was the smaller scrap. so literally hundreds of lives lost for a shiny wrench

 G00fySmiley wrote:

ccs wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:
depends on the army adn what you want to do/have. I just get and paint what is interesting or fits an army theme i want. As an example I am working on painting an ork killa kan group and its 45 killa kans, more than you can run outside narrative, but I wanted a gretchin list of grot tanks and killa kans for narrative/open play of cowardly terrible grots.

You'll find that in play an armored Grot force is neither cowardly nor terrible.

i already have an all grot army with a bunch of converted cans, grot tanks, mek guns etc. its fun and looks great, against other liek minded themed players it does ok, but i say cowerdly because i lose as many models to morale as i do to opposing fire. they are also not really great if against a list of any well built list. that said had a battle vs a penal legion conscript based guard list and we had a blast both losing crazy numbers to morale and trying to fight over what in story was basically worthless side objectives to the main battle. A mechanicus priest left his favorite spanner so pulled an IG favor to have them go get it, and the warboss saw something shiny over there so sent the grots since it was the smaller scrap. so literally hundreds of lives lost for a shiny wrench

brilliant!

I am paring down now, selling off a lot of stuff, and have been looking at the collection, and have been wondering what is to be kept.

So, this is sort of the inverse of the poll question.

In every case, I am trying to keep two troop choices, some HQ and character varieties, some elites, support and vehicles. In the case of eldar, I kept 2 troop units, a unit of harlequins, some harlequin bikes, some hq of various sorts, a wraithlord and walker, a falcon and prism. The rest was sold.

I won't do that with my ork collection, though... still have an unopened box of deffkoptas to build.

I am also pairing down in some ways. Part of "I build my army until it fits the narrative" is GW changing the narrative so my army never will fit.

That's happened to my Sisters and my Eldar now. The narratives I wrote for those armies are no longer supported by GW.

I'd be curious to hear more about that- I know your DE were space pirates who don't live in Commorragh.

I know your sisters don't want anyone to become a saint. If you use repentia at all, there's a ton of stuff in the Crusade rules to support that- units can now swear the oath to become repentia, and they can redeem themselves too. I mean, if you just want to add a unit of repentia to your army, you still can... But it's cooler when a unit of BSS breaks, and they take the oath upon themselves and then throw themselves headlong into martyrdom until at last they are redeemed.

I know nothing about your narratives for eldar of other flavours.

PenitentJake wrote:
I'd be curious to hear more about that- I know your DE were space pirates who don't live in Commorragh.

I know your sisters don't want anyone to become a saint. If you use repentia at all, there's a ton of stuff in the Crusade rules to support that- units can now swear the oath to become repentia, and they can redeem themselves too. I mean, if you just want to add a unit of repentia to your army, you still can... But it's cooler when a unit of BSS breaks, and they take the oath upon themselves and then throw themselves headlong into martyrdom until at last they are redeemed.

I know nothing about your narratives for eldar of other flavours.

I have never played DE. I just gave "DE that don't live in Comorroagh" as an example of an unsupported army narrative.

My Aeldari force was constructed around grav tanks. I can go into details, but essentially my craftworld was a Yme-Loc spinoff. Armies were made up of Engines of Vaul, Fire Prisms, etc. It was adhering to a doctrine of "the most combat power from the fewest bodies" and fielded Type 1 Scorpions and Cobras in abundance, meaning a single Eldar had the firepower to break titans at his or her disposal. The operational narrative was that speed and surprise (and Storm Serpents) meant that they couldn't be pinned down, while the nature of Wraithbone constructs meant they were a heavy force that can operate far from supply lines. They have few Aspect Warriors, as you might expect (most of them are infantry), but the Tank Crews follow their own, custom path I made.

Guess what didn't get crusade rules in the Eldar codex and told to go pound sand instead?
Grav tanks of every type. I might as well be using the main rulebook for all the codex release gave me.

And the redemption arc for repentia is cool and all, but I don't actually have any units for my Sister's army. Perhaps the Order developed a new way for penitents to be redeemed, or groups them all together in a single command that isn't the one I am playing. I don't really care for the repentia models or aesthetic.

I stop once I got the units I think are cool, mostly aesthetics, sometimes rules.

No bikes for my Eldar, no bikes or shooty units for my Orks, things like that.

Not really.

My CSM and Primaris Only armies are likely to never stop growing until I leave 40k. Though, my CSM army is complete in that other than the new Warpsmith, Chosen and Khorne Berserkers/Noise Marines is basically complete. I'd say the same thing about my Primaris Only army, but I am not so naive as to believe there won't be new Primaris soon. And there will always be new Primaris soon. The difference is, now that Primaris are able to stand on their own quite well, I am going to be picky on what gets added and what I pretend doesn't exist (looking, or rather not looking, at you ATV).

At the same time, my GSC army is complete. I liked painting them, their kinda fun in Kill Team and I like looking at them occasionally, but I haven't had a game of full 40k I enjoyed fielding them. I also don't expect them to get new not-Character models anytime soon. Combine that with my lack of enjoyment fielding them, and I don't see me adding more.

My Necrons are a newer army to me, but they are basically my replacement Xenos army. As I don't think I'll play GSC much anymore. My Necrons are about 2300-2500pts. I will probably get another wave of models to round out my options when building lists. But currently, I want to finish painting what I have and play a few more games with them to get a better idea of what I think my collection could use. Well, beyond a Command Barge and the Hexmark Destroyer.

I also may start, well finish, a Chaos Knights army. I have a Desecrator/Rampager knight already, and I am in the process of building the stuff in the recent Chaos Knight boxed set. A couple more War Dogs and something else, and I'd have a full 2000pt Chaos Knight army. Which is likely where it'd stop. That's assuming I can convince myself an all knight army can be a fun opponent in 40k. Right now, all my knights are meant to ally with my CSM and nothing more. I'm going to actually have to play a few games and get input from my opponents to determine if an all Chaos Knight army is something I am willing to play.

I'm slowly working on my Dynasty through the ages, from Necron Raiders, through to the first awakening
my own way to bridge the gap, my force is pre-dynastic, tobmworld was ejected from the system due to a passing stellar core fragment, better the tombwold be ejected to the void than to stand infront of a piece of a God. The 3rd-4th era which is my main force, then the grand awakening, with the Silent King back, and my tombwold realizing what's happened... I have no idea how to translate my old army to one where TSK and his Dynasty are back, after fighting without rest, against the Tyranids, literally the one force we always managed a Draw (did phase out count it as a draw?) Or better, against, vs various flaylings of the bestial hive mind, eventually, as with all things, we simply waited, and they eventually get swatted enough and run away. As they should, just as they avoid the Outsider, in their prison, which they should be released from, dammit!

For some armies it is really easy to find a stopping point for me. For instance as others have already said. A Space Marine Battle company with friends is a good place to stop. On a smaller scale point wise, but similar in scope would be a company of Imperial Guard.

Going on from there is basically asking do you want to add another company from there. With other armies that are less regimented, it is a judgement call, but I tend to think that having a comparable force with my more regimented factions rounds things out well. If my Battle Company of Crimson Fists is at 7000, then having an opposing force of orks at least that size is a good rule of thumb, but of course an Ork army is never complete, just on hiatus.

I expect I will be done when I have enough models for all the units to field whatever I want to in any game.