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Yes, I've done a couple purely meta purchases. Never a model I hate the look of (Centurions/StormRaven) though. I've purchases units/upgrades that fit my army aesthetic though, such as Drop Melta Sternguard, or buying more Rhinos for the Gladius super formation. A notable purchase that I won't repeat however is the AA turret thing that was sold not long after Flyers like the Helldrake came out. I wasn't keen on the model, but felt it would be necessary to deal with Flyer spam. Turned out it wasn't necessary though, I learned how to deal with Flyers using my basic army, and the AA purchase is still sitting in a box unpainted. Bad purchase, that one. I don't regret the Rhinos or combi-meltas though, they come in handy now and again.

That's a good point. I've never bought a miniature I don't like the look of just because it was good.

To the question asked by the OP: no, I haven't. In fact, I haven't bought a model based on its rules beyond a sort of conceptional level of what my army could use. An example: I bought a Repulsor back when Primaris space marine units (especially anti-tank) were a little thin. Those days, a purely Primaris space marine really didn't have many options for AT. I don't really like marine tanks, though; Primaris ones are slightly better in my eyes (they have turrets and much smaller side sponsons).

To be sure, I have meta units. But it shouldn't surprise anyone that a Black Legion player has Abaddon. Though, I held off for years until the current version came out. And a good portion of my new-ish Necron army became meta practically overnight with the recent changes. It's just a matter that I don't ever want C'tan or the Silent King preventing it from being a large chunk of some net lists. Well that, it that army will always be Mephrit Dynasty. Or course, all my factions stick with the same subfaction every game save my GSC, which usually just flips back and forth between Twisted Helix and Rusted Claw.

I buy, build and paint the models I like and think will look good displayed all together. Uncommonly, I get several of the same kind of unit (especially vehicle models) unless I really like it. Which meta has nothing to do with it. I have 23 Primaris Reivers and 30 Chaos Terminators because I really like the models and the idea of the unit. And both units see a lot of table time, regardless of how good or bad they are. I just build around them a little more when they are struggling.

As a rule-of-thumb, I want to any of my army lists to be about 75% of tournament optimized. Or a better way to think about it, the level of power optimization of a tournament list from a year or more ago played today. I find army lists like that naturally fall into a middle area where even struggling codices have options to build competitive (read: a fair chance at winning games, and not colloquial definition of optimized).

Never found much of a use in impulse buying a box because it was FOTM. The very nature of FOTM means that by the time you purchase, assemble, and get the models table ready... FOTM has already passed you by and the purchase was just silly. My purchases normally involve expanding an existing army or fleshing out some concept I had in the works. Good lord knows I bought way too many Howling Banshee plastic models when they were HOT GARBAGE.

But, I also know that as the pendulum swings, units that previously sucked become good and good units become meh. So I resigned myself to buying the models that I wanted and if in my lifetime they become good, good times to be had!

I think it also provides ample motivation to go through the more tedious parts of the hobby and produces really nice looking forces on the tabletop. Each unit was chosen by me because I liked it, and I liked it enough to put time into it. If I don't like a unit, it tends to just sit on the side... usually in a sealed box still... until such a time that my motivation for said unit finds its way back.

I know it isn't the answer for everyone, but it is the answer that has worked for me and kept my hobbying within acceptable enough limits that my wife won't toss me and my plastic out on the streets.

TBH I am more likely to avoid buying a unit because its meta. I won't lie; part of it is just me being a hipster, but it is also because I want to win by my own tactics and not just because of OP units. For me the win is just a mechanism to the goal of fun gameplay, or rather, the ATTEMPT to win. Whether I do or not is largely immaterial.

Exception being a tournament or other event where the priority focus IS to win, in which case I could see myself buying units solely due to their position in the meta. I never have, as it has always been units I was already considering otherwise, but it could theoretically happen.

Ummm sort of.

In 3rd edition my friend in our gaming group at one point had a big squad of Lightning Claw Terminators that were lethal so I eventually bought a squad to go against them. A lot of our purchases then though were influenced by what the others bought.

But Im fairly sure a lot of the lists I ran with the Chaos Codex v4 were influenced by the lists online featuring 8 man Bezerker squads and 7 man Plague Marines all in Rhinos. Never stooped to the 2 Daemon Princes with Lash of Submission though thankfully.

We had a firepower abusing 3rd Edition Eldar player who was rather unpleasant to play against, so I bought an entire 2,000 points of Legion Of The Damned to counter him. Fully painted and all, based off the list from the Eldar premier White Dwarf issue. Showed up to the tourney and jobbed him as well as our resident Blood Angels player. Blood Angels player was a good sport, powergamer shelved the army and refused to ever play against me again.


Around the end of 3rd when 6th Ed. WFB kicked off they started to enact comp scoring for armies. You used to be able to get the score sheets and criteria sheets from the Outrider links on the GW site. ANYWAY, quite a few of us in the gaming group restructured our armies to be severely Troops/Core heavy, and that mentality lives with me to this day.


That's about as close as I think I came to buying for the meta.

I've never cared about the 'meta'. I buy the models I think look cool or work with a theme I want to build around.

However, said models might be involved heavily in the meta but the purchase never was BECAUSE the model was 'meta'. Purely coincidence,

I buy based on a combination of factors. I'll look at tournament winning lists for a faction I like and buy the models I like out of those options. I won't buy a model I hate just because it's meta, but I also won't buy a model I like the look of if it's garbage on the tabletop.

Toofast wrote:
I buy based on a combination of factors. I'll look at tournament winning lists for a faction I like and buy the models I like out of those options. I won't buy a model I hate just because it's meta, but I also won't buy a model I like the look of if it's garbage on the tabletop.

I've bought enough 'bad on the tabletop' models in my day because I love the look of the model XD *Glances over at all the Killa Kans I've bought over the years*

I voted no, because I've never intentionally bought something to win a 'meta'.

I have bought units I like, and then a rules update, or something makes them extremely powerful for a bit, which is nice.

And I buy to build a 'theme' like a Ravenwing army, Mech IG, Gun line Orks, etc.

(Though I'm always going to gravitate towards unit+transport i.e. rhinos, wave serpents/flacons, immolators, land raiders, etc.) If those units are 'meta' well lucky me I guess, if their hot garbage. I don't care.

Nope. I have a Guard army, and no manticores or basilisks...
I just buy what fits my theme of mechanized guard, so mostly Infantry, Chimera's and Leman Russ'.

I rarely make meta choices for what I'm buying. Meta changes and what is good or bad changes all the time.

I bought a harlequins army 7 years ago, and they were absolutely garbage in the meta for years. Now they are absolutely bonkers good. You never know when the stuff you collect for fun will turn out to be meta, and some things which were bonkers back then you never see on the table anymore.

Never have. Never will.

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:
I'll admit that I'm really skeptical of all the "no"s. I know this is dakka, but you folks really haven't bought something because it's good once? That's the question being asked; it doesn't mean you did it because you're aiming for the top table at a tournament.

I suspect if this was asked on reddit or basically any other 40k community, there would be very few nos (if people were being honest).

ETA: I answered yes, several times. I have tens of thousands of points of models, it's certainly happened but it's far from the majority.

I have bought many, many boxes of GW minis. Never once did I buy a single miniature with any thought out toward how they perform in the game.

But this was mostly in 3.5/4th Ed. and I stopped playing in 5th…due to fluff changes, not rules changes.

You stopped playing because they changed the background story, but you're a fluff player? Can't you guys just make up your own fluff for the battles or campaigns you're running?

Toofast wrote:
You stopped playing because they changed the background story, but you're a fluff player? Can't you guys just make up your own fluff for the battles or campaigns you're running?

Can and do. But it was also the Kirby years, so it might be more accurate to say I lost interest in Warhammer, even GW as a whole. The game itself is no reason to keep playing the game. When house-ruling we will use (simplified versions of) One Page rules for Warhammer, Horizon Wars for Dropzone Commander, etc.. the game is not important at all, so much as an activity to support a fun interaction, like any boardgame.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It’s basically organized pew-pews.

I also stopped buying GW completely during the Kirby era. The company was making awful decisions and then publicly calling me a wallet on legs and saying I'll buy anyway. Well, no I won't. I'll just go play WMH...

Nope, i have built 8 armies for normal 40K and 5 for epic along with khador for my warmachine. in all those cases i have built the armies using minis i like the look or theme of, when it comes to 40K specifically i do not play 9th and as our group is still playing 5th ed allowing any codex from 3rd-7th to be used. there is no real "meta" to chase.

I also stopped buying from GW pretty much since 8th ed. i am proud to say i own zero primaris of any kind. most of my resources in the last few years have gone into acquiring great terrain for all the games i play from ESLO/GF9 pre-made terrain, steel warrior studio terrain for classic battletech/epic scale as well as 3d printed 40K terrain from sacrusmundus and war scenery.

Nope, I generally only buy models because I like the look of them or their lore. Although I did buy some more wraithguard during 7th edition when D-Cannons were all the rage.

 The Red Hobbit wrote:
Nope, I generally only buy models because I like the look of them or their lore. Although I did buy some more wraithguard during 7th edition when D-Cannons were all the rage.

I bought a bunch of them....used in 6mm but then i was building a themed Iyanden army for epic.

Nice! I've always liked Iyanden but have never cared for their color scheme so I wound up painting the wraithguard a few different schemes till I found one I liked.

I voted no because I never bought something because of how good it was on the table. But I do look at performance when choosing between available options, as long as it looks good.

Nope - I buy toys because I like the look of them.

I don't really buy units because they're "meta", but I'll definitely look to optimise the loadout on whatever I do purchase. Never bought anything I didn't already like though

Nope. But I can see the appeal. I would definetly have bought meta units if I thought the game was better and if I played more frequently. I do respect people that enjoy the game aspect of 40k and aim to win. To me the game itself is a pretty minor part of the hobby. Nowadays anyway.