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So, last night I just got done painting a couple of miniatures for my guard army, and was considering what I'd do next. For the last 15 months, I've been working really hard to turn my rag-tag, not-completely painted 1000 point force into what would now be possible to stretch up to a 2500, completely painted guard army of doom.

This got me thinking. I've been playing the army I'm using for awhile now, and I've tried it out including most classes of things in the codex, and have a fair idea of what works and what doesn't for my play style. As such, lists that I've been making have been tending to go back and forth between a few types of units, which I by now have already made/painted. As such, I came to realise that with like one or two exceptions, I've gotten to the point where the only things I have left to do with my guard army are either up the points level, or make new models to replace some of my older, uglier ones.

But neither of these are particularly appealing to me at the moment. In fact, it just struck me today that I might be "done" with my guard army. Yes, there will always be things to pick at, but now, rather than a handful of models that I'm struggling to get painted and wysiwyg, or making new types of models that I want to try out, but these exceptions aside, I now have everything I want at any points level I'm likely to ever play at. To be, this feels like my big project should probably be declared finished.

So I'm curious if other people have felt this way with their armies before, or if there's always been the drive to continue to paint and model your primary army up to an unlimited size. Also, would this be a good time to start a new army, a new huge project, or should I just take a break for awhile and go back to picking at my guard horde? I know there are some people out there who can't keep their attention focused on a single army for more than 5 minutes (I know someone who has had like 18 different armies in the past couple of years - he keeps selling his current one to get the next thing, and never winds up painting or sticking to much of anything), but for the more seasoned and conservative hobbyists out there, when is it time to move on and expand one's horizons?

Some people do have the most enormous armies.

Reds8n has enough Chaos to make up a 10,000 point Apoc side by himself. H.B.M.C. has fleets of Leman Russes and stuff.

Personally I like to take an army up to about 3,000, which gives enough stuff for a large game and to have a good bit of variety.

Another option is to look outside GW and play some historicals or something, for a change of pace.

You can be finished with an army, yes. If youre unlikely to play apoc. or high points levels it may be a good idea to stop and start a new army. Starting a new army is a lot of fun, and besides you can always come back to your guard. Personally im not sure i will be ever truly finshed with an army but often when i get an army up to a certain points level that i want, i'd stop adding to it, maybe make a few tweaks but otherwise just play games, and concentate my cash to expanding other armies. For example my O&G army is now nicely at 2000 pts and i'm not going to buy anything for it for a while, and concentrate on causing death and destruction with it instead. However, with a new army book in march, that probably won't last long

Depends on the game. For Fantasy, I've got 2,000+ each in Skaven, Savage Orcs, Ogres and Dark Elves. 40k around 2,500 of Tyranids, and a pretty solid 3,000 of Dwarfs for War of the Ring.

As you might be able to telll, Fantasy is my main game, with the other two being called upon for variety, and even a break from the Fantasy rules set. Though I am working on Dark Eldar for 40k, simply because the models are brill. And I'm considering a Misty Mountains Monsters army for War of the Ring, so I can have evil stuff.

Yes, it is possible to be done with an army- for awhile.
A few years back my friends suprised me with a TK army for Christmas, which was a welcome break from my Dwarves.
It took about two years of serious painting to get them up and running, but after a dozen games or so I began bringing Dwarves to games again on an alternate basis.
I still paint an odd Dwarf or TK figure when I find one, it makes for a nice break while finishing my VC army.

I don't think you can ever be done and to be honest I don't know why you would want to be either...

Yes, you have 10^sideways 8 pts of guard/orks/etc, but at some point you will want to do some more!

I have about 1500pts of orks, thought I was done with them for a while, so I bought a 1000pts skaven army. Now I'm trundling through these, but I know my next purchases are to add a wierdboy + madboy entourage to my orks.

Don't say its done, just only add to it with the same investment that is put into building up a scary-ass army. (i.e. don't add a squadron of tanks, just add 1 or 2 now and again). But remember, you're only done when the wife is sleeping in the lounge because her side of the bed is now a display cabinet!

I just keep buying eldar even tho I have like 7000+ points with no upgrardes.

I like running Jetdar, then footdar, then mechdar, then elitedar.

If another army intrigues you then go for it, if not then dont.

Smitty0305 wrote:I just keep buying eldar even tho I have like 7000+ points with no upgrardes.

I like running Jetdar, then footdar, then mechdar, then elitedar.

So, it seems to me like there are two (non-fluff) ways to go here. The first is to stay within the codex, but to be able to do any style of army from that codex (as per the quote above). The other is to take the same style of army, except do it in a different codex.

Were I to change play styles into a new guard army, I would have to buy and paint so many models that I'd really be starting a new guard army (switching my 2500 point foot guard to a 2500 point mech guard would cost me about $300-$350, what I could expect to spend on an entirely new army). It would cost the same, and it would play very differently. So the question is, if I'd be starting a new army regardless, do I want one with the same style, or the same codex?

I guess for me, I like close combat WAY better than I like shooting (it somehow feels like I win "better" when I get in hand to hand), and I'm not a particular fan of vehicles (mostly because they're a pain in the butt to pain). As such, it looks like ~2000-3000 pts. is when most people move on.

And yeah, I wouldn't be done with guard as in completely finished, going to stop playing and sell them off, so much as done as in being finished with the modelling for the most part.

I usually finish an army after 3 tabling peoples in a row, or 4,500 points.

When I finished IG which was either mech/foot roughly 5000 pts or so I switched to Marines lol

I finished my SW at 1000 Pts. I generally play smaller armies, because I like to get a good knowledge of their tactics and such before expanding on them. Also I have found 1000 Pts, is a nice cut off in terms of units to take and strategy. As well as 1000 Pts is pretty easy to paint quickly.

As such, I have been a big SM player for most of my life, once I "Mastered" BA in my mind, I started with SW. SW was easier to paint, and easier to "Master." Now I have started to make a Vanilla SM force, which, once I "Master" it, I may decide to take the 100+ Steel Legion IG I have acquired, and make my IG army. Although I am still fearful of mixing tactics/strategies from what I have learned with SM to IG. Also it is the long job of play-testing and tweaking a whole new army which has me a bit...."scared" to say the least.

If a new army is in your head, I say build a decent 500 Pt. list, play-test it a bit, and see if you like where it is going. Also, as it stands, it is relatively cheap (Thanks to Black Reach) to make a SM/Ork army now-a-days. Maybe instead of Blob Guard, go with the original blobs....ORKS?!?!?!?!

If you have a 500, 1000, 1500, 2000 and 3000 pt army list that works well, it might be time to move on.

ive just started bttonians, and I'm already looking at 3000+ pts of them.

Any more, and your models loose the char act you wanted, and you get bored and move on, usually.

I'm in the same boat, with 3000 playing and 8000 non playing space marine points...

You certainly can be done with an army. I build armies based on what my own idea of the fluff would be. I don't worry about points at all I just sit down and write out a list of what I want and then I paint it up.

I've always felt that being done with an army is just a feeling that you have just that right amount for what you wanted to do with that army. If you have gotten there with your guard move on and do something else. There will eventually come a time when GW comes out with something new and you will want to revisit your army. And to me that is how it should be. It is really cool to have a finished army that all you want to do with is add the newest unit to.

Generally speaking, I consider my armies 'done' when I have enough to comfortably field 3000 points of any given race - that gives me enough leeway when choosing lists etc as I generally play 2000 - 2500 limits.

The first army i finished when i had one of every unit in the codex, often more -hit 6k ish

The second army i finished when i had all i wanted from the codex, and could field 2 distinct armies, hit 5K

My current eldar army is built around apoc formations, It'll top out at 3.5K not including super heavies, 600 points to paint

Once you've got everything you're likely to want to use, or you're realistically going to be able to use at the same time then I consider an army done. I normally play 1500 point so I build a 1500 point list + any other interesting units that I like so I can change them around a bit. You can tell how much I like an army by how many points over 1500 I finally end up owning

Whatever you decide to do, I hope you keep giving out such great advice mate. Seriously, every time you've ever pitched in on any question I asked the answer always helped me reap a bloody harvest on my opponents. I reckon you should switch to something totally different like nids maybe. I'm still building my mech guard army now, but I've also painting my Ultramarines and Nids on the side.

Variety is the spice of life!

Hi all.
When I can play the army all the ways I want to, I am done with it.
And so each army can be of any size that suits me.

As I tend to play a wide range of games , having more than 2 arnies for any genre is a bit OTT for me.

TTFN.

The only time I'd consider my army done:

When I can field any possible combination from my codex. So, 3 full choices of each unit from Elite, HS, FA. 6 full choices of each unit from Troops. Etc

I love trying out new units that I haven't before. And, sometimes they work well and I want to spam them!

I have multiple armies going on at once because I just like to convert and watch them grow. I never considered at what point they would be "done", most likely when I've filled out the 2500 point lists I wanted, but there's always something new coming up, and I dont mean new releases.

I recently started working on a SW army. Mostly because I have never played a marine army in my days as a 40k player. I know I want to make my SW shooty as I play a Mono Khorne Daemons army which is very very close combat oriented. This in the end will give me variety, which is always a nice thing to have.

Personally I don't think that an army can ever be 'finished.' Sure I might stop work on one but there's always something which can be added or a model that needs a better paint job.

Rather than focus on just one project for a long time I like to have more than one. For example I have recently been building a Black Templar army (note to self: resurrect blog thread) currently I've got 1250pts finished and will have taken that to 1500pts before the end of the year. However painting that many black and white space marines does get rather dull after a while so I've also been working on my long term IG project. Painting a squad of them up or building the occasional tank makes for a nice diversion from my main project.

Additionally once I get up to 1500pts the BT army won't be finished I'm already planning the next 500 point add on which will probably be worked on slowly while I focus on another major project.

The result of this approach however is more armies than I can keep track of. My current count is 3 in WFB (Dark Elves, Daemons, Skaven) 4 in 40k (Black Templars, Daemonhunters, Imperial Guard, Thousand Sons) and 1 in WOTR (Easterlings). Not bad for someone who only got back into the hobby in July.

I reached 3000 points with my Orks and suddenly got fed up of them, not sure why...

I play a few armies for each system. I only really play one massive army for 40K for apoc. If GW didn't constantly raise their prices I might do another one; however, I don't see much value in two apoc sized armies since the opportunity to play apoc games tends not to happen that often.

That being said I have over a battle company for regular marines and scouts along with many formations of vehicles, walkers and fliers to support them.

My Orks are pretty much at 2000 points on the dot. I got really tired of running the same strategies with them over and over though. The thing is, I told myself that once my Sabol case for them was full, I'd be done expanding them. If I wanted to expand them now, I'd probably get some of those nice new Kans and Dreads, and I guess more Boyz and Battlewagons. Either way, I don't plan to expand on the Dezz'urt Ratz any time soon.

My old Marine armies I expand every so often. My Space Wolves grew by a squad of Wolf Guard Terminators, Grey Hunters, and Canis Wolfborn last winter, and I don't have any plans to expand them further. My Crimson Fists will be getting a tactical squad soon, since it's just been a long time since I painted bog-standard Space Marines and I sorta miss it.

Just because you're not painting an army doesn't mean you're done, it just means you get to expand a year or two down the line!

I don't really have a point where I'm done with an army that can be defined in army size or value. I just stop working on an army when I'm tired of working on it/painting it/just too damn busy, and come back whenever I get an urge to do so.

It may be because I'm more hobby-based than game based, but I feel the real determinator is whether you want to paint up that new unit or not, not whether you have enough of any one thing.

But that mindset generally leads me to have utterly horrible army lists. It's a price I pay.