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.

Recently, I've been doing a lot of swapping and hunting and trading and buying and selling to finagle my way into an army I'm happy with, without spending a lot of money. I think I've done pretty well, getting two great armies together for less than $300.

I'm starting to have a little issue though with such a patchwork, second-hand army. They are awesome and it has been awesomely cheap and I appreciate other people's paintjobs, no doubt but I feel a little like a bargain bin shopper. It's not so much that I dislike what I've gotten or how I've gotten it, just sometimes I wish I had done my research and planned a small number of minis and paints to start with and gone out and bought them and the codex/army book and started from there. Slowing adding on planned purchases, only when my last minis were painted and had seen the tabletop at least once.

Now I have almost a hundred minis of varying shapes and sizes in all different stages of assembly and painting and I'm just overwhelmed. I have no idea where to start.

Does anyone else ever get this feeling? Has ANYONE ever planned their purchases and painted them and played them before buying anything else? If so, could you comment here and tell me what it was like? Is it just as overwhelming as the clearance hunter route?

Thanks guys, happy wargaming

I have a rule, if its not painted, it doesn't get played. It's remarkably motivating if that unit sat on your paint desk could have swung a game you lost in your favour.

I also, in this case, have the advantage of working within a limited budget, which stops my backlog getting too out of control. That said, I still have about 6 months worth of models backed up, assuming I put in a lot of regular painting sessions, in reality it's probably closer to a years worth.

Best advice I can give you is to break it into smaller jobs. First, select the units you need to make the army legal, get them stripped, built and painted, then play a few games. Once you know what your lacking (say you really miss not having some faster, more mobile units) that will tell you what to move on to next.

Above all KEEP GOING, if you're not putting paint in minis, you'll never get it done, and focus on what's finished, not what needs doing.

 bocatt wrote:
Recently, I've been doing a lot of swapping and hunting and trading and buying and selling to finagle my way into an army I'm happy with, without spending a lot of money. I think I've done pretty well, getting two great armies together for less than $300.

I'm starting to have a little issue though with such a patchwork, second-hand army. They are awesome and it has been awesomely cheap and I appreciate other people's paintjobs, no doubt but I feel a little like a bargain bin shopper. It's not so much that I dislike what I've gotten or how I've gotten it, just sometimes I wish I had done my research and planned a small number of minis and paints to start with and gone out and bought them and the codex/army book and started from there. Slowing adding on planned purchases, only when my last minis were painted and had seen the tabletop at least once.

Now I have almost a hundred minis of varying shapes and sizes in all different stages of assembly and painting and I'm just overwhelmed. I have no idea where to start.

Does anyone else ever get this feeling? Has ANYONE ever planned their purchases and painted them and played them before buying anything else? If so, could you comment here and tell me what it was like? Is it just as overwhelming as the clearance hunter route?

Thanks guys, happy wargaming

well, have fun with that. sounds like you have a good couple months at the very least of hard labour ahead of you.

and yes, new is much much better for plastics. fixing other people's mistakes is a time waster. essentially you are trading your time in order to save a few bucks on the models.

planned and slow purchases, buying and finishing one kit at a time is the smartest and most logical way of approaching a hobby like this i think.

Im the same way, have a bunch of stuff that needs to be painted/stripped/assembled and king of overwhelmed. If I play any small games with friends or whatever I only use painted units though, so it helps to motivate me. I started by buying things that looked cool and painted them until finished before I bought something else but then I started trading and have a little to much going on now.

I tend to buy new, so I don't buy a lot all at once and I don't feel so overwhelmed by all the things I need to do. I go by the "I'm not buying anything else until this lot is painted" philosophy. I used to be really bad about just buying stuff and it would never get painted, so I'm trying to turn over a new leaf, or paint pot as it were.

With GW jacking up prices on their stuff I'm all for the bargain shopping on the swap shop. I however also believe in playing with painted mini's, so once I got 40 warriors I didnt buy anything else until they were just about finished. I like the used part though

I always plan armies out before buying for them. I've never been one prone to impulse buying.


Then nothing hits the table without paint.

If it means no playing for a year, that gives me motivation.
Also most of my stuff was bought second hand. So paint stripping and repainting is how I make them my own.