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I wanted to share a qoute and how i have felt about this "Trying to get through" the "pile of shame"

"A backlog is basically a museum of our idealized stress-free future selves.”

I have been thinking alot and looking at it, andi realized that allot of the worry of painting, and wanteing to get through it, it my worry of "I always have something i need to do" whether its working, getting my house ready to sell, taking care of something and backlog is a shame of something uncompleted i wanted to do formyself. As i spearhead an initiave at work to reduce burnout and help my clinicians i realized everyone has a backlog they want to get through.........and there is not shame in it.

Yeah, I think Pile of Shame is a tongue in cheek phrase, though for myself I did have a period where I was unhappy with how much of it was unassembled and taking up space. Now that I'm really tackling it I feel a lot better about it!

My progress is slowing down because we're having a busy month and I'm back to doing assembly. I have an old friend visiting next week as well, so I expect May to be my least productive month this year so far. But I'm relaxed about that as well - I've done a lot so far.

It's made more complex by shopping addiction being a very real thing that's much, -much- bigger than Warhammer, and so is hoarding.

Pile of shame is probably part a tongue-in-cheek thing and part a coping thing for something getting out of control.

A huge pile of boxes is fine if you can manage that, and only a problem if you can't. And people on the internet won't know which case it is.

I prefer Pile of Potential.

That said, I am finishing off the Dread portions from Spirit Queen's Torment and Prophecy of Telor to finish those sets and then I am moving on to paint something other than Heroquest! I need a palette cleanser because that is all I have painted this year and the end of last year so far!

 Easy E wrote:
I prefer Pile of Potential.

Exactly.

I'm in no way ashamed of having a shelf full yet-to-be-assembled stuff.

I'm even less ashamed of how much unpainted stuff I've got. Fully painted is a fine goal. But....
1) My hobby is playing games. Not painting minis. I've found assembled stuff plays just fine.
2) I DO paint. And I'm ok at it. But I'm terribly slow. And I'm completely sporadic about what I paint & when. If all is well, I paint as the mood strikes me.

 Ashiraya wrote:
It's made more complex by shopping addiction being a very real thing that's much, -much- bigger than Warhammer, and so is hoarding.

Pile of shame is probably part a tongue-in-cheek thing and part a coping thing for something getting out of control.

A huge pile of boxes is fine if you can manage that, and only a problem if you can't. And people on the internet won't know which case it is.

I've definitely had periods in my life where things were very tough and I was a bit miserable, and I would buy Warhammer stuff to cheer myself up. I was really buying the idea that I would have time to assemble and paint it, and have a friend group to play with again. But of course, that's not what happens, what happens is you get a lot of boxes in a cupboard or on a shelf and the cheering up is very fleeting.
I knew it wasn't really a good idea and I have had purchases I regret - mostly a couple of FOMO boxes, which I now totally avoid because I find it a bit predatory the way it's all handled. So I do feel some shame for some silly purchases. I was never in any financial trouble or anything like that, it's just a case of having too much stuff sitting around not doing anything and I think that's a waste of space and money.

Maybe it's the Catholic upbringing, but I think shame can be quite a useful emotion as a deterrent to doing bad things. Shame is only bad if it's all consuming or unwarranted, but a bit of shame when you do something stupid is good I think.

I'm doing a lot better now because I tackled some of those life issues that were making me unhappy, and at the same time I also became more proactive about finding people to play games with again. But I want to assemble all my stuff at least because I find it takes up about a third the physical space that way, and I'd like to compress my collection down to fit in one cupboard (at the moment there is overspill onto a shelf an a second very small cupboard in my desk).

I like painting, and I only play with painted stuff these days. I find now I'm a bit happier I find it easier to make time to paint, but also since having kids I generally have a lot less free time which has made me value my free time a lot more, and I've found I don't really want to watch shows or play video games - I either want to read a novel or paint models most of the time if I have genuine free time so I am getting a lot done despite in some ways having a lot less free time. Just goes to show how much of this is about your head and how you feel as much as anything.

I have had that too, and sometimes its buying because you kinda want to prove to yourself you are doing well so you can afford it.

While retail therapy is definitely a thing, I try not to put too much intent behind why piles get out of hand. The reality is that new models take hours, weeks, months to paint and hours every time you play with them, but seconds to purchase. It's very hard to wrap your head around the idea that when I pick up Armageddon in June, I'm unlikely to be done painting everything in it until August at the earliest and in that time there's going to be new shiny toys that if I buy extend that out further. It's very easy to over budget your time just as easy as it is to overspend anything else.

I think there's definitely value in being mindful of your hobby time budget and that really starts with putting an emphasis on getting models to the table and playing games. The more games you get, the more opportunity you have to swap models in a list, swap armies, swap game systems. I also find when I'm not getting regular games in, I'm more prone to planning armies for games I just might play someday instead of focusing what I'm currently motivated by.

The more I tie purchases to playtime, the more I find myself looking at things I'm hyped for and realizing that if I wait until I'm caught up with my current project, it'll still be there and I'll be more motivated to actually play it.... or I won't, at which point I really don't need it at all.

I don't tie purchases to playtime at all, but I like planning out a rough schedule and keeping my purchase pace in check.

For the last year or so I've focused on Horus Heresy, and to max variety, I've painted in a fixed sequence:

10 man basic unit > tank or other large vehicle > elite unit, usually 5 man > miscellaneous special unit (jetbikes, rapiers, dreadnought, etc) > 1-3 characters (depending on importance) > repeat ad infinitum.

This way I buy more of whatever categories run out first (basic infantry and tanks, typically) and stuff consistently gets done.

I take breaks often to paint the occasional unit of other projects, chiefly my Tyranids, but I think schedules mitigate impulse buys, which in turn avoids many of the issues around a player's relationship with buying models.

Unless it's specifically a FOMO box, a MTO or the like, the box will always be there for a long time after it drops. It can wait.

I'm quite different - once I have a scheme I like I'll happily churn through huge numbers of infantry models, but tanks and big monsters are often where I'll stop and need to really push myself to give it a go. I prefer monsters for sure from the two, I've certainly painted many more large monsters than vehicles in my time!

I got a bit antsy about scale changes in some GW ranges and bought stuff because I felt they might update them out of scale with my existing collection, which is where most of my recent bloat comes from. I probably shouldn't have bothered really because you can get stuff on the secondary market, but I've always liked going from start to finish with my miniatures myself.

 Easy E wrote:
Stuff I owned in 2025 that Needed Paint

Heroquest: Jungles of Delthrak- Full Box

Stuff I Painted in 2026 from 2025

Heroquest: Mage in the Mirror- Elves
Heroquest: Rise of the Dread Moon- Full Box
Heroquest: Frozen Horror- Full Box
Heroquest: Spirit Queen's Torment - Full Box
Heroquest: Prophecy of Telor- Full Box

Stuff I purchased New for 2026

Heroscape: G.I. Joe- 18 Models
Perry Miniatures: Travel Battle Set
Wizards of Morcar: 30 Models
Gripping Beast "Vandal" Army: 136 Models
Victrix Late Roman Army: 162 Models

Stuff I painted New from 2026
None

Big update as I finished two boxes of Heroquest miniatures. Only one more boxes from last year and I am caught back up to 2026 purchases at least. This puts me at 80+ models for the year.... all for Heroquest so far.