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So this is something I've thought about a while. Usually we make an Mary around a specific theme or concept. Building tau for many suits or infantry squads. Chaos between nurgle or khorne. And as we build our army it may change its look or it's style.

An example is my ork army. I got the book and was instantly intrigued by the look and fluff of the snakebite clan. Truly tribal orks without technology. And the symbol was a snake. As I built them, I disliked the idea of no true technology, since I was also intrigued by the look of dreads and kans. My color scheme already was bright with yellows, so I switched over to bad moons. I built one warboss to be the army wide leader. As time went on he saw modifications to his model, from a bullgryn shield to a commissar kap. In the end he looked like a officer.....or a kaptin. So now in the end, over a 4 year period, they went from snake bites, to bad moons, and finally (hopefully ending) as bad moon freebootaz.

So the question is: how has your army changed over time?

I'm not sure it has to be honest, at least, not in terms of an ultimate goal.

I play Raven Guard (in terms of painting, they're whatever suits the list I want to run in terms of Codex or Chapter Tactics, I just make damn sure I'm WYSIWYG) and Daemons, and the ultimate aim is all the things, right up to Superheavies and allied detachments.

What does change is what I'm adding right now. Like anyone, I've got a minis pile with stuff waiting to be completed, but what comes off that pile (or get's purchased and bumped to the top of the list) varies all the time. Suffer a heavy defeat and identify something that could have made a big difference? Bump. Manage to grab something I've coveted for ages on eBay at a bargain price? Bump.

Just this week, I had to put my plans on hold to acquire a Forge/Maulerfiend because I'm on a limited budget and spotted a new, sealed copy of IA:Apocalypse at 33% off, so that bumped the Fiend down the list.

So my destination stays the same, but I'm improvising the route almost on a daily basis.

Initially, my Imperial Guard were an all-veteran foot army, meant to be played either as codex IG or as no-flier all-DS Elysians. These days, though, I run a foot horde far more often, and occasionally go for mass Stormtroopers as well. One of the reasons I love Guard so much; there are so many playstyles from one book.

Other than that, though, I don't really plan armies; they just sort of happen

Chose an "Air Assault" Elysian army for my IG (don't ever to plan on running them out of Astra Militarium) because of the uniqueness of the army both in regards to fluff and other IG armies that are found on the table. Most other armies of IG I have seen either are spamming Tanks or swarms of infantry and heavy weapon teams. My army is elite, hard hitting and very much unlike any other IG army my opponents come across.

I started with an all-metal, all rogue trader harlequin army.

Bought some plastic Eldar and realised they didn't fit with the scale, so started a Corsair/Outcast army using Codecies: Eldar and DE, with one squad of kitbashed Harlequins.

I now have an all-plastic, all- Harlequin, all-converted army using Codex Eldar.

Well, the theme of my Eldar army, fully mech, has stood the test of time, from Biel Tan over Falcons with Harlies to Serpents with DA and Guardians.

My BA army with the jump pack theme is outdated. It worked quite well at the end of the 5th ed. Not sure what to do with it.

My DA army is troop heavy with robed Marines, Bikers, and Termies. I'll keep and expand it during the summer.

My CSM army hit the shelf when the 6th ed came out. It consists of Marines, Obliterators and some tanks. Also not sure what to do with it.

My GK and Necrons are up to date.

My Necrons started out as a Destroyer focussed list with Warriors and two Lords as backup. Then it became a more mobile Veil of Darkness / Destroyer list when the 3rd edition codex came out... then the 5th edition book came out and it shifted completely since Destroyers were now crappy jump troops instead of jetbikes, and my Destroyers became Tomb Blades. Then I played Air Cavalry (not to be confused with Flying Circus, the infantry were still the important part), and now it's finally settled on being focussed on Canopteks with minimal Immortal support.

My Ultramarines started out as an opposing force for out RT RPG style of play. We wanted something different to represent different factions. But I enjoyed the blue much more then the red of the BAs I was previously painting.

When I started playing second, I decided that they were going to be my main army. So they made the transition from “side force” to “main”

Somewhere along in 3rd, I decided to push for a full battle company. That’s the only major shift since. What I collect to supplement it, and what ends up on the table vary from list and edition. I’ve been on a FA kick lately, with bikes, speeders, and assault marines taking a lot of my thoughts. I normally try to make balanced lists.

i have two modelling goals.

1. to have an entire space marine chapter. the chapter should be game legal and fluffy. at my current rate of work this should take me a decade or more

2. an alpha legion / lost and damned army. this is fluffy but not game legal particularly, it just enables me to paint models thematically. initially i was making it a bit nurgley but it is starting to include models and conversions from other chaos gods too! so this one has changed. what also changes is the way i paint my alpha legion as they are quite tricky to get lookin right. i'm trying different styles and techniques with each alpha legion squad to see which i like best. so this army is really my painting practice and conversion practice army.

i've recently started painting orks too as i have found that i've picked up a lot of orks along the way. so i'm painting a death skulls freebooter warband, not fluffy or game legal, just for the hell of it.

My army when it started only as a single tank. I conceived of it as a regiment that had been forgotten (and their name being only "The Forgotten") and had to salvage all the equipment they had. Be it their Tanks, lasguns and everything.

Then it changed to be that their planet was entirely a Junkyard.
A planet where the refuse of war was dumped to such a degree that the entire planet was covered in mountains of destroyed tanks, guns, artillery etc of nearly every race. I had a silly idea of "where does all the junk go after a battle and the Imperium has won?". Now obviously I figured that out a long time ago (there is apparently a really good recycling program in the Imperium).

Im sure there were smaller variations on that in between. The planet name of "Schrott" is german for Scrap (it sounded cool) and the home planet's name of my regiment has been that for the longest time.

Eventually when I built some "Experimental" weapons like a Tesla Tank, Sonic Cannon, and Microwave Beam Tank I slowly moved to it being a Ad Mech run planet that housed a immense Vault that contained Experiments from across the ages that the Admech once tried, as such I have a "Salvaged" and "Experimental" series of vehicles and even troops (mostly my "Space Marines") which allows my imagination to run while as I craft the models. While Innovation and Experimentation is looked down upon (the severity of which depends on the place) the galaxy is large enough to warrant somewhere to hide away such experiments. Some of which are uncovered and used in my Army with heavy monitoring by the Ad Mech, the 2nd in Command of the troops is even a high ranking Magos with an IG Commander at the top (technically, the Magos is his CO, but she has him command the troops.)


Its gotten far more in depth from partial history of the planet Schrott, to the wildlife of the planet, to how people live there, their culture, currency, how the Ad Mech are interacted with and so on. Even down to interactions with other races and factions, like the Inquisition or Space Marines (of different chapters, the Iron hands enjoys the 91st's assistance due to the Ad Mech connection)


Im sure there will be minor alterations in the future, but currently the Vault Planet of Schrott and their one and only (in)famous Ad Mech controlled Regiment the 91st Experimental.

Started Elysian drop troops, realized how much of a pain it is to carry that many huge and delicate flyer models to a game. Converted to elite DKoK with Hades drills, had to give up on that plan when FW over-nerfed it into a guaranteed squad-killing mishap and removed the ability to use them with real veteran squads. Now I'm playing a DKoK armored company with a good supply of flyers and Malcador-size superheavies, which is ironic because my original concept was based on refusing to use any LRBTs/artillery/etc. This will probably be the final change until GW goes bankrupt, gets bought by WOTC, and someone who isn't an incompetent moron gets to write the rules. I'll still work on the models I love and maybe even play it, but if I can't play it successfully anymore I'd rather just stick to painting than invest the time and money into building yet another army for a game I don't really like.

I was going to create an Aspect Warrior Eldar army using all the special rules available to deep strike, infiltrate, sky fire and blow up tanks. Now I have a 1500pt list that I'm buying for with zero Eldar feet on the ground and six tanks... No bikes, no aspect warriors, no mechs, just tanks...

My CSM's started out as a Deathguard warband, lots of plasma and power weaponry, lacking in the vehicles, just lots of dudes, lots of firepower.Took a break from the hobby after that, an came back a couple months ago. I then had a change of heart and made them a Purge warband, just so I could continue using Nurgle iconography all over my things. Ended up with lots of forge world stuff. Got bored of Nurgle partway through rebuilding them, and then made them a custom Tzeentch chapter. Got some Screamers and heralds to prove it. Got bored of them quickly, tried going back to some of the warbands used in the codex, nearly settled on The Reborn and Blood Disciples warband, then realised I couldn't paint the gold they used very well, so tried going back to The Purge and a bunch of other Vraks forces to make a Vraksian style army. Couldn't be bothered painting multiple different forces so made a new Khornate/Undivided army, with a scheme quite similar to the Red Scorpions but with more splatterings of blood. Really just so I could justify my fluff in my head so I could use all of my guys. Never played a slaaneshi force so that might be on the horizon. Considering most of my guys are made of CSM and Loyalist parts combined I was looking to maybe pick up a Space Marine codex (I had the codex before this one; never really liked it so never really played it), and play them as loyalists as well. I was considering picking up a Dark vengeance box and getting a Dark Angels codex for a Fallen group for my guys. Also have some Orks from AOBR set, so I was thinking about getting the New box set and converting the SW, and adding the Orks together and getting an Ork codex because they seem like a really fun army to play. Was also considering getting some blood angels whenever they decide to finally release the codex.

TL;DR I'm indecisive on how I want my CSM to be, I'm a closet loyalist and I like Orks.