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Not sure if this is in the correct forum sorry

i have a guard army, and i really enjoy the fluff surrounding them, in that they have no heavy armour due to a massive catastrophy etc. BUT after painting 50 guardsmen, the lure of some heavy armour is becoming more and more tempting.

So buying loads of heavy armour would then ruin my fluff, so i have considered making a separate IG army with loads of tanks.

so i'm asking, which would you guys prefer? having more than 1 specialised army which each fits their fluff, or one large army which you can make the fluff to fit it, depending on the situation.
cheers dakka

Well I'm currently on my 11th (I think) 40k army (I have 6 whfb/aos armies, and countless forces for other games). I get bored quickly, and like variation.

 STG wrote:
Not sure if this is in the correct forum sorry

i have a guard army, and i really enjoy the fluff surrounding them, in that they have no heavy armour due to a massive catastrophy etc. BUT after painting 50 guardsmen, the lure of some heavy armour is becoming more and more tempting.

So buying loads of heavy armour would then ruin my fluff, so i have considered making a separate IG army with loads of tanks.

so i'm asking, which would you guys prefer? having more than 1 specialised army which each fits their fluff, or one large army which you can make the fluff to fit it, depending on the situation.
cheers dakka

Well, let's be honest here in regards to your army's background. There would be support elements available for detachment to your guard unit, and really it just gives you more background creating opportunities as you develop identities for your supporting elements. Remember, even the Tanith had armor support on occasion.

In regards to having one specialized army or a larger army I would opt for large as you can almost always make it feasible.

I like having multiple 1850pt armies to choose from on any given game day, if only to mix things up for myself and my regular opponent. I also get bored painting similar models all the time, so new armies offer new painting challenges.

I'd rather have multiple armies, or at least multiple options if building a large army, just to change things up.

How about multiple huge ones?

I like having choices over what I'm fielding. While it would be cool to be "that guy" with X army where I'm just really well-versed in it and have all the stuff, I like that if I feel like playing Guard or Orks or some flavor of Marines I can always break that army out. The only downside is sometimes I can forget old rules if I don't use an army for a while.

Multiple small armies for me, this way when you are starting to be tired of playing one you can switch to another, and it also give you the option of lending one army to a friend that might be thinking of starting but want to first test it. There is also a few cases where a friend might like the game but not the hobby (or not have the money to buy his own army).

multiple I guess because as a completionist/collector each of those armies will eventually become big ones.

I also can't imagine how frustrating it must be if you're a one army kinda person, and then that army either gets invalidated or gets lousy rules for a few years. If I stuck to just being a Dark Angels player, I would have had a really rough half time from 2007 til like 2012.

-

Lots of small ones that will eventually grow into big ones (or at least medium ones hopefully )

In the same way that I wouldn't listen to one CD over and over again, or play the same video game indefinitely, I find my mood and what kind of game I want to play changes a lot. So over many years I've picked up everything from tiny scale skirmish (a few minis a side) to massive (10,000+ points of epic 6mm at one point), in a lot of settings from historical to alternative-history and fantasy, though to sci-fi (and different types of sci-fi too, from dystopian to high-technology settings). Another benefit of this is that it will provide more opportunities to you creatively in terms of the environments and miniatures you're using.

That being said, there is definitely a danger in dabbling too much and not committing! You can go too far and just end up with a mass of individual miniatures in different colour schemes. After all you need to listen to a CD or play a game enough to get a full appreciation of it as well

I would rather have several big armies than just one huge army. For a long time I only collected Imperial Guard but soon I realized that just painting guardsmen and various armoured vehicels gets dull. So I spread out and aquierd several armies

Can I have multiple big armies?

...cuz I'm rapidly heading that way.

Can i have multiple mid large and small sized armies that can combine into one big army whenever i want?

I like both. One to grow ad infinitum, and dozens of satellite armies for specialized purposes.

If I could only pick one option? Multiple small armies.

I'd rather have one large, well developed army than multiple small armies.

Currently I've been selling off my smaller armies and have decided only to keep my 2000+ point DE and Praetorian IG. I just don't have the time or energy to keep up with all of the releases lately, especially codex-wise, and so having one or two main armies works out better for me.

Right now, I have a multiple HUGE armies (Eldar & IG & DoW & xSMs) in the 4000-8000 pt range, along with several small armies (Inq / SoB) in the <2000 pt range.

If I had been much smarter about this, I would have gone for 2 or 3 armies in the 2500-3000 pt range, to cut down my Codex count and storage requirements to just the things that I might realistically field with some frequency.
* 3000 pts of Eldar
* 3000 pts of Imperial Guard
* 3000 pts of not-Chaos Marines

Of course, getting there now from what I already own would mean I'd be flushing away a huge amount of minis. Don't make my mistake! Stop buying when you have a full army worth of stuff, and then limit your swap-out value to half of a standard army!

ETA - maybe I should slim down... Hmm...

 Desubot wrote:
Can i have multiple mid large and small sized armies that can combine into one big army whenever i want?

This is my chosen approach for 40k and AoS as well, 500-1k points of various factions that I mix and match to make actual armies for any given game, Outside of sub-1k point games, I can't think that I've used a single-faction army since Allies were first introduced in 6th Ed 40k, typically I'll hhave models from at least 3 forces by the time I'm hitting 1500 points. I get bored of painting the same stuff, and I think particularly with things like The Imperium, it fits the fluff much better to have an army with a handful of Marines, a Guardsmen platoon or two with support, an Inquisitor and an Assassin than it does to have an entire SM Battle Company operating in the one tiny patch of ground the game is fought over. Same goes for Chaos, if I played them it'd be CSM/Renegade Guard and Demons, never one or the other really.

That, and I get bored painting more than 30-odd models in the same scheme!

When 3rd Ed. 40K and 6th Ed. WFB were out, my brother and I were out to collect every army at 2,000 pts. in 40k and 3,000 pts. in WFB. Between the... dissatisfaction we had towards the power creep in both systems and the randomized Yahtzee fest that was 6th/7th 40K and 8th WFB, we both sold all but our most prized armies, and stuck with 3rd and 6th. Now that we're gaming a bit more, and the Classichammer movement is inching upwards, I'm more interested in ever in getting back those armies I tried to build years ago. Not at current GW prices, but definitely want to build up.

You can just have multiple 'auxilary' choices that go so well with guard: Inquisition, Knightly Houses, Assassins, small MEQ strike force, more tanks, more FW toys. And then you can pick from what you have and make some fluff.

Coldhatred wrote:
Well, let's be honest here in regards to your army's background. There would be support elements available for detachment to your guard unit, and really it just gives you more background creating opportunities as you develop identities for your supporting elements. Remember, even the Tanith had armor support on occasion.

In regards to having one specialized army or a larger army I would opt for large as you can almost always make it feasible.

CragHack wrote:You can just have multiple 'auxilary' choices that go so well with guard: Inquisition, Knightly Houses, Assassins, small MEQ strike force, more tanks, more FW toys. And then you can pick from what you have and make some fluff.

These two are both really good points! Appreciate the support, cheers Dakka!

Define "huge".

For WFB, I've got 6000ish points of Skaven, and 14,000 points of Dark Elves.

Both armies have roughly the same number of models....

 STG wrote:
Not sure if this is in the correct forum sorry

i have a guard army, and i really enjoy the fluff surrounding them, in that they have no heavy armour due to a massive catastrophy etc. BUT after painting 50 guardsmen, the lure of some heavy armour is becoming more and more tempting.

So buying loads of heavy armour would then ruin my fluff, so i have considered making a separate IG army with loads of tanks.

so i'm asking, which would you guys prefer? having more than 1 specialised army which each fits their fluff, or one large army which you can make the fluff to fit it, depending on the situation.
cheers dakka

You picked a horde army, so it stands that you should get a couple of tanks and some APC's if you want to mechanize part of your force.... Then there is the air cav.... Then there is the command group... We haven't even started on armor company, ( 3-6 tanks, and a command.) Air support, ( 2-3 aircraft for support) or the Upgrades of support, such as trenchlines, weapons support platforms, or artillery from above the planet.... The add ons are not part of the regular army, they are used as support. Change them up in games... Your base army, then you get Lt Awol, with the additional weapons teams, forward observer outfit, or additional heavy weapons platoons/ tanks/ aircraft... Your additional elements are just guest stars.
Only War is a great sourcebook, not just for RPG's....

It all started with 1 platoon, Branched to a company, then to additional support... ( Just as in real life.)

I find it too easy to get compulsive about an army and get carried away with spending. I've sold off most of my other armies so that I can concentrate on one, so that it limits how much I spend. I would love to start Admech and DE but know I would throw too much money at them. I still have to stop myself from buying stuff for my Chaos force, but am holding out until the new codex comes out.

So I would rather have multiple small armies, but they tend to grow into bigger armies, so I only have one army.

As a completionist I'm working on one of everything from tau. I'm just missing barracudas, tigersharks, heavy piranhas, burst cannon hammerhead turret, baggage knarlocs, and goaded knarlocs, plus a manta but I mean come on $1200 would fill out a nice army why spend it on one chunk of resin.

I did have Gk, daemons and nids but I traded them. However I do have a artistic inqusition kitbash army and once I finish tau the mechaniums titan legion can be fleshed out along with the 30k foot sloggers

I now work on discrete army lists, (normally with one or two extra options) but with so many game systems these days, it gives more chance to play more games

TheBoy wrote:
As a completionist I'm working on one of everything from tau. I'm just missing barracudas, tigersharks, heavy piranhas, burst cannon hammerhead turret, baggage knarlocs, and goaded knarlocs, plus a manta but I mean come on $1200 would fill out a nice army why spend it on one chunk of resin.

Nice! I started off doing this with Craftworld Eldar, although I am more along the 1 full operational set (usually up to max squad) or enough to be functional now. (Up to in excess of 10,000 points of stuff right now, and yes that is accurate - it's in a spreadsheet.) I had a lot of problems with the cost of Eldar Titans for a while. Just wait until your army gets closer to full, the price is less a problem when you have less other models you want.

I got into CW Eldar for fluff and painting variant purposes. Being able to paint every 5 man set of Aspects differently has kept everything quite interesting, even though all of my vehicles and walkers are still Biel-Tan classic green and white, although I have been branching into adding way more freehand and little differences (my next flyer is going to be inspired by the Russian 588th Night Bombers division - so lots of ridiculously huge flowers and a little more red than usual).

To be fair, I have started a bit of a mini Harlequin force, but I would not really count that since they were just part of CW Eldar when I joined.

I have lots of armies. I used to have a mad scheme to collect an army for every range of Imperial Guard GW and FW ever released, but gave that up a few years ago. Now I have my Imperial Guard (Force Z) which is two platoons of infantry, a tank platoon, and some armoured support, backed by Stormtroopers in a Valkyrie, and an Armoured Fist Hardened Veteran squad; my demi-Company of Space Marines from the Righteous Fists with 1st, 8th and 10th Company support, a Black Templar crusade force, a Sisters of Battle Commandery, and a whole bunch of Inquisition stuff.

That's the Imperial things... then I have 1000 of Eldar, 3000ish of Orks, a 3,000+ point Dark Eldar army, a 1500-2000 point Tau army... and plans for expanding all of these, plus getting new ones (Necrons, for example).

Then in Warhammer I have 6000+ point Empire, Vampire Counts and High Elf armies, as well as a big Skaven army, a Night Goblin 1000 point army, and bits and pieces of Bretonnians, Dwarves, Wood Elves, etc etc.

So lots of armies is my preferred option!

I make small "set point" armies and build my large one.
My main is Guard, so it's very versitile, and I tend to build on that idea and cover all bases. I do not know what my points total is, but i can field 2-300 different infantry, and various tanks.

I have a set 500pt space wolf army, 1250 Slaanesh Daemons. I bought and built to fit those totals.

 Coldhatred wrote:
Well, let's be honest here in regards to your army's background. There would be support elements available for detachment to your guard unit, and really it just gives you more background creating opportunities as you develop identities for your supporting elements. Remember, even the Tanith had armor support on occasion.

But always from OTHER regiments. They didn't have armour support from Taniths.

In model terms this would be what the OP was suggesting. New IG army with their own colour scheme etc.