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So Dakka, I have reached a dilemma.
I am considering selling my Space Wolves army, but I just don't know if I should. I painted most of it (although it was my second army, so not very well), and as such am somewhat attached to it. However, I almost never play with it anymore, and no longer enjoy the modeling opportunities that Space Wolves bring. I want to sell it to further other hobby interests, but I am afraid of getting seller's remorse (is that a thing?) and regretting selling it the minute I ship it away. Have any of you run into this problem? Have any advice for me? And also, is it even a good time to sell Space Wolves, or are the markets flooded with SW models because they're no longer the flavor of the month?

Disclaimer - I've been playing SW since before the 5th edition codex, so this was more than just a flavor of the month army for me, and I don't expect to make a killing selling (I'm also considering trying an army swap instead of straight selling them)

2nd Disclaimer! - Please do NOT make me offers or anything right now, I am NOT attempting to advertise or sell them in any way. I just want advice on whether I should or not.

Many thanks!

That's a tough one. Thankfully I, literally just this week started my second army, so I'm not at the point of selling, but I'd say this. Be really really sure you want to sell before you do, as its a big choice. And no matter what expect a bit of sellers remorse as just like you said, you put time into them so you'll have some attachment.

I've also seen friends that have sold or army swap be extremely happy with the outcome. So I'd say if your on the fence don't do t. But if your comfortable letting it go for sure it could be a great opportunity.

Sell the stuff that sucks, and the models that you don't like.

Hang onto your favorite models and a few of the good ones; enough to play a game every once in a while if the opportunity comes up.

I sold half of my Empire army in '08 and regret it. I'd hold onto them unless you're super in need of cash.

i would hold onto it for now and either wait for the new codex to drop or when they become the flavor of the month again

Sell! Buy! something!

Well from your sig it says you have 3000 points of SW. do you have a lot of duplicate units? could you shave the list down to 2000 or even 1500, so that you still had a playable core SW army? Are you willing to accept 50% of what you paid for them? Alternately, you could get an old fishtank, build a diorama/display inside it, and park the army on a shelf so you could bask in the SW glory. To go with the diorama option a step further, if you are no longer happy with the army paint job, once a week, pull a troop or character, strip him and repaint him to a higher standard.

Small armies are fun. Keep 1250 points of your favorite units; bring them out for smaller games. It's why I have 750 points of Eldar and Tau.

Sell

If you are already doubting the sale then I would probably hang on to them. If you do sell them, you will probably get much less than you think they are worth unfortunately. You could either try to sell the entire army for a decent price on Ebay and wait for months or you can part it out and sell individual units for like 25-50% under retail.

I hate selling models. You almost never get nearly what they are worth.
Its always better to trade them, as you can keep your 'value' invested in the models.

Write up some lists you can use as allies, and sell off the rest.
It's easier to build from a stable core, if you decide you didn't want to sell them after all.

I boxed my nids until the game improves for them. ~8k of nids and 2k more of conversions/sculpts all waiting on a new codex. You get so little for selling compared to retail that its better to simply wait till you want to play them again.

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
Sell! Buy! something!

THIS! The seller's remorse will disappear once you are buying new stuff to work on.

Skriker

zephoid wrote:
I boxed my nids until the game improves for them. ~8k of nids and 2k more of conversions/sculpts all waiting on a new codex. You get so little for selling compared to retail that its better to simply wait till you want to play them again.

Good news! They got a lot better in 6th; you can unbox them now.

@OP: Put them aside for a while. You may want them again later.

 pretre wrote:

zephoid wrote:
I boxed my nids until the game improves for them. ~8k of nids and 2k more of conversions/sculpts all waiting on a new codex. You get so little for selling compared to retail that its better to simply wait till you want to play them again.

Good news! They got a lot better in 6th; you can unbox them now.

No, they really didnt. Two games vs nids with my eldar and they most assuredly got worse if anything vs anything that can shut down powers. I tabled the first guy who was running 2 flyrant 3 tervigon within 4 turns by picking off the tervigon that periled with 10 harlequins. Proceeded to do the same to the other one the next turn while my warp hunter ID'd the final one who was at T9. One tyrant had a bit of fun wrecking my backfield while the other fell out the sky to a jetbike poking it and promptly got obliterated with some fire dragons who had just walked on the board from reserves. 20 harlequins lasted nearly the entire game only losing 5 guys between the two squads by the end. All 6th gave them was psychic powers. Negate them (as so many people are allying in rune priests/ farseers) and nids are now worse off than ever before.

Nids were weak vs GK, still are
Nids were weak vs Crons, now are even worse with the air force
Nids were weak vs DE, still are
Nids were weak vs SW, got some + some - but still weak.
Nids were weak vs IG, now are better
Nids were strong vs Tau
Nids were strong vs eldar, Now much weaker
Nids were strong vs BT/DA/CSM/C:Sm/BA, still are.

At the same time you went from 2-3 styles of lists to 1. Genestealers got nerfed into near oblivion and trygons are now even more meh. All you see from the troops slot is Tervigons(how i despise those fluff-mangling abominations) and termigaunts. HQ has gone to Flyrants or more tervigons. FA is gargs or nothing. HS is either nothing or the occasional biovore in a ADL heavy meta. Elites are Ymargls, HG, doom, and the rare podded zoans. So you have an army of... ~10 possible competitive units between all the slots. Look at all the lists in the List section for nids and see what they get refined down to. No, nids are not competitive unless all you face is MEQ that dont have psychic defense.

However, despite the long prospect of getting a new codex, i wont sell. Esp for marine armies its a good idea to keep. Not only can you use the marines in other marine armies, you can also often just grab small upgrade bits and convert your whole army from one to the other. SW are widely considered the best looking marine army anyways. AT worst, just make some cloaks and make them into a DA chapter with blue armor.

I'll let you take this to another thread, but there are a lot of folks who are doing quite well with them right now.

Whoa, thanks for all the feedback, it's great!

I think what I will do is start trying to come up with some small point lists until I have one that I really like. Then, I'll trade away the models I don't need for it while keeping a solid core in case I ever want to mess around with them again. This will also let me have the less daunting prospect of only repainting 1200-1500 points of models instead of 3000. I won't sell them, I think I'll only trade though, because I would assume I could do a fairly good army swap at the 1500-1800 pt. level with someone else.

Again, I really appreciate all of your help and input!

TL;DR - I'm going to keep some and trade the rest (when I get the time to do it!)

One thing to keep in mind. Don't trade away any models that might be difficult to replace later. I went through a similar situation with my dark angels several years ago. Traded, sold, or stripped most of my tac marines and tanks but I still have my metal Azrael, Asmodai, and Ezekiel as well as my metal 2nd edition dark angels dread.

CrowSplat wrote:
One thing to keep in mind. Don't trade away any models that might be difficult to replace later. I went through a similar situation with my dark angels several years ago. Traded, sold, or stripped most of my tac marines and tanks but I still have my metal Azrael, Asmodai, and Ezekiel as well as my metal 2nd edition dark angels dread.

This is where ebay comes into its own. If you *do* sell off or trade those unique models, over time you can usually easily get a hold of them again through ebay auctions. Been there and done that when I canned my Slaanesh CSM army at one point and was able to re-acquire ALL of the slaanesh chaos champions I had converted and used the first go around and had a chance to convert them again differently for the new incarnation. Couldn't have done that easily without ebay...heck without ebay it would have been near impossible to accomplish.

Skriker

If you are getting out of 40k entirely, sell it. Otherwise, just pack them away. At some point you'll want to break them out for more.

No. Don't sell them. Just shelve them in case you at some point decide to come back to playing them.

Don't do it, If for no other reason than you'll loose most of your money on them. Painted 40k figures have greatly reduced resale value, for some odd reason. Unless you are an exceptionally good painter and happen to find the right buyer, you won't usually even get materials cost back on used painted stuff. That's why hunting on Ebay for painted figures to be stripped and repainted is the best way to build an army.

I've never actually understood why this is the case. In real wargming (read historical gaming) a decent paint job actually adds to the resale value of an army. For example, I am a slightly above average at best painter. But I recenly sold a 15mm Napoleonic Russian army that cost me a little over 200$ to build to a local gamer for 600$. On the other hand, I could never get a 300% profit on most of my 40k stuff. (the rare and collectable stuff being an exception of course..) The only reason i can think of is that the market for second hand 40k figures is glutted which kills the prices.

Of course if you just need the cash right now or you feel charitable and want to sell them to a friend that's a different story...

TR

I would finish painting, then sell. A fully painted army is worth a lot more than a 1/2 painted one on Ebay.

Lord_Osma wrote:
I would finish painting, then sell. A fully painted army is worth a lot more than a 1/2 painted one on Ebay.

This is not good advice, unless the army is painted to an amazing standard having a painted model will usually lessen the value from being NiB.

Here is the general value of a model/models in various stages(highest to lowest)

Professionally Painted>NiB>Assembled and unpainted/primed>average paint job>piss poor paint job

Yeah, definitely.

If I see a painted model on ebay, I automatically remove my maximum price I'll go for it but probably more than half due to the pain in the rear end paint stripping is.

 TheCaptain wrote:
Sell the stuff that sucks, and the models that you don't like.

Hang onto your favorite models and a few of the good ones; enough to play a game every once in a while if the opportunity comes up.

this ^

leave yourself a 750pts army and sell the rest so if you ever want to get back into them or bring them out for a quick game or two then you have a great place to start

keep enough of your Space Wolves to be a nice Ally to your Imperial Guard Army ..just sell off the excess duplicates and enjoy ..

Hang onto them. Pack em up and shelve them.
In a few years you'll want em again, and it sucks to start over.

Over the years Ive had and sold multiple armies. Rebought and resold most of them.

If I could follow my own advice, I would be much happier in the hobby.

Necrons old and new, bought and sold.
Marines DA (macragge era), 5th ed attackbike army. bought and sold
Grey Knights/third party custodes metal. bought (side project)
Nids (macragge era) bought and sold
Deamons, bought, considering selling
Eldar, will NEVER sell
Dark Eldar old and new, bought and sold
Tau, twice, bought sold bought

I could have had massive armies alot cheaper.

 Grey Templar wrote:

Lord_Osma wrote:
I would finish painting, then sell. A fully painted army is worth a lot more than a 1/2 painted one on Ebay.

This is not good advice, unless the army is painted to an amazing standard having a painted model will usually lessen the value from being NiB.

Here is the general value of a model/models in various stages(highest to lowest)

Professionally Painted>NiB>Assembled and unpainted/primed>average paint job>piss poor paint job

GT is right. Horrible advice; unless you are a professional studio painter; unpainted will net you more money. Especially for Space Marines.

 Compel wrote:
Yeah, definitely.

If I see a painted model on ebay, I automatically remove my maximum price I'll go for it but probably more than half due to the pain in the rear end paint stripping is.

Paint stripping is one of the simplest things for us in the USA. Go Go Family Dollar.

Seriously though, Never sell.
I always regret it.

Currently I own 0 armies. Longterm borrowing/painting a friends Ork army though. Did lengthy conversions to make lootas and changed out 80 Boyz to Shootas from Slugga/choppas. Also made up 6 Nob Bikers heavily converted out of Deffkoptas.

I sold him this army a little less than a year ago.