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So I'm finally nearing completion of a table top standard 1850-2000 point 40k army.
The project has taken several years, and seen its share of pause. Only to be resumed again once I force out the motivation.
It has taught me a few lessons. Primarily, to start small. Consider the long run. All the efforts involved in a large army are not something to be taken for granted!
Its a lot of hard work! I'm sure all of you can attest to this.

Gone are my days of spending hundreds at one time to "quickly" assemble a large playable force! Geez, was I ever naive.
I can only imagine the many more hours people invest in forces with lots of conversions, and more advanced paint schemes.
Personally, from now on its gonna be 500 point blocks at the most, only expanding once I've already finished an existing project.

So I'm curious.

2013, we're all well into 6th edition now.
How do you 40K/hobby?

Buy a lot at once? One unit at a time?

Spend many hours painting, a few, or hardly any at all? Maybe none, do you just play with primed models?

Where do you find inspiration for new projects? Your existing one?

How do you decide on where to go next, which units to collect?

Do you adhere to a "meta", focusing on powerful units within your codex, or choose what ever looks the coolest. A mix of both?

I'm genuinely curious to know, what makes it fun for you, and how you find your own balance in the grim future.

I'm a 40k noob (just picked it up last summer after over a decade of telling my other 40k-playing friend that I'd never get into it for price reasons), so I had to go out and buy a lot of models to build a first army (thank God for Dark Vengeance!). Right now, most of my stuff is either primed or bare, with <5 models with paint on them, as most of my hobby time has been spent assembling.

But I came from D&D, painting minis off and on for about fifteen years, so when I have time to paint, I tend to spend way too much time on one model -- I'm trying to break that habit for my troops, at least.

As for where to go next, what to do now, and what I field, I largely go with what looks the coolest and try to make it work. As you can tell by my W/L/D ratio, it's not working so well.

My early days I bought a lot at once.

With my Chaos Space Marines, I have an 1850 list in mind (with a small side board) and buying/building to that list.

I used to buy loads in one go to have a playable army but I found it too daunting to paint so now I just buy 1 unit at a time and paint it before I buy anymore.

I'm pretty much a 40k noob. I always loved the 40k universe but because of price reasons I tried to stay away. After talking with the owner at my FLGS I was convinced to try it out. After much thinking, I wanted to start with a Tau, Necron or SM battleforce. The SM battleforce was horrible and overpriced, so the real fight was between Tau and Necrons. Necrons won. (Fun fact: I also played MtG, and I'm pretty happy I stopped because of 40k. I'm much happier with minis)

I started painting very slowly, learning how to do everything, and slowly convincing other people to start 40k-ing. Now they even have more points than I do. Until the start of this month, I was way more focused on slowly painting and building my force, but after so many friendy stabs ("Oh, are your necrons already 1++ with re-roll with all those paint and dust layers?!") I decided that it was time I showed my more competitive side.

Bought and built a bunch of models (Which makes my hobbyist side weep because they are now so much more difficult to paint. FREAKIN' GHOST ARK!) and I'm going to my first tournament this month. It's gonna be fun to have warriors and immortals painted and decently based together with lots of un-coated models

I'm still more of a hobbyist than a gamer, Slowly perfecting and learning painting skills because I really love it

I've resolved to not buy anymore until I get at least a few more of my units painted up. I'm currently working on painting my Heldrake (I really wish I had painted it before assembling it) and a unit of noise marines.

I generally don't spend lots of time painting, as I don't particularily enjoy it. I've been trying to get more into it lately by reminding myself of how good it'll look when I have it all finished and can bring out fully painted armies on the tabletop (something I can currently only do in smaller-point games).

As for what units I choose to collect and use, it mostly is in line with the fluff, or what the model looks like, and functionality generally takes a back seat. My lists are rarely optimized or spammy because I like to have a unit or two of each option in the codex, so I can mix and match what kind of force I play on a whim.

mmm for my chaos (was builted in the 3th ed), i bought the codex just for the update.

For my tyranids, I built my army that I will have fun to paint and to play. After that, I look how much that will cost me and buy little by little when I have time to paint.

My hobby habits have changed a lot over the years. When I was young, single, and getting an employee discount at my FLGS I would buy whatever tickled my fancy. It was during that time that I got my Ultramarines up to a full battle company, and a side of elder. I also picked up all the army books, not just to keep up on the rules, but to help new players learn them.

At some point, I got married, left my job, and became a full time dad. The main change with all this is that my hobby budget got a LOT tighter. I have a large core army to build lists from, but new units are slow to be added. I pick up stuff I think looks cool, or I need to be competitive. Luckily, there is nothing critical that I need, so I can just play with what I have. But as the rules change, somethings that I passed on before get better, and things I have get back-burnered in favor for other things.

So to answer your questions:
Buy a lot at once? One unit at a time?
Generally one thing at a time. I will sometimes grab 2-3 things if I get an influx of cash/gift certificates (birthday, Christmas)

Spend many hours painting, a few, or hardly any at all? Maybe none, do you just play with primed models?
My painting is currently sporadic, as my workspace is in my chilly basement. There is a limit of how long I can stay down there not wrapped in blankets. When things get warmer, I still paint in small blocks of time, interspersed with TV/computer time. This is mostly due to my back/shoulders aching if I work to long at the painting table.

Where do you find inspiration for new projects? Your existing one?
Generally if something is on my workbench, it's because I think it's cool. That said, there are times where I need to buckle down and do something I'm less then fond of. Like painting drop pods. Finding the focus to get the second one done was hard. I just set a goal, and try to plug away on it a little bit ever night until it's done.

Inspiration is easy, finding the cash to get what I want is the hard part.

How do you decide on where to go next, which units to collect?
Mostly looking through the codex, and seeing what I don't have. I have all the basic infantry I need, but I look at some of the units and think how I could incorporate them into my lists. Looking at what people are doing here on Dakka, both in the army lists and painting forums sparks a lot of ideas.

Do you adhere to a "meta", focusing on powerful units within your codex, or choose what ever looks the coolest. A mix of both?
A bit of both. Sometimes they overlap. Sternguard are powerful on the table, and provide a fun modeling and painting experience. Then there are things like drop pods. I need to buy and paint a 3rd one, but really don't want to.

I started 40K and tabletop gaming back in the heady days of Space Crusade, of which the "Advanced" version was my first foray into the hobby. I got huge into it around the end of 2nd edition, and the early years of 3rd edition. I've had nearly no one to actually play the game with, so i have been more of a modeller than a gamer. I'm a "tabletop standard" level of painter, but the conversions are where it's at for me.

I have nearly all of the materials for 40K gaming in 3rd edition, but never updated with any of the new editions from 4th edition on, other than the 4th ed. rulebook, which I use the 3rd edition stuff with, and the 5th edition Eldar codex, which I use in lieu of the 3rd ed one. I'm also a fan of Necromunda, Gorkamorka, and Battlefleet Gothic, since they were initially released. I've unfortunately slowed to about 20% of my old passion for the hobby, but I still collect and paint new stuff from time to time with plans to play it using 4th edition rules.

My, modelling passion has always been for niche armies (Kroot Mercs player!!) and lately my interest is for my armies to use standard rules but with thought-out conversions and painted counts-as models for a new theme. Like Deathwing rules being used to represent the Blood Angels 1st Company in Terminator armor, or Craftworld Eldar using lots of Dark Eldar bitz to give them a Rogue Trader-esque "Corsair pirate" theme.

My armies are only ever collected if i really think the aesthetic is "cool", and i pay little heed to what's the effective meta for any race.

I have (just in 40K, not counting at least this much in other games' forces):

1500pts of Sisters of Battle
2500pts of Ultramarines (my first army back in 2nd edition)
2000pts of Chaos (my other army at the time of Ultramarines, for my friend to play against me with)
2000+pts of Oldcrons (other than 2 lords)
2000pts of Space Wolves 13th Company from the Eye of Terror campaign
1500pts of Legion of the Damned (Cursed Founding rules)
2000pts of Eldar waiting to be painted- my latest army
2000pts of a planned Deathwing Army, using my 3rd ed Space Hulk Blood Angels as a basis.

Almost all of that was painted during the 1995-2003 years.

I have been doing one or two boxes of models at once. When I got my first models I got a large amount and took forever to paint them. If I have too many I get overwhelmed and stop painting. In fact I have still not finished all the models from my first purchase, but all the ones I bought since are done or in progress.

I don't play 40k (or even paint it) anymore but my SM, eldar and GK armies were ALL made the same way.

One unit at a time. Assemble and paint, THEN get another unit.

I had been working on a guard army for some 12 years - but by the time I had got around to assembling it for 5th ed, I had lost any enthusiasm to play the game anymore. So it got repurposed for another ruleset and extraneous units were disposed of.

I've never had enough money at any one time to buy a single army with one purchase (nor the inclination to do so, anyway - so not having the money was irrelevant).

When I started I did start quite big, 2xAOBR Orks & Ork Megaforce.

Nowadays I buy what I want to build and paint. Fielding it is secondry, although once I've built & painted a model I usually want to field it asap. But I have lots of unpainted and unassembled models and I have sworn I'm not going to buy anything else until I've made what I already have.

For me 40K is just for fun, I don't play competetive lists, but I do play to win. I also never play the same list twice. I paint what I feel like painting, it helps me relax. And my games are just against friends so I never go up against any horrible players.

I started gaming last summer. Im the kind of guy who plays for the game more than for the hobby. i have amassed a little under 8k points in necrons since i started, about 60/100 of my warriors and 10/30 of my immortals are fully painted, the rest basecoated. and everything else basecoated and maybe washed. I enjoying building models but painting them not so much. I also have collected around 3k points in Vampire Counts since i started.

Got swept back into the hobby in the last few months after buying a used BA army from a friend for next to nothing.
Intention was to sell it on for a profit but as my group used to play we decided to give it a whirl and play a game. I didn't enjoy the game but after visiting my local GW and reading the forums I really liked the new models.

I now have a 1000 points of Tau and Necrons which I purchased in bulk so I could play asap. Playing the game is gradually growing on me.
Painting is not for me as I can spend hours painting a single figure and still not be happy with the result. For now I am happy with a base coat.

I now need to put the brakes on as I have spent a considerable amount forming my two armies already this year!

I bought Dark Vengeance when released in september after a long break (i used to play hordes of chaos and last time i played the nemesis crown campaign was going on) and i am still painting them just finished my ravenwing veteran sergeant, but my painting has improved a hell of a lot although i am a slow painter most of my time is spent on highlighting themits very time consuming. I keep myself motivated by reading current DA novels such as angels of darkness, purging of kadillus and the book of the lion. I also find that audio books are essential for my painting i swear by the garro ones they are awesome.

My SM and Eldar were built up bit by bit, (with little time spent painting any of them). I'm a bad bad lad :(

But, an offer to get 25-35% off, I blasted through my annual budget to stock up on a new IG army.
It is assembled, but not painted at all yet.

4000 points of Chaos Space Marines, about two years and I still have 8 Warp Talons, 1 Predator and 19 cultists to paint. And a single Noise Marine needs paint.

I bought way too much stuff in a go. I still have about 2000 points of Dark Eldar largely unpainted, and even partially unassembled.

Smaller bulks a good idea? Yeah, I'd say so, but I'm mainly in it for the playing, not the painting.

All my armies were acquired in the last year. Disposable Income FTW.

I have 60 painted terminators 3 painted tactical squads 1 painted assault squad 3 painted devastator squads 2 painted preds 3 painted speeders, an attack bike, andf 5 extra sgts.

the lizards have 35 painted suarus 1 scar vet 10 skinks 10 temple guard, and 2 stegadons

the Skaven have 20 painted clanrats and 60 painted plague monks and 1 hellpit sitting on my desk half painted.

ohh and my BFG and warmaster.

Geez i'm a nerd.

SO i buy a couple of boxes every two weeks. But after the DA release i have been much more wary and probably will continue this trend.

Also I think anyone n the hobby ahs a few side projects they started and now want to off load.

CaseyColt wrote:
Buy a lot at once? One unit at a time?

Spend many hours painting, a few, or hardly any at all? Maybe none, do you just play with primed models?

Where do you find inspiration for new projects? Your existing one?

How do you decide on where to go next, which units to collect?

Do you adhere to a "meta", focusing on powerful units within your codex, or choose what ever looks the coolest. A mix of both?

I'm genuinely curious to know, what makes it fun for you, and how you find your own balance in the grim future.

I've been doing this for a long time indeed, 25 years. I have plenty of money coming in these days so I tend to decide on a new army and then buy almost the entire thing at once. Then I have all the models I need and can fit in working on them when I get a chance and if I get a big chunk of time suddenly am not limited to a small amount of items I prepared for. I've built every 40k army *at least* once with the exception of Tau. Chaos armies I've built multiple incarnations of, and I've had multiple Space Marine and IG forces built in the past as well. These days I have 9 different armies in various states of completion of building, modeling, and painting. When I buy an army I usually plan at least one of any unit, depending on the force. Hard to include everything in, say, an IG force, but having 4 different CSM armies allows me to have examples of everything in my collection. My painting habits have been bad in recent years, prefering to work on modeling projects and playing games instead of focused on painting. Comes from my preference for painting in natural light and not having as many "days" where I can paint lately. I've had multiple fully painted armies, but none of my existing armies are fully painted. There is probably a fully painted armies worth in my Khorne collection, but probably only about 2/3s of my Khorne forces are painted. That is the problem with constantly adding to existing armies.

I don't play a meta. I pick a concept for my armies in games and then build around it. I tend to use as many different units as possible across different games and don't like to play the same exact army over and over. I use units thought to be "powerful" and units thought to be "useless" in no particular combination or order. It is the theme/story behind the army for that given battle that I stick with. If the scenario is a planet held by turn coat Planetary Defense Forces my army isn't going to be full of chaos terminators and marines, but will be renegades with maybe a unit or two of CSMs to support them.

Getting to the point where GWs prices are just pushing me away from acquire much anymore. Had Orks, Dark Elves and Tyranids in my queue for new armies and started collecting bits for each one. Now I have canned my Ork and Tyranid plans and am getting ready to list the parts I have already acquired on ebay because there is just too much money involved in my finishing them at this stage. I'd love to have another tyranid horde, having sold my fully painted 2500 point horde some time before the latest codex came out and added the new big nasties to it. I have plenty of kits to work on still for my existing armies and will finish buying up what I want for my Dark Eldar and that will be it for me. I'll buy the new codecies when they come out for 6th for my armies and *might* acquire new minis if I like them. Since only two of my existing armies will see new books at this point, that limits my exposure going forward.

All in all I do still enjoy playing 40k, but play more at home any more with a select group of friends who all have the same attitude about the meta and playing fluffy/themed forces instead of trying to play WAAC lists. My competitive play these days is primarily in Flames of War, 15mm World War II. Just a lot more enjoyable facing strangers when the rules are better written and the games are better balanced and where few forces can be put together that will completely dominate the game all the time.

Skriker

When I started, I obsessively bought too much, built and painted everything right away. After I amassed quite a collection of Orks and BT and a few discarded side projects I slowed down quite a bit. Takes me a week or two to finish a box because I slack off. I take a stab at my gaming table occasionally. And Im slowly but surely stripping old models and repainting them with all the new techniques Ive learned.

Pretty much buy what i can afford at the moment, like getting a LRC & Hammernators for my birthday/getting FC & tac squad for my first set. I have more than 1850 points painted right now and i need to finish painting my bike, hammernators and, build and paint my other Assault CS.I usually paint when i want to and have time (which has been a lot recently), and it isn't the best quality, but not too shabby. I'll post them soon to get your guys' opinion.

I buy an initial batch, then buy in chunks as needed. What I choose is first based on what master 2k list I have playtested enough to be satisfied with its results. Sometimes I will buy a model or unit with the future in mind.

I paint often, and can usually paint a squad of boyz in a week if I'm not painting someone else's stuff. (though I've been slacking lately due to the cold weather) Some of my models have gone unpainted due to non-use.

I don't adhere to meta much other than to understand what the masses mindset is, so I can effectively deal with it. I also don't go with the rule of cool on models other than for friendly play.

I simply go with what works for me personally.

I am an old player and more of a gamer than a painter.

My fun priorities in 40k are: building = battling > ... > ... > doing actual work > painting (Might be due to the fact that I'm colorblind)

I have recently limited myself to 3 armies. I have sold of the Necrons for the fact that every game I played with them looked exactly the same. Besides I dont agree with their cheesiness and their looks started to grow stale much faster.

I play Tyranids, Orks and Chaos. Tyranids were my first army after coming back to the hobby in 5ed.

I spend about 200-300$ equivalent every month on miniatures, build them and paint the ones that I will be using for the tournament. My wife helps me with choosing colours.

I normally do like a mini or 2 a day painting and assembling.

Started just over 2 years ago with the girlfriend and have amassed a couple thousand points each of CSM and Orks. Large swatchs are still unpainted, but I've found doing the monthly painting competition at our FLGS encourages me to paint. Even if I'm buying new models, I'm adding those to existing armies and using them to spring me into going back and painting some of my assembled and prime models. I'm making it a point to not buy anymore until I make more progress as I have a heldrake and a csm battleforce unassembled, and a mess of boys awaiting magnets.

I proxy armies and if I like the play style of a unit, I buy the models.

At first I made the mistake of just buying stuff till I had a ton of unpainted crap; I bought everything I thought looked cool regardless of whether I'd really use it or not. Which is why I have a bunch of space marine dreadnoughts, land speeders, vanilla assault marines/vanguard. Now I've been mostly just playing games and trying to finish painting my 2 armies to about 2k pts each. If there is something new I want to try I pretty much have it already for marines and would proxy it first as necrons then buy it if I still liked it.

Both armies are about 80%+ painted and all of it is primed except for a few things I have as WiP conversions/kitbashes. For my marines I have 2DP's, 2 rhino's, 1-10 man squad, 2 attack bikes, and a thunderfire left. My second army only has 2 night scythes, a ghost ark, and 4 characters left. The thing is I really don't like painting. I don't want my models to look bad but good god do I hate painting. So my progress has been really slow.

With my gaming now I've become much more cognizant of the meta. I want to start doing more tournaments and GT's once my armies are finished being painted. So generally I take what I deem to be powerful in my codex's. now this does not mean anyone or everyone shares my thoughts but I've been pretty successful as of late. I think in my last 15 games with vanilla marines I'm like 12-1-3(including 2-0-1 in my first tournament). And my necrons are undefeated at 2-0-0; although this will no doubt change as I'm still getting accustomed to the army.

I don´t have the time to paint squads any more, so i tend to buy them off eBay, BUT...i love to paint vehicles, just did three Hornets and i´m no pro painter, but i was happy with the outcome. Here´s a link, if some one likes to see

http://lostvyper.blogspot.fi

Back when I started, I bought what was cool and didn't really have a coherent army. I ended up with a 1000 point tau army before I fell out of the game due to lack of players.

Currently, I don't have a lot of money to spend, so I do a TON of green stuff work and scratchbuilding. I have an 1850 point deathwing army in progress that looks awesome (at least in my eyes), and is made entirely out of DV, AoBR, and some space hulk terminators.

Scratchbuilding thunder hammers was probably the hardest part, but they came out amazing at the end.

CaseyColt wrote:
So I'm finally nearing completion of a table top standard 1850-2000 point 40k army.
The project has taken several years, and seen its share of pause. Only to be resumed again once I force out the motivation.
It has taught me a few lessons. Primarily, to start small. Consider the long run. All the efforts involved in a large army are not something to be taken for granted!
Its a lot of hard work! I'm sure all of you can attest to this.

Gone are my days of spending hundreds at one time to "quickly" assemble a large playable force! Geez, was I ever naive.
I can only imagine the many more hours people invest in forces with lots of conversions, and more advanced paint schemes.
Personally, from now on its gonna be 500 point blocks at the most, only expanding once I've already finished an existing project.

So I'm curious.

2013, we're all well into 6th edition now.
How do you 40K/hobby?

First of all - congratuations on nearing completion of your army! That's a great accomplishment and once complete, I have found, you will enjoy fielding the army on the table much more than you have in the past. I also found your question to be really interesting and I may use some or all of it in a segment on my Podcast called "The Warrior Lodge" in the near future.

CaseyColt wrote:
Buy a lot at once? One unit at a time?

Typically I design the army before buying even a single piece. I will decide on about an 1850-2000 point force over a period of time. I use Army Builder to make it, share it with others and how I intend for the army to work, make revisions based on input, and then finally buy the entire thing at one time. I will then add units to that force here or there, but usually my purchasing outpaces my painting by a significant amount.

CaseyColt wrote:
Spend many hours painting, a few, or hardly any at all? Maybe none, do you just play with primed models?

I currently have 4 fully painted 1850+ armies and I am working on my 5th. I typically play with my painted models over unpainted, but when deciding on a unit to add, or expanding the army I will tend to play with assembled/primed units on occassion.

CaseyColt wrote:
Where do you find inspiration for new projects? Your existing one?

Black Library Books are a huge inspiration for me. Looking through a codex and finding something that strikes my interest. Cool Mini Or Not has shown me some amazing versions of models that can be inspirational as well. But usually I see what someone has done at a tournament (I've been to Adepticon a couple of times in a row now), or at my local game store that hits the "interest nerve" for me.

CaseyColt wrote:
How do you decide on where to go next, which units to collect?

Usually what looks cool. Then I see how it could fit into my existing army or if it requires a lot of change to the army in order to support the inclusion of it.

CaseyColt wrote:
Do you adhere to a "meta", focusing on powerful units within your codex, or choose what ever looks the coolest. A mix of both?

Probably a mix of both, though I typically don't play units I dont enjoy.

CaseyColt wrote:
I'm genuinely curious to know, what makes it fun for you, and how you find your own balance in the grim future.

I hope I have answered some of your questions. I think they were good ones!