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This is kind of another what army should I get threads but its alittle different because over the years as a really casual collector ive managed to work my way through buying a small force for every army going. Yet never been able to stick to one and call my army. You see my interest wanders and I get bored of an army quickly. I think its the painting, I get bogged down in painting troops and by the time ive hit the more interesting units or had a few games im bored of seeing them. I was wondering how I could get around this because I really do want to get just one army and stick to it. I want to actually be interested long enough to build a good sized army and play many games with them.

How it always goes is:

1: I do lots of research and spend a million or so minutes standing in GW deciding a new army to collect. I tell myself this is the army im going to stick with.
2: Buy a few boxes of units, codex and everything I need to start playing
3: start painting up my force
4: a few weeks in after painting basically the same foot soldier over and over my eye wanders to a new shiny army
5: I get bored of my armies static build and play style and so the cycle continues, I sell my current army to pay for a new one.

I have done this over and over and haven't had many games because of it. I never stick to an army long enough to play larger games and it annoys me that I can't control it. I want to collect I want to game even my friend gets annoyed at me because we can't game until I build up an army which takes time but I always start new so that takes more time.

The only two armies that came close to sticking (as in they lasted slightly longer than others) were Chaos daemons, because of their interesting random rules that reflected their lore although their lack of any firepower eventually stopped me collecting them and Orks because painting them up wasn't all that important so I got in a few games but I stopped collecting them because I didn't like the idea of painting 100+ boys all the same.

What can I do to pick an army right for me and stick to it?

stick to Imperium units. that way you can ally your mish mash together.

you could for example do space Marines with Imperial guard and grey knight allies. etc

BrianDavion wrote:
stick to Imperium units. that way you can ally your mish mash together.

you could for example do space Marines with Imperial guard and grey knight allies. etc

That is what I have been doing. Got my Space Wolves allies and will get Blood Angels if they come out in a boxed set as well. IoM has so much crap you can buy.

Seems like you need some Xenos in your life. One of the races like Eldar where you can pull a Serpent from the list, add nine bikes and completely change how the list plays out. Swap a Wraithknight for some snipers and it's another change. Swap a Farseer for a Pheonix Lord and run a fully Aspect Warrior squad full of blues, greens and reds. Then do it all again with Dark Eldar. Wych Cults with Beastmasters, Reavers and Hellions, or Kabals with their Ravagers and Venoms and then Haemonculus Coven with Talos and Wracks. So many options to choose from to mix and match, as well as color schemes. And if you ever get really hit by the boredom, there are clowns to paint up with Harlequins.

I vote for Inquisition, that's been my unifying theme for IG, Marines and =I= for years.

Tyranids are great for this too - you can play almost any type of list, horde, midsize, or all big monsters - and painting can be as varied as you like. Themed lists are so fun and doable, and magnetization allows for many builds from few models.

The best thing you can do if you're getting bored by the time you're done with troops is to get an army that can have different kinds of troops. For example, there are several varieties of SM armies that can have Sv4+ troops (scouts, henchmen), Sv3+ troops (tacs/strike squads), Sv2+ troops (terminators) and bikes. Some armies have more or less the same models as troops (usually horde armies), but not all of them have that.

Furthermore, those high-diversity-troops-choices armies also tend to have expensive (pointswise) models, which means you don't have to paint as many of them in order to get your troops choices done with. It's plenty possible to get a 1,000 point army finished with 16 or fewer models.

I disagree with people's opinions on feeding your indecision!
Just use some self control, man up and get an army finished, it doesn't matter which one.
Looking through your gallery your painting is perfectly acceptable table top standard, if you push yourself you could easily get an army finished to that standard in a month.
Finishing a project, down to the final sprinkling of static grass or eyeballs is a real buzz and fully addictive once you've done it once.
Once you've painted the army decide if you'd like to add to it, play with it, sell it or start a new one.

Self control is a great lesson...alternatively you could collect a forgeworld imperial knights army with an assassin to fill in pts and literally not have a duplicate model in your entire army. That would be a little harder to get bored painting.

an example 1750 pts list is;
*Assassinorum Execution Force (570pts) Callidus Assassin, Culexus Assassin, Eversor Assassin, Vindicare Assassin
*Cerastus Knight-Acheron (415pts)
*Cerastus Knight-Castigator (380pts)
*Knight Paladin (375pts)

7 different models. Actually a pretty decent force as well.

I would say, since you like collecting multiple faction models. That the IG is the main army for you. The only faction that they can not field as an ally are the Tyranids. If you play unbound, you can even play them then.

I say do an Imperial Combined Army. Pick a Marine Chapter and paint a few hundred points of them, throw in a Guard Platoon or two and a Russ squadron, add a Knight to taste, and season with Inquisition!

The far more open Force Org in 7th means you really can build some cool and varied armies.

Id agree with picking a faction you enjoy instead of just an army. Chaos with Renegades and Heretics lists can field numerous builds from mutants, to renegades, civilian militia to highly trained soldiers, horde or mech. Ally in various types of chaos marines or daemons with 4 gods for each elements to choose from model wise and you have a pleora of modelling and gaming choices in one faction. Same applies to imperium faction with guard, marines, sisters, knights, assassins, inquisition, LotD and so on

I must admit I suffer from the same problem as the OP but now I have the IA 13 renegades and heretics list that problem has been resolved pretty quickly.

Yup, prior to IA 13 i had the same issue, mostly because i love modelling i tended to get distracted from my army to new modelling projects. Since the release of IA 13 i now have over 1500 points of renegades and am looking into chaos and daemon allied detachments

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
I disagree with people's opinions on feeding your indecision!
Just use some self control, man up and get an army finished, it doesn't matter which one.

Speaking as someone who also has trouble sticking to a single army, self control is meaningless to me when boredom strikes I get to the point where I'd rather not be painting anything than painting the same junk over and over again, and given this is a hobby, something I do for fun, I just give in and do what I find fun instead of what is painful and boring

Don't sell up have two forces on the go at once then when you get bored of painting one paint a squad for the other simple.

Or...

Just have lots of 750-1000pt armies instead of large ones. And play smaller quicker games. They having a 2k battle over on the next table? Never mind - play 2 750 to 1000pt battles on your table, with a different army each time!

Create your own chapter. Fuel your passion through creativity! Make them your own, watch your creation come to life. Also, don't just buy lots of troops at once. Buy one box of troops, assemble paint, then maybe a HQ, assemble paint, then a vehicle assemble paint etc. Break it up a bit.

Some ideas ive already tried though. I have a very fickle personality so all it takes could be to listen to a certain kind of music or watch a movie to sway my decision then when it wears off im left with an army I no longer connect with.

Its happened when I went on a bit of a starship troopers/war movie phase and ended up with lots of imperial guard

So far ive tried to mix it up with mixed lists and creating my own space marine chapter but marines are rather bland models to paint. Ive tried mixing it up with painting too, my necrons were inspired by Eva-02 and were fun to paint I only got rid of them because I spotted something else I wanted, damn my lack of self control but when it switches off it switches off and my interest goes. The main problem is keeping myself tied and interested to one army. To reignite that flame when it dims so to speak, like a relationship that gets boring

Currently im interested in:

Dark eldar:

Pro's:

I like their look
I like the lore and theme
Probably fun to paint

Con's:

Look...flimsy
Looks difficult to even begin to understand their tactics and playstyle
Look like glass cannons
thin tiny models


Tyranids:

Pro's:

Great models
Good looking when fielded
Alien
Have some interesting tactics

Con's

Swarm
Lots of painting same models
Lots of moving same models


Orks:

Pro's:

Waggghhhh
Fun
unpredictable
Less stress to paint

Con's:

Lots of models to paint
unpredictable
Lots of models kinda blend in together to look the same

Tau:

Pro's:

I love big guns
Range
Battlesuits and drones

Con's:

Seems pretty limited playstyle
Weak in CC
The go to guys for been cheesy and OP

Necrons:

Pro's:

These machines have no breaks
Lord is insane (never have i killed so much than when i played necrons)
Tough and reliable
Good combo units

Con's

Sort of outdated codex
Limited range and tactics
Obvious builds leave little to imagination

Do Tyranids but with lots of MCs. Fun to paint, not much repetition painting the same models...

You sound a lot like me.

Atomic Engineer. I have the same problem but I do believe I have handled it, and my way might help you too.

I get brilliant ideas and want to do an army, and then a month later grow bored of it. Now, instead of selling it -- you put them to the side and work on other projects or take a break for a month or two. Then your interest will rekindle and you go back to that army and work on it.

Also, try kill teams. Quick to buy, model and paint. Also quick to play and you can change the entire theme so easily.

AtomicEngineer wrote:Currently im interested in

Right, so the biggest problem you have is variety. Dark eldar look the same, tau play the same, tyranid have a lot of the same models over and over. What you want, then, is an army that has many different kinds of units.

Which once again means a power armor army. Bikes, terminators, speeders, land raiders, drop pods, etc. etc. etc. all with a reasonably low model count. Vanilla SM seem right up your alley.

If you don't want to play the stock good guys, though, you can run CSM. They do lose some of their variety compared to SM, but they mostly make up for it with adding in some different units (maulerfiends, etc.) and having some different kinds of rules (there's no SM equivalent to khorne berzerkers, for example, or possessed, or 1ksons, etc.)

If what you want is xenos in specific, have you considered eldar? Yeah, their tanks all look sort of the same, but they do also have walkers and vypers, and the aspect warriors all look different from each other, and you're encouraged, in theory at least, to include one of each of them in your army.

This might not be of interest to you but it sounds like smaller systems would be right up your alley. Plus you'll be more invested in the characters so less likely to move around but if you do it's much easier. Someone already mentioned Kill Team, there is also Combat Patrol. Necromunda is brilliant if you want to stick to 40k or there are loads of other skirmish level games out there. Infinity for example, you can really go to town on changing your lists around and playing whatever suits you.

It sounds like outside sources have a pretty big impact on your attention to an army. If that's the case then buy a novel or 2 of the army you're building and read them when you're starting to get bored. Should help rekindle your interest.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
I vote for Inquisition, that's been my unifying theme for IG, Marines and =I= for years.

Exactly the same with me. I'm currently playing around with combining Inquisition, Grey Knights and IK in different combinations and it's fun that I can add other Space Marine chapters or AM stuff if I feel like it. The possibilities are endless