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Hey, just wanted to get a feel for how the community sees army collections

Would you rather have a large, very much complete collection of an army that has basically every playable option, or several collections of multiple armies that allow little variety amongst the actual armies?

I ask this because I have quite a large collection of completed projects and although each army is fully painted, based, etc; the armies feel incomplete due to their limited collection size.

I am constantly going back and forth on consolidating to just 1 or 2 armies and really fleshing them out, but I am just not sure.

For reference I have:
~6000 Points of Necrons
~5000 points of 30k Night Lords
~3500 points of Imperial Guard
~2500 points of Tyranids
~1500 points of 40k Thousand Sons
~1000 points of Blood Angels

It's all based and painted and takes up a tons of space, which makes expanding a bit of a struggle. What is everyone's thoughts?

I prefer to collect "real" (in the context of 40k) formations. Right now I am building a 30k superheavy tank regiment. Atm I have six Baneblades, six Stormswords, three Stormhammers and one Stormlord regimental command vehicle for 16 vehicles in 5 companies plus a command tank.

I doubt I will ever use them all in a game.

As per my signature below i hve only 1 army and that is eldar coming in at over 20,000 points.

If you count my Titans, I have breached the wall of 40,000 points in Marines. Split roughly 80/20 in favor of 30k/Heresy era Marines, but Marines none the less.

I have a small contingent of Sisters of Battle, but they just pull Shelfspace Guard Duty in the name of the Emperor anymore.

Does it count as one single large collection of an army if your first and only army is a combination of Space Wolves and Sisters? I've been collecting and building upon both about equally and I only field them as the pair.

I prefer small detachments over one big army. Yes one big one looks impressive when it's finished, but for me it's an otherwise long grind uphill, especially since it would require many redundant units so it gets repetitive REALLY fast.

Small armies, on the other hand, lets me go about making creative little warbands and conversions. Especially conversions since I wouldn't have to worry about keeping detailed notes on how the conversion was done when I need to replicate it. I tried that on an ork power klaw and realized the insanity of how many times I had to redo it, when a single klaw took me 3 hours.

I would choose the multiple option, definitely. There's just too many different armies I'm interested in collecting/modelling/painting. One just wouldn't be enough.

That's what im doing, I own 3,000+ points in every xenos army and ig, just sold DA and 30k EC too. Focusing on one or two armys will be my main goal, it looks so much better having a great collection of any combination you want.

I think if I could find a better storage solution, it wouldn't hurt to just focus on really fleshing out each of the armies and eventually just having 10k+ points of each one.

Sadly models do take up a lot of room, so im still about as torn as the community on whats best to do (poll is currently pretty split)

I reckon it's a combination of both. I feel like having 5,000 - 10,000 of each army you would like to collect is a good number, with more if you want (and are capable).

Assuming money is no issue, I reckon it's better to branch out and have a sizable amount of the armies you are interested in. If money is an issue (which - let's be honest - it tends to be for everyone in relation to this hobby haha), then I reckon you should build up an army at a time until you have a comfortable level of flexibility and/or fluff accuracy before moving onto your next army of choice. The later is what I aim to do with my Black Templars before moving onto my next army of choice (debating among a couple of non-Imperium factions).

 IllumiNini wrote:
I reckon it's a combination of both. I feel like having 5,000 - 10,000 of each army you would like to collect is a good number, with more if you want (and are capable).

Assuming money is no issue, I reckon it's better to branch out and have a sizable amount of the armies you are interested in. If money is an issue (which - let's be honest - it tends to be for everyone in relation to this hobby haha), then I reckon you should build up an army at a time until you have a comfortable level of flexibility and/or fluff accuracy before moving onto your next army of choice. The later is what I aim to do with my Black Templars before moving onto my next army of choice (debating among a couple of non-Imperium factions).

My 2 constraints are space and hobby time really.

Hobby time is a good one though, as it keeps things affordable. I force myself to completely build and paint kits before buying more. This keeps me from having armies of grey plastic, however it does really slow down army progression, especially if im busy or unmotivated to paint.

Space though is where im struggling and what kind of inspired this thread....For the amount of space I have available, itd be sweet for 2 really fleshed out armies, but right now I am struggling to expand any of my multiple armies.

 stormotron wrote:
My 2 constraints are space and hobby time really.

Hobby time is a good one, as it keeps things affordable. I force myself to completely build and paint kits before buying more. This keeps me from having armies of grey plastic

Space though is where im struggling and what kind of inspired this thread....For the amount of space I have available, itd be sweet for 2 really fleshed out armies, but right now I am struggling to expand any of my multiple armies.

As far as your hobby time goes, it seems you have a decent system.

As far as space goes, it comes down to two things, really: Whether you would like to display the army(ies) (and if so, whether that's in part or in full); and the total available space you have in wherever your miniatures are being kept.

One way to minimise the space that comes to mind for me is keeping your armies in the carry cases GW sells (or equivalent cases or other types of relatively efficient storage like that) and label them well so that you know what's in them. This is what my mate Tyranids does because he has so many models and very limited space and it's something I want to try and do for my Warhammer as I start collecting more. Displaying the full armies - despite being really, really cool - takes up a hell of a lot of space and, unless you have a small(ish) army, it tends to be impractical, so if you want to display your armies, try doing small displays like you might see at your local GW.

If it's a case of not enough space where you store them (e.g. your house, your man cave in the back shed, your partner's basement - wherever), then that's a whole other issue that I can't really offer any help with haha

 IllumiNini wrote:

 stormotron wrote:
My 2 constraints are space and hobby time really.

Hobby time is a good one, as it keeps things affordable. I force myself to completely build and paint kits before buying more. This keeps me from having armies of grey plastic

Space though is where im struggling and what kind of inspired this thread....For the amount of space I have available, itd be sweet for 2 really fleshed out armies, but right now I am struggling to expand any of my multiple armies.

As far as your hobby time goes, it seems you have a decent system.

As far as space goes, it comes down to two things, really: Whether you would like to display the army(ies) (and if so, whether that's in part or in full); and the total available space you have in wherever your miniatures are being kept.

One way to minimise the space that comes to mind for me is keeping your armies in the carry cases GW sells (or equivalent cases or other types of relatively efficient storage like that) and label them well so that you know what's in them. This is what my mate Tyranids does because he has so many models and very limited space and it's something I want to try and do for my Warhammer as I start collecting more. Displaying the full armies - despite being really, really cool - takes up a hell of a lot of space and, unless you have a small(ish) army, it tends to be impractical, so if you want to display your armies, try doing small displays like you might see at your local GW.

If it's a case of not enough space where you store them (e.g. your house, your man cave in the back shed, your partner's basement - wherever), then that's a whole other issue that I can't really offer any help with haha

I'm in a weird inbetween where they are "on display" as in on shelves, but in a closet lol

mostly makes it convenient for grabbing what i want to take to the shop that day.

heres an old pic of what the setup is

Well, it highly depends.

Some factions fit more to "multiple small collections". the entire IoM for example, or the entire eldar races, or the entire chaos armies-as these guys ally properly with each other and make a larger army of sorts.

Most xenos on the other hand, don't play nicely with others, and are more fitting for a single big collection.

That said, Im a tau player, but I'm seriously considering to evolve into chaos, for variety sakes.

I would rather have 1000 points of multiple things than quite a few points of one thing since it fits the level of involvement I'm willing to commit to this game

As by my signature i seem to collect a ton of different stuff. Not all is built and painted but i enjoy collecting!

I kind of tend to focussing on one particular army per system.
Because in the past my collection was a freaking mess. 7 WFB-armys, most above 5k. 3 40k-armys above 3k. And a Chaosfleet in BFG.
In time I axed most of it, because to much unpainted stuff lying around. And the crap with CSM in 4th and Tyranids in 5th edition...
Anyway. After shelving of AdMech I concentrate on the 30k-Mechanicum with the goal to have all 3 lists at 5k playable, ultimately. Fully painted, of course.

 stormotron wrote:

I'm in a weird inbetween where they are "on display" as in on shelves, but in a closet lol

mostly makes it convenient for grabbing what i want to take to the shop that day.

Well without being at your house and knowing you situation better than talking on a forum will allow, my best advice is if you want to expand your collection, then the best way to do it is a combination of my suggestion with the carry cases (or equivalent) and see if there's another space in your house (or in the shed or wherever) where you can replicate the setup you've shown us in the image.

If I was still painting Dark Angels Tactical Marines at this point I'd want to slit my wrists. Multiple armies lets you flex your painting skills by working in different styles, aesthetics, and color schemes, and also keeps you from getting burned out painting the same thing over and over again. When I get tired of painting Dark Angels, I work on Guard. When I get tired of Guard, I do Orks. When I get tired of Orks, I'll be working on Ultramarines. When I get tired of those, hopefully a new Guard book will be out and I'll paint them.

I like smaller armies, collecting one army only would bore me, i like to change my play style sporadically. However i do see the appeal of having an entire chapter of 1000 space marines!

I've only done small armies and rotated over time and stay ahead of GWs nerf curve.

Each project funds the next, and I get to try new painting/playing styles.

for me it depends. In my current situation, I'm collecting a 30k crusade fleet, so I'll have about 3-5 armies total, but they will still have the overarching scheme (probably in basing) so they have a sense of unity, if that makes sense. outside of goals like mine, I have no real preference either way.

 stormotron wrote:

 IllumiNini wrote:

 stormotron wrote:
My 2 constraints are space and hobby time really.

Hobby time is a good one, as it keeps things affordable. I force myself to completely build and paint kits before buying more. This keeps me from having armies of grey plastic

Space though is where im struggling and what kind of inspired this thread....For the amount of space I have available, itd be sweet for 2 really fleshed out armies, but right now I am struggling to expand any of my multiple armies.

As far as your hobby time goes, it seems you have a decent system.

As far as space goes, it comes down to two things, really: Whether you would like to display the army(ies) (and if so, whether that's in part or in full); and the total available space you have in wherever your miniatures are being kept.

One way to minimise the space that comes to mind for me is keeping your armies in the carry cases GW sells (or equivalent cases or other types of relatively efficient storage like that) and label them well so that you know what's in them. This is what my mate Tyranids does because he has so many models and very limited space and it's something I want to try and do for my Warhammer as I start collecting more. Displaying the full armies - despite being really, really cool - takes up a hell of a lot of space and, unless you have a small(ish) army, it tends to be impractical, so if you want to display your armies, try doing small displays like you might see at your local GW.

If it's a case of not enough space where you store them (e.g. your house, your man cave in the back shed, your partner's basement - wherever), then that's a whole other issue that I can't really offer any help with haha

I'm in a weird inbetween where they are "on display" as in on shelves, but in a closet lol

mostly makes it convenient for grabbing what i want to take to the shop that day.

heres an old pic of what the setup is

I think you have a plastic krack problem Sir

I think it’s good to have a large primary army, and then one or two smaller, secondary ones.

Large collections weather edition/codex changes better. What’s hot and what’s not shifts, but if you have a deep collection, you should be able to put a decent army on the table regardless. You can also play all the different types of list that army can do (drop pod assault, mechanized column, gunline, etc)

But it’s good to have some variety, and that’s where the small armies come in. Something different to paint, a different play style. You want to be able to mix things up to keep things interesting.

As for storage, you might want to look into getting some custom foam to box up the armies you don’t play that often. Or just everything. KR’s system would probably work very well for you. But you have a nice set up there.

When I first got into 40k it was with Necrons and I entertained my innate completion complex and got at least one of everything in the codex. Now, noone likes to play against Necrons. This is a public service announcement.

when I first started 40k, I got small-to-medium collections of a handful of armies. Now, i'd prefer to just have a large collections of 2 armies.

For me at first I was planning on doing a massive Imperial Guard army, however as I continued to play I decided that I wanted a little more variety, and since I thought fighitng Imperial vs Imperial didnt look good on the table top I decided a Xenos faction would be a good idea to mix things up. I am going for 2 pretty sizeable forces consisting of both IG and Farsight Enclaves Tau, 7500pts each for now.

I like having one large army that can be fielded in many different ways.

I like Skitarii. So one large half of an army.

I like the idea of being able to pick and choose what and how I play. Right now, I can only field marines, and a couple of inquisitors, but I have nids, guards, and quins, in the works.

As well as some squats...