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Remember, the Imperial Guard has seperate types of regiment.

So when the Tanith were originally mustered, they mustered as the Tanith 1st (light infantry), Tanith 2nd (light infantry) and Tanith 3rd (armour).

An Imperial Guard infantry regiment will typically have support vehicles - Hydras, Hellhounds, Demolishers, Griffons, and the like - and if it is Mechanised it'll be transported in its own Chimera AIFVs or Taurox APCs.

An armoured regiment will comprise several companies of Leman Russ, with Hydras and perhaps some specialised tanks - Vanquishers, or Executioners - depending on what was available when it was raised (and what it has been resupplied with).

There are, of course, other types of regiment - Artillery, Engineer, Penal, Drop Troop, Heavy, Shock, Reconnaissance, etc etc, but the key thing to take from all this is that the Guard is deliberately set up so that combined arms operations are only possible when using troops and units from different regiments.

An armour unit would have infantry support from another regiment, and vice versa.

So, in answer to the OP - your heavy armour, like Leman Russes and so on - would always be from another regiment anyway. Collect away! Just remember to make sure that if your troopers are the Dev Hetra 89th, your tanks should be from another regiment - although, of course, it doesn't have to be from a different world. Could be the Dev Hetra 291st Armoured!

I prefer to have 1 army that I am dedicated to and can take various builds to any size game but unfortunately I tend to get bored after a while and have to start a new army until my interest returns to my main army.

I prefer one large army which I can add to gradually as I get units painted ( I refuse to field unpainted models.)

This has the added benefit of providing a wide range of options/builds for my games.

However, over the years of gaming/collecting, this has led to me having 5 large (over 7500 points each) armies, as well as one small (2000 points +\-) Khorne CSM army.

I dunno. I got to use my entire Fyreslayers force yesterday in a game and it ended up 3,320 pts by GHB Matched Play. Now, I'm no longer thinking it's pretty much complete. Now it's need a third magmabomb(droth) for the All-Gates formation and need a second battlesmith and need 20 more hearthgaurd berzerkers to take those units from 10 to 20. So big army just keeps getting bigger. Plus, I have pisspoor willpower

personally, I love variety, in all my games. I have small to medium armies of every faction available in :

confrontation
wrath of kings

huge armies in:
LOTR/Hobbit

and peculiar forces in:
AoS
Malifaux

I love "telling the tale" and me and my group have purposes behind all our forces and battles. We sometimes link the rpg's for those games into some of the battles we fight. so I guess I would say when it comes to armies "the more the merrier"

 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

I do my guard a bit like this too, with the tank crews having different uniforms and regimental markings, but they are all part of the same force. If I break it down i think my guard army at the moment contains troopers from two different regiments and will eventually include three - infantry, armour and artillery.

In addition to that, i have the guard as the main force of my Imperial collection, with allied forces from the Blood Angels and Grey Knights, but i try to make sure the guard remain the dominant force.

Structuring all your armies together, forming a cohesive force from little groups and such, is one of the most satisfying things about 40K IMO.

 Gen.Steiner wrote:
There are, of course, other types of regiment - Artillery, Engineer, Penal, Drop Troop, Heavy, Shock, Reconnaissance, etc etc, but the key thing to take from all this is that the Guard is deliberately set up so that combined arms operations are only possible when using troops and units from different regiments.

NB that this is only as they are initially mustered. Once they hit the ground, it is not uncommmon for broken regiments to be combined under whichever partial regiment is the largest of the remainder. Under such conditions, by proximity and joint operations experience, it would not be out of the question for a survivor regiment to incorporate infantry, armor and/or engineering elements drawn from the remnants of multiple shattered regiments of different types.

TheEldanariPrince wrote:Structuring all your armies together, forming a cohesive force from little groups and such, is one of the most satisfying things about 40K IMO.

I absolutely agree. Telling a story with the figures you collect and the armies you build is all part of the fun!

JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Gen.Steiner wrote:
There are, of course, other types of regiment - Artillery, Engineer, Penal, Drop Troop, Heavy, Shock, Reconnaissance, etc etc, but the key thing to take from all this is that the Guard is deliberately set up so that combined arms operations are only possible when using troops and units from different regiments.

NB that this is only as they are initially mustered. Once they hit the ground, it is not uncommmon for broken regiments to be combined under whichever partial regiment is the largest of the remainder. Under such conditions, by proximity and joint operations experience, it would not be out of the question for a survivor regiment to incorporate infantry, armor and/or engineering elements drawn from the remnants of multiple shattered regiments of different types.

Whilst this definitely does occur, generally speaking regiments of similar types are combined. Weird amalgamations like the Catachan-Elysian unit that specialised in airborne jungle warfare are the minority; stuff like the Belladon 81st-1st Recon, combining the Belladon 81st Reconnaissance and the Tanith 1st, are much more common. It's all down to the desire to minimise the unit's effectiveness if it goes rogue.

Of course, what's ridiculous is the notion that a single combined arms regiment composed of remnants of several different regiments could represent any real threat to the Imperium if it went rogue.

I'm definitely in the big army camp. I hate playing the same list again and again, so I like to change it up.

I currently have 1 huge army 1 Large Army and 1 small ones.
(Orks currently at 7k points painted 3k in various stages of assembly and paint)
(Renegades and Heratics/IG (In the form of Rebel Grotz) 3K painted)
(1K Tau painted with 500 more points to be built and painted)
(500 Points CSM (mostly conversions) painted up)

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Of course, what's ridiculous is the notion that a single combined arms regiment composed of remnants of several different regiments could represent any real threat to the Imperium if it went rogue.

Oh, absolutely, but you know the Imperium. Bureaucratic hell gone mad turned up to 11 with added religious zealotry; it's probably HERESY *BLAM* to suggest that a combined arms regiment is even desirable, let alone not a significant threat...

Agreed!

But seeing as I own a Knight and infantry and armor, and a Valk, I'll be damned if I'm gonna let some pencil-pushing twerp tell me how to run my army!

Can't argue with that!

...well, unless they bring moar guns.

This is an interesting question because I've found that it is considerably more expensive to own multiple armies in some games. For instance, WarMachine recently moved to Mk3, and I was faced with having to pay about $20 per army to update the cards. Since I have 5 (smallish) armies, moving to Mk3 is considerably more difficult for me than my Cygnar-only friend. AoS has BattleTomes, 40k has Codexes. WM actually requires a certain mastery of a faction's combos to have a chance at winning, so starting a new faction means planning it from the get go - not all 50 pt armies are equally viable - so there is an intellectual start up cost as well. Not only that, but when you work with a single army, you need fewer paints if you stick to a single paint scheme. And when games have a typical point size of a few dozen models, just being able to play with a new army is a huge upfront investment of time and money - and that army will be very basic, with relatively little wiggle room for list building.

But while it is more money to invest in a new army, putting all your eggs in one basket is also dangerous. Miniature games are constantly evolving. You run the risk of being on the business end of change. Your valued army could be nerfed without warning. And armies tend to follow a certain aesthetic, almost to a fault. I like the look of the Tau, but it seems to me that if you've painted one, you've painted them all. And if your group is only a handful of people, you'll quickly get fatigued having the same match ups over and over again. Even if your armies are large and varied, you'll soon end up playing the same basic lists as your small group gets into a rut - and you won't be able to experience everything the game has to offer.

Personally, I'm in the multiple small armies/multiple games category. To paraphrase an Almond Joy/Mounds commercial, "sometimes you feel like painting a Tau, sometimes you don't".

That is why I recommend having 2 or 3 armies per game. That generally has enough variety to keep at least one competitively viable at any given time, and you don't get buried with ongoing rules updates.

Also, only buying for 1 game at a time...

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Also, only buying for 1 game at a time...

Pshaw. That's crazy talk.

I did very well at only buying Magic when I played cards, so I don't have huge piles of crap CCGs. Then I switched to Pirates, and avoided having huge piles of Clix. I only bought 40k, and avoided Vor & VOID & HG/GK.

The 1 at a time thing is a good rule.

I don't stick to one game, but my preference is generally to split my efforts between one large army and multiple smaller forces.

For example, in Kings of War, I'm only building one large army. It's my Chaos force and it's given me the chance to paint all kinds of great vintage chaos figures. It's already quite large, but I continue to expand it.

However, on the side I've been building smaller forces for all kinds of games.

-Various Sci-fi and Post Apoc Warbands
-A couple Necromunda gangs.
-Fantasy Warbands for Song of Blades and Heroes.

In this way I can still work towards that huge army, while at the same time completing smaller forces at the same time

As to the OP's specific situation, I would go ahead and add a few squads of tanks. Simply paint and designate them as a separate unit that has detached a platoon or two to assist the infantry based force. This sort of thing happens all the time in 40k stories. It will give you both the chance to more deeply develop the recent history of your force and the oppotunity to paint something completely different than your current army scheme.

I like changing, this is me in quite every single aspect of my life but my girlfriend

I have a solid base of dark angels which I'm painting atm, they're supported by some detachment (mostly 1 troop, 1 qg and the squad I'd like to deploy) of Grey Knights, Space Wolves and Ultra marines.
In the 30k I'll be hoarding Alpha Legion while in AoS I have Vampire Counts and Wood Elves as Fantasy Army.

One thing I like is when miniatures can be used in multiple games, like GW has been doing of late. Some of your Khorne hero models can show up in Age of Sigmar, Gorechosen, and Silver Tower. The Silver Tower Tzeentch guys are an almost complete Age of Sigmar army. 40k has Renegade, Kill Team, Deathwatch Overkill, Assassinorum, that one with the flyers, and probably another one or two I don't know. Demon models can do both 40k and AoS. It isn't super common, and GW's approach is pretty limited, but one game -> many models and one model -> many games are my personal tickle spots.

I'm also deeply addicted to starter boxes. The Start Collecting boxes almost ruined me. They still might.

Depends what you mean by small and huge.

If we are talking AoS small armies being 1000-2000 point
and large being like 3000 pts... then I'd rather have multiple small.

I agree. In this context, I think "small" would be 500-1500 pts, where "huge" would be at least 2500, 3000 pts.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I agree. In this context, I think "small" would be 500-1500 pts, where "huge" would be at least 2500, 3000 pts.

Erk!

Is that just AoS, because otherwise I have... err... six 'huge' fully painted armies sat next to me in my display cabinets, plus my painted Inquisitor and Necromunda collections...

I have multiple large armies. I like being able to field different armies, and being able to field different themes within those armies.

I tend to do my collecting on a project basis. So when I wanted to do 15mm WW2 (like Flames of War but I use different rules and individually base my miniatures) I got a reinforced platoon of Germans and Soviets and made a bunch of terrain. Since then I've added another 5 or so vehicles to each side as well as a smattering of anti-tank guns, mortars, and so on. They are largely done now and rather than bumping them up to a company per side, I'd rather do a similar sized force for the US and Japan. Or maybe UK and Afrika Korps.

I have a somewhat related question. When you guys start collecting a new faction, how do you go about it? I tend to focus on large box sets and starter boxes just because you get a really good value for a large number of models. I especially like the big boxes, like Warmachine's All-In-One boxes, or stuff like Infinity's Onyx Contact Force box. The end result is that I tend to end up with a lot of models I like, but a lot of models I don't like, with premade armies that have a very specific play style.

Like, I really like the AoS Maw-Crusher model. I would start an Ironjawz army just for that model. I'd probably start with the Start Collecting box (I'm not a fan of the pig-thing mounts and wouldn't buy them otherwise, regardless of their gameplay value) and then the Maw Crusher - and I have no idea how viable such an army would be because my focus is, first, value and second, model appearance. Without points, such an approach worked in AoS because after a few games, you could self-balance around what you have or want to play, but now that everybody pretty much only plays with points, I'm worried that my approach is going to get me into trouble.

 Gen.Steiner wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I agree. In this context, I think "small" would be 500-1500 pts, where "huge" would be at least 2500, 3000 pts.

Erk!

Is that just AoS, because otherwise I have... err... six 'huge' fully painted armies sat next to me in my display cabinets, plus my painted Inquisitor and Necromunda collections...

No, it holds for 40k, too.

What I would have done, had I known where I would end up is different from what I've done to date. For I would own less than half as much Eldar and IG and (C)SM as I currently do, and those armies would still be "huge" in this context. I'd probably still have my Sisters and Necromunda minis, but not have gotten any Inquisitor.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Gen.Steiner wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I agree. In this context, I think "small" would be 500-1500 pts, where "huge" would be at least 2500, 3000 pts.

Erk!

Is that just AoS, because otherwise I have... err... six 'huge' fully painted armies sat next to me in my display cabinets, plus my painted Inquisitor and Necromunda collections...

No, it holds for 40k, too.

What I would have done, had I known where I would end up is different from what I've done to date. For I would own less than half as much Eldar and IG and (C)SM as I currently do, and those armies would still be "huge" in this context. I'd probably still have my Sisters and Necromunda minis, but not have gotten any Inquisitor.

Well, in that case:

Imperial Guard - 7K+ (I have no idea how much the whole thing is worth)
Space Marines - 6K?+ - a full half company with support from 1st, 8th and 10th Companies.
Black Templars - 2K
Sisters of Battle - 2K (ish)
Inquisition - 1K probablyish? Maybe more?
Iron Warriors - 2K+
Tau - 2K+(ish)
WFB Empire - 8K? I dunno, it's a lot, I still want a Steam Tank, two units of Pistoliers, another unit of Knights, 10 more Flagellants, and 10 more Archers... oh and another Mortar and possibly a second Helblaster too.
WFB Night Goblins - 1K

Necromunda - Goliaths, Escher, Ratskin, Ash Waste Raiders, Hired Guns
Inquisitor - Arbites Judge, Enforcer, K9 unit, Inquisitor, Interrogator, Ordo Hospitaller Sororitas

Those are the painted armies in my display cabinets.

Then I have:

Almost 1K Iyanden Eldar
6K of Skaven
6K of High Elves
3K of Dark Eldar (possibly more)
1K of Ultramarines


And random oddments and assortments from Dwarf, Bretonnian, Orc, Tomb King, Tyranid, Necron, Chaos Warriors, etc etc... and I comfort myself because it's still not as big a collection as I did have, and much smaller than some other people!

I always like to see posts like yours, because then I feel like my collection is more "reasonable".