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Hello everyone, I believe I asked this a long time ago but with the issue still existing I figured I would trouble you all with it again to get a fresh take on it. Currently I have 2 armies and with both my Skitarii and Imperial Guard nearing completion I am currently debating to potentially get a 3rd army of a xenos faction or wondering if it would be smarter for me to just invest in the two forces I have. My biggest concern is having an army that I would never play with hence why I'm somewhat leaning towards adding more points to my two existing armies, at the same time however branching out from playing Imperial Factions is also rather appealing. What have you guys found to be the best number of armies to own, what size are those armies and why? Thank you for helping an indecisive individual out!

Four is too many. Two is fine. Three is a stretch. Four is a bit overboard.

There are mitigating factors (I've got a Rhino-based motor pool shared by a number of armies), and you may not wish to count 1k-ish little allied forces as 'armies', but by the time you can field independent Apocalypse-scale forces from three different armies you probably shouldn't be building any more.

Per game system or in total?

it really depends on your finances and your time. if you're a millionare who doesn't need to work whose primary passion is modeling, your answer is gonna be differant from a kid spending his allowance who mostly wants to play

It really should not matter what other people think about how many armies you should have, play what you want to play and collect what you want to collect! In the end this is all about having fun!

 gmaleron wrote:
Currently I have 2 armies and with both my Skitarii and Imperial Guard nearing completion I am currently debating to potentially get a 3rd army of a xenos faction or wondering if it would be smarter for me to just invest in the two forces I have.

As a general rule, I recommend a maximum of 3 Armies (Codices) for any large system game. That gives the ability to play against yourself / bring all the stuff to a game, with different sides for variety.

If both of your armies are at / above 2,000 pts, and you're really itching for something different, then, sure, add a 3rd army of 2,000 pts. In your case, adding a 3rd Imperial army of any sort would be overkill. I'd really look at CSM / Daemons / Orks / Nids rather than S3 T3 Eldar / Tau.

And then just stop there.

But really, if you're still working on your Imperials, just finish them and wait out the next few months until 8E lands before starting a new army.

 Murrax9 wrote:
It really should not matter what other people think about how many armies you should have, play what you want to play and collect what you want to collect! In the end this is all about having fun!

Personally I do not care what other people think it's more trying to save myself from myself lol. I'd rather just not have an army sitting on the shelf collecting dust.

 gmaleron wrote:

 Murrax9 wrote:
It really should not matter what other people think about how many armies you should have, play what you want to play and collect what you want to collect! In the end this is all about having fun!

Personally I do not care what other people think it's more trying to save myself from myself lol. I'd rather just not have an army sitting on the shelf collecting dust.

In that case, I'd definitely recommend no more than three armies. I would echo what was said earlier by saying that you should not go for a 3rd Imperial Army. Switch it up a bit.

You should have the number of armies that you want, can afford, and enjoy.

Obviously I can't possibly be having fun with my 12 40K armies. I must be doing it wrong.

I think you should have however many armies you'd like as long as you show restraint when buying models. Even if you have an army or two shelved for a while, the models themselves make great display pieces.

I would say two/three groups of armies, for example: I have CSM, Daemons, Renegades, Imperial Guard, Space Marines and Orks, but these can be grouped into Chaos (CSM, Daemons, Renegades), Imperial (Space Marines, Imperial Guard) and Orks.

So really all it is, is 3 core armies with expantions to each via different codeces.

Completely depends on your money situation and time you can afford to your troops. For me, my main armies were Space Wolves, Emperor's Children, and DEldar. I slowly moved away from SW because I didn't like all the "wolfy mcwolferson" the army had become and got into Flesh Tearers (I'll occasionally run my FT with Raven Guard formations because they provide a good way to get my boys into CC). I invested in some Renegades to use as a small allies force for my EC. Over time, I slowly purchased enough renegades to run them as my own army. Same for DEldar and Eldar allies. I can run them as separate armies or as allies. You've got two armies that can work together, so branching out into a completely different faction isn't a bad idea at all. That being said, I can't remember the last time I played with my SW, and I'm looking to rejuvenate them here soon.

I've got Skryre Skaven, Tomb Kings, Soulblight, Orks, Skittles, Cult Mech, Taghmata, and Sylvaneth.
But by virtue of my model choice and army fluff, manage to incorporate (via fluffy proxy) all of my models into my various flavours of AdMech, which is my primary army, but still leaving me with other armies to play with on their own.

I don't see myself branching out into any other factions, though. I'll continue to grab whatever kit suits for bashing & conversions, but I'm quite fine to suffice with my 8 armies.
[If we're sticking to using explicitly their own models, the points average 650 per faction, bar the Tag, which I have substantially more of].

As many as you have time, room, and money for I suppose?

It would depend on the following:

1) Are the armies you owned painted? If not, go paint them first.
2) Do you have a nice table and terrain? If not, go do that first.

 Elbows wrote:

1) Are the armies you owned painted? If not, go paint them first.

This exactly. But even so, probably no more than three or four

Following on to the second half of the OP's question: big armies.

I like the spectacle of the horde.

I also like having lots of armies to choose from, and lots of units to choose from in that army.

I AIM to have my armies painted, but not all are. Grey plastic isn't as pretty, but, for me, it's not a dealbreaker either.

Take as many armies as you can remember their rules. There is not much more annoying than an opponent who always has to read the rules while playing.
Of course this would not stop you to play several Space Marine armies.^^

Two is the best number of armies to own: one main army, one supplemental army. Unless you play games at a furious rate you'll never have enough opportunities to get a feel for more than two armies, and with two you can switch back and forth between them to keep things fresh. Having two armies also lets you set up games with new players.

The primary army should be as big as you want it to be, while the secondary army should be smaller, around three to four thousand points. That gives the secondary army enough options to keep things fresh without taking up too much space.

As an exception to this rule, I think it's okay to have small allied forces to tack on to the main armies. But that's more of a supplement to your larger forces and not an army in its own right.

I'll echo some of the others in this thread and say play as many as you want or have time and money for. I have 3 major armies myself, and really it's overkill for me, but they all play differently so it keeps things fresh. The downside is that I probably switch between them too often and so don't get comfortable with how to play any of them, but I'm not out to win big tournaments or anything. I'm just playing for fun, so it's all good!

I will give my sentiments on what would qualify as "too many" armies:

It's your money, its' your time. So long as you have food, clothes, and housing, and you get your bills paid, then it is no one's business but yours. Collect, paint, and play to your heart's content, so long as it doesn't get in the way of your life.

Personally, this is my thoughts on collecting different armies:

I am a painter and modeler first, and an army player second. Which means I like variety.
Blood Angels (1500pts), Imperial Fists (750pts), Eldar (2000pts), Tau (750pts), Skitarii (750pts) and Daemons (1000pts) are my 40k armies. I once had some Chaos Marines, Scions and Dark Eldar but I sold them a while ago. I also have three Age of Sigmar forces (Excluding Daemons) and a Blood Bowl team.

No, I am not rich. No, I don't really have that much spare time. Yes, I have a problem. Yes, I'd generally say that three armies is more than enough. Yes, I'm a hypocrite.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
I'll echo some of the others in this thread and say play as many as you want or have time and money for. I have 3 major armies myself, and really it's overkill for me, but they all play differently so it keeps things fresh. The downside is that I probably switch between them too often and so don't get comfortable with how to play any of them, but I'm not out to win big tournaments or anything. I'm just playing for fun, so it's all good!

This is me, too. My Eldar, IG & CSMs cover the Xenos / Imperial / Chaos bases, along with the Specialist / Horde / Elite bases. I really don't have time to keep on top of all of them, to say nothing of the allied stuff I've accumulated, so I've stopped buying and started unloading a little. I probably should unload more, faster.

A question that rings true for myself. I'm GWs ideal consumer. I like, and will likely buy, just about every army!(Save smaller ones, and older ones, i.e. AS & inquisition) I currently have SM and cron armies, with the start collecting Tau box sorta painted. I'm gonna flesh out my SM and Necrons first, but after that i might build very small armies for multiple factions. Even worse(depends on how you look at it), I just bought into AoS, and HH is a plan of mine. Perhaps another good question is: How many armies should I have per system?
Note: lots of these armies are super long-term, cause a summer lifeguarding job only goes so far.

I have 7 armies for 40k and have finally hit the point where I can no longer justify starting another because I have a cool idea for a force, so for me, 7 is the tipping point (though my IK get so little play time they might as well not exist). It's different for everyone though, and I find that I play my TS, IW, Vanilla marines and Tau far more than my other armies. I know some people who have only ever collected 1 army and have 10-20,000 points of just marines because they really, really like green marines, others who have a >1500 point force of every army GW makes while yet others have their single 2k army that hasn't changed for years, all of whom are equally happy with their man-dollies.

 mrhappyface wrote:
I would say two/three groups of armies, for example: I have CSM, Daemons, Renegades, Imperial Guard, Space Marines and Orks, but these can be grouped into Chaos (CSM, Daemons, Renegades), Imperial (Space Marines, Imperial Guard) and Orks.

So really all it is, is 3 core armies with expantions to each via different codeces.

I have the same:
CHAOS SPACE MARINES: Emperor's Children, World Eaters, KDK, Tzeentch marines;
IMPERIAL: Space marines, Daemonhunters, Dark Angels
XENOS: necrons.

It seems like a lot of armies (and it is a lot of models), but I often field combination imperial armies and combination chaos armies.

Well, having ALL the armies is definitely too many. But if you're looking for the point at which it begins to be too many, that's different for each person monetarily. When I was single, I didn't mind having a CSM, Daemon, WoC, O&G, Empire and SM (Black Templars and Blood Angels) army, two war machine armies, 3 KoW armies, and 3 Warpath armies (before the game truly even existed). Now...I have some 30k marines (both boxed games), daemons and WoC. And that's it for Warhammer. Single Khador army, Enforcers for Warpath, Ogres for KoW, and X-Wing. Everything else I have is a board game, or being sold off.

Point the first, an IG army is never "nearing completion".

After that, collect/acquire/play as many as you like and enjoy. I find the three main forces I currently have to be adequate, IG, Sisters of Battle and old-school Genestealer Cult. Probably still have enough Marine stuff laying around to put together a small infantry force of Marines.

I'd say any more than 4 or 5. I had about 3 at max, and trimmed down to two (had 3 armies, sold 1, bought another, and sold a 3rd, so back down to two).

That is enough for me comfortably

I don't see a limit, as long as all your models are treated well.