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I have quite a few armies now. (I can't bring myself to sell stuff)
I started again in around 1999 after a break of around 8yrs of the hobby & have collected in the last 20yrs all are above 2k some are around 10k To my shame around 30% is painted. I seem to buy more than I can paint every year. The new shiny syndrome always gets me along with being a bit ocd & wanting to own every model for an army I start.

40k

Eldar
Dark Eldar
Iron Warriors
Space Wolves
Necrons
Chaos Daemons
Death Guard
Imperial Knights
Orks

AOS

Stormcast Eternals
Blades of Khorne
Kharadron Overlords
Idoneth Deepkin
Maggotkin of Nurgle
Disciples of Tzeentch
Nighthaunt
Legions of Nagash
Ironjawz
Beastclaw Raiders
Gutbusters

Warhammer Fantasy 8th edition (over 3k each on square bases)

Bretonnians
Tomb Kings

Craftworlds - Main: close to 9000 points. Have been collecting since 1999
Drukhari - Secondary: around 6000-7000 points
Dark Angels - First army I ever bought. Somehow have 10k of it.
Tyranids - 3000 points. My current army I am working on.
Necrons - 3000 points
Small Emperor's Children army for 30k and 40k
Daughters of Khaine - 1500 points
Stormcast - 2000 points
Blades of Khorne - 2500 points

Also have a small Ork force I haven't touched in ages. Also bits and bobs from ton of other stuff. Some Steel Legion models, some High Elves, Free Folks, Greenskinz, etc.

With the new rule of 3 in 40k it has become easier to maximize an army as you are limited on how much you can bring of each in many cases. I like it.

Armies:
40K:
Craftworld Eldar
Imperial Guard
Sisters of Battle
Space Marines (Ultramarines)
Space Marines (Lamentors)
Space Marines (Deathwatch, painted as Blood Ravens)

Warhammer Fantasy:
High Elves
Dark Elves
Empire
Orks and Goblins

Kill Teams (different from the above)
Imperial Guard
Admech

Most of them are small, 2K or under for 40K, with Eldar and Sisters being my largest. I have a bad habit of switching from project to project, so I don't complete armies quickly.

My Fantasy armies are larger, with the average being closer to 3K, and with nearly 7K in High Elves.

This is also not counting the other games I play.

I have half an army.

Current GW Armies:
None

Past GW Armies:
Tau
Chaos Marines
Black Templar
Necrons

WMH:
Mercenaries
Skorne
Protectorate Battlebox

Firestorm: Directorate

Dropzone: Shaltari

And a bunch of Battletech figures which are not specifically tied to any one faction until they are painted.

I never did get in to Warhammer Fantasy because I could never decide on an army. I liked Beastmen, Tomb Kings, Bretonnians, and Wood Elves (Lizardmen, too, but there were always too many of them), but I could never bite the bullet on any. I've had Fantasy models purchased to use in 40K at times as well as Age of Reckoning's CE Ork general. At least the selection in Age of Sigmar is a little easier to select from these days.

Depending on how you define a distinct army

Main Forces
Space Marines
Imperial Guard

Factions I can put up a minimum force
Sisters of Battle
Ad Mech
Grey Knights
Death Watch
Assassins
Inquisition
Space Wolves

Factions I own though rarely/never field
Dark Eldar
Orks
Chaos Space Marines.

See my sig for a complete list of my collection (or nearly complete list anyway), but as for what I consider to be full armies, I have:
Dark Angels
Space Wolves
Chaos Space Marines
Death Guard
Chaos Daemons
T'au Empire

And, money permitting, I might even start a small Astra Militarum force later this year (with the Loyal 32 at least).

Simultaneously too many and not enough.

Eldar (proper ones, not Dark Eldar and not flippy clowns)

Chaos Renegade Space Marines

5:

- Inperial guard
- Death Korps of Krieg
- Tyranids
- Renegades & Heretics
- Tau (Though I am selling or trading off this army)

my 40k collection/plog:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/767743.page

gigantic loads of IG, large tau, solid drukhari, decent IK, decent orks, small deathwatch, small chaos, tiny GSC.


whfb:
in process of stripping my dark elves and refurbish them to an aos army, brets at some pt in the distant future.


flames of war:
fully painted luftwaffe and panzer lehr arimes.

Blood Angels Primaris
Deathwatch mixed
Adeptus Custodes
Admech
Imperial Knights
Tempestus Scions
Eldar
Dark Eldar

One full Necron army, a Tyranid Kill Team.

No interest in building more races, the 40k niche is full, no vacancy.

The Chessonator wrote:
I am brand new to the hobby,

So my question to the group is: how many armies do you have?

Far too many!

If I count things that could be fielded as a simultaneous stand-alone forces of 2,000+pts for 40k, I have:

Eldar Biel-Tan Craftworld (x2)
Eldar Iyanden Craftworld
Eldar Harlequins

Imperial Guard x2
Sisters of Battle
Inquisition

Chaos Marines
Space Marines

My recommendation is that you collect a maximum of THREE (3) armies, maximum of 2,500 pts each, never buying more than 2 identical non-Core/non-Troops units. Smaller armies are easier to collect, build, paint, transport and store. Variety of things looks better and is more fun to collect, build, paint and play.

Over the past few years, I have made some effort to sell off those things that I could quickly convert into cash, and more recently, I have made a big push to reduce my backlog. That said, if I had never bought the excess stuff, and only focused on those few armies, I'd be much happier with the whole thing.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

My recommendation is that you collect a maximum of THREE (3) armies, maximum of 2,500 pts each, never buying more than 2 identical non-Core/non-Troops units. Smaller armies are easier to collect, build, paint, transport and store. Variety of things looks better and is more fun to collect, build, paint and play.

Unless you are looking to play large scale battles like Apocalypse. I hope to get 3-4K for my DKoK army. Im waiting for the day I can use those Earthshakers at maximum range.

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

My recommendation is that you collect a maximum of THREE (3) armies, maximum of 2,500 pts each, never buying more than 2 identical non-Core/non-Troops units. Smaller armies are easier to collect, build, paint, transport and store. Variety of things looks better and is more fun to collect, build, paint and play.

Unless you are looking to play large scale battles like Apocalypse.

Ally two of the armies together. Of my "big three", I would ally my Eldar and IG for an Apocalypse army.

Or, find a friend, which makes Apocalypse battles even better.

Best is to play 5,000 pts per side 3v3

Yeesh, been collecting games since the 80’s - starting with D&D minis and green army men.

40K
Adeptus Custodes (custom)
Space marine (custom chapter)
Admech (Mars)
Chaos Space Marines (oldest son’s)
Eldar (for my brother’s use, Samhain)
Grey Knights
Tau (custom Sept)
Imperial Guard
Imperial Knights (custom Legios)
Necrons (custom Dynasty)
Ork (my youngest son’s, Evil Suns. ...hmmmm)
Tyranid (Behemoth)

AoS/Warhammer

High Elves
Vampire Counts
Seraphim
Skaven

Runewars

Undead
Humans
Lateri Elves

Bolt Action
Late War German Heer
Generic American

AT-43
Karmans
Therians
U.N.A.

Dust
German
American

...and many , many more

over time, I have owned almost every army, with the notable exceptions of Dark Eldar, Orks, and all these 'new' armies.

Currently, I run (40k) Tau, (WMH) Cygnar, COnvergence, LoE, and Khador, (SWA) Empire and Rebels, and I play a lot of EDH M:tG.

My apartment is a bit messy.

Here I go;
40k
Almost 5k pts of Fully Painted Salamanders
2k Fully painted Admech
1k Ynarri Fully Painted

Necromunda
Delaque w Grendl WIP

Titanicus
Cerastus Knights WIP
Soon to be Reaver & Warhounds

need:
40k; more Primaris, 30K Mechanicum for 40k, eventual Ynarri models, a FW Cerastus & more Armigers.

Necromunda;
Ambull & Ambot, whatever Delaque pet is released & more scum maybe Slagmist.

Titanicus; More knights, Reavers & Warhounds.

Orks, Dark Angels, Death Guard, Space Marines (own chapter) and Guard all 1k+
Inquisition, PDF, Deathwatch, Black Legion, Space Marines (unpainted) and Sisters of Battle all around 500 points
AdMech and genestealer cult still on the sprue, along with an increasing number of Primaris (that I have no plans for...) from a magazine subscription

If/when there is a proper rogue trader codex (or more likely Imperium (misc others)) I will be adding that, I also have a few tau, elder, necron and tyranid, mostly metals, not fitting in with the other armies.

So 10 built and painted (and growing), 1 built, but not painted and 3 unbuilt.

I'm beginning to like the idea of kill team, so each could be divided down further... Even create 'specials', like Nurgle Genestealer Cult kill team

EDIT

Forgot my Harlequins

Also just picked up Blackstone fortress... Won some Sisters of Silence on an auction site, along with also winning Elucia Vhane

Tyranids have always been my "Main" army all the way back to 2nd ED.

In the past I have had nearly every army there was.

Currently I have 3 main armies (All related)

Tyranids: (Hive fleet Psythe) I've had this "fleet" since 2nd :-) Though the models have changed vastly.

Genestealer Cult: I've had these since thet rereleased them in 7th ED (They actually "Saved" me from leaveing the game at the time I was a few weeks from selling everything and then GSC was released and they sucked me back in much to my delight.)

AM/Guard: My Brood Brothers for my Cult lead by Col Crazy-eyes. A company commander I got from a good friend who sold his army to me and had the Col since he started and I kept his signature character in his honor.

 Guardsmanwaffle wrote:
Simultaneously too many and not enough.

Amen brother.

Like you, even though I just started playing again 6 months ago or so, I'm always tempted to start a new army with a theme I cn't do with my Orks. As it stands I only have Orks however and I plan to get to at least 4000 points of them before getting another army.
Luckily for me Orks (and my friends Nids) have so many decent lists 4000 points should give me plenty of ways to play the game. Walkers, Greentide, Mechanized, all fun for me and perfectly viable in our more laid back local meta.

I have about 3500 points of CSMs in various stages of paintedness, and I'm working on a Drukhari army that I've probably got about 1000 points of so far. Been playing since the start of 6th ed.

Honestly, at the moment, I'm pretty happy with them and not looking too enviously at any other factions. Current goal is to get the Drukhari up to about 1500 - 2000 points, and then we'll see.

My regular opponent though, has probably been through about a dozen armies in the same space of time...

Ugh, I'm not sure I even want to see my own list.

Over 4000 points:

Ad Mech
Imperial Guard
Crimson Fists (Primaris only)
Sisters of Battle
Death Guard
Necrons

1-4k points

Tyranids
Blood Angels (Old marines only)
GSC
Nurgle Daemons
Imperial Knights

Other bits

Ork Kill Team
Eldar half of Wake the Dead
Space Wolf and Ultramarine Primaris Liuetenants
Night Lords war band (~50 marines)
Slaanesh CSM war band (just the Dark Vengeance models for now)
Dark Vengeance Dark Angels
Blackstone Fortress models
Kill Team Rogue Trader models.

Once upon a time I had one and many (just about every imperial faction), now only one; as they all got lost when I moved continents.

At the end of 2E, I had approx. 15K points of imperial stuff, Space Marines, IG, SoB, plus various Imperial Agents and Arbites.

Now I have started my rebuild of IG, but its very slow as I don't have much time to paint, and unlike most hobbyists I don't buy anything till I'm finished painting what I already have.

Too many.

Had a massive cull before 8th edition dropped, had close to 15 armies (collected over 20+ years) that were at various stages. Did a fresh reboot and sold off nearly everything so I could start again.

Currently have
6100 - Death Guard (about 70% painted)
2500 - Nurgle Daemons (about 90% painted)
3800 - Necrons (all painted)
3300 - Dark Angels (My painting shame army, only around 20% painted)
550 - Beginnings of a Biel-Tan list (still in assembly stage)

40K? 23 of varying sizes (and renamings).

I actively play -

Chaos Daemons
Tyranids (MONSTER MAAASH)
Craftworld Eldar (I love me some Biel-Tan)

I am contemplating a Knight army or Heavily converted Primaris Marines (Chaos Style but with Imperium rules)