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 Nevelon wrote:
How many combat drops?

You can't buy those earrings anywhere....

 Nevelon wrote:

 Polonius wrote:
They seem to have slowed down since the height of the pandemic, but as a person with large painted armies it would always stick in my craw to see people posting pictures of stacks of boxes talking about how they had a 5000 point army. No, my friend, you had $3000 and now you have a closet full of plastic. Little Timmy with a painted combat patrol has a bigger army than you do.

How many combat drops?

—

I don’t count it as part of my army until it’s painted; that’s my standard . But it should be at least assembled and part of the grey hordes so you could play a game with it before you start to count things as part of an army.

IMHO…

My own standard is assembled & (maybe, usually) base coated.
This takes into account that I'm a gamer 1st & foremost and that I've always been a super slow painter. If I waited to play with something until it was completely painted.... Well, I'm not an Elf....
The alternative is that I go broke paying for commission painting. Screw that! That's $ that could be spent on MORE cool models/games!
And so I dawdle along painting as the mood stikes, the cosmos aligns, etc. all the while playing forces that are almost always some degree of WiP.

 The_Pilot wrote:
I also now realize that if you really wanna become John warhammer, with every possible army config, I have to multiply each unit with it’s weapon loadout options, like how the unit of infractions and tormentors can have one obessionist with a plasma gun or bolt pistol and either a lash or a power sword, so add like 4x to lord exultant, infractors, tormentors, rhinos, 2x to kakophonist, land raider, and I don’t have time to check the rest on the codex but yeah. I’ll account for that if I make a article or thread, but just huck a extra couple hundred for those options even if it would make no sense to have a land raider without the free havoc launcher.

How much of that will be shelved when the unit loadouts change next edition?

Polonius wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
How many combat drops?

You can't buy those earrings anywhere....

on the bounce

Skinnereal wrote:

 The_Pilot wrote:
I also now realize that if you really wanna become John warhammer, with every possible army config, I have to multiply each unit with it’s weapon loadout options, like how the unit of infractions and tormentors can have one obessionist with a plasma gun or bolt pistol and either a lash or a power sword, so add like 4x to lord exultant, infractors, tormentors, rhinos, 2x to kakophonist, land raider, and I don’t have time to check the rest on the codex but yeah. I’ll account for that if I make a article or thread, but just huck a extra couple hundred for those options even if it would make no sense to have a land raider without the free havoc launcher.

How much of that will be shelved when the unit loadouts change next edition?

To be fair, legal loadouts generally don’t change with edition, but with new minis. What’s good will fluctuate wildly with rules and points over time. The only time you generally end up with useless models is when either the range gets so full they legends stuff out (which will still be legal in non-tournament play) or the new kit lacks legacy options. And new kits generally come pretty slowly.

Now if your whole army is replaced, like the chaos god specific ones calving off the main chaos codex, it’s a bit different.

10th’s points also don’t help here, as there are plenty of legal loads that are now just silly to field. Why not take the free upgrades? Because I have old models and haven’t bought the new box to modernize them...

And if we are talking about a 100% max complete every option army, we’ve already left common sense at the door. So worrying about some of it going obsolete with edition change is silly when 90% of it is useless in the edition it was collected for.

 Polonius wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
How many combat drops?

You can't buy those earrings anywhere....

^Nice.

 Nevelon wrote:
To be fair, legal loadouts generally don’t change with edition, but with new minis.

Definitely not true. Legal loadouts and unit sizes for both DG and orks have changed for multiple characters and units every time an index or codex was released.

Tyranids have had loads of legal loadout changes over the years. Esp for units like Warriors. Heck 3rd edition if you used the rules in the back you could equip your whole squad with venom cannons if you wished.

Meanwhile legal combos of weapons and blades and claws have shifted around loads.

Even Hive Tyrants have changed as GW got more strict with "no models no rules" and the very popular "twin linked devourer" flying Tyrant variation was lost very recently.

I danced for quarters at retirement homes in order to afford my army...

Going back to the OP's point you CAN spend thousands - I've spent several - but I started with 3rd edition starter set £50 or £60 in the day, a starter paint set (£15-20) and I don't remember if I bought glue - it's something I have anyway.

Today's equivalent would be kill team and a paint set I guess.

Sure, GW wants you to buy more - but you don't have to buy a desk and lighting to start....

Prices ARE bad but - if I can't afford this month's fomo release I don't buy it.