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I'm somewhat similar. When I switched to One Page Rules and decided I was gonna teach newbies that system and just use my own models, it really energised me about the 40k universe and got me working like crazy on lots of models who had been languishing neglected.

And I realised if I'm doing all this work I may as well make the universe mine. I dislike the modern direction of the game and tbh I started disliking it around 5th edition! So I made my own version of the 40k universe that fits better with what I like, and it is very Rogue Trader adjacent. I've been using it for wargames and RPGs and it's been really refreshing and exciting for me.

This coincided with GW actually having a period of putting out decent value kits, and so I ended up getting stuff for each faction I wanted to do to have a "complete" universe. I already had lots of Marines from starter sets, some chaos, a huge Ork army and my brother's old Imperial Guard, so I snapped up some Tyranids, Tau and Dark Eldar as well as a small amount of GSC and AdMech for RPGs mostly. I've also got some Mantic Forgefathers to do Space Dwarves and their Plague to make mutants for Lost and the Damned. I'll nab those WGA Space Frogs to do my take on the Slaan after that and I'm looking at making some Jawa-themed Hrud out of Night Goblins too.

But yeah, I dislike the new models and especially the base size and model scale creep, so at times I've made purchases just in time before updated models were release that imo are worse than the ones I was buying. I was happy to have snagged the original Kroot for example before the range update, which I know probably sounds crazy to people who like the new models but I genuinely prefer the older kits.

So I have a sort of unified project for my own version of the 40k universe which is probably over ambitious and yeah did involve a pretty big spend, but on the other hand I've got 4 full armies painted in the last few years vs nothing much done for 40k in the decade or so before that and I've also made three tables worth of different terrain from scratch and gotten in a bunch of games, whereas my 40k stuff was lying fallow essentially from 6e. So I do want to tackle the shame pile and some of it was definitely a bit too much consumption to make myself happy when I was going through a rough time, overall I'm happy with where I am and where I'm going and more enthusiastic about gaming in Rick Priestley's mad mash up world than ever.

 Da Boss wrote:
When I switched to One Page Rules and decided I was gonna teach newbies that system and just use my own models, it really energised me about the 40k universe and got me working like crazy on lots of models who had been languishing neglected.

Me Too! Grimdark definitely reignited my interest in the 40k universe.
My 40k armies see more action in one year now playing a fair amount of Grimdark then than they did in the previous decade. This has resulted in me buying (an entire Ork Army worth of figures) and holding onto things that I otherwise might have passed up or gotten rid of.

The problem is that I haven't painted much of it.

 tauist wrote:
There are at least two distinct facets to the "pile of shame" hoarding issue:

Group 1 buys new shinies as they appear, because they love buying stuff they like the look of. I think these are the people the GW employee's famous quote of "The 'Hobby' is buying GW products" comes from. Proverbial whale myth

Group 2 buys stuff with a long term plan towards amassing a certain kind of collection, and buys sooner rather than later because of GW's predatory FOMO tactics make it extremey uncertain when a particular product becomes OOP, cuz as soon as a product becomes OOP, scalpers step in and the prices of those specific items skyrocket to ridiculous levels

I'm firm in your second group but I'll mention it's not just GW being predatory, it's also other producers simply going out of business or producing stuff in waves that never return like Wizkids does. Or ordering from outside the EU with prohibitive shipping prices or no-shipping-brackets that makes you do one large order of which certain parts will have to wait for years until you touch them.

 tauist wrote:
There are at least two distinct facets to the "pile of shame" hoarding issue:

I think the reason I don't have a Pile of Shame is precisely because I'm independent of GW's product cycle. When I decided to go back to playing 2nd ed. (after taking a few years off), I focused my purchases on models from that era, which were (and still are) pretty cheap. Eventually I decided to go all-in, and collect all the armies and books, but I paced myself to avoid being overwhelmed.

And as I mentioned earlier, I did a major purge of stuff I realized I didn't like and would never paint, farming the profits into stuff I did want, and did paint.

For me, gaming is a seasonal activity, something I do when cold weather arrives, and I just cleared off the painting table and bought new brushes and glue. I was shocked to learn that I only have 8 unpainted Orks left, and those will be used as vehicle crews for the buggies I'm scratch-building. After that, I suppose I will do detail painting on my Eldar jetbikes (some of which are VOID figures), and all of which were base coated.

My most "shameful" army at this point is the Dwarfs, who are fully assembled and half-painted. A platoon of Soviet infantry I bought last year is base-coated and ready for detail work as well, so plenty of stuff to keep me busy, but nothing particularly shameful.

I have many more models built and painted than unbuilt/painted at this point. Maybe a 3/4ths painted to 1/4th non. Most of my unpainted things are old af too. Lots of Rogue trader plastics and early Eldar metals.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 tauist wrote:
There are at least two distinct facets to the "pile of shame" hoarding issue:

I think the reason I don't have a Pile of Shame is precisely because I'm independent of GW's product cycle. When I decided to go back to playing 2nd ed. (after taking a few years off), I focused my purchases on models from that era, which were (and still are) pretty cheap. Eventually I decided to go all-in, and collect all the armies and books, but I paced myself to avoid being overwhelmed.

And as I mentioned earlier, I did a major purge of stuff I realized I didn't like and would never paint, farming the profits into stuff I did want, and did paint.

For me, gaming is a seasonal activity, something I do when cold weather arrives, and I just cleared off the painting table and bought new brushes and glue. I was shocked to learn that I only have 8 unpainted Orks left, and those will be used as vehicle crews for the buggies I'm scratch-building. After that, I suppose I will do detail painting on my Eldar jetbikes (some of which are VOID figures), and all of which were base coated.

My most "shameful" army at this point is the Dwarfs, who are fully assembled and half-painted. A platoon of Soviet infantry I bought last year is base-coated and ready for detail work as well, so plenty of stuff to keep me busy, but nothing particularly shameful.

Speaking of 2nd edition, I've read rumours about 11th edition 40K box being some sort of throwback to 2nd edition box. Blood Angels vs Orks. Will be interesting to see what sort of Ork models will be coming with that box, since one of my long term plans is to have a modernized version of 2nd edition boxes miniatures.. I know I'm huffing copium by thinking the new Boyz in that box will look more like old edition Orks, but it could happen.. The lack of oldschool looking Orks in the modern range has been holding me off from collecting any Orks, besides a box of Kommandos & those new Tankbustas which I plan to convert to Nobz

I wouldn't hold my breath on that one. New boyz will look like the current monopose boyz, so similar to the 3rd edition era but less ape-like poses and smaller heads.

 tauist wrote:

Speaking of 2nd edition, I've read rumours about 11th edition 40K box being some sort of throwback to 2nd edition box. Blood Angels vs Orks. Will be interesting to see what sort of Ork models will be coming with that box, since one of my long term plans is to have a modernized version of 2nd edition boxes miniatures.. I know I'm huffing copium by thinking the new Boyz in that box will look more like old edition Orks, but it could happen.. The lack of oldschool looking Orks in the modern range has been holding me off from collecting any Orks, besides a box of Kommandos & those new Tankbustas which I plan to convert to Nobz

The one-piece models of 2nd ed. go for a song. So does a lot of the metal stuff. I'm very budget minded and the ease of getting huge chunks of models persuaded me that it was feasible to collect the entire edition's armies (okay, I'm not doing all the various space marines for obvious reasons).

In addition to being cheap, it offsets scale creep. I do have some more modern Orks that serve as Blood Axe Commandos, so them looking different works.

Buying broken or incomplete models is also a way to economize.

As for 11th Edition, I think people who continue to buy into the churn are like divorced people getting re-married: choosing optimism over experience.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 tauist wrote:

Speaking of 2nd edition, I've read rumours about 11th edition 40K box being some sort of throwback to 2nd edition box. Blood Angels vs Orks. Will be interesting to see what sort of Ork models will be coming with that box, since one of my long term plans is to have a modernized version of 2nd edition boxes miniatures.. I know I'm huffing copium by thinking the new Boyz in that box will look more like old edition Orks, but it could happen.. The lack of oldschool looking Orks in the modern range has been holding me off from collecting any Orks, besides a box of Kommandos & those new Tankbustas which I plan to convert to Nobz

The one-piece models of 2nd ed. go for a song. So does a lot of the metal stuff. I'm very budget minded and the ease of getting huge chunks of models persuaded me that it was feasible to collect the entire edition's armies (okay, I'm not doing all the various space marines for obvious reasons).

In addition to being cheap, it offsets scale creep. I do have some more modern Orks that serve as Blood Axe Commandos, so them looking different works.

Buying broken or incomplete models is also a way to economize.

As for 11th Edition, I think people who continue to buy into the churn are like divorced people getting re-married: choosing optimism over experience.

I have all the 2nd edition box plastic models, all but two of them unpainted. If you want, I can send them to you.. I have no need for the old models myself. PM if interested?

As for 11th edition, all I am interested anymore are the miniatures. Not really intending on playing 11th ed if I can help it. Ebay will be full of individual model sets of the launch box around the time of release, so wont even need to spend money on books I have no use for..

I can see a time coming when I won't be buying any more GW miniatures because they'll have scaled me out of their ranges. But that's fine really, I have enough stuff.

 Da Boss wrote:
I can see a time coming when I won't be buying any more GW miniatures because they'll have scaled me out of their ranges. But that's fine really, I have enough stuff.

The scale creep can only go so far.

Eventually with shrinking table sizes and growing model scales. Every game will essentially be Kill Team... because you can't fit any more models on the board.

What I'm waiting for is True Scale Transports that can actually fit the required amount of models inside.

 tauist wrote:


I have all the 2nd edition box plastic models, all but two of them unpainted. If you want, I can send them to you.. I have no need for the old models myself. PM if interested?

As for 11th edition, all I am interested anymore are the miniatures. Not really intending on playing 11th ed if I can help it. Ebay will be full of individual model sets of the launch box around the time of release, so wont even need to spend money on books I have no use for..

Thank you! I will do so.