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Background: I haven’t played a game of 40k since early 6th edition. Despite that, I own a large amount of 40k miniatures which are collecting dust, many unassembled, almost entirely unpainted. I would like to get back to playing, but currently Warmachine/Hordes/Malifaux/Infinity/X-Wing/Armada/Bolt Action/Flames of War/Wrath of Kings is taking priority, and I simply don’t think I can manage my current collection. Therefore I am looking to let go of some, or perhaps all of my stuff, with the intent to restart the game with the upcoming/new Tau. This is a rough outline of what I currently own:

Militarum Tempestus
3 Avenger Strike Fighters (Unassembled)
6x 10 Scions w/ 2 plasma rifles (NIB/Unassembled, converting from Dreamforge Eisenkern)

Tau (Whats left of my old collection)
Approx 15 Crisis Suits w/ mix of weapons, Partially painted, 5 unassembled
6 Stealth Suits (Partially Painted)
Converted Devilfish (Partially Painted)
3x 11 Vespids (Mixed condition)
About 20 Gun Drones (Mixed Condition)
8 boxes of 16 Kroot warriors NIB
An extra box of halfbuilt kroot warriors

Tyranids (Already have an offer to sell this for $250)
2x Carnifexes with scytal & crushing claws (Unpainted)
Trygon Prime (Unpainted)
2x 9 warriors w scytal/rending claws (Unpainted)
9 warriors w scytal/double bonesword (Unpainted)
Swarmlord (Unpainted)
Hive Tyrant (Metal, unassembled)
3 Tyrant Guard (1 Assembled, metal/finecast models)
90 Hormagaunts (20 Assembled)
16 Genestealers (Missing heads, were left over from an older project, basically including them as a freebie because they’re taking up space)
3 Venomthropes (Unassembled, metal/finecast models)

Space Marines
Hecaton Aikos (Unassembled)
Tyberos, the Red Wake (Unassembled, some of his lightning claws broke off)

Eldar
All phoenix lords, including Forgeworld Illyrlllytlytlylylylylyth (All unassembled, maugan ra is missing his backpack, which is fine because it looks silly anyway)
Illic Nightspear (Unassembled)
Spiritseer (Unassembled)
Metal Farseer (Unassembled)
Converted Autarch on Foot
Converted Autarch on Jetbike
Converted Farseer on Jetbike
10 Converted Warlocks on Jetbikes
3x 10 Warp Spiders w/ Exarch (Stripped/Unassembled)
3x 6 Fire Dragons w/ Exarch (Stripped/Unassembled)
3x 5 Dark Reapers w/ Exarch (2x Unassembled, 1x Stripped)
3 x 6 Shadow Specters w/ Exarch (Unassembled)
3x Wave Serpents (Assembled & Basecoated)
10 Wraithguard (Converted from Fantasy Dryads, Fully painted, look awesome)

Chaos Daemons
60 Horrors (partially painted)
27 Flamers (partially painted)
27 Screamers (partially painted)
3 Burning Chariots NIB
Changeling (partially painted)
Blue Scribes (partially painted)
4 Heralds of Tzeentch
54 Nurgling Bases (converted, partially painted)
15 Plaguebearers (Scratchbuilt, painted)
Epedemius (Scratchbuilt, painted)
Great Unclean One (Scratchbuilt, painted)
Plague Hulk (Scratchbuilt/converted, painted)
3 Plague Drones NIB
Masque
20 Daemonettes
15 Seekers (unassembled/NIB, except for 1 which was converted to a Herald on Seeker)
60 Bloodletters (10 Unassembled)
1 Skullcannon NIB
6 Bloodcrushers
Soulgrinder

Chaos Marines (Started as a small section of allies, got kind of bloated/topheavy on heavy support units)
Dark Vengeance Lord (converted w/ Baleflamer)
Dark Vengeance Chosen (bolter dudes converted to melta dudes)
20 Dark Vengeance Cultists (ranged cultists, not melee)
2 Defilers
10 Raptors/Warp Talons (NIB except for 1 which I partially converted to true scale, doesn’t have bits as I couldn’t decide if I wanted Raptors or Warp Talons)
5 Raptors NIB (Old Metals)
Forgefiend
Daemon Prince (converted from Balrog)

I might have missed a couple items, but that should pretty much be 98% of my (presently remaining) collection of 40k minis. Like I said, the new Tau is what has renewed my interest, so with that in mind, I started going through my stuff to determine what I could stand to get rid of. This is what resulted:

Militarum Tempestus – I want to keep this, because Avengers are cool, and because the Eisenkern minis probably don’t have much if any resale value. Plus, its actually a small and manageable little force.

Tyranids – Probably going to sell to the guy who offered me $250, though I cant help but feel I could probably get a bit more for it

Space Marines - Might as well sell this stuff as its only 2 special character models, except a certain member of these forums will, at some point in the near future, hopefully be producing truescale kits to make converting a bit easier, and I’ve always wanted an army of truescale marines, I just never had the time or patience to convert more than a model or two at a time, so with that in mind Im kinda tempted to keep Hecaton Aikos.

Now here is where I start to get into some trouble:

Tau – I want to hang on to the Stealth Suits, because they are current models, and the Vespids because I actually like them and had some pretty great success with them in the past (I just need 3 more minis to round out the units damnit!). Id also like to keep the Devilfish, as I did an amazing job on the conversion work and it uses some now long out of production parts (I have enough to do 2 more like this, my plan was to use these special Devilfish for my Pathfinder teams). I might as well also keep the Gun Drones, because they’re like a dime a dozen and I wont get any value for them. That leaves the Crisis Suits and Kroot. I’m tempted to sell off the Crisis Suits and just buy all new ones when they become available, not sure how wise this is. The Kroot… well I’m not really sure what to do with that stuff. I keep wanting to hold on to it in the hopes of a Kroot subcodex, but at the same time, I don’t think I would ever use that much Kroot anyway…

Eldar – I realized that I could run 3 Aspect Host formations with the Aspect Warrior collection I have (4 if my opponent doesn’t mind me using Shadow Specters as such) and figured theyd make great allies for my Tau. And then I was like, well if Im keeping my aspect warriors, I might as well keep my phoenix lords, right? And if I’m keeping the Fire Dragons, I need to keep my wave serpents. And Im definitely keeping my wraithguard because they are my favorite models in my collection, and also the only ones I’ve completely finished. And if I’m keeping all that, I almost feel like I should keep my Jetseer Council as well, and then at that point I am tempted to say that I might as well also keep the rest of it.

Daemons & CSM – I’m torn on these guys as well. The Daemons are usable in both 40k and Age of Sigmar, so that dual utility is a big reason I’d like to hold on to them. On top of that it’s a reasonably large and varied collection of stuff. I thought about getting rid of the CSM stuff, but now with the Khorne Daemonkin book, and my hopes of a Tzeentch Daemonkin book (Tzeentch has always been my favorite), I’m tempted to hold on to this stuff as well. On the flip side of that, my Daemons are somewhat lacking in the ‘heavy hitter’ department (I.E. Greater Daemons) while my CSM collection is somewhat the reverse, so I almost feel like I have two half-assed armies that are only useful in a Daemonkin list, otherwise not at all.

If its relevant, the people I am most likely to play games of 40k with tend to play larger points games, 3000-4000+ points, 2500 is on the smaller side for them, and often play unbound/"full-slow" (their term for it, not mine) when it comes to using detachments/formations, etc.

TL;DR – I want to thin out my collection and kind of start over/reinvest the funds elsewhere, but I don’t know what Im doing with this stuff anymore and need objective outside advice. PLEASE HELP!

I would just figure out what you want to keep and put the rest on Dakka's Swap Shop. I've always had good luck putting stuff in there.

well yes, but what do I keep? Everything I look at I go "but I can still use that"

I used to have this problem.

Here's a question: do you actively play all these armies? If there's any that you bought into because you liked the idea, but when it comes time to pick an army to play you always pass over for something else, then it may be time to just sell them on.

That being said, if you don't need the money, there's no reason you can't just hang on to them all.

If the issue is time and space, then you might just need to bite the bullet and get rid of them. You'd be surprised how liberating getting rid of the unwanted armies is.

Like I said, haven't played since early 6th. And I dont necessarily *need* the money, but I'd like the money. Anyway, this is what I figured out:

Keep
Militarum Tempestus
3 Avenger Strike Fighters
6x 10 Scions w/ 2 plasma rifles

Taudar
All Phoenix Lords
3x 10 Warp Spiders w/ Exarch
3x 6 Fire Dragons w/ Exarch
3x 5 Dark Reapers w/ Exarch
3 x 6 Shadow Specters w/ Exarch
3x Wave Serpents
10 Wraithguard
6 Stealth Suits
Converted Devilfish
3x 11 Vespids
About 20 Gun Drones
5 boxes of 16 Kroot warriors


Chaos
60 Horrors
27 Flamers
27 Screamers
3 Burning Chariots
Changeling
Blue Scribes
4 Heralds of Tzeentch
54 Nurgling Bases
3 Plague Drones
60 Bloodletters
1 Skullcannon
6 Bloodcrushers
Soulgrinder
20 Daemonettes
15 Seekers
Masque
Forgefiend
2 Defilers
Daemon Prince


Sell
Tyranids ($250)
2x Carnifexes with scytal & crushing claws
Trygon Prime
2x 9 warriors w scytal/rending claws
9 warriors w scytal/double bonesword
Swarmlord
Hive Tyrant
3 Tyrant Guard
90 Hormagaunts
16 Genestealers
3 Venomthropes

Chaos Marines
Dark Vengeance Lord
Dark Vengeance Chosen
20 Dark Vengeance Cultists

Tau
3 boxes of 16 Kroot warriors + free halfbuilt box

That leaves the following stuff in a sort of limbo which I'm not really sure what to do with:

Not Sure???
Tau
2 Crisis Suit Commanders (1 missile/airbursting frag, 1 plasma/cyclic ion blaster)
3(4?) Crisis w/ twin-linked plasma
3(4?) Crisis w/ twin-linked missile launchers
5 Unassembled Crisis Suits


Space Marines
Hecaton Aikos (Unassembled)
Tyberos, the Red Wake (Unassembled, some of his lightning claws broke off)

Eldar
Illic Nightspear
Metal Farseer
Converted Autarch on Foot
Converted Autarch on Jetbike
Converted Farseer on Jetbike
10 Converted Warlocks on Jetbikes
Spiritseer

Chaos
15 Raptors/Warp Talons
Plague Hulk
15 Plaguebearers
Epedemius
Greater Daemon of Nurgle

The Crisis suits, I think, I will sell, as I can probably recoup $150-200 by doing so, and from the looks of things, there are new suits coming out anyway.

The Space Marines I suppose I might as well sell, though Im not sure what level of interest there is for a Tyberos with broken lightning claws.

The Eldar stuff I'm also not sure about. I was thinking about keeping the Autarch on foot, the Farseer and the Spiritseer for Taudar and selling Illic and the Jetseer Council, but I'm not sure anyone would buy them? Theres also an argument to be made for keeping the Jetseer council for Taudar but I kinda just dont want that stuff, thoughthe thought of such a massive fast psychic unit still kinda turns me on...

The Nurgle stuff is, as I mentioned, poorly scratchbuilt (all the models resembled a cross between a cactus and the smog monster for godzilla. The Plague hulk looks like a pickle stuck to a set of Defiler legs). While they look humorously funny and are actually somewhat decently painted, I doubt I'd get much, if anything at all, for them, so I figure I might as well hold on to them for now. The Raptors/Warp Talons I'm not sure what to do with, as I have an opened/partially assembled box of plastics, an unopened box of plastics, and an unopened box of metals. If I keep the opened box of plastics, I'd like to keep the metals as well, as I intended to use the metals for conversion bits (the jump packs specifically).

So thoughts, what should I keep that I'm selling, what should I sell that Im keeping?

The temptation to horde miniatures can be great.

I have about 12 armies boxed up in my basement right now and, until a couple months ago, the number was 18. All but 3 were bought from players who lost interest after 7th came out. I have been slowing unloading them on eBay but definitely feel the urge not to let them all go.

Trust me, you just need to be practical about getting rid of stuff. The armies may be beautiful but you don't really need that many armies sitting around.

Well, I mean I'm only keeping 3 armies... but thats because I moved the goalposts and redefined Tau and Eldar as a single army (or more accurately an army with permanent allies), and my Chaos Daemons and Chaos Marines as a single army (which they are if I run a Daemonkin list).

Hah, moving goalposts... I should work for defense acquisitions XD

As for practicality... well, I mean that stuff im unsure about (Tau, Eldar, and Chaos stuff), I *could* hold on to it all, since its still useful and that would be "practical"...

I'm in the process of getting rid of armies that have only played in sixth. The sunk cost fallacy is hard to let go of, but you seem to have it under control.

From all the games you listed... how many games do you play per week? Do you see that continuing for the foreseeable future? If so, then you might want that flexibility. If not, just focus on having one good, flexible army and whittle away at it, bit by bit. I'd jump on the offer for the 'nids, if I were you.

So, selling the Tyanids, I have an offer I'm negotiating for the bike eldar (Farseer, 10 Warlocks, and Autarch), as well as an offer for the Crisis Suits that I'm working on.

drop it off in bites... That's one gak of an elephant you have to eat there.

You shoulda seen it before I sold off the other 80% of my Tau, half my nids, and my Dark Eldar, and Necron Armies. Oh, did I mention the SoB army, the Adeptus Custodes GK Paladin army, my Vostroyan Guard army, and the other 25% of my craftworld eldar.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and I almost forgot the small collection of Ork flyers and stompas I had