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I've seen lots of people asking what armies they should play, but I'm wandering how you actually stick to one. I have 4 different armies I can't decide on collecting. I started with Khorne but didn't like them much after a while and now I keep flicking between Aelfs, Seraphon, Dispossessed and Nurgle Chaos but I can't quite nail down the one I want and when I think I have, I'll change my mind the next day. In 40k I've collected bits of so many different armies with only a few models of each painted. No matter what I can't seem to quite find THE army for me it seems. Anyone got any way of fighting this?

For me it's alot easier as I go by pure aesthetics.
If I love how an army looks, I'll collect and use them.

While this means I use a few armies that are sub par, I still have alot of fun.

If your going to commit to it though, I'd pick the one you'd love to pain and the best models to you.
Keeping it fun and interesting is the main thing.

Aesthetics and not worrying about constantly losing

have yet to win a game of AOS with skaven

I try to limit myself to three armies, forcing myself to not start new ones unless I sell an older one first. Three lets me rotate between them when working on/playing with one gets stale.

Yeah I play for Aestheics too but unfortunately I like the look of models from all the different options haha.

I think my trouble is that I don't like all of one race enough, but I like models from all those 4 listed above. I like the look of the big dinos for the Seraphon, especially the Oldblood on Carnosaur; I like the Phoenixes and Phoenix Guard from the elves; I like a lot of the Dispossesed stuff and the Chaos look quite cool.

I'd collect an army built of all three Order factions but it might be a little odd having some dwarfs with a big Dino and some Phoenix guard/ a Phoenix, wouldn't it? Maybe I could collect a force built up of them and also an army of Nurgle Chaos

You could always just collect a little bit of each one slowly its not a bad idea to have different stuff in case games get stale.

id finish up a set value of points per army get that done, work on another army while playing the finished army

then rinse repeat once you finish then you start adding on other new and shiny.

It helps to be a completionist. If you really work on collecting everything there is for one army, and owning every list you could possibly want to field, and are determined to never put an unpainted model on the table, sticking to one faction is easy.

I got to the point where I gave myself landmark kits that I would not buy anything else until I finished those kits. That way I stopped collecting bits and pieces of different armies because the time it'd take me to paint something became an issue and I actually focused on getting one done to a level I was happy with score starting another one.

As for picking an army, I try and pick armies where I like the model selection. Not just the overall aesthetic, but the actual models themselves. There's some armies where I like the general aesthetics but don't like the specific models so I've avoided them.

This approch isn't for everyone, but I find it help to build a lore around your specific army. It doesn't have to be written down or shared or even fully thought out. It can just be a nebulous idea of branching story ideas bouncing around in your head constantly writing and re-writing. This gives me a personal connection, its not just a collection of GW models, its my army.

Who says you have to stick to one army I have never just one army for gaming system. 2 is minimum and tends to grow. Keeps mind fresh with different colour schemes and allowing new painting experiences _that don't conflict with previous models_. Like now I'm trying out preshading with airbrush for 30k blood angels. If I tried this with older armies you can pretty much bet what you want they would NOT match visually. Doing this with fresh army meanwhile...Who cares it does not match? There's only the new style to go with!

There is nothing wrong with collecting multiple armies at once. And with the ad hoc nature of AoS itself, you are not really penalized in what you collect. With the Grand Alliances, you can field a perfectly playable army that fits your interests.

Back in my early days of wargaming, I suffered from severe hobby ADHD, and jumped between most of the 40K armies, getting the starter sets of Imperial Guard, Tyranids, Tau, Dark Eldar, Space Wolves, and Space Marines in a short span. I finally settled on one army, got it up to a decent sized, then moved to another one. I was still learning the game at the time, and was trying to figure out which army I liked best, and it gave me some models to try new painting techniques and conversion attempts on for fun.

Nowadays, with so little time and money available for the hobby, I stick with just one army at a time, and slowly build up other armies as bundles or bargains come up for those future armies. For example, I am working on and playing with Ironjawz exclusively at the moment, but I'm thinking about my future armies. I'm going to have myself a small force of Beastclaw Raiders, some Free Guild, a large amount of Dispossessed, and some Stormcast. Now, I know that I can't play or paint all of them at once, now can I even gather them up as quick as I would need to in order to start playing them right away. As such, I'm casually browsing the used minis section of my FLGS (found 16 OOP Dwarf warriors for $2!), perusing eBay for bargains, and keeping my eye open for GW holiday bundles or other box sets (let me tell you, Hammerhall and Tempest's Eye are tempting me to grab several of them!). I realize that it will be a large amount of time before I can jump into another army, so I am sticking with my Ironjawz for the time being.

And to avoid burnout, I can work on my wif'es Sylvaneth or my step-daughter's Death armies, or make custom scenery, for something different to work on and avoid hobby burnout. Yes, it's a real thing, and it can be a massive drain on you enthusiasim or creativity for modelling, painting, or gaming. If you are having this burnout be a major problem, then it might be a good idea to have several army projects.

@ Tiberius501, your armies indicate an interest in both Order and Chaos. If stick with one of those Grand Alliances, then you could easily build up a large enough army without getting tired of them. If you just want to collect a few of each kind of model, then do so! It's your hobby time and money, spend it how you want! That said, if you want to stick with one army at a time, I would recommend setting goals for each army. For example, get one squad of models painted up for one army before moving to another one. Or only play with painted models, forcing yourself to get them painted quicker. Or possibly by getting one army to a larger size to play it alone for a set amount of time. There are different things to try, so give it a shot!

Reading the AoS lore really help keep me to one army.
Lizardmen = star children... nope

Warriors of chaos = got stipped for sigmars boys, so now they are all naked running around look at blood and tzeentch cultist.

flesh eaters = 3 models to collect with head swaps for the rest.

Iron jaws = same as above

In the age of sigmar all armies must be nakey... Blood, tzeentch, fyreslayer, nakey tree people. The only 2 armies they did that wear clothes are sigmars robots and the deep sea dwarfs.

Gamesworkshop design team is doing an amazing job saving my wallet.

Oh just to add also all they did was take all the armies and split them into 4+ and say good news buy more.... nope.

Well, so much for your theory. Try harder on your next troll attempt, OgreChubbs.

Thanks everyone for all the awesome replies! I think what you said, BunkhouseBuster, is on point and that's what I'll do. I think to start with I'll finish some stuff for my 40k Death Guard but I already have a small collection of Tzeentch Arcanites and Ironjawz (I have the hobby ADHD pretty bad haha), which I might paint up between that, and think about grabbing some Order armies later in the future when I've got these collections painted up.

Thanks again everyone. I've always seen people with big collections of one army that they've been collecting over years, but it's really nice to see other people getting into multiple armies. I thought I was just wasting my money and being indecisive haha.

The main issue I've had with multiple armies is not getting any of them far enough to play a game with. I'll paint one or two units from one army, one or two units from another, a couple of characters from another and never actually get enough done to field an army.

There's definitely nothing wrong with collecting multiple armies, but if you can get through a decent chunk of one before starting the next I think that's the best way to go.

Our local GW store runs several escalation Leagues each year,
and they REALLY help me stay focused .
I make myself stick with one army for the League,
and either build up a new army,
or bulk out one I started earlier...

I can't stay focused on just one army. I usually have at least 2 armies, sometimes 3 that I shuffle between. For the most part, I am to have different type of armies, both gaming wise but especially painting wise. Atm I shuffle between nighthaunt and KO. both completely different armies to Paint (at least whit the color schemes I'm using) but also to play. That helps me stay focused on "one" army at a time, also we play a Lot of skirmish and escaltion in my group

I pretty much just play for aesthetics and lore. So there are 3 factions I like and the only one I don't collect is Kharadrons who cost way too much for me to start right now.

I don't know why, but all I've ever collected is imperium (and slaanesh for a few months). I just feel like I have to finish the company of dark angels I'm working on, and then build another one, and then on and on it goes. I'm currently working on my third company of dark angels, as well as my imperial knight household which I HAVE TO GET TO FULL STRENGTH FOR THE EMPRAH!!!

Poverty.

Okay. Galas wins. We can lock the thread now.

" ... Aelfs, Seraphon, Dispossessed ..."

They're all Order, aren't thay? So really you're only looking at an Order army and a Chaos army. You say you've got bits and bobs of different armies? Field them all together, then.