What sort of 'Collector' are you?

[Ben]

As the title says, How do you do your tend to lean towards your hobby buying.

I lean towards picking an army, painting 3 or so of each option and playing it to death.  

I've done this over and over again and can't really see it changing anytime soon!  

I occasionally get lured in by new shiny, but soon revert to form.  

How does everyone else do their collecting.  

[SolomonHelsing]

For the moment I'm focusing on being able to field all Seraphon.

Not at ideal strength like 40/10/10 for Sun Claw Battalion but minimum strength at least.

Once i've got all of that i'm going to make as many list variations as I can so I've played games and tournaments with it all as much as possible.

That's going to be whilst I buy minimal of anything else at all, Then when I've cleared some stuff i'll likely start on a mixed army of one of the other alliances as I don't like any of the other ranges in full like seraphon.

Beasts Of Chaos is the closest just because I can just ally in a bit of slaves to darkness to do what I was wanting for Chaos. 

[Ravinsild]

I theorycraft about 700 lists for an army, ask advice, get pooped on for being a stupid noob casual and reduce it down to 20 or so lists and then buy all the plastic I need to fill those lists then consider paint schemes that are above my skill level and never get around to painting. 

I’ve done this with 3 armies so far and I have more planned for STD and BoC. 

I swear I’ll paint them all.... eventually. Probably. 

[The Jabber Tzeentch]

I try my best to slow play it and get a unit or two at a time (Fyreslayers) but every now and then I also succumb and blow out on a whole army (Freeguild). 

If I like the army I will build it to 2000-3000 points to have extra options and add new units as metas change(Nurgle). 

 

[amysrevenge]

I mostly buy stuff second hand 10-15 years ago, leave it to sit on a shelf for years, and then paint it today when it all of a sudden turns into a new faction.

 

I am the WORST sort of customer for GW.  In the last 4 years I've painted, what, 7 or 8 or more (?)  huge armies, and purchased maybe 1/8 of the models new in plastic from GW.  Less perhaps?  They seriously need to weed me out of their ecosystem and replace me with someone who buys new stuff more often.  LOL

[Hannibal]

I only buy models I like to paint, no matter how well they work on the tabletop. After a couple of months I might be able to field an army then...

[EccentricCircle]

When I decide to collect a faction I tend to be more interested in finding and painting the full variety of models, rather than trying to get enough repeated units to make a competitive army. I like to try to build all of the different variants of a kit, even if it wouldn't make sense to actually field them like that. I also like to get old models second hand when possible, as that adds a lot more variety to my collection. I'm a big fan of turn of the millennium style figures in particular.

As such most of my collection are "display armies" rather than ones which would work well in an actual game. If I've collected a faction for any length of time I can usually throw together a 1000 point list, but that isn't as important an objective as painting, modeling, setting up cool dioramas, and having lots of minis to use for RPGs.

[Greyshadow]

I get models I want to paint and game with. Usually, this is a force I have been working on for years. I collect Free Peoples, Gutbusters and have recently started a  Grand Alliance Chaos army based on Skaves to Darkness and Disciples of Tzeentch.  

I have also been known to paint up boxed games, including Dreadfleet and Silver Tower.

[Shroud Of Night]

I approach almost every project the same way. After being attracted to a force and starting a new army I begin with the infantry/battleline stuff and crank it out. Then I move on to the do any larger models like cavalry or whatnot, saving the heroes and centerpiece models for rewards at the end.

[SwampHeart]

I tend to focus on building a collection of models oriented around competitive play. I usually have 3 or list concepts at any given time so I don't do the 'buy for a specific list' type of thing but I do collect units and in sizes that are oriented around possible lists. The goal is to be able to field most of the competitive options in a book and to have some insurance against future changes. 

[DINOSTAR]

The addictive kind.  I only started in February and I already have a lifetime of models to catch up to painting as is. I've spent the equivalent of a decent used car already.  I've commissioned custom furniture; I've spent over 2500 on terrain for that alone. Once my cabinet is completely full, I hope I'll stop adding more units and work on the ones I have, but I have a trip to the Warhammer EXPO coming up soon, and I think I can squeeze in a troggoth hag while I'm there.  ?

[TheWilddog]

For me it's all about coming up with a theme.  I usually buy the models but they sometimes set around for months as the theme I am going to use germinates in my brain. I usually do a few test models to hammer out my theme basing and color scheme.  Then when I have the theme locked down I jump right in and paint like a madman.  I am one of those guys that has to finish a project before I can move on.  I might paint some other stuff to cleanse the old palette but I won't start another project until the current one has run its course. 

[Melcavuk]

I'd dub myself a "Creator", each army I do will be based on what i can convert, write to, create rules around. I will not just pick an army but a full on project to develop the lore, play out the narrative, expand upon rules and areas that I feel are under developed. Whilst gaming is the eventual aim for every project I undertake it is the least important aspect (narrative, creativity, design ideas etc all rank far higher). 

I also have this thing where I find it hard to do stock models (I blame years of seeing Abaddon vs Abaddon on tables etc, where even unique characters became mirrored matchups) so pretty much everything gets converted.

[Minis by Night]

I don't play, I just paint, so the rule of cool is the only rule. I have always have a decent but manageable backlog, and right now everything is built(for sub-assembly painting), and almost everything is primed. In the beginning I was mostly looking for maximum number of minis for the lowest price, that meant big boxes and some second hand purchase, but also painting stuff I was not all that interested into. Now I try to focus more on one or two factions at a time (I have a LOT of spooky boys on my workbench right now), but I also like to work on multiple projects in parallel. I now have a better idea how long I'll spend on projects, so I know how much more plastic I can reasonably  buy without turning into a hoarder. I like that I don't HAVE to paint 160 skinks just because that what I need for the game. 

I also paint some boardgames like Gloomhaven.

And then there's the kickstarters, who'll start to fill my mailbox this winter. That will not be pretty, and I might die under a large pile of resin.

[Lucio]

I tend to buy models to make cool conversion ideas, and they fit into a handful of armies. They tend to be infantry heavy forces because I vastly prefer Infantry to vehicles or monsters.

AoS side of things I've got an Orruk steampunk zombie force (uses Bonesplittas rules), Ironjawz (very vanilla actually) and Nurgle Daemons built around the idea of the Garden of Nurgle and a mortal force who sow orchards to draw the Garden into the realm. I've just started an Order of the Fly Beasts of Chaos army

[Barkanaut]

If an army is my main I like too be able to field super formations like the ko grand fleet or Deepkin phalanx. 

[JackStreicher]

Collecting multiple armies. Painting units I feel like painting.

playing all those armies alternatingly

[svnvaldez]

I try to buy one of every unit in the Grand Alliance Destruction range. Then I build and paint them and add them to my shelf. I also net list strong Destruction builds such as Krukk from GH2. For that army I bought 3 more units of arrowboyz which I built and painted. So I would say I collect 1 of everything Destruction and multiples of good units.

I occasionally buy a 40k model to paint for fun.

[sainted75]

My Armies have to be thematic first. I start with battleline and a few hero's then build up slowly, Trying to get it as painted as possible before buying the next unit.

[FlatTooth]

I tend to flit around from project to project while also slowly building up a central project. I like to have big ideas that I can eventually abandon ?

[sorokyl]

I started with Nurgle 6 months ago.  Bought some stuff at the GW store. Then I started buying 20% off online. Now I mostly only buy stuff on ebay. Stuff I really want I may pay up to 80% MSRP for, but I try to get most stuff for 50% or less.  I have sold most of what I have bought (including several 2k+ armies), but had ended up with:
 6k+ Nurgle, mostly painted
4k+ Seraphon, heroes painted, slowly grinding the troops
6k+ destruction (mostly Gutbusters, came painted, some Moonclan, spiderfang, BCR)
4k+ misc (mostly other order)
I've only played with the first two.  Probably still have a lot to sell, but I've only at a net spent of  $1200  USD for ~20k worth of models so far.  Mostly thanks to parting out big ebay lots (don't try this at home, i've spent thousands on shipping and ebay fees)

 

[Skreech Verminking]

I have been collecting my skaven for around 10years.

my next goal is to collect another 500clanrats/plague monks etc..

and get my skaven army up to 26000points.

but yeah that’ll probably take some times since I’m struggling in painting my current 13000p

(still have to paint around 10000p worth of models?)

You could say that I might be a bid mad.

but I just really love those Cunning small and very untrustworthy Rats.

I myself tend to play mostly after a certain fluff of the skaven.

this is also mostly the reason why I play them mixed rather then going for only one clan like skyre or moulder which are missing their general warriors like clanrats etc.

but yeah next to my enormous skaven project, I am flicking around other smaller ones like building up a 2000p boc army or painting some of my 40k minis.?

[JPjr]

2 minutes ago, sorokyl said:

I started with Nurgle 6 months ago.

 

3 minutes ago, sorokyl said:

Probably still have a lot to sell, but I've only at a net spent of  $1200  USD for ~20k worth of models so far. 

Well that escalated quickly...

[sorokyl]

3 minutes ago, JPjr said:

 

 Well that escalated quickly...

Indeed. trying to scale back / slow down, but I have lots of plans.  I may try to tier armies like 
1. Have (almost) everything army 
2. 2k armies
3. 1k armies
 and trim some fat.   

I also bought almost every kit for every kill team when that came out (the 40k boxes not the KT branded boxes).  I hooked 3 friends. We still haven't played it yet=P.  I am getting rid of most of the rest and keeping Orks and GSC 

My favorite thing about this hobby is minis hold their value for many many years (some indefinitely), regardless of unassembled / assembled/painted (Have found that decently painted minis are even worth more).   So as long as I get a good deal on things, I can always change my mind and get rid of them without much of a loss (usually coming out ahead).  Some people don't like the hassle of searching for deals, or when selling properly sorting/piecing out their minis, but I enjoy it I guess. 

[ManlyMuppet88]

Despite being a totally different game and several editions obsolete and not actually being a big gamer, I still start with 2 troops and an HQ. It’s so ingrained.

After that, I buy what I like the look of but generally try to cover a lot of different options. Ultimate goal is usually to have one of everything but I’m happy to skip any unit I don’t really like.