Sunday, June 24, 2012

Army Angst

By Outremer



It's been a bit of a rough week.  Forgive me if I ramble a bit here. . . trying to get my thoughts sorted out!


I've been suffering from some serious doubt the last few weeks and believe I'm at a crossroads concerning my army.

I started playing 40k a little over a year ago and started putting together a mono-Nurgle chaos army right from the get go.  As of March I had around two thousand points of stuff painted and ready to play.  If you check out some of my older posts you'll see how much attention I've lavished on them in terms of scratch building and conversion work.

Back around the first of the year I discovered the Tempus fugitives pre-heresy codex and have turned some other local players onto it.  I purchased a good number of new models several months ago in order to start adding pre-heresy elements to my army. 

Plus, I've scratch built a Nurgle plague tower for apocalypse games.

So actually, I'm really trying to build several armies at once. A regular 40k army, a pre heresy army using the TF codex, and an apocalypse army.  Of course, I want to have these three projects overlap as much as possible, rather than trying to build several completely different armies.

Heres my entire collection:


Excluding a Land raider, three Rhinos, and a Venerable dreadnought that have yet to be built, as well as four tactical squads needing some arms and backpacks to finish out. 

This is the first time I've set it all out at once. . . kind of daunting!  I pretty much have everything I need to make all three projects work.

Here's where the crossroads bit comes in. . .

I started painting my first pre-heresy unit last weekend.  The problem?  I absolutely loath the Death guard color scheme!  I'm very pleased with the way the white is turning out. . . it has nothing to do with white being difficult to paint. . . I just think it's boring. . . ugly actually. 

So, here I am looking at several thousand points of models that I have no interest in painting in the colors they need.

I could paint them all post- heresy colors, but I feel that kind of defeats the purpose.

To compound my problem, working on Spag's grey knights the last month or two has me burning to paint something beautiful for myself. I want to try my hand at NMM and more freehand work.  Unfortunately, the Death guard color scheme and fluff don't really allow for that sort of thing.  The more I consider it, even post-heresy Nurgley stuff doesn't really lend itself to it either.  Most of my Nurgle pieces are more about the texturing/conversion work than the actual paint job itself, AKA, Green and rust. 

I'm starting to think I'm doing the wrong army. . .  

So here's what I'm thinking.  I've gotten a better idea how the game works this last year, we are at the dawn of a new edition, I've got a bunch of new models that haven't been painted yet, and I'm not feeling satisfied with the army I have put together currently.  Maybe now is a good time to try something else?

I'm thinking that Emperor's children or Thousand sons would keep me in the chaos ballpark, as well as satisfying my painting and conversion ambitions pre and post-hersy.

So, what do you think, am I crazy for thinking about trying to sell off my Nurgle/Death guard stuff and starting something different?



 







   

8 comments:

  1. I have three armies because i need the differences in painting techniques to keep me painting. So tomanswer your question: no, don't sell.

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  2. You could always take them a step older and have them as Dusk Warriors as it still would be the same army but different colours!

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  3. I'm with Hedzer. The best way to avoid burnout (for me) has always been to have a couple of different projects on the go at once. Once you start getting frustrated by one, switch to another. I know you technically have three projects on the go right now, but they're all more or less the same army. Painting your pre-Heresey army as a different Chapter might help, but at the end of the day, you'll still be painting (yet more) Space Marines.

    I'd say, at minimum, you need to chose a different chapter for your pre-Heresy stuff. Perhaps Emperor's Children, as their obsession with perfection has them doing all sorts of artsy things to their armor that would allow you to flex your conversion and painting muscles? Basically, a change is as good as a rest so they say.

    On the other hand, if it were me, I'd be moving away from power armour entirely. Do something completely different to really flex your painting muscles. There must be another army out there that's captured your interest that doesn't involve power armour. Even if you just collect a small force for this second army (even just 500 points) painting it up will give you a break from routine. Then you can return to your first army. When you get bored again, go buy and paint another 500 points for your second project.

    It soon adds up and if you find you don't enjoy playing that second army as much as you'd thought you would, flog it off and make back your money (and more).

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    Replies
    1. Forgot to mention: I'm actually in the process of doing this just now. In the last two months, I've spent my lunchbreak's and the occasional hour at night painting up 1500 point of Guard, including a mind-numbing 76 infantry figures. I love my guard, but I need a break from painting and modelling them. From tomorrow, I'll be spending my lunch-hours painting up Dark Eldar instead.

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  4. Hmm, it's a tough one, but painting an army (or three) is a big commitment, and you'll then be playing with them a lot for a long time thereafter. I say it's important to make sure that you have the right army that suits you.

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  5. I think that the changeover from 5th to 6th is going to really have an effect on the type of force, game wise, that you'll want to play. Some of what you're working on will be invalidated, while new options will open up based on allies and whatnot that may be much more interesting to you.

    So I'd wait until a few months into the new rules, re-evaluate your plans, and then start up something new/updated. Because I don't see a point in continuing to pour a lot of work into an army that was designed for how 5th played. That will just frustrate you instead of inspiring your best efforts.

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  6. I agree with Sandwyrm, to a certain extent. The rules changes for 6th edition will likely invalidate the Pre-Heresy codex you're using anyway, so who knows what units you'll want in an army for whatever chapter you decide on. However, being as how a lot of my interest in the game (and I think yours, too) is the models themselves and less what units are competitive or not, switching the models you already have to another chapter might be a good change anyway. Like we talked about at the store Saturday, I think Emperor's Children, Thousand Sons, even pre-heresy Night Lords could be a great departure from your Nurgle-based painting.

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  7. Something to consider as this topic came up on Bolter and Chainsword, which is...there is mention in the HH novel "Flight of the Eisenstein" of iron colored Death Guard. If yo haven't read the book, it's worth the read and it would give you some fluff that you might be able to integrate into your project.

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