An army collecting dilemma.

[cfoley]

My longest standing army is the Blood Angels. I have amassed about 5000 points over the years and there are still things I want to add to. I doubt I will ever view my collection as being complete. However, I usually play games of 400, 1000 and 1500 points so there is little to no opportunity to field my entire army at once. My dilemma is whether to keep adding to this force or start a completely new one.

I know that this is a dilemma I must work out for myself. There are pros and cons to each decision and I have been mulling them over in my head for some time now.

I considered asking for people’s opinion on this forum but have decided against it. I need to follow a course of action that I will be happy with and not just go with public opinion. While I am not looking for advice or help on my personal problem, I would be very interested in a discussion of the pros and cons of starting a second army of the same race.

If in the past you have had a similar problem to mine, it would be very interesting if you could place your own experience in the context of the discussion and highlight the deciding factors that lead to your eventual decision.

[fifth_horseman]

If in real doubt, you might try tossing a coin.

[eventhorizon]

well, the obvious plus is that youll be used to painting them already. youll know pretty much exactly what youll need in the army, and how to play it.

of course, the cons are that it might be a little boring doing the same race again. theres so much fun to be had starting a new race, such as finding out how they play, how you should paint them, what you need.

[Brother Wolf]

Well, maybe the BA codex will invalidate some of your models and you'll have to get new ones anyway? Like my Black Templars?

Just kidding, I really wouldn't wish that on you. I really thought my BT's were done. I was feeling very satisfied about having all the models I ever would and was prepared to get back to work on my Space Wolves or my nascent Lunar Wolves custom chapter. Then new modesl came out, other models got invalidated and suddenly my 4000+ points of BT are looking like they need a little more. I for one say that you shoudl do whatever you like. If you want to keep adding to your BA troops, you should just do it. Who knows, maybe you could end up having the entire chapter some day? That would be quite the feather in your cap! Or what about doing multiple companies then? So you could keep buying BA and then have models from a couple different companies, allowing a slight variation in theme, but staying within the whole.

It was easier with IG for me. I kept adding and adding until I decided to split the forces and change up the paint schemes. Now I've got 4 schemes underway, (none of which are anywhere NEAR complete, but hey!), and yet they all still complement each other enough that I could mix & match if I needed.

gl with whatever you choose to do.

[~DeathJester~]

maybe, if you're really dedicated and up for it, you can organise your 5,000 pts BAs into the chapter companies

[Gonzo]

5000 points. Now really, I wouldn't bother getting any of my armies over 4000. I hardly ever see games over 5000v5000. Even then, its teams with each player with his whole army out on the board. Anyway, I think it sounds like you might be getting bored with Blood Angels in a subconcious manor, but I don't know. Anyway, I think you shuold go about starting another army. Not another marine army, or chaos marines. Something different. Like eldar or nids.

[treeboy]

I’d say go with another race, and probably a non - imperial side, take a brake from all the emperor stuff and space marine variants and go xenos. If there has been an army you enjoyed playing against then take them up and make an army for them.

[Tarot]

Start fantasy. It's much more tactical than 40k, and you'll have a completley different feel painting them, too.

[Cailet]

I'd say to try a new game. You have effectively 5 or 6 armies already (granted they are all Space Marines...) but it's far more fun to play something else.

Warhammer, Warmachine, Starship Troopers, BFG, Babylon 5, all give you a very different feel and it's refreshing to say the least.

[Apocalypse_now1]

I used to have many armies and can say there is nothing better than taking another army for a spin now and then to prevent you from becoming bogged down in the same routine, if nothing else you can 'loan' your new models to a friend and try and obliterate them using the BA.

The SM forces are the great alrounders of 40K so try a more focused force like Tyranids or Eldar which are also rewarding to paint with many variations, these require a different style of play to get the most out of them. Also when you come to take up the BA again you will look at your force and plan out how to counter your newer army, probably prompting more purchases for SM force.

Most of all start small and then if you find the race aren't what you want then stop at 1,000 pts and find another, there will always be someone out there with a 1,500 pt army willing to 'borrow' your force and take you on if only for the chance to fight bigger battles. This way you get a better opponent too.

[Invictus]

Try playing Dark Eldar... seriously...

One of my friends has BA (over 15,000 points of them), then switched to all the other 40K races, then to Warhammer Fantasy and then to Lord of the Rings. When I asked him for advice on starting a new non-marine race, he immediately said that Dark Eldar were the most challenging and yet the most rewarding race he has played. Fortunately, since I was a newbie compared to him at the time, I chose IG.

But you may not want to go down this road, as Dark Eldar are CC like the BA, so perhaps a shooty army such as IG or Tau will do the trick. I've also heard Iyanden, Saim Hann and Ulthwe eldar are great challenges. DE and CE models are also quite old, so it may be worth waiting, or you could do Tau and add the Vespids when they arrive with the new Codex.

As for my own experiences, my first army was the Black Templars and my second was the Dark Angels. I felt like a change and decided to play as another race, eventually choosing IG. For some reason, I have an aversion to collecting non-Imperial armies, but I've tried to dig myself out of this mindset and bought a Tyranid battleforce as a result. The change of pace was very refreshing, going from relatively static and heavy armies to swift and nimble aliens.

My personal advice would be to select another race and buy a Battleforce for it, or less if you want to. Then play an equal point game with one of your friends to get a 'first glance' at your new race. Ebay is ideal for this IMHO.

[DoomKnights]

What I do with my 5000 point Ultras is split them with my little brother who I have gotten into the 40k. This way when playing 1000 points or such I have a good pool of units to pull from. So just find someone who is looking to play and take them under your wing. You might not play 5000 points but split that into 2500 and now you have two games going at once. Just take care on who you lend your stuff from. Things tend to brake easier if its not yours to worry about.>_<

[cfoley]

Thanks for all the advice. It was all well-intentioned though somewhat redundant. I play several races in 40K and have even dabbled in other game systems (though none outside Games Workshop).

Perhaps I should have made my first post more clear. I want to hear about your experiences of collecting several armies. Specifically, different armies of the same race and your motives behind this. My BA background was simply that: background. It was to set the scene.

Let's restart here. I'll give my experience, though it is all with different races so not ecaxtly what I had in mind for the thread.

I started collecting with a Tactical Space Marine box as I guess so many of us did. I initially tried to make my own chapter and promptly screwed it up. Cutting my losses, I went for the colour scheme on the front of the box which happened to be Blood Angels.

After about 2000 points of them I decided to go for another army. I can't remember exactly why I wanted a second army. Anyway, I went for Orks because I had 20 Orks and 40 Gretchin from the WH40K set. This was a very nice core army back then.

I collected these until the release of the metal Imperial Guard troops. I was inspired by the Catachans, particularly the Missile Loader (http://img234.imageshack.us/img234/9325/missileloader2lq.jpg) and the Captain (http://img234.imageshack.us/img234/3922/colonel0lx.jpg). This army got to about 1500 points before the change to third edition. The alterations to the points values meant I had about 750 points of playable guard so I set about reforming this army for third edition and then expanding upon it.

Then the Tyranids were released. I had always been captivated by their fluff but never really though the models did them justice. The range released in third edition really caught my imagination and I happily stocked up on them. Interestingly, I never intended to use them much myself. I bought them for visitors to use as it was an army that I fancied defending against rather than attacking with.

Anyway, after the Tyranids I revamped my Blood Angels and expanded it to about 5000 points.

This is the story of my Warhammer 40,000 armies with a little about the motivations for choosing them. Unfortunately, I don't have any examples of multiple armies of the same race (the point of this thread) but I hope you can see what I am getting at.

[eventhorizon]

aha, im getting your jist now...

well, i started when a friend gave me his unopened 2nd ed. box set. i took the orks, and the space marines went to waste. when 3rd ed. hit, i expanded my orks to about 1500 points and included a lot of wartrukks/buggies if i wanted to play the odd game using an evil sunz clan (different to kults of speed), then fancied a change after a year of regular gaming in GW and having fun with the ork cc madness.

i decided to go eldar, because i like their background fluff, anf their playstyle was intrigueing to me. i had battled eldar with orks, and decided that a shootier army was the way to go. i got lots of guardians, warlock leaders, and a couple of farseers, so ulthwé was the obvious choice. i barely ever used any aspect warriors at all in my battles, relying more on guardians, wraithlords, falcons and the council....another 1500 points army.

at the time, one of my friends had built quite a stockpile of chaos, and gave some of the models he never got around to painting. just some marines, old bloodletters, and a predator. i didnt feel like going khornate because there were already too many khorne armies at my local GW and another CC army was never going to fill in for my orks. so i decided word bearers. true, its a cc based army, but i just loved the idea of summoning oh-so-many daemons into the heart of the enemy. i gathered squads of every daemon except screamers of tzeench and nurglings to use in my battles, backed up by a good number of marines and some obliterators. since i always used daemonettes in every battle, i decided to put together a more slaaneshi orientated cult, and promptly bought some more daemonettes, a lord on slaaneshi mount, and some emperors children models. thats about 2250 points of chaos at a guess.

i played chaos for about 3 years before i started to get bored, and missed my eldar...but i didnt want to go back to ulthwé, so now im planning to get a reasonable sized force of saim-hann and iyanden using the army list examples ive written, because i want to try out a new playstyle and i think those are the only ones i havnt done in detail yet (lumbering slow, and super fast- with the exception of a small evil sunz ork clan)...

so there you go- orks and evil sunz clan- ulthwé eldar (and saim-hann in progress)- and chaos with a small slaanesh cult.

when im through with eldar, im going to go back to chaos and put together a thousand sons force to try and make it work- apparently a very difficult thing to do (maybe more so than dark eldar even!)...

i hope this helps you more cfoley!

[Apocalypse_now1]

I decided to collect mulitple Eldar and Space Marine forces in 2nd Ed as well as many others, with SM I had Ultramarines, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Space Wolves, Imp. Fists and a couple of others. The Eldar were Ulthwe and Alaitoc.

In both these cases the first driving factor was change in paint schemes, if Space Marine players have one drawback its that apart from trim changes and the odd purity seal your boys are going to look pretty similar, but if you go and have three or four forces then you have a nice variation to look at such as Wolf pelts and Dark Angel cloaks, not to mention the BA Death Company Chaplain which was awesome.

From a battle perspective I had the Ultramarines as the ultimate flexible force, they could adapt to anything but weren't specialists, this is why I got the Blood Angels to test my CC abilities and give me a challenge. I got the Dark Angels as their line is fairly rock steady and Ravenwing introduces a nice fire and manouevre element to games, again providing a new experience which benefits your gaming overall.

My Space Wolf Army came about as it was the first codex available for 2nd Ed and they were visually impressive (I love Bjorn the Fell Handed) but they also had an individual style of play and armylist that made them a new way to play.

My Imperial Fists just came about because they were in the original literature and found them interesting, same with the other SM forces, but I also used them in special mulit-force battles where 5 Chapters take on rogue IG or massive amounts of Orks.

The Eldar was all about the colour schemes, Ulthwe were intriguing but had a very monotone colouring, while Alaitoc were very vibrant, hence the two armies.

I collected multiple armies during my gaming time and found that each army brings a uniqueness to the table, and your playing style:

Eldar are light but can indulge in fast strikes and fire & manouevre, improving your skills with light troops.

Orks used to offer a fantastic variety of specialist troops which really make you a good commander, if you could succeed with Orks regularly you could lead most armies. Now they are more of a CC aggressive commanders force. They also have mass which allows for heavy melee, requiring good skills to prevent over-micromanagement and being destroyed in detail.

Space Marines of the Codex chapters are the ultimate all-rounders, they can go hand-to-hand and shoot apart most opponents, are fairly mobile and can use tanks and armour effectively. Brilliant at most things they are diverse and good at getting the basics right, but don't really specialise your tactics.

Blood Angels and Space Wolves are CC monsters, bringing the whole surgical strike technique to your game. As with all SM they are also quite mobile when kitted out correctly.

Dark Angels and the like often bring unbreakable firepower to battle, while they can CC they offer the ability to destroy the enemy at arms length and through Ravenwing give excellent light fire and manouevre.

Chaos are very rewarding as an army, your mind will tend to focus on the SM style of play, but with the added benefit of Daemons. The only downside is they weren't a massively manouevrable force. Unlike loyal SM they have limited vehicles and their Dreads tend to be very unstable. Apart from that they are great for brutal combat.

Tyranids are one of the most focused armies you will find, they are 90% CC and bring the sledgehammer effect to games but with unprecidented numbers and high moves, they are lethal if mastered and I became far more effective in dispatching them once I had used them against others.

Lastly the IG is the most shooty army ever, the sheer number of models and versatility of units is great. Expect to shoot the enemy to pieces, learn to manouevre and the battlefield is your own. They also offer the most audacious opportunity to send large tanks into the enemy, a fact guaranteed to bring a smile.

I have no idea about Necrons, tau or Dark Eldar as never had the pleasure, but I can say that SM were the ones I always went back to (Ultras mostly) but the diversity of armies keeps your gaming alive alot longer and keeps the reflexes sharp, as you can't play the IG like a group of BA, you always lose.

[treeboy]

When I first got into 40k I could not decide which race to go with, after about a month of thinking I decided chaos, and got a chaos codex soon after, after a while I thought the alpha legion looked like my thing and got a unit of them, painted (well tried to) and never really got much farther than that, I still have some of their remains sitting around in my room…

After a few more months (it was exam time for me so I tried to concentrate on that rather than 40k) I read through all of my chaos codex and thought that alpha legion sounded pretty nifty, and I liked the idea of having weak units to use as cannon fodder…so I got a unit of space marines and painted a small unit up and did a conversion on one to look like a sorcerer. Unfortunately I then lost my job and could not afford to supply my hobby, so they now sit on a shelf and collect dust (I do plan to make the army I thought of having but that can wait)

When I got a new job about a year later I started watching and playing games that had big robot thingies in them…and then I saw the tau battle suits and thought that they looked cool…I went on a spending spree with my wages and after a few weeks I had a 1000 pt army, I played with them a few times and lost and felt like I didn’t really have a good grasp of how every thing worked in the game.

So I started a space marine army when the new codex came out, I don’t know how much pts I have of space marine, but its over 1500pts, after I felt I understood the game and such I re-continued with my tau and now have 2 1500 pts armies, I currently am making an eldar force for a tournament I plan to enter next year, I may or may not expand it into a 1500 pts army, but I don’t know yet. After my eldar I would like to finally finish my marines (as some of them still lack the arms I want for them and even more aren’t painted) I recently have been looking at more armies to choose from.

I must say a Armageddon steel legion army (with the doctrine rules) looks mighty tasty (even though I don’t know an ork player)…but the price that I calculated for the army doesn’t look at all pleasing (I could almost hear my wallet cry out in pain when I read out the figure… £385!!!)

[edit: sorry about that, i posted it in a rush and didnt thnik to make pararaphs...]

[Invictus]

treeboy could we have some paragraphs please? Not to be rude, but your text is hard to read in a massive chunk like that.

[the_living_god]

Try collecting a new force, you can always come back to your BA later in life.