glorfindel wrote:
What an amazing collection - great for us to look at with all the classic models.
I don't mean to offend but can I ask what the purpose is ? There is clearly a point at which you have what you need to play with (can you imagine what the games will look like ?!) but is there a longer term plan ? It sounds as though there is simply so much stuff that you could never use a tiny fraction of it iin a single game.
Some people do like to collect figures as an end in its own right (I certainly have armies that have sadly never been used). I just wondered what your thoughts were ? In an ideal world, you could use this amazing collection to open up "Primarch's World" and promote the hobby !
Having said all this, I am looking forwards to seeing the rest painted !
Best wishes,
Phil
Hi!
A question many (including my wife) have asked.
Things like this never start out with such an intent. I did not start playing the game and said "I will make the biggest collection ever!"
In my case, I used to run a hobby store. I had access to buy epic stuff and deeply discounted prices. For every one you could buy at retail I could get two (or more).
It started by merely wanting to have each army with all the figures. It was easy to do.
As the game progressed you could make "themed" armies. One with knights, or a lot of tanks or different marine chapters. So I expanded accordingly.
The real "change" came when SM2 came to an end and the commercial failure of epic40k. There was a glut of epic figures GW wanted to dump and they did so at unbelievable prices (3 leman russes for 2 dollars, a great gargant for 5 dollars, etc) for a few hundred dollars you got so much.
Then came the internet boom. I was no longer limited to local factors. People were unloading epic at even better deals (A retail lot of unopened blisters of epic valued at 1200 dollars for 400 dollars!, etc).
It was a span of maybe 3 years. But that transformed the collection from "big" to "unrealistically" big.
That is when people started to "notice". At that point it is when it entered into my own mind that the goal was to make something of such proportions as not to be even called a "collection" anymore.I call it a "life project".
Its not about playing the game anymore. I have played enough games already to last a lifetime and all the existing rules I find boring and stale (I thus make my own, which is hard to get others to buy into). So the hobby is now a personal one.
What I am doing now is at a scale that obliterates what you see here. I am literally replacing it all with custom versions. Many made just for me. The old stuff will still be there, but its the custom stuff that takes center stage.
The goal is to have themed armies of just about everything you can image in the 40k universe. Including themed armies of forces never made for epic and in one case (squats) an original design for them. They will be at least 30 themed armies, probably more (much more).
The "joy" of it is the whole process. The army list design on this scale, the sending and receiving of massive amounts of metal (a 72lb box of metal is the current record holder), laying it all out, sorting it, organizing them, seeing the updates as they get painted. Sharing ideas on how to base and paint them.
The enjoyment is in all of these things. They all build up to when one entire army is all painted and done to set them up and take pictures to share. It sounds like massive amounts of work (it is!), but it is the journey I am enjoying.
I have no doubt this will take many, many years. I am in no rush. its a life project, something to savor an enjoy.
Someday it will end, I'll probably be sad when it does. But the memories of all it took to do it will last the rest of my life.
I guess the short answer to the question is I do it, because "I can". A simplistic and irrational reason for sure.
But its fun and I enjoy it immensely, I guess that is all the excuse I need.
Primarch