Man of kent wrote:
The orks are pretty cool :-), I'm always impressed by decent amounts of painted stuff, hope that you get the whole lot painted one day; it's a shame to have so much stuff just lingering away when it could be played with!
If i may ask Primarch, what's the joy you get out of having such a hoard? It's obviously very important to you and I can tell that a lot of work goes into it :-), as someone who has gradually parsed down their collection over the years (mostly due to finances) it would be nice to hear the flip side of the coin.
Hi!
I go through periods of "epic inactivity" that last, well, years. Those old hands amongst Taccomms members can remember how active I once was and if they remember farther back, when I was inactive as well. To give you an idea I am still the post with the second largest amount of posts on Taccomms even after 6 Years of inactivity. At one point I had more than 1500 posts more that the legendary Legion4. So when I participate, I REALLY participate, alot!
Six years ago I moved to my current location in Oklahoma in the US. It is the longest time I have been in one place for so long. The older forum members remember that I went into medicine and I am a physician (pathologist with several sub specialties) , that's why I moved so much. But I always managed to stay in touch. This time I got a really good, but very stressful job (I currently specialize in the diagnosis of urologic cancers, mainly prostate). Simply put my job sucked any enthusiasm or energy to do anything but work away from my epic hobby. My purchases went almost to zero, no games, no nothing.
Recently, perhaps because I am now used to my job demands, I have rekindled my love for the epic hobby. I resolved I would not only undertake the massive epic inventory you are now witnessing, but I will have everything painted, mounted, done. No more talk, but actually DO IT!
This also means I will cap and finalize the army sizes. After 24 years of epic acquisitions, it will finally END! But more importantly I will take them onto the table and PLAY!
I will of course take pics and share. Granted the games will be either by myself or my daughter (age 12) whose curious about all this stuff will play with me. But rest assured I will ENJOY having it all out there once more.
In regards to the collection size, things sometimes start in funny ways.
Before being a physician I had a hobby store. Believe it or not I once sold hobby goods. Although that is AGES ago. The reason I have so much is because I NEVER paid retail prices for any of it. By dribs and drabs I would buy stuff for me as I stocked the store. This is the dawn of GW of course, back when epic was released in 1989. I could get retailer discounts of at least 50% on EVERYTHING!
Think about that. Even a box of plastic beetlebacks (which now go for a pretty penny on e-bay) which originally sold for about 30 bucks US, I got for 15. Blister packs of 7.50 for 3.75 and so forth. As you could imagine, the savings add up and permit you to buy large amounts.
Now once I went to my new career and close down the shop, you would think that I paid retail after that.
NOPE.
My parents own a grocery store/ hardware store, so I just used their trade name to buy more stuff at a discount years and years after I was no longer ran a store. Add this to the fact that everywhere I go I make friends with the local store owner and make large deals to acquire more stuff, always at a discount.
I even got FORGEWORLD stuff this way. Difficult to do (and no longer possible), but for a brief time doable and saves lots of money.
Also add that when epic40k failed commercially, GW sold excess stock at RIDICULOUSLY LOW PRICES. I got leman russ blisterpacks for 2 dollars each, great gargants for FIVE DOLLARS EACH! Well, you get the idea...
Simply put the WHY the collection is so large was that it was significantly cheaper for me to do it than most poeple.
These were the practical reason why I did it. The personal reason is that at heart I am an avid wargamer whom loves games of very large scope. Even the old timers know that I don't play skirmish games, nor do I like 28mm scale or 15mm for that matter. I like games and minis where I can see ARMIES fight. Squad or platoon based games leave me cold. I have not bought a single 40 mini since 1989. When I dumped the little I had for epic stuff when it came out.
It gives me a great pleasure to literally fill a whole table with epic minis. I have never posted a picture of the type of games I used to run. In some places I have lived people STILL talk about "primarch battles". I just love, love, love the scale and to me it isn't fun unless there are tens of thousands of points on the table.
A little long winded, but those were/are the reasons for the primarchload to exist.
Primarch
