How big is to big for an army

[Pendragon38]

That's the question I would like to know. just counted up my troops and have 30 ten man squads SMs,10 scout squads at ten men and I'm not counting the ones on spurs. and Im not done counting yet.........points wise for my whole army is 80,000 more or less :eek:

[eldargal]

No such thing as too big, I have 60,000 points or so of Eldar and approaching 20,000 of Dark Eldar.

[Pendragon38]

No such thing as too big, I have 60,000 points or so of Eldar and approaching 20,000 of Dark Eldar. Then I need to make more room or there own house then.

[Brakkart]

I have to ask, how the heck do you store 60k+ points of Eldar or 80k+ of Marines? Does it all live in army transport cases, or have you got a room full of display cabinets to house these sort of collections? My collection is a fraction of this sort of size and I'm already running out of space to store it.

[Pendragon38]

I have to ask, how the heck do you store 60k+ points of Eldar or 80k+ of Marines? Does it all live in army transport cases, or have you got a room full of display cabinets to house these sort of collections? My collection is a fraction of this sort of size and I'm already running out of space to store it.
bookshelf's and cases and thats not enough :(

[Javin]

While my addiction is not as bad as some... I tend to use army cases for models that are painted (except my orkz which live in plastic bins so they can get a realistic chipped look :). I use book shelves for unpainted minis. They do take up quite a bit a space... perhaps why my wife told me I had to paint up an entire army before I can buy new minis....

[Aetaosrau]

Not quite in the same amounts as eldar girls but I have around 20'000 eldar, 10'000 dark eldar, 18'000 space pups, 10'000 blood angels, and around 20'000 daemons. and yes house is abit full.

[Master of Asgard]

If your friends and loved ones hold an intervention then it's too big. Until then, rock on!

[MrGiggles]

Honestly, we're involved in a hobby which encourages collecting, at least one some level.

I tend to break folks into two loose groups: the first are folks who collect large quantities of an army/faction or two; the second is the folks who collect lists, essentially, of multiple armies. It's like good and evil, they're both fine choices if you have to make one.

Myself, I've currently got 6600 points of Orks and around 1800 points of Sisters of Battle. It's growing of course, but that's largely because I like to paint. In fact, I think it's safe to say that painting represents the majority of my hobby time. I doubt that's a surprise for anyone here.

In terms of the overall size of a collection, it's pretty simple. You're finished collecting when you're finished collecting and it's too big when you think it's too big. I would say that when you have more miniatures than you'll ever reasonably play with or you're literally running out of storage room, you should probably at least look into being rid of some of your stuff. Perhaps you sell some models off or give them to a friend to start them in the hobby. Perhaps you decide that you want to keep your entire collection and then look to alternative ways to store and/or use it. Any of those are valid choices.

[Colonel Kreitz]

No such thing as too big, I have 60,000 points or so of Eldar and approaching 20,000 of Dark Eldar.

1) No such thing as too big as long as you're still having fun.

2) I've always been way too ADD to build up an army of that size. I hit 2 or 3K in an army and even if I love them, I instantly want to try out another one. If with my beloved Imperial Guard, I keep moving around (old Cadians and Steel Legion to new Cadians to Vostroyan...) and can never keep it together to build up armies that large. When I see them during Apocalypse games though...they are sights to behold...

[Archon]

There are never enough miniatures ... and hey with a army big like 80 K you have the pain of chioce when you go for apocalypse :cool:

Got roguhly 25K in my entire collection and this is divided into 5 fractions/armys. But i´m defnitly running out of space for storage.

[Kawauso]

I don't think it matters how big your army is as long as you feel it's worthwhile for you.

I always aim for a 2000-point balanced list when I start an army...but I often find myself going well over that budget because I desire a bit more options, flexibility, or just some really cool models in that army's range.

[JamesP]

In terms of the overall size of a collection, it's pretty simple. You're finished collecting when you're finished collecting and it's too big when you think it's too big. I would say that when you have more miniatures than you'll ever reasonably play with or you're literally running out of storage room, you should probably at least look into being rid of some of your stuff. Perhaps you sell some models off or give them to a friend to start them in the hobby. Perhaps you decide that you want to keep your entire collection and then look to alternative ways to store and/or use it. Any of those are valid choices.

What he said. Personally, when my wife and I moved in together, she had to have a parking space for her car and I had to have a loft for my gaming stuff and miniatures, including the obligatory pile of unpainted stuff which is now so big it probably has its own microclimate. Fortunately we both got what we wanted.

Some armies I have decided to stop at a certain level - my Chaos army has pretty much been at the level of a few warbands since RT and I just use it for skirmish games in 40K - others, like Tau I have given up on and given away or sold, while my Orks and Necrons keep getting added to.

[Gorechilde]

Well, I would say it can never be enough. I have the full 1st Company and the Full 3rd Company of Dark Angels. I have enough robed Marines to make two more Companies. I have 64 bikes and 25 Rhino based vehicles, 6 Landraiders and 9 Deadnaughts. Not to mention the assorted marine to swap out heavy weapons and special weapons between squads.
I have a huge Orc and Night Goblins army( something like 6oo Night Gobbos) and large Chaos and Warriors of Chaos, and Imperial Guard armies.
If new Dark Angels come out, I'll add to the list!
Don't Stop...Make a Chapter, Make two Chapters!!!!

[heretic marine]

Ahhh, i fill so small compared to you all:(, I have a measly 12,000 points with my 3 armies combined:eek:

[greendestiny]

I think that the really hard thing for me is that I want everything. Rather than having one really big army of x I tend to have bunches of not complete not really playable a, b, c, d, e, f, g, etc.

[Yabanjin]

Not adding much new to the conversation here but I wanted to reiterate, the army is done when you feel done with it. The number of points of models or number of models don't enter into my own thought process. So I am always open to adding new models to old armies and starting new armies if the desire strikes. Just go with how you feel.

[Ryar]

I like to own at least one of everything in a dex i enjoy. 3 of something i think is really great. I have about 6k of blood angels and 3k of tau.

[CrimsonTurkey]

The moment it requires credit card debt it has gotten too big. If you're paying interest on miniatures, you're not that bright.

[Wolfshade]

I'll have too many Blood Angels once once I complete the chapter and have additional marines, at that point it might be time to start on a Baal PDF, which unfortunately means that it could be any size as guard armies aren't limited to 1000

[warpcrafter]

The biggest army I ever had was my collected chaos horde, Traitor Marines, Daemons, Mutants and Traitor Guard, altogether about 10,000 points. Since then, I've usually gotten tired of an army before I got much past 5,000 points. Perhaps 6th edition will change that, and I will go back to being desperately poor but having a massive army collection. D'oh!

[woodenronin]

I thought my blood angels were a bit much at 15k so I took about 5-6k of them and made another SM chapter.
Now I like to have at least 5k points of models for each of my armies.

[Necron2.0]

When you can crush every opponent, and that's just from them helping you move miniature cases, you may have too much.

If you notice small fat kids constantly circling your cases, even when it's clear they don't want to, you may have too much.

If you are getting bulk rebate coupons from paint companies, you may have too much.

[darthslowe]

I've run into the space problem myself. My personal opinion on the matter is that once you can make every option in a codex you have enough. I don't really see the point in having more miniatures than that. I guess, though, that if you are into the collecting aspect of the hobby and want to make a full chapter or clan or whatnot then that is different.

[pathwinder14]

Wow...and I thought my 7,000 BA was a lot. I guess I was waaaaayyyyyyy wrong. :)

[Cherub]

One of the guys I play apoc with has 120k guard army. :p No titans, just guys and tanks....lots and lots of tanks. Though he does have over 1k guys.

[Rissan4ever]

When you have more models than you can store, you have too much. I have around 3000 points of Imperial Guard. I've reached my storage limit, and I still have plenty left to paint, so I won't be expanding any time soon.

Models have two purposes: game play and display. If you've got tons of them, and you use most of them on a fairly regular basis, or if you display them prominently in your home, you're ok. If you've got thousands of points worth of stuff that you've never used locked up in cases and cabinets, that ceases to be a collection and becomes a clutter problem.

[Mystery.Shadow]

...If you've got thousands of points worth of stuff that you've never used locked up in cases and cabinets, that ceases to be a collection and becomes a clutter problem.

So I'm still ok. Since it's not a clutter problem. -Yet

[1lainie1]

I have 13,500 of eldar, 6000 chaos, at least 4500 of spacemarines probobly the same for guard and 6 other armys at 1500-3000 pts.

[Ork E Nuff]

To jump on the already rollin' bandwagon: You can never have enough for your army, pointwise or figure wise.

Now, how big is too big for gaming? Regular games, there's never too much. I have regularly gamed at 2000 pts (yes, I know, it's not a great number; bear with me...), which translates into 100+ figures to run across the board (sometimes literally). It's a number easy to handle, and you're not forgetting any units during your turn sequence.
On the flip side, I've played Apocalypse games when the tables groan under the weight of minis, and have found that your turn sequence is a quagmire that you can't extract yourself from. Too many minis, you're basicly ignoring some units. I guess it depends on what you think you can handle.

Anyway, collecting - no limit; playing - limited by your abilities.

I collect orks/orcs; there is no such thing as "too many".

[pathwinder14]

One of the guys I play apoc with has 120k guard army. :p No titans, just guys and tanks....lots and lots of tanks. Though he does have over 1k guys.

HOARDERS!!!! :) Hahahahaha......

[Pendragon38]

Its a fun hobby for me I love making conversions...like my Apollo Landraider ....so this makes me a collector right. the 80k pts for one SM/renegade army really means nothing to me:cool:

[Colonel Bindoff]

This is not meant to read as a negative comment, so please don't take as such, but I'm interested to know of those with 'super size' armies, what sort of quantity is painted and to what standard. I'm not a great painter, and definitely have more than I have painted, but I try to limit my collections to a level that I can actually use and that I have painted to what I consider an acceptable level. This gives me a couple of armies at a few thousand points, but nothing like the points values above.

Just curious really if there is a certain archetype of collector here really. Certainly my 2nd edition space wolves were far too numerous for me to cope with painting.

[Kiarr]

Personally with about 15k of orks and another 15k sitting in boxes I think thats too big.... of a pile ready to paint better paint some more and then I can buy some more after that :) multiple 200 strong green tide formations sounds kind of fun to me!

[lattd]

I have 3000 points of space wolves all painted, 4000 points of marines all painted, 2500 points of tau painted, 4000 points of eldar 3/4's of which is painted, Grey Knights - 3000 points set to be rebuilt/painted.

[Pendragon38]

I guss its love of a hobby like this that makes its almost like a stamp or coin collection. :rolleyes:

[Sister Rosette Soulknyt]

Well you can never have to much, i mean do you enjoy collecting and painting them still? If yes, then there's your answer.
Me i have around 7,000 points of Salamanders, but i also have over 11,000 worth of Sisters of Battle as my main army.

And to answer another question posted, every one is painted. Actually with my SoB i'm rebasing them all and touching up every miniature, as some where painted when they first came out many years ago.
I don't think having 11k is too big, if and when GW actually bring out SoB again with plastics, i will probably add another 10k of new miniatures to my collection.

As for storage, i have two cases that hold my whole army, one can hold over 660 figures in it , and the other will hold all my tanks/transports.

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

Depends on the individual I think, for me 2000 points is "enough", anything over that is too much for me simply because I don't enjoy battles larger than that.

[woodenronin]

I have over 10k worth of Blood Angels and I have only 2k fully painted. When the new BA codex and models came out they all got a make over.A lot of mostly painted models with new grey bits everywhere. I take way too long to finish my stuff.