POLL: When Is Your Army Done?

[silashand]

What means this word, 'done'?

[thrawn404]

I think the poll should be expanded a bit.

I buy models based on appearance but also based on tabletop performance . . . I mean at the end of the day i'll never buy Grimnar Claus, and I'm pretty sure all those Thunderwolf Death Stars users didn't fall in the love with the models first and realized their game winning potential after.

[Clymer]

I'm really surprised to see the results so clearly skew towards appearance. I would have figure this to be pretty evenly divided between A, B, and C. Even when you add A and C together because they're so similar, appearance is still the clear winner.

So I guess GW's "they're not our customers" contempt for players who buy models to play the game is justified, to some degree, byt this poll.

[Deacon Ix]

When is your army done?

I don't understand the question.

My legion is never done.

It's the same with Snowboards and bikes - what's the ideal number? n+1, n being the number you already own

[Erik Setzer]

I'm really surprised to see the results so clearly skew towards appearance. I would have figure this to be pretty evenly divided between A, B, and C. Even when you add A and C together because they're so similar, appearance is still the clear winner.

So I guess GW's "they're not our customers" contempt for players who buy models to play the game is justified, to some degree, byt this poll.

Not really. The poll is limited.

1 and 3 are very similar, so you could almost add their results together. And some people will go with 2 because they feel like rules are important, but they don't want a model that looks awful on the table, so they place value on appearance, even though rules are still a consideration.

If people would buy models for armies they don't play just because they look cool, and that was most of their purchasing, with no gaming intent taken into consideration in the purchase, then perhaps a concept of "the games aren't that important, so neither are gamers" would work. But I think if such a poll was honest, you'd find that it's very rare someone spends a majority of their hobby money on models they don't consider the usefulness of first (and not "Is this the hardest unit I can buy?" but more "Will I actually use this in a game?").

[kublade]

I feel like the titled question and the poll answers are extremely different.

I put together a decent sized Tyranid army, a year into the 6th edition BRB. I enjoyed playing at my local game store nearly two to three times a week. I played for fun, and I certainly did not get models for pure looks and coolness, however that influenced what I would get occasionally. I got what I felt would be a good addition to my army, while being playable.

However I never went for tons of tervigons and flying tyrants, they just weren't fun. I played walking tyrants often, with that amazing +2 armor save they had at the time; I loved using multiple scything talons for those re-rolls on all hits and such. And then came the 6th edition Tyranid book, which took away much of what I loved and enjoyed about my Tyranids, and made them less fun to play. Once more, 7th edition BRB came out, dramatically changed how using Psychic powers worked, and once more kicked another crutch out from under Tyranids.

Since then, I haven't really played much, I occasionally play 7th with a Space Marine army I had also collected on the side for fun, but I certainly won't be buying models for Tyranids until I feel like I can have fun playing them again.

This is of course my personal opinion/experience. But I felt like GW really weakened Tyranids and destroyed the fluffiness of Tyranids in their 6th edition book. So do I buy models to collect them, or play them? Definitely to play, but collecting on the side. If I'm not playing, and/or can't enjoy playing my army, then I won't be collecting more for the sake of collecting.

[Cutter]

From the options given I chose 2, Appearance based, because it's the most relevant of the options listed.

The actual determining factors most of the time? Price and materials.

I've just started messing around with my Battle for Macragge and Assault of Black Reach marines, which have been coloured in as smurfs.

I fancy a Calgar to go with them, my bangles and spikings have a chapter master so why not the smurfs too?

Obviously I'm not going to hand GW 40 quid for a box of failcast/finecost/flailcrap when I can get the same minis in metal off ebay.

[Arkhan Land]

kinda want to clarify I wish there was an other category though from an analysis standpoint aint always useful. My style is I buy what the hell ever used and kit-bash like maaaadddd to build the units I need. whats available has really started to shape my armies. All those DV bikes around for 2 bucks a piece? chaos bike swarm! all those cultists at all used stuff bins? Vraksian Tyrant's Company!

[Fist of Dorn]

Rule of Cool, always has been always will be

[Charistoph]

I buy a few for appearance and fluff and then build to support them and have a variety of options to do so. When I started my Necrons, I like Praetorians, so I purchased for a Judicator Battalion rather than the Canoptek Harvest, even though all I needed to get was Wraiths and a Spyder and still need to get at least one Stalker.

Of course, I've gotten bored of the armies I do that with and sell them off before I get any where near done.