How many unfinished armies do you own?
* 5% (7) – None, they’re all painted.
* 18% (25) – Just one army.
* 14% (20) – A couple of armies.
* 15% (21) – Three armies.
* 12% (16) – Four armies.
* 36% (49) – Five or more armies!
Total Votes : 138
Ah this poll sees me in good company. It seems collectively (well at least amongst the visitors here) hobbyists are an easily distracted lot. Or perhaps we’ve just got eclectic tastes and enjoy so many varied game systems that the majority of us have at least a couple of armies on the go at once?
I do feel a slight twinge of jealousy when I see some of us (5%) have either painted every army we own, or do have to fortitude to resist purchasing new armies until their current one is completed. Kudos to you!
Personally I’m glad there’s numerous excellent tabletop games available that use 15mm scale figures. I’ve found this scale to be a fine compromise between having detailed figures that are interesting to paint, and them being small enough that a simple three step prime/base/highlight scheme will suffice for gaming.
Larger scales seem to have diminishing returns, taking considerably more of my precious time to paint a single figure. Games Workshop figures are probably the worse culprit because they’re so rich in surface detail that I’m forced to try and do it justice. So a single 28mm GW metal can take me days of modelling time to paint.
This next poll is sort of related to that point. I game and I paint to game, and have done so on and off for 20 years. I recall having painted one figure purely for display, an old Grenadier DnD Knight, when I was 15 for some local painting competition. Display painting appeals to me though as an opportunity to expand your painting skills and try new techniques, I just never have enough spare time to do it!
So, onto the next poll: Do you paint for Display?
I think it’s a personal thing with me that I never consider an army to be finished. I can always add something to it.
And as for the new poll. I rarely paint things that I have no chance of ever using, but a lot of things I paint never get used beyond display…
I agree with you Bob – one can always add new units to an army. However I’ll consider my Flames of War NZers ‘finished’ when I’ve painted and varnished all of the required units to field a 1500pt army with transports. Despite the fact I naturally have various half painted optional units I can swap in and out if I feel like it.
Calling an army ‘finished’ gives me a nice sense of closure. Any additional units that get purchased and painted are ‘expansions’ to the ‘finished’ army. Semantic I know but it does allow me to justify things to my lovely wife :).
Now I think about it I find I paint a lot of terrain for display in 28mm and 15mm scales…but never figures. Odd, possibly it’s because I find I can throw terrain together and get it painted to a reasonable standard in say a couple of evenings.