EDITORIAL: Why It Pays To Be a Collector
Hey Internets – Duke here. No, I don’t have the Annual report for GW (yet). The other day my friend and I decided to meet at the local Game Store, HQ Games, to throw down some dice and pick-up some models. And I got to thinking about the beauties of being an army collector. Sit down, grab a drink and lets chat a bit
I have seen a myriad of player-types in my years of 40k, but the two I want to focus on are collectors and army builders.
Let us define things:
Collectors: This is the guy/gal who owns 6 Fire Prisms even though you can only have 3. They have an entire Ultramarines 1st, 3, 5, and 10th company with attendant armor and have seriously considered expanding to include the ENTIRE chapter. In apoc games they play as the opponent against 4 other players whole collections. You are both highly impressed and a little scared of this person because, simply, there seems to be no method to the madness except “collecting more!”
Army Builders: These people like to build a specific army for a specific purpose. It may be for a tournament, or it may be a specific project that they have always wanted to do (i.e. Exodites or Custodes). They generally have very highly converted and painted armies but not one point over the requisite 2000 points (or whatever point level they play regularly)
Well, as I said the other day we decided to play a game and I (as I tend to do) started writing army list after army list. Currently I have been playing Eldar since the change of 6th as it is one of my oldest armies and I also think they can be decent in this edition. Anyhow, I went over all sorts of army lists and finally settled on one.
The day of the game came and I went to look at my 25,000+ points of Eldar. I had collected this much over several years, but recently had to up the points for the Feast of Blades Narrative game last year. It was too long and I had packed my army of Space-Elves into the bag and made off like a happy-little-gamer. When I got there we set up, played and laughed a whole bunch. It wasn’t until the game was over and I was picking up my models that I realized it was only a week or so into a whole new edition and I had a competitive army 100% painted, based and WYSIWYG. My friend was limited to playing a less effective army because he was limited only to the army itself, which he had built for 5th edition.
We got to talking and we realized that there are some great benefits to being a collector.
1. When new editions/ codices come out you can build ‘competitive,’ army lists with your collection no matter how the rules change.
2. When those new models eventually do come out and you want to change/expand the army all you have to do is focus on the NEW models and have fun painting new things. It kind of stinks to have to paint 30 greyhunters cause you want to play with 5 Thundercav.
3. You can experiment more quickly without having to proxy.
4. You always have a reason to buy and paint something. Who cares if it is your 7th Necron flier… They are fun to paint!
5. Girls like you!
(Ok, number 5 might not always be true… But the rest are 100%!)
Long story short, I’m glad that I am a collector. Don’t get me wrong, being a Builder has it’s own advantages, but that isn’t the topic. I myself have built many an army that never went past 2,000 pts. Lastly, lets go over a quick couple ways to collect easily.
1. The obvious approach is to buy something every month or so, as your finances can afford. Buy a unit, paint it and base it then shelf it and go get another one. You might actually see your painting skills go up too (if they aren’t already great!)
2. If your starting from scratch go around your store and see if anyone is dumping off any old armies. They are usually a lot cheaper than buying them on your own.
