So, What Next?

In my last post, I bemoaned the fact that I had committed to completing, from scratch, a 2000 point Death Guard army for Warhammer 40k and managed to finish the princely total of one Cultist model. I put this down to an inability to stick to a project when something more interesting (read: Malifaux) comes along.

Now, you could argue that it doesn't matter, it's a hobby; work on what you want, when you want, as long as it's enjoyable. This is undoubtedly true, but for one critical detail: money, or, more accurately, a waste thereof.

Any models I buy that sit unassembled, unpainted and - most importantly - unplayed, represent an opportunity cost. If I hadn't spent the money on a pile of plastic and resin, I could have spent it on something else (more plastic and resin in all likelihood, but that's beside the point!).

Take my Death Guard, for example. I drew up an army list way back at the start of 2014 for the first part of the Hobby Progress Challenge; a 1000 point Zone Mortalis force.

• Chaos Lord
• 5 Chaos Terminators
• 2 x 10 Cultists
• Helbrute
• 2 x 7 Plague Marines

I already had the Lord, Cultists & Helbrute from the Dark Vengeance set, so they were a sunk cost. At GW's RRP (which is not necessarily what I paid...) the rest of the list required a box each of Chaos Space Marines (£23.50), Chaos Terminators (£28) and Plague Marines (£25.50), plus the relevant conversion kits from Forge World (£17 + £21). And, knowing I'd want to add transport for the Terminators and Plague Marines in the second half of the list, I picked up a Land Raider (£46) and two Rhinos (£23.50 each) AND the appropriate door sets from Forge World (£33). 

That's a total outlay of £241. All £241 is still unpainted, though I did manage to assemble the Terminators (and fully magnetize them!) and one Rhino.

So, given I haven't really used any of it, that's £241 that could have gone towards a different project. And that's just one example among a litany of new-in-box and half-assembled debacles. I need to unwaste some money before I splurge any more.

The hoard...

Now, in this hobby, that's MUCH easier said than done. However, I have more than enough stuff to build and paint to keep me busy for 2015 (and well beyond) and enough Malifaux models painted to play that regularly, so I'm going to self-impose a purchase embargo until I've met a couple of hobby targets.

First, I'm going to paint all my Guild figures for Malifaux. By my reckoning, that's 23 models in various states of disassembly and unpaintedness. Add to that five Outcast mercenaries (Bishop, Malifaux Child, Freikorps Specialist, Hans, Johana) that are assembled but not fully painted.

Then I need to choose a GW project to actually finish. This means either a 1500 point 40k army or a 2000 point army for Fantasy. 

• I have somewhere in the region of 600 points of fully painted Tyranids, plus an unassembled Hive Tyrant. 
• Then I have about 1100 points of Imperial Guard, all assembled, some painted. 
• The Death Guard stuff above comes to about 1500 points. 
• There's around 1000 points of Orks from this year's Codex release, plus a Space Wolf force from the Stormclaw box and a Battleforce I bought years ago. 
• The Dark Vengeance Dark Angels languish too. 
• As do the Blood Angels and Genestealers from Space Hulk. 
• Finally, there's the circa 2000 point Empire army for Fantasy that's mostly built, but mostly unpainted. 
• All of which ignores the Dwarfs and Night Goblins from the Battle For Skull Pass starter box. 
• And you can forget about the Bretonnians and Lizardmen from the 5th Edition Fantasy big box, as well as the High Elf bits I picked up way back when...

After all that, the question of 'When will I get round to my 6mm WWII British or my 28mm American War of Independence British?' raises its ugly head. 

The tl;dr version is:

1. Finish Malifaux Guild;
2. Pick a GW army and finish the stuff I have for it;
3. DON'T BUY ANY MORE FIGURES UNTIL Nos. 1 & 2 ARE DONE!

So, we'll see how that goes (failure predicted by January 2015...). I'll do a proper Hobby Resolutions post (including playing goals etc.) once I've decided which GW stuff I'm going to concentrate on. 

Any suggestions for which army to go with are very welcome, either here or on Twitter @LordFezzington.

TTFN