I started playing Warhammer back when I was 10-11, that was back in the days of 3rd edition. I had the typical rag tag collection of a few models which I liked without it being a coherent armies. Move forward a few years and 4th/5th Ed saw me build up a HE army, which I still have in a box and it's a mess of different paintschemes, not quite proper units and everything that tends to go into collecting armies at that age. Roll forward through university and the standard break from the hobby (mine lasted about 8 years) and I got back into painting around 2004-2005 and then back into gaming in 2009.
For the time when I was in Edinburgh 2009-2012 I was a member of ELG (edinburgh league of gamers) which is a fantastic club, amazing organisation, great venue, masses of attendees playing a wide range of games, very little of the politicing nonsense that effects some clubs and most importantly Nick the scenery guy. Most great clubs have one of these, a guy who is a gamer but seems to get a real kick out of making scenery and churns it out in huge volumes to a fantastic standard.
2013 I moved to Bath and met the local club down there but never really clicked as it was difficult to get to, but working in Bristol I eventually checked out the Vanguard Shop which was basically the same as ELG but in a shop. Then all sorts of political style stuff has kicked off and the shop has closed but an alternative venue found and it seems it's gaming as normal as long as I avoid the trolls on the club forum.
Anyways to my current armies (and yes I do plan on owning all 16):
Bretonnians
Alternative models is what lead to this army. I found the fireforge games knights for relatively cheap and realised I could get a Bret army on the table for not too much money. But the entire army is a mish-mash of different figure ranges. Currently I've not finished basing this army despite it all being painted by mid 2014.
Daemons of Chaos
In 2013 the 8th ed daemon book came out and everyone said it was rubbish. Obviously that turned out to be utter junk, but by that time I'd invested in an army and started painting them up. 7 months later I had 5000pts worth of daemons painted up and another army ready to go.
Dwarfs
At the age of 16/17 I decided to start a new army and picked Dwarfs from then on they've been my favourite army, I built up a massive host of them, then quit gaming for 7-8 years through uni/work and things. Eventually I came back (as we all do) and I dug out what I had of my dwarfs and started painting properly aiming for a themed army. Some of the early stuff was done to a different scheme and I sold a bunch of it off but I'm still able to throw down a pretty decent force with any of the options out the book whenever I want.
Obviously 8th came along and mixed it all up a lot. Requirements for larger units, GWs became the preferred option. For most armies a bit of a change for dwarfs it meant totally rearming a lot of my minis! At last count I had about 5000pts without counting characters so a pretty decent sized force. But the army playstyle is boring to me now and sadly the new 8th ed book hasn't done enough to change that so it looks like they'll mostly remain sat on my shelves.
High Elves
The most recent addition to my stables (in 2014), these were never really planned but I'd picked up a bunch of figs over the time, plus were my first ever army back in 3rd/4th Ed so nostalgia kicked in and I decided to do an army. What had been planned as a very specific and 'fun' build got caught up in ETC fever and I had to paint up a load of filth. But I've gone back and added a bunch since then so I can start to be fluffy again. Overall the paintscheme isn't that stellar but a reasonably striking look with orange & blue (so I refer to them as Iron Bru elves) on cobblestone bases. Another army I'll want to come back to later and touch up.
Lizardmen
This started out as a quick dip project to get a totally different army from the dwarfs (same as the woodies) so that I could play with something whenever I got bored/frustrated of the other playstyle. But 8th Ed then came along and out went my ideas of a really quick and simple army with just the minimum tournament style options.
I've now bought enough that I can make most of the stuff out the book and have really enjoyed bulk painting lots of it over a very short timescale. The quality isn't the best but the visual effect is quite effective. There are still some bits I need to finish off before I'd call it a complete project but now well over 2400pts.
Orcs & Goblins
Following painting a horde army (the Skaven) I thought it was a little bit foolish to do O&G next until I actually wrote a list for the army and realised how low the model count would be! Very much netlist for the core of the army with a big block of savage orcs, 2 doomdivers and a rock lobba, but then I went for a unit of 10 trolls and 3 chariots to clear chaff away from them and the savages. Had a lot of fun playing the army so far even though my results have been pretty mixed.
Skaven
It all started because of Island of Blood, so their marketing worked on me! Basically a guy down the club was using an unpainted army and I wanted to convince him to paint it up. I dipped the 40 skaven from IoB just to show him how quickly and easily it could be done. That then planted the seed. I stifled it for nearly a year before I finally caved in and went on a massive second hand hunt. £150 later I owned 300+ rats plus most of the toys you need for an army (only need an abom and furnce to have everything standard). This army is now complete and I've got it all painted up. But despite all that painting I've only ever played 5 games with it!
Tomb Kings
This was a project born of frustration. I played my dwarfs at the 6 nations ETC event in June 2011 and found they just wouldn't do what I wanted. Looking round the armies the TK book was just newly released and it felt like the army would achieve exactly what I was after (A defensive list with the ability to reach across the board if opponents stand off but with big enough threats for when they came towards me that I could cause most armies difficulties). So I painted up a very specific 2400 pts army in just over a month. Since then I've gone on to add countless units and it currently stands at around 7000pts and has turned out to be my favourite army to play of them all.
Warriors of Chaos
I bought some of the models for this army way back in 2009-10 when I started the lizardmen too. Never really got into WoC though so they languished horribly. Then a mate wanted to run a silly WoC list for the Maul in 2014 but realised he wouldn't have time to paint it all, I reckoned I could do it easily so churned out an army. It's only one specific (and pretty odd build) at the moment but I'm going through and adding the last few bits to make it netlist up like most of my armies!
Wood Elves
The Wood Elves idea came about as with most thing from wanting to have a chance from painting Dwarfs. I decided I wanted another army and one that wasn't all that popular. Again this started back in 7th (in fact before the lizards were ever considered) but I wanted to paint an army to a higher standard and set about painting some figs to the best of my abilities.
Unfortunately that bored me to tears after a few figures and I shelved the whole project for a couple of years. It took moving house to get my excitement back as I had 3 months where I had no access to my painting stuff and I was going stir crazy! That made me dig out a few models which happened to be my half painted Scarlocs Archers and finish them off. I fell back in love with the woodies through that and went on a buying spree again taking me up to having virtually every option in the book.
But I fell into an age old trap of wanting to be able to game with them before long and decided to do a quick paintjob to get a usable army on the table in the hope of inspiring me to finish more off. Well it worked to an extent in that I now have a number of fully painted units, but the level of quality is basic tabletop for most at present.
So there we have it for armies, now up to10 of them painted and ready to pull out whenever I want with a number of them having a variety of builds.
One thing I am slightly concerned by is the End Times combined armies and rumours of 9th doing away with a load of the armies in the game. That could be rather annoying for my aim of collecting all 16, plus it makes my basing of different armies a nuisance as I can't really put my HE and WE on the table together as it's not at all coherent. Will see what 9th brings but assuming nothing too horrendous I'll still be trying for all 16 armies.
