I have personally found that my miniature collection often shares certain properties with water. One of the most significant of these properties is its ability to fill whatever room or contain I put it in. Naturally, this leads to a certain problem where I occasionally find myself with more armies then I actually use. At the same time, I have also found that I have regretted (in some fashion) selling every army I have sold to free up space or funds. Now this may be because I am secretly a hoarder but I think it has more to do with my own sentimentality. Regardless, I think it’s an interesting subject to explore, when do you have enough minis? It will be different for each person, but I think it’s an important question to ask oneself.
In my experience I have seen miniature collectors fall into one of two camps: #1: Only one army per system, #2: taste the rainbow! Collect all the armies! For myself my personal strategy for what armies I collect is largely driven by pragmatism. Aside from the issues of funds or space, I try to focus on having at least one army for each of the game systems I play, so right now that’s:
- 40K and its attendant skirmish games
- Horus Heresy
- Age of Sigmar
- Warhammer Fantasy (all editions)/WAP/9th Age
So 4 armies then? Well not really I have been playing 40k for almost half my life and have thus picked up a number of 40K armies that I either enjoyed (Eldar my one true love) have been competitive (DE and Harlequins) I thought were cool (Charcharodon Space Marines) funny (An all teddy bear Astra Millitarum army) or could function in multiple systems (30/40 Night Lords and Knights) Inevitably this means I have more armies then I really play that often especially given the ups and downs of the various codexes. Which does occasionally make me feel guilty seeing rows of minis gathering dust. Not even counting whole armies I have ended up with a number of odd miniatures through bulk trades or lots. In addition I know that a big range refresh is coming for my primary army (Craftworld Eldar) and thus I know that some models will make the jump (I have plenty of Shining Spears), while others will not:
So is how do I determine what I should sell? Here is my checklist for single models:
- Is this model from an army I currently play?
- Is this a custom model that I bought or converted myself?
- How often have I used this model in the past 2 years?
- Do I anticipate playing this army competitively in the future?
- Am I sentimentally attached to this model for it’s heroics (example my brother had a tau fire warrior kill a DE raider in a “Death or Glory” maneuver with a plasma grenade in 6th ed)
Army Checklist:
- How often have I played this army in the past year?
- How often is this game system played in my local/greater area?
- Do I intend to play this army competitively? Do I enjoy playing/painting the models?
- Would selling this army allow me to better focus on my other armies?
- How sentimentally attached am I to this army?
The thing about these checklists is that there is no right or wrong answer. You can hoard as many or as few models as you like. However, I think it’s worth going over your collection(s) once a year or so and asking yourself these questions. In any hobby you can get caught up in the rush of the new and exciting and lose track of how many models you actually own (I know I am guilty of this).
Benefits of Selling:
As you can probably guess this article comes on the heel of me selling off an umber of units I knew I was unlikely to paint, and even more unlikely to play. I was surprised at how freeing it was to shrink my pile of shame (even if it will grow shortly). Perhaps this is too philosophical but as I was thinking about the old armies I sold I also thought about how selling them allowed me to build up a collection of other models I really enjoyed (this was highlighted when I stumbled on a battle report featuring models I had converted and painted, a real seeing-an-old-flame-in-the-grocery-store moment). As we turn our models over to Ebay, that great dung beetle of the miniature ecosystem, we convert them into resources for a new project or opportunity.
Whatever your decision on your collection, I hope you end up with models you own purposefully and fondly.
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