Armies, Fleets and Crews...oh my!

Onto a prominent hobby and the reason for far too much expenditure and sapping of my time! After a number of changes over time, I now feel completely settled on my choice and collection of armies for the various wargames i'm involved in. Having gone through Imperial Guard, Space Marines, Wood Elves, Ogre Kingdoms, and finally the recently purged Dark Eldar, i'm now feeling clear and focused on my current (and final!) set of armies.

Warhammer Fantasy

Warriors of Chaos - This is my "elite" and "serious" army for Fantasy. I've completed all the models I need for the army, so have a good array of Marauders, Knights, and Chaos Warriors, as well as all the lords and heroes I could ever need. The War Mammoth is by far the most beautiful piece, however and towers above everything else. Nothing is painted yet, but once i'm settled on the method and paint schemes then i'm sure it will be relatively quick to paint up. So not a massive amount of models, but enough to play around decent-sized games...and they look mean as hell :-D

Orcs & Goblins - I've long been interested in this army, despite initially disregarding them as a "comical" aspect of the dark fantasy world of Warhammer. But now i've learnt to embrace the army and find them fun to play with (as a bit of relief from playing Warriors of Chaos, so they're the perfect counterpart). I love the look of the army and the variety of the units in both performance and looks. With the new Arachnarok spider, it really adds more to the Forest Goblins and expands that part of the army well. Some fantastic models throughout and have already painted up a few units, which i'm happy with. of course, this army is much larger than the Chaos army, so will take some time to paint up. I still have a fair few models (mostly metals) which I want to get in to complete the collection.

Warhammer 40,000

Tau Empire - What can I say about my Tau army?! I love this army above all others and it's by far my largest army and has received the most focus, both in painting and gaming. The number of points in total is huge now, even moreso with the addition of my long dreamt of model - the Manta! So I now have every model in the Tau army produced by GW and Forge World and have painted many units over the years. There's still a fair bit to paint but i'm more than comfortable with the tasks and keep focusing on painting units on a regular basis. There's nothing else I need for this army....at least until a revised codex is released (and hopefully more models :-) )

Grey Knights - My latest army! Always loved the old models; the intricate designs and shiny metal look, and the helmets and force weapons which hark back to Chivalric times. The lore behind this army is appealing too and with the release of the new models, it would also satisfy my missing need for a Space Marine army (and also mean I can have a Stormraven Gunship!) This will be an elite army too, so I won't need many models to have a good sized (point-wise) army. They should be quite quick and easy to paint too, just spraying in metal spray and then bringing out the details with gold etc.

Elysians - These are a slow-burner and more of a "collector's" army. Partly as it's a Forge World army, so is expensive, as partly as it's Imperial Guard so takes a lot of models to get a legal, playable army together. The look and feel of the army is just what i'm looking for out of a Guard army; being drop troops and utilising Valkyries (one of my first love's from Forge World). So far i've only build the Command HQ but have a small number of other units waiting to be built. My intension is to build and paint a unit at a time, so as not to be stacked up with loads of daunting models. I've not yet decided upon the colours yet, but it will be a grey\blue scheme.

Lord of the Rings

Harad - My first and only army for LotR. Got a good size army of Haradrim and nothing else to collect despite being tempted by various offshoots such as the Corsairs Far Harad. There are other armies that appear for this system but I don't play the game very often so one army will suffice and I like the look and feel of the Haradrim (besides, they have the Mumak :-D ) Nothing is painted up, but due to the low focus on the army, the simple design and casting of the models and the methods I want to use, it should be relatively quick and easy yo complete. Using mainly just basecoats and washes (perhaps just using the "dip" from Army Painter for a quick job).

Battlefleet Gothic

Tau Fleet - Being a Tau loyalist, this was the obvious choice, and Forge World models are cool! The fleet is complete after I got a couple of extra Protectors, so just need to get it painted up.

Aeronautica Imperialis

Tau Air Cadre - Again, due to my love of Tau, I completed my collection of Tau aircraft, (which also means I have a BFG-scale Manta, AI-scale Manta and 40K-scale Manta), and just have to get them painted. I haven't decided on a colour scheme though, as i'm torn between using the usual ochre to match the rest of my Tau models, or to have a change to a different colour scheme.

Eldar Sky Host - Not done much with these. In fact, they're not even primed, but have a complete Sky Host for a battle. I got these models as I like the Eldar aircraft designs and to add a bit of variety to the game as well as Tau....and they're "Very Fast" manoueverability rating too!


Malifaux

Freikorps - The obvious initial choice which pulled me into this game... Von Schill and his team of Freikorps are all military style with good shooting abilities. The models look great and once I settle on the colours, i'll look forward to getting these finished.

Cult of December - I think it was the snowy scenes and colours that pulled me into these; with the whites and blues really appealing and the magic and wild aspect of the models. I picked up some snowy rock bases too for this crew so they all look pretty amazing and shouldn't take long to paint up. Just waiting for Wyrd Games to release the Snowstorm model and one other (which I can't recall the name of) and it's complete.

Viktorias - Liked the rules for these and the array of great looking models. I also added Rusty Alyce to the crew so may get a Steampunk Abomination to go alongside her. A good hard-hitting assault type of crew.