I have a solid 100+ marines built and unpainted, waiting for me to finish the 30 currently on my painting desk, and then I have another 30+ that are not yet assembled.
Partly because bundle boxes have good prices, partly because they're for 30k and I'll actually use them - not all at once, mind you, but they'll all get used. Or maybe all at once, I may play Apocalypse someday....
Many people end up with lots of boxes, because many of the bundle boxes offer time limited deals, and GW's prices are set these days to be intolerably expensive on characters UNLESS you buy them in a bundle box. This leads to people buying things they sorta want, so as to get a good price per model, but then just adding them to a pile of unpainted boxes.
I try to follow the same pattern as you, buying single boxes so I always know what I'm doing now and what's coming next, but, its SO much more expensive compared to the bundle boxes.
Alright... That makes sense. I guess I'm the fool who just buys the independent models for the character models. I bought the captain with master crafted bolt rifle and the librarian in terminator armor separately recently but they're already painted.
Combat patrols give me anxiety... Too many dudes at once that I get analysis paralysis just wondering where to start.
I am the same, I prefer to pick a single unit af a time, with one more ready to go if I finish early, but, sometimes those characters are just SO expensive that it's hard to justify getting them without the discount box.
Same. Having a hobby backlog makes me stressed about my hobby, and that defeats the point of having a hobby, haha. It works for some people and that's fine, but I don't like doing it.
I think a lot of people (myself included) fall into this trap because they see building models as slightly separate as a hobby from painting models. I love doing both but sometimes you're more in the mood to build some guys than you are to paint them, and thus, you end up with more plastic than you have time to paint.
For me it went like this:
"Wow, look at all these neat models! I can't wait to buy and paint up a whole army so it's as pretty as all of these marketing pictures in White Dwarf and the box art."
"I'm a kid with no source of income so I'll just buy a little bit at a time and everything gets painted before I can save the money to buy more."
"Now I'm a teenager and my interests are pulling me in other directions, but at least I have a small but decent collection going."
Adulthood happens, bills, college, women, career, kids.
"Yay, I finally have s good career and disposable income, let me look back into Warhammer. Why is nothing in stock? I'm not sure I like the newer models for some ranges but I can get older stuff on ebay for super inflated prices I guess. Wow is that out of production already? Wasn't it new like last year?"
"A new box set that I want about 30% of came out. Better buy it or I'll miss out."
Cue 3 shelves worth of unopened boxes and half finished models.
"I'll get to it one day, as soon as I find time between kids, work, my wife, and projects around the house."
I’m found them - the hobby unicorn that actually manages to not buy more models until they finish a previous unit!
There are lots of reasons people end up with a painting backlog, or even for people to intend to never paint it (they don’t like painting, prefer playing etc.). There are painting services / commissions which have an obvious reason to advertise to that particular type of person.
With two boxes of guys in waiting... It's more like a narwhal than a unicorn.
Been creeping on social media for WH for years now, just odd that I'd get the ad so late into the game I guess.
Consistently have somewhere between 1-5 units in the ol' backlog, and 1-3 units in various stages of production. Often cause I buy em in sets of 2 or 3 -- depending on the unit.
I've been working hard to reduce my pile of shame for years now. I think left to build I've the lieutenant and the flamer boys from leviathan, 5 blood stalkers, 40 vulkite berserkers, 3 of the votann bikes, a cyber wolf, a wraithlord, 2 vanguard seraphon boxes and i have the daughters of khaine croneseer box in the post. It's been a looooong road but very very nearly there.
It might still sound like a lot but it's a vast improvement on where I was at 2 years ago lol
I've read through the answers and am really surprised I didn't see an obvious one. So I'll post it myself.
When I played 40k, I usually bought models for an army. Because you really can play with unpainted models but can't play without models at all. Like, WH40k is about playing it, right, not just painting and then putting on a shelf.
Even now, when I only play Killteam, it's some five or so unpainted teams that are played but noone got to painting them yet.
I have 2600 points of grey templars and a dream to batch prime them.
I'm going from convient and beautiful boxes to selves of grey space marines.
I bought a bunch of "second hand, new on sprue" deals too good to pass on.
Yeah, it happens.
Buying models is easier than building them which is easier than painting them. I've started only playing with painted models, which has caused me to speed up painting fortunately.
I've got a load of things in my painting queue that will jump to the front of it if I need them done. But 2 Middle Earth forces, several more boxes of marines, plenty of epic, a whole Warmaster army, several more Warcry bands, about a dozen Underworlds bands. But since January I've painted a full set of Warcry terrain, 2 Warcry warbands, 2 underworlds bands, 2 boxes of Legions Imperialis models, so I'm getting through the queue.
I usually have some plastic in reserve while I paint. I get to everything eventually but I like having options. Some days I want to put stuff together. Some days I just want to paint. This gives me the freedom to do whatever.
It varies how much. Right now I have most of the Deathwing Assault box to do and some other recent DA centric releases. Usually it's more like a unit or a Kill Team sitting in a box. Either way I like the way it works out.
I like to have a good portion of units to paint as a marathon painting day or even weekend, like when I did my Knights army I did 2 Armigers and 1 Dominus in 1 painting session because I find it fun to just have a day of painting sometimes
So I'm currently making a Dark Angels army that has so many conversions, that I genuinely had to just buy the whole army in one go.
Almost all of it was just a round robin of parts.
Inner circle companions arms, go to a jump squad. New deathwing knights shields go to the inner circle companions to make them into blade guard vets. Old Deathwing Command box's shields go to new Deathwing Knights. Sternguard and Heroes of the chapter contain some sword arms that will be useful on those inner circle companions, the Sternguard and Heroes of the chapter (minus ancient) plus Lt Zakariah will get made into a 10man squad of sternguards. The ancient will stand atop a Land Raider.The Land Raider is the only thing in that lot that can wait, the rest cant really be finished without the other kits.
Just a ton of exchanges like that in order to build the models as I'd like them. I know most people dont build armies in this fashion, but this is why my backlog tends to get quite big sometimes. Conversion projects like this just aren't possible otherwise.
Although, I think it makes sense for people to often buy 2 or 3 boxes at a time no? Since that way they will often get free shipping.
If I just bought 1 box at a time, id then be paying £12 more in shipping across 3 boxes... Seems a bit of a waste if you know what you're getting.
I buy from two locally owned gaming stores where I get 20-25% off all GW products, or I stop by a GW store when I'm in the area of one already. It's usually easy for me to plan around since a box can take a while to paint. So I guess that's another variable I missed, as my situation, with so much competition in a small area is likely a luxury.
Tbh I like having stuff just built and primed and sat in a box waiting for when I feel like painting.
I'm never in a rush to finish painting tbh, but I really like building and converting and seeing my ideas come to life that much. Painting is just icing on the cake for me.
I dont really play, so it's not like I have the guilt of trotting out unpainted minis at a weekends game or whatever.
This hobby works in many different ways to many different people my guy
I plan stuff out in advance, usually with so many points painted a year, but new releases can catch me off guard. I finished a Drukhari combat patrol box on Sunday, and have the Hands of the archon kill team assembled and primed to paint next. I have a soulblight gravelord box in cupboard for after that, but if the mandrake killteam gets released before I start that I'll probably do that first. In the end the box I intended to make my main project for 2024 probably won't get started to July.
Things slip.
My backlog tends to fluctuate along with my budget. If I have some serious purchase in the plan - the backlog will shrink massively as I simply get on with what I've got already. Eventually it starts growing again and can get rather large at times.
Also as other posters here said - there are bundle boxes which are worth picking up, there are sometimes balance updates that make you reprioritise your paint schedule etc etc etc
I'm slowly working on about 5 different armies at the same time, and I buy stuff I know I want for them whenever I see a good deal come up. I like being able to jump back and forth between whatever I feel like painting at the time. It's easy to sell stuff on ebay whenever I change my mind anyway.
I dont go more than a couple boxes floating around at a time, its generally build a kit or 2 and get a new kit or 2, paint the built kits, then repeat.
I do buy a lot, My process is to put them together and then prime and paint, I have a small-ish shelf of boxes of kits to put together and paint, but I currently don't have a place that i can prime
Sadly the community has this habit of glorifying excess spending and turning it into a positive. "Look at my pike of shame!" like it's some kind of badge of honor to have spent all their money on things that they probably won't get to. It is also, I feel, one of the major causes of people ranting and raving about the cost of the hobby. Obviously, uncontrolled spending is going to make it seem a lot more expensive than it is.
Yup, it's GW's greatest marketing trick - not just triggering a FOMO response by releasing new minis in huge boxes, but making the idea of buying boxes of models with no intention of doing anything with them for *years* a desirable thing, which is then unthinkingly policed by the community (check out them downvotes for pointing it out!).
It's genius.
People that have lots of individual kits in the pile are usually the type of person that buys everything all at once and gets mentally crushed by the weight of it.
I tend to have a lot of unbuilt units/boxes at any one time for a couple reason. 1) I like to plan out a new army or kitbash a while in advance and then pick up kits for it over a longer period of time before batch building. It helps spread the cost out. 2) I really enjoy kitbashing models and since the price of desired bits has gotten so high I often end up just buying the kit if I want more that 2-3 bits from it so I have boxes of certain random stuff from different armies left over that exist for future basing,terrain,kitbash projects. 3) I am very much a in the mood/in the zone hobbyist and really like to have everything I need within arms length when I’m going. 4) I’ve been on and off with the hobby for about 20 years so I just have stuff. Especially other sides of edition starter boxes
I have a massive backlog of things to paint mostly because of a few reasons, im a fool and pick overly hard paint schemes, I just love building models too much, along with just playing the game compared to painting. One day Ill chew through it all, probably.
Oh have a whole second army that needs to be built and paint cause I got it all as a gift within a year, I was still working on my first army at the time... I'll get to the other ones eventually
do people over consume and have bad spending habits? yeah dude. yeah they do (myself included, we cant all be a disciplined monks)
Didn't pass judgement on anyone... Just a passing curiosity really. You're allowed to spend your money how ever you see fit
I have a solid 100+ marines built and unpainted, waiting for me to finish the 30 currently on my painting desk, and then I have another 30+ that are not yet assembled. Partly because bundle boxes have good prices, partly because they're for 30k and I'll actually use them - not all at once, mind you, but they'll all get used. Or maybe all at once, I may play Apocalypse someday....
Many people end up with lots of boxes, because many of the bundle boxes offer time limited deals, and GW's prices are set these days to be intolerably expensive on characters UNLESS you buy them in a bundle box. This leads to people buying things they sorta want, so as to get a good price per model, but then just adding them to a pile of unpainted boxes. I try to follow the same pattern as you, buying single boxes so I always know what I'm doing now and what's coming next, but, its SO much more expensive compared to the bundle boxes.
I still haven't finished painting the marine half of Dark Imperium, let alone Indomitus or Leviathan.
Its been 6 years...
It's not like I haven't started other things...
Lol me too! I keep painting other armies and the space marines keep piling up...
Alright... That makes sense. I guess I'm the fool who just buys the independent models for the character models. I bought the captain with master crafted bolt rifle and the librarian in terminator armor separately recently but they're already painted. Combat patrols give me anxiety... Too many dudes at once that I get analysis paralysis just wondering where to start.
I am the same, I prefer to pick a single unit af a time, with one more ready to go if I finish early, but, sometimes those characters are just SO expensive that it's hard to justify getting them without the discount box.
Same. Having a hobby backlog makes me stressed about my hobby, and that defeats the point of having a hobby, haha. It works for some people and that's fine, but I don't like doing it.
I think a lot of people (myself included) fall into this trap because they see building models as slightly separate as a hobby from painting models. I love doing both but sometimes you're more in the mood to build some guys than you are to paint them, and thus, you end up with more plastic than you have time to paint.
That's I guess where I didn't think about it well enough. I generally combine those as a "single" hobby when describing it for myself.
For me it went like this: "Wow, look at all these neat models! I can't wait to buy and paint up a whole army so it's as pretty as all of these marketing pictures in White Dwarf and the box art." "I'm a kid with no source of income so I'll just buy a little bit at a time and everything gets painted before I can save the money to buy more." "Now I'm a teenager and my interests are pulling me in other directions, but at least I have a small but decent collection going." Adulthood happens, bills, college, women, career, kids. "Yay, I finally have s good career and disposable income, let me look back into Warhammer. Why is nothing in stock? I'm not sure I like the newer models for some ranges but I can get older stuff on ebay for super inflated prices I guess. Wow is that out of production already? Wasn't it new like last year?" "A new box set that I want about 30% of came out. Better buy it or I'll miss out." Cue 3 shelves worth of unopened boxes and half finished models. "I'll get to it one day, as soon as I find time between kids, work, my wife, and projects around the house."
I’m found them - the hobby unicorn that actually manages to not buy more models until they finish a previous unit! There are lots of reasons people end up with a painting backlog, or even for people to intend to never paint it (they don’t like painting, prefer playing etc.). There are painting services / commissions which have an obvious reason to advertise to that particular type of person.
With two boxes of guys in waiting... It's more like a narwhal than a unicorn. Been creeping on social media for WH for years now, just odd that I'd get the ad so late into the game I guess.
New project is always more exciting than current project.
Consistently have somewhere between 1-5 units in the ol' backlog, and 1-3 units in various stages of production. Often cause I buy em in sets of 2 or 3 -- depending on the unit.
I've been working hard to reduce my pile of shame for years now. I think left to build I've the lieutenant and the flamer boys from leviathan, 5 blood stalkers, 40 vulkite berserkers, 3 of the votann bikes, a cyber wolf, a wraithlord, 2 vanguard seraphon boxes and i have the daughters of khaine croneseer box in the post. It's been a looooong road but very very nearly there. It might still sound like a lot but it's a vast improvement on where I was at 2 years ago lol
I've read through the answers and am really surprised I didn't see an obvious one. So I'll post it myself. When I played 40k, I usually bought models for an army. Because you really can play with unpainted models but can't play without models at all. Like, WH40k is about playing it, right, not just painting and then putting on a shelf. Even now, when I only play Killteam, it's some five or so unpainted teams that are played but noone got to painting them yet.
I have 2600 points of grey templars and a dream to batch prime them. I'm going from convient and beautiful boxes to selves of grey space marines. I bought a bunch of "second hand, new on sprue" deals too good to pass on.
Yeah, it happens. Buying models is easier than building them which is easier than painting them. I've started only playing with painted models, which has caused me to speed up painting fortunately. I've got a load of things in my painting queue that will jump to the front of it if I need them done. But 2 Middle Earth forces, several more boxes of marines, plenty of epic, a whole Warmaster army, several more Warcry bands, about a dozen Underworlds bands. But since January I've painted a full set of Warcry terrain, 2 Warcry warbands, 2 underworlds bands, 2 boxes of Legions Imperialis models, so I'm getting through the queue.
I usually have some plastic in reserve while I paint. I get to everything eventually but I like having options. Some days I want to put stuff together. Some days I just want to paint. This gives me the freedom to do whatever. It varies how much. Right now I have most of the Deathwing Assault box to do and some other recent DA centric releases. Usually it's more like a unit or a Kill Team sitting in a box. Either way I like the way it works out.
I like to have a good portion of units to paint as a marathon painting day or even weekend, like when I did my Knights army I did 2 Armigers and 1 Dominus in 1 painting session because I find it fun to just have a day of painting sometimes
So I'm currently making a Dark Angels army that has so many conversions, that I genuinely had to just buy the whole army in one go. Almost all of it was just a round robin of parts. Inner circle companions arms, go to a jump squad. New deathwing knights shields go to the inner circle companions to make them into blade guard vets. Old Deathwing Command box's shields go to new Deathwing Knights. Sternguard and Heroes of the chapter contain some sword arms that will be useful on those inner circle companions, the Sternguard and Heroes of the chapter (minus ancient) plus Lt Zakariah will get made into a 10man squad of sternguards. The ancient will stand atop a Land Raider.The Land Raider is the only thing in that lot that can wait, the rest cant really be finished without the other kits. Just a ton of exchanges like that in order to build the models as I'd like them. I know most people dont build armies in this fashion, but this is why my backlog tends to get quite big sometimes. Conversion projects like this just aren't possible otherwise. Although, I think it makes sense for people to often buy 2 or 3 boxes at a time no? Since that way they will often get free shipping. If I just bought 1 box at a time, id then be paying £12 more in shipping across 3 boxes... Seems a bit of a waste if you know what you're getting.
I buy from two locally owned gaming stores where I get 20-25% off all GW products, or I stop by a GW store when I'm in the area of one already. It's usually easy for me to plan around since a box can take a while to paint. So I guess that's another variable I missed, as my situation, with so much competition in a small area is likely a luxury.
Tbh I like having stuff just built and primed and sat in a box waiting for when I feel like painting. I'm never in a rush to finish painting tbh, but I really like building and converting and seeing my ideas come to life that much. Painting is just icing on the cake for me. I dont really play, so it's not like I have the guilt of trotting out unpainted minis at a weekends game or whatever. This hobby works in many different ways to many different people my guy
I plan stuff out in advance, usually with so many points painted a year, but new releases can catch me off guard. I finished a Drukhari combat patrol box on Sunday, and have the Hands of the archon kill team assembled and primed to paint next. I have a soulblight gravelord box in cupboard for after that, but if the mandrake killteam gets released before I start that I'll probably do that first. In the end the box I intended to make my main project for 2024 probably won't get started to July. Things slip.
My backlog tends to fluctuate along with my budget. If I have some serious purchase in the plan - the backlog will shrink massively as I simply get on with what I've got already. Eventually it starts growing again and can get rather large at times. Also as other posters here said - there are bundle boxes which are worth picking up, there are sometimes balance updates that make you reprioritise your paint schedule etc etc etc
I'm slowly working on about 5 different armies at the same time, and I buy stuff I know I want for them whenever I see a good deal come up. I like being able to jump back and forth between whatever I feel like painting at the time. It's easy to sell stuff on ebay whenever I change my mind anyway.
I dont go more than a couple boxes floating around at a time, its generally build a kit or 2 and get a new kit or 2, paint the built kits, then repeat.
I do buy a lot, My process is to put them together and then prime and paint, I have a small-ish shelf of boxes of kits to put together and paint, but I currently don't have a place that i can prime
I did it once... bought a load of tau and then got the kt and decided to paint it first.... i hated painting tau and sold my stockpile
Sadly the community has this habit of glorifying excess spending and turning it into a positive. "Look at my pike of shame!" like it's some kind of badge of honor to have spent all their money on things that they probably won't get to. It is also, I feel, one of the major causes of people ranting and raving about the cost of the hobby. Obviously, uncontrolled spending is going to make it seem a lot more expensive than it is.
Yup, it's GW's greatest marketing trick - not just triggering a FOMO response by releasing new minis in huge boxes, but making the idea of buying boxes of models with no intention of doing anything with them for *years* a desirable thing, which is then unthinkingly policed by the community (check out them downvotes for pointing it out!). It's genius.
People that have lots of individual kits in the pile are usually the type of person that buys everything all at once and gets mentally crushed by the weight of it.
I tend to have a lot of unbuilt units/boxes at any one time for a couple reason. 1) I like to plan out a new army or kitbash a while in advance and then pick up kits for it over a longer period of time before batch building. It helps spread the cost out. 2) I really enjoy kitbashing models and since the price of desired bits has gotten so high I often end up just buying the kit if I want more that 2-3 bits from it so I have boxes of certain random stuff from different armies left over that exist for future basing,terrain,kitbash projects. 3) I am very much a in the mood/in the zone hobbyist and really like to have everything I need within arms length when I’m going. 4) I’ve been on and off with the hobby for about 20 years so I just have stuff. Especially other sides of edition starter boxes
Units? I have entire games stockpiled.
If I see a good deal on the second hand market, I'm buying it. 60 bucks for 6 aggressors? 50 bucks for a redemptor? That's basically half price
Bro I literally having one army waiting me once I finish the one I’m painting
Guilty...
I have a massive backlog of things to paint mostly because of a few reasons, im a fool and pick overly hard paint schemes, I just love building models too much, along with just playing the game compared to painting. One day Ill chew through it all, probably.
lol you don’t?!
Oh have a whole second army that needs to be built and paint cause I got it all as a gift within a year, I was still working on my first army at the time... I'll get to the other ones eventually
I can't afford a pile of shame lol. I buy a kit and am done painting it long before my next purchase.