Where is your biggest “waste” with this hobby?

[Kaede45]

2 hours ago, Xenith said:

 

Doesn't that define every hobby?  hunting or golf seems like a waste of time money and resources for me, but I can understand why people would do it. 

 

If you enjoyed your time lore building, and I assume you did or you wouldn't be doing it, I wouldn't consider it a waste. 

 

What I think is a waste is the FOMO purchases, like a box for an army you'll never play, but just bought because it was a good offer. 

I have to agree with @kabaakaba in that hobbies like hunting could be considered more productive & even self sufficient as one can harvest the meat, bones & hide for personal use or profit. Even sports like golf have a big enough audience that one could make a living on it. Warhammer is pretty niche & I would think that most people who want to get into it are drawn in by the customizability of it all, so it would be difficult to make a profit from it, especially with the price it takes just to get into the hobby in the first place.

 

I do agree with you on the FOMO purchases though. My local store recently got a lieutenant Titus in stock & I have been fighting myself to not buy it on account of how many unfinished minis I already have, not to mention the unlikelihood that I would ever field him…

[LemartesTheLost]

I waste so much money on Black Library it's unreal. If there's a trilogy or series I'm interested in, every book purchased has to be in the same format as the rest of the series lest my shelves look imperfect (My one exception is my LE copy of Echoes of Eternity by ADB, the rest of the Siege is in regular HB). Audiobook I enjoyed? BAM, EBay is scoured until a hardback in good condition is found and purchased at a non-heinous price. Pretty sure I've bought Chris Wraight's Dawn of Fire: Sea of Souls three times by now. There have been a few LE's I've had to swing for as well. 

 

The lore is not a waste, but my OCD makes it so!

[Magos Takatus]

I guess my biggest sins have been buying a Knight Castigator from Forge World, letting it sit in my cupboard for years, then I finally finished it about a year or so before the plastic version was released.... I also scoured eBay for a load of metal Aspect Warriors on eBay because I didn't want to deal with Finecast versions... and they have remained in my pile of shame while plastic replacements have been released, drastically reducing the demand for them should I wish to sell them on to free up space.

[Rusted Boltgun]

My biggest waste is format indecision.

Since getting back into the hobby I have dipped into

 

Kill Team

40K

Horus Heresy

Oldhammer 

Old Epic

 

The only actual modern game I have played is Kill Team and that has been with my son using 'lite' rules.

In that time I've seen the transition from 9th to 10th in 40k, KT 21 morph into KT24 and am about to see HH2.0 move into 3.0.

I haven't even played KT24 yet.

 

If I had any sense, I'd sell off all my HH boxes (starter, Libers and two battles boxes) and 40k gear (2k of Astartes and three Battleforce boxes of other factions), some very heavy bags of metal minis I'll probably never even look at and the boxes of Epic I only bought for...I don't know.

 

I don't have any sense though, I'll keep it all and dream of one day having painted armies and actual games...

 

[sbarnby71]

My biggest waste is my own inability to finish painting models.  I don't play, so I just paint for display.  I have hundreds of unfinished models, some of which would maybe need an hour to finish them, but I'm like a magpie, I see a new shiny and I have to get it and convert it.  I started painting when I was 17, that was 37 years ago.  I've had some breaks that total about 15 years out of the hobby, but I know I have more unfinished models than I do have finished.  I also look at the cupboards filled with models and bits and sometimes think I'm sure I have more in here than I could finish before I grow to old to paint or die.  But I will continue buying more (the new Space Wolves are coming and I will buy every last one of them!).

 

I have tried to be disciplined and say right I can't start work on project x until all 5 of these other dudes are finished and in the display cabinet, but I then look at the current project and think you guys are stopping me starting this next project, I hate you!  I know, I have a problem.

[kabaakaba]

3 hours ago, sbarnby71 said:

My biggest waste is my own inability to finish painting models.  I don't play, so I just paint for display.  I have hundreds of unfinished models, some of which would maybe need an hour to finish them, but I'm like a magpie, I see a new shiny and I have to get it and convert it.  I started painting when I was 17, that was 37 years ago.  I've had some breaks that total about 15 years out of the hobby, but I know I have more unfinished models than I do have finished.  I also look at the cupboards filled with models and bits and sometimes think I'm sure I have more in here than I could finish before I grow to old to paint or die.  But I will continue buying more (the new Space Wolves are coming and I will buy every last one of them!).

 

I have tried to be disciplined and say right I can't start work on project x until all 5 of these other dudes are finished and in the display cabinet, but I then look at the current project and think you guys are stopping me starting this next project, I hate you!  I know, I have a problem.

i have a stupid question, but why not just complete minis you have? like you sit and paint...

Edited May 16 by kabaakaba

[Minsc]

On 5/14/2025 at 11:02 PM, kabaakaba said:

My biggest waste is selling my previous army then I ragequited from hobby. I'd sold like 4k IG army. Should just put it in boxes but...

 

I can relate to this.
I've only sold off one 40k army (Orks, back in 6th iirc) and I sort of regret it. At least they weren't painted.

What I *really* regret though, is selling off a bunch of various Fantasy-armies, like fully or nearly fully painted. Most of these where back when Fantasy collapsed and turned into Age of Sigmar, which I had (and still have) no interest in.

But then a few years later, Warhammer Armies Project kicked off, and then was followed up with GWs official The Old World, and now the regret of selling off fully painted 5000+ pts armies of Dark Elves, Wood Elves, Empire, Warriors of Chaos and Vampire Counts will haunt me until the day I die - especially since I have restarted both Empire and Vampire Counts, but neither army is even close to getting painted, and I doubt it ever will, there's just not enough time....

(I've also sold off some Fantasy-armies that I don't regret, like High Elves and Ogres, but thats mainly because they where more of a fleeting thing, and I never got around to paint them in the first place.)

With that said, Fantasy collapsed over 10 years ago, and I was a quite different person who lived a different life back then (carefree, fairly poor college student), so I probably actually needed the money in a way that I can't remember today + I think most of us genuinely thought that Fantasy would be dead and gone forever.

 

Edited May 16 by Minsc

[LameBeard]

2 hours ago, kabaakaba said:

i have a stupid question, but why not just complete minis you have? like you sit and paint...

Someone please find the meme of Sean Bean as Boromir saying “one does not simply paint a single miniature …” . I suspect dopamine could help explain some of the phenomenon …

[sbarnby71]

3 hours ago, kabaakaba said:

i have a stupid question, but why not just complete minis you have? like you sit and paint...

I think it comes down to I love converting, hacking and rebuilding (none of my models are stock) and I like painting, so the chance to convert will also lead me astray.

[kabaakaba]

1 hour ago, LameBeard said:

Someone please find the meme of Sean Bean as Boromir saying “one does not simply paint a single miniature …” . I suspect dopamine could help explain some of the phenomenon …

just imagin that commissar is behind you stuck the barrel of his bolt pistol into the back  of your head and waiting you complete that warped mini in the sake of God-Emperor of Mankind

[Alby the Slayer]

On 5/16/2025 at 8:53 AM, sbarnby71 said:

My biggest waste is my own inability to finish painting models.  I don't play, so I just paint for display.  I have hundreds of unfinished models, some of which would maybe need an hour to finish them, but I'm like a magpie, I see a new shiny and I have to get it and convert it.  I started painting when I was 17, that was 37 years ago.  I've had some breaks that total about 15 years out of the hobby, but I know I have more unfinished models than I do have finished.  I also look at the cupboards filled with models and bits and sometimes think I'm sure I have more in here than I could finish before I grow to old to paint or die.  But I will continue buying more (the new Space Wolves are coming and I will buy every last one of them!).

 

I have tried to be disciplined and say right I can't start work on project x until all 5 of these other dudes are finished and in the display cabinet, but I then look at the current project and think you guys are stopping me starting this next project, I hate you!  I know, I have a problem.

 

I try not to do this because I know I will never finish what I started if I'm going to start another project.

 

I did a project that took me 2 years, a cathedral diorama, and I didn't paint or do anything else. It almost broke me. Seriously.

I kept buying stuff meanwhile, which I know it was not healthy. In the end I finished it but I think I will never do again a project so massive.

 

To try and balance things, I do a project while I'm thinking the next one. For now, it's working.

 

For me the biggest waste, as many others, is that I can limit myself but I cannot stop to buy new models and I know I cannot paint them all. 

 

Other than that I think nothing in this hobby, or any hobby, is wasting. You can dream about your homebrew chapter, you can read or paint, or do anything you want. You just have to know you will not probably do everything cause time is limited.

Do what makes you happy.

Every fun/happy/fullfilling hour in this hobby, to try and forget for at least one hour the dredge, the pain, the problems and the misery that exists in this life, is an hour you will cherish until the end.

[Zoatibix]

Changing my mind on colour schemes then stripping dozens of models to start repainting them all.

 

Once stripped half my nids to redo them in green…only to change my mind again to strip and redo them a third time into the same purple colours.

 

My poor GSC…I’m on the third run through with them.

[Scribe]

I'd say my biggest waste, was actually thinking I would get into 10th. "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice...." and all that.

 

Maybe 11th? (....and this is how class, we see an addict attempt to justify his spending...)

[INKS]

research on what I want to play and or collect. Money and time are limited. I spend and am still spending hours per day thinking about this but I can never make a decision. this past year i started with votann, decided they were too small. got custodes, then decided I did not want to paint all gold, the sisters of silence, then nids. now? who knows. each time I buy a few models, paint them then get drawn to something else and sell the models to pay for the new models.

 

other than that, paint. i only have about 30 colors but with every army I research how I want to paint them. I buy all the paint before buying the models. - just how I am - now i have a bunch of paints I don't need because whatever I am looking at now doesn't use 1/2 of the paints. so it's a waste of money. i then need to buy 3-5 more paints per project... i prefer pro acryl. 8 dollars a paint... adds up.

[Norman Paperman]

I wouldn’t call it “wasting” time, but I spend a ton of time window shopping on the Warhammer store. All of the games, so many cool models. 
 

I waste the most money on paints that I don’t need. I got my pile of grey decently well managed right now… except for the DG and TS battle forces that I just bought. Of course GW would release my two favourite armies back to back. And to double down, the next two AoS armies supposedly coming out are my favourites in that game. Yikes! Good thing the Call to Arms will keep me focused!

[Schurge]

I remember roleplaying a proto-Christian Jedi in Star Wars Galaxies and triggering the ever-loving snot out of our unstable, atheist guild leader. Good times.

With Warhammer 40k so obviously parodying organized Christianity, and the metaphysics of the broader universe drawing so obviously from (admittedly bastardized) spiritual concepts from the mystical side of the desert faiths, that fitting a more sober "Christianity" into 40k could be as simple as making your own Space Marine chapter that sees itself as the sole bearers of spiritual truth in the post-millennial kingdom, completed with "heretical" takes on canon events that can be made up on the fly as they come up in your games. Base them in the void and you can even have your broader Christian enclave that can conceivably weather the storm until the season ends. The framework is built into the existing canon!

Biggest money waste is GW paint. Never should have spent so much as a dime, it all goes bad.

Biggest time waste is looking at pictures of painted miniatures on the internet... and theory crafting for armies I don't own when I haven't played in years.

Edited May 18 by Schurge

[kabaakaba]

GW paints is overpriced. I'm use €2 paints now and it's good enough for wh