How you plan your hobby resources?

[kabaakaba]

Reading throug forums i found that some fratest work without any plan. like "oh new minis i need them" and grow pile of shame to the level on hive city spire.
How you plan your army projects? Or never do that?
For me it's crucial cause hobby time and budgete limitations  i don't buy things i can't paint next 2-3 month. So i always have a plan since 5th edition i think. 
Do you decide armylist for edition? Or if your collection overgrow standard games how you plan your next purchase?

Edited Tuesday at 01:14 PM by kabaakaba

[gaurdian31]

I don't plan per se, I get the codex first and look a models or if there is an army box I will pick that up. I've been playing since 3rd so I have a rather extensive collection. Now a days I do my best to only purchase new units if they a: look  cool and b: I know I am going to play with them.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

I don’t really plan. Closest I have to a plan is a rule.

 

if it’s not painted to a certain minimum standard I won’t play with a model/unit.

[Focslain]

‘It takes only one person to spawn an idea, one idea to grow into cause. A cause that can rally others to a single spot, a gathering of like minds. With one mind, one cause the group is swayed easily one way or another. A call for peace, or the cry of war. For each character they have their followers, for each warrior there is an army. This is the way the cancer spreads and my forces grow, one man, one army, each as different as night and day, fire and ice, good and evil. Each for a different cause, redemption, power, survival, perfection. Are these reasons to fight, to live, or just ideals that give one purpose?’

 

Feltorin during his audience with the Teradox Congress

 

So this fictional quote from my earliest days kind of sums up how I approach my projects. I get an idea inspired by, something, plan out what I need and get it either when I have the funds, or as part of a deal that has something I can use (this mostly applies to the marine projects).

 

I do work on the near dozen of projects over time, it gives me something to do and if I get burnt out on one project, I have several more to pick up and start tinkering with.

 

Most recently I have taken stock and have most of what I need to finish quite a few projects, just need to sit down and build/paint the bloody things. It's why I went through all of last year and didn't buy anything. Granted I binged with the guard drop, but was already planning on reinforcing/replacing my basic guys with felinids. Anyway....

 

Also with how prices have been increasing year after year. A 'little' early buying can help save money in the long run. 

[Arikel]

I paint so slowly that I don’t really bother with an army plan based on rules since inevitably any that I started are invalidated before they get finished. Instead I have a theme, a  slowly expanding company of first born marines, along with a vague collection of other imperials intended to fight alongside them in various stages of non-progress.
 

I have managed to keep it dialled down to just imperials, except for a small pile of chaos that grew out of dark vengeance and a few other boxed set dealies over the years.

My hobby process itself is erratic, varying from intense periods of painting everyday for a month to years with no measurable progress at all( 7th to 8th nearly killed the hobby for me, but packrat that I am I could never bring myself to sell anything, so it was all still there a few years later). I do what I can when the muse strikes me if I happen to have the time available to do so, an increasingly rare occurrence as I age. Hoping to get a unit or two done this year,  will see how it goes in the end I guess.

 

[Deus_Ex_Machina]

When I think a product worthy of purchasing then it is a done deal. No second guessing or planning. It can be painted now or in a couple of years. Right now I am in the process of painting ALL of my remaining vintage marines. These are models purchased around the year 2000 or a bit later.

[Tawnis]

I love variety and playing different armies, so to keep costs to a minimum, I'll wait to find things in discount kits or for a good price on the secondary market. Sometimes this leads to some large orders that put me WAY behind on painting though. 

 

I've got my competitive army fully painted though, so I'm not to fussed on making sure my casual ones are 100% done, I just try to make sure I paint 1 more unit of them every time I put them on the table so that I'll get there eventually. 

[ThaneOfTas]

Closest to a plan that I have is a spreadsheet with all of my pile of shame listed in it, shorted by faction with check boxes for how far through with each kit/unit i am (e.g. built, painted, based) as well as nots if im holding off for a specific reason like i need conversion parts or basing materials. I do have a couple of entries that i dont have the kits for yet on there, but thats not my normal approach.

[Moonstalker]

I had an army list that I was working toward, unit by unit; I budget a certain amount each month, and I spent that on models, or paint, or whatever.  If I need to make a big purchase (like the Boarding Actions terrain box or the new army box for Wolves), then I'll usually just buy it up front for the instant gratification and then wait enough months before buying anything else to pay it off.  The new Space Wolf stuff has thrown me for a bit of a loop, though, I'm not sure what my new army list will end up being.  With GW being terrible at keeping things in stock, I will probably need to buy the characters/terminators that I want as soon as they're released, even if it's before my budget has overcome this army box purchase.  Elsewise I'll be waiting another year or more for them to come back in stock.

 

Stuff gets painted when I get to it.  I got a lot goin on in my life and hobby time is when and where I can get it.  In the rare even I get a game in, I'll field whatever I can, painted or not.  It would be nice to only field painted models, but I'm jugglin work, life, and trade school.

[Grotsmasha]

Plan?  "Ohhhh, shiney.....I needs it" 

[Bouargh]

Planning is recent for me. If recent can define how I do stuff over the past 3 years out of 30 years+ of hobby. But I do plan now.

 

Basically it can be summarized as giving priority to the back log, buying only to legalize older stuff, and running only a single new army project until it is completed. Firsts points are corrective actions to decades of no planning. Last point is fuelling addiction.