Thinking. Always a mistake.

Hi,

Those of you who've explored the darker corners of this blog may have noticed the occasional bit of GW product.  Not just Fantasy Battle stuff, but *gasp* the occasional bit of 40k as well.  Some of this is nostalgia, but the recent surge of tasty 40k newness over the web, along with some discussions at the club, have got me thinking about hobby stuff of late.

The new chaos "not-dreadnaught"

For those of you in self-imposed seclusion, GW has been trumpeting their new 40k starter box, which includes some decent Dark Angels and chaos cultists, but also some exceedingly tasty Chaos Chosen, a Chaos lord, and some kind of bad-ass super dreadnaught.

New Chaos chosen.  Yummy.

This has me pondering the possibility of once again trying for that holy grail, the display quality army.  There are people out there with a capacity for focus on hobby projects that astonishes me.  There was an army posted recently on Bell of Lost Souls that had me thinking about this, as it rather illustrates the case.  I can also remember period shots in White Dwarf over the years of some guy's Void Reaper marines (I think him), that seemed in contention for Golden Deamons pretty much every year.  There's examples in historical gaming as well.   Olicanalad's posts always blow me away with the size and quality of his collection, and there are others out there who seem able to combine quality with quantity.

The 40k stuff has me thinking about this because my earliest "one day" visions of this kind of project were firmly grounded in the 40k line, especially chaos.  I've had plans at one time or another to do up a force for each of the 4 chaos cults, and for Night Lords and Word Bearers as well.  In theory, this is possible.  I'm a good, if not superlative painter, and enjoy stretching my skills.

Did this years ago for a buddy in NFLD

The trouble is, I seem to lack the single-minded dedication necessary.   I can take the time to stretch myself on a single figure (though, judging by the Gladiator, even that capacity may be waning), but maintaining that level on an entire project just frustrates me.  I want to get stuff finished and on the table!  Doing it for a game I don't really play any more, like 40k, is even harder, since I don't even have the incentive of a game to motivate me.

I've always admired people who are able to focus their attention and skills on a single army for a single game. They seem to have a preternatural capacity for self-control.  They buy a thing, and paint the hell out of it, and seem untroubled by the allure of the new and shiny.  In fantasy sci-fi games, they pick one faction, are collection completists, and patiently await the (re)issue of faction models.  In historical projects, they pick one period, and one scale, and that's their thing.  15mm chariot wars.  28mm napoleonics.  6mm pike and shotte.  They have massive, focused collections reflecting years of patient work.  Meanwhile I have 6 different projects on the go, a dozen others I'm pining to do, even though I know that realistically, I barely have the time to do one.

One day, sweet Nemo, I will paint you again.

I wonder if social context is a factor?  I've had to move a fair bit over the years, which means I tend to play what the local community does (it's why I played a lot of FoW and WFB in Thunder Bay, but not so much now).  Right now, the group I play with in Toronto is diverse, and there's plenty of people pushing good projects, which makes it hard to resist.

How does this work for other people?  Those of you in the "do one thing and do it well" camp, what drives you (or makes it possible for you) to do it?  Those of you with more of a "some of everything" approach, do you ever hear the siren call of "the one true project"?