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Finish what you start, or Dark Eldar, Tyranids and
Imperial Guard, Oh my! There can be only one. It is easier to get something done if you concentrate on it, rather than dividing your attention between several things. This is a good principle in real life as well as in 40k. If you split your efforts between two things, you will generally get less than half done on each. When I originally got started in 40k, a friend gave me the Dark Eldar Warriors from his boxed set. I got started with the Warriors and started picking up some more stuff to put together an army. Eventually I assembled about 1000pts or so of Dark Eldar. At that point, I played against an old friend that happened to play Tyranids. I really liked what I saw of the Tyranids, and I started picking up some of those models as well. I continued buying Dark Eldar and Tyranid models and slowly building my forces. The emphasis in that sentence is on slowly, since I was building two armies at the same time. Even at that slow pace, I managed to build up about 1500 points of Dark Eldar and about 1000 points of Tyranids. Most (but not all) of my models were assembled, and they were at least base coated or partially painted. During this time, I’d been part of the Imperial Guard list (now on Yahoo Groups) and I had been hearing a lot of interesting stuff about the Guard. Now, I’ve always been a fan of tanks and big guns, and I always root for the underdog (how much more underdog does it get than an IG grunt?) so the Guard seemed like an interesting idea. I started hearing some discussion about using figures from another game, Warzone, as Imperial Guard figures. They were a fair amount cheaper than most Guard figures and I also really liked the WWI look to them, so I picked up a set. This gave me 80 figures, and I used some of my Dark Eldar Vehicles to stand in for tanks, and I played a few games with them. I won some and I lost some and I had a really good time. I started looking at picking up some more models and some tanks to go with them, and then I stopped. I realized that if I was going to ever actually get an army finished, or at least built up to the point that I desired, I was going to have to focus on one thing at a time. I put aside my Warzone figures and I let people use them as proxies, while I concentrated on my other two armies. Since my attention was still divided between two things, I only got a little bit done on each, however. About this time, GW started firming up the plans for when the 3rd Edition Tyranid Codex was coming out. I realized that once it came out, I wouldn’t be able to put it aside and I’d be working on my Tyranids whether I wanted to or not. That made my decision for me. I put aside my Tyranids and promised that I would not play with them until the new codex came out. In addition, I told myself that I would finish my Dark Eldar by the time the Tyranid Codex came out, then I’d put them aside and not play them again until I’d finished my Tyranids. Well, I finished my Dark Eldar just barely in time for the Tyranid Codex, then I put them aside. Although I haven’t gotten as much done as I thought on my Tyranids, I’ve stuck to my promise and I haven’t used my Dark Eldar. Ultimately, it has helped me focus on the task at hand, instead of trying to juggle 2 or 3 things at once. Now, if all goes well, I should have my Tyranids finished this summer and I’ll be able to start playing with my Dark Eldar again. Who knows, I may still play some Imperial Guard, but I can guarantee that it won’t be until I'm satisfied with my Tyranids. If you enjoyed this, email me and let me know |