Project Planning

Thanks for all the replies to my last post. I'll throw out some of the ideas I've had going on in my head. More than likely I'll try and balance out a mix between these options and hope that I stick to it.

1) Monthly Quotas
- Basically, the idea is to get 400 to 600 points (army building points, that is) worth of hobby done each month, whether its painting, assembling, converting or whatever. The time span is set so that I have to stick to it, but the points are flexible so I have some wiggle room in case of a tough month due to the demands of the music department/

2) Painting Points (Kudos to Harreh from http://mattsminiatures.blogspot.com for this one!)
- Basically the last idea, but using smaller numbers. I'll give various models a score and whenever I complete a said model, I add that score to my total. The total is how much money I'll allow myself to spend on the hobby. This is more of a short-term idea rather than a long-term thing since eventually you'll find yourself with so little points you can't buy a blister back. Instead, I might make the total poitns the amount of money I can spend on things that isn't in my army or armies.

3) Another Army
This is something I've been contemplating for quite some time. In one of my previous posts, I had talked about considering Dark Eldar as another army and had gotten quite excited about it. Needless to say, once I drew up a 1500 point list, I facepalmed at the idea of having to buy 7 Raiders and 3 Ravagers. However, another idea that I've had is to do an all Scouts Space Marine army. Yes, it's more Space Marines, but it's just something completely different than what anyone is expecting to see. Any opposition to seeing the Ultramarines 10th Company? The reason why I'm choosing the boys in blue is because I would hate to have to do a hack job on converting Sergeant Telion and because I feel there's too much Ultramarine hate in the world. The vanilla marines need some lovin' too!

4) Commissions
Highly doubtful since my painting/converting skills are no where near the level that many the other painters in the FTW coalition, but hey - if I can get them, they'll keep me enthused, sate my desire to paint different schemes/models, and help fund my addiction.

Cheers,
Squirrel_Fish

Open Forum: Finding the Time to Hobby

It's been a long week for me - I've had two band concerts last week and 2 jazz concerts this week, so it's been rehearsal after rehearsal on top of all of my usual school work. I've been getting home at like 11:00 pm on a fairly regular basis now, doing homework or studying and then hitting the sack at 2:00 am for more classes at 8:00 am. Even if I had the time to do anything, I'm not sure if I'd have the energy for it.

Basically, I've had practically no time to work on anything 40k related. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has this problem - we all lead busy lives and I envy the people who have time to get in a game or a few hours to paint on a bi-monthly basis or (heaven forbid) a weekly basis.

How do you find time for the hobby? Is it whenever you manage to get an hour or two of free time? Do you schedule it? What motivates you - commissions, contests, or just plain fun?

The floor is yours 40kers.
Squirrel Fish

Must Have Units - Eldar Farseer

Whether on foot or mounted on a jetbike, the Farseer is the lynch pin of the Eldar army. If I am playing my Eldar army, I will always field at least one of these guys. With a plethora of nifty psychic powers and a badass Seer Council Bodyguard, it's hard to see why you wouldn't field one of these guys.

Due to the specialist nature of the Eldar army, I feel that the Farseer is necessary due to his ability to augment any one of those units that is likely going to fail at its objective. Those Banshees not going to do enough damage to Terminators? DOOOOOOM! Do you need that Land Raider gone this turn? Guide your Fire Dragons and you'll guarantee that it'll be a pile of slag. Powerfist about to charge into your Wraithlord? Mind War him and chuckle as he bleeds out of his ears.

Most Farseer's run Doom and Fortune as their psychic powers - this gives reasonable flexibility with offensive and defensive support - allowing you to help out in just about every situation. Try not to buy more than two psychic powers since all it does is make your Farseer super expensive and you don't get to use the third or more power.

Jetbike or no? I find the jetbike to be particularly useful due to the +1 Toughness and the 3+ armor save (without which, Psycannons would leave my Farseer a smoldering crater) but understand that you will be walking around with a 160+ price tag in a fairly high cost army as it is.

- Runes of Warding: BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY! In a world where Jaws of the World Wolf, Murderous Hurricane, Lash, Fortune, Doom, etc etc are powerful game changers, you need to be able to shut them down.

- The Warlock bodyguard. They can add a whole lot of hurt in the form of Destructor Spam. 10 Point heavy flamers? I'll take that. They add a lot of ablative wounds to your Farseer and, when combined with Fortune, are super hard to crack due to a 4++ rerollable save (or 3++ if you buy jetbikes). Now, the Jetbiking these guys is going to be a costly endeavor. They will each cost more than a terminator and in order to be effective, you're going to need 5-6 of these guys. But man, is this a killy unit...

Eldrad Ulthran

If I'm going to talk about Farseers, I feel a little obligated to talk about this guy. King of the Farseers, he gets 3 psychic powers a turn (if he's not in CC), can use the same power twice due to his staff, wounds on a 2+ with no armor saves and allows you to redeploy some of your forces after the both sides have deployed, meaning you can have first turn and a reactive deployment. He's a powerful character - use him wisely since he is darn expensive. Can't have a jetbike unfortunately. :(

Cheers,

SquirrelFish