Confessions of a faction whore!!!

Those of you who read the Infinity forums (I'm SirAngry on those forums and most others) will know I have a rather terrible secret... I'm a down right dirty little faction whore!!! For those of you not in the know I'll explain further. I'm a magpie when it comes to... well almost everything. If its new or different I have to have it, its so bad at times I've seriously considered the possibility that I have a mental illness. Thing is its the same illness that appears to affect geeks and nerds of all ages. If it wasn't manga or comic books it was toy soldiers, if it wasn't toy soldiers its limited edition computer games... so on and so forth. I blame evolution and my innate urges to hoard useless crap!!!

However my terrible affliction does tend to manifest itself worst in my love of toy soldiers. As evidence though that I am not alone please take a look at this thread I started on the Infinity forum:

evidence for the defence

So are you a faction whore? Its pretty clear that yes I am a faction whore, I am indeed it would seem, far too much gamer for just the one faction!!! I can't help myself, I've always struggled to decide which factions to take in pretty much every wargame I've ever played and I think it'll be like this forever more with me.

So why am I like this and what's my driving motivation? Well I've tried dissecting why I choose multiple factions for Infinity and so I made a list as to why I chose the armies I did. The results were ever so slightly mixed and I'll use examples to explain:

Yu Jing: Well its an anime style game and it'd have been rude not to have chosen the space ninjas. I loved the miniatures and the fluff and indeed the fluff made me gravitate very quickly towards the JSA, luckily they are an aggressive force and that suits my style of play.


Haqq Islam: The other faction I had difficulty in deciding between when I first started Infinity. I adored the background and the idea behind them, but the miniatures didn't grab me as much as the baggy panted Japs. However in time they grew on me and I knew I needed an army to put the Lasiq sniper in. Gorgeous.

Aleph: The other army I got straight away. This was a weird one for me, it wasn't really the fluff or the miniatures that drew me too Aleph but more the idea that they were an elite force. I thought they'd provide me with a really good gaming challenge to try and make them work. True the fluff is cool and the miniatures fabulous darling but it wasn't what drew me in the first place.

Nomads: Really interesting one this army to be fair. After getting the Omega Prime bases for my Aleph force off of Dragon Forge Designs I started looking at other bases from them that I could use for my other projects. At around the same sort of time we had the release of the Uberfall Commandos and then Senor Massacre, I liked both really and there was always the odd miniature in the Nomad list that I liked. So when I saw the Tech-Deck bases I thought why not!!! Bizarre way to choose an army I'll grant you.

Does this look like your gaming room?

So that is how I chose the four armies I play in Infinity and the underlying reasons I chose them. Interestingly I've noticed as I went on my 'justifications' got more complex; interesting behaviour that. So I'm inclined to believe its probably not as simple or maybe even as complex as all that when it comes down to it. True I like a project and it all normally starts, or so I think, with an idea I have to want to do something like my Ultramarine army, 1st Company, 2nd Company, 4th company (in drop pods) and 10th Company... yep that's a mammoth undertaking and I'm still slowly chugging away at it every now and then despite not playing 40k.

However in Warmachine I'm sticking to one faction the Retribution of Scyrah. Sure I've been tempted by a small Mercenary Pirate force or Cryx, but I'm sticking to the angry elves for now. True I have a Trollblood force in Hordes but that's a different game system altogether... honest... *ahem* moving on though I could see myself doing say Cryx or even Everblight at some point maybe but the thought struck me that the thing stopping me launching into yet another faction for either Hordes or Warmachine wasn't a spark of inspiration or such like, but most tellingly cost.

So I explored my buying habits a bit more; was I just rationalising what is essentially splurge or shopaholic behaviour? I think there might be something in that hypothesis as well. You see while I'll never spend money I don't have, I do have a set budget and despite having literally a shed load of miniatures still to paint I easily spend my hobby budget every month and have done for the last God only knows how many years, without fail. Its this that has made Anima Tactics, Infinity, Malifaux and the Spartan Games systems so bloody deadly. You see I can get a lot of 'hobby' in these game systems without needing to spend huge amounts of dosh. Whereas £50 wouldn't get me very far in HoMachine, 40k or Warhammer Fantasy in Malifaux, Anima and to a lesser extent Infinity its a new force... as I say, deadly.

 Don't fuck with a Dragons Gold - Or a Geeks hoard!!!

Let me explain, embarking on a new army for 40k or Warhammer Fantasy is a big and expensive undertaking and to do it you really need a big strong motivating factor. Because for most it'll take a few months to maybe accumulate everything you want or need. While Warmachine and Hordes aren't necessarily as expensive to put an army out on the table, you still want all the tools and nice toys potentially at your disposal, and that costs. However a new gang in Malifaux is peanuts, I get everything I need to do something completely different in that game and hobby for under £40 normally. Likewise Anima Tactics and any of the Spartan Games systems, Infinity might cost a bit more but with my old hobby budget when employed I could muster a sizeable force every month with Infinity... and I kind of have!

So it is three things colliding really at the moment in my hobby that have turned me into what I term a faction whore, and they are having money burning a hole in my pocket, Being able to change my hobby significantly and having something cool that catches my attention or sparks my imagination. Looking at those three things its also actually the exact same list of reasons that have led me to start buying and playing board games again. So I think I could perhaps build a hierarchy of need for the faction / game whore gamer:

1. You need resources, normally to fund and fuel the 'habit'
2. You need a project or object of desire to drive your purchase
3. You must be able to accumulate a significant proportion of you project in the first purchase

When all three combine this is when the faction whoring behaviour comes out in me; you see if it was just the first point then I would invariably just buy options for the armies I already have. If its just points one and two then I might dabble with the idea of starting another force, like I did with Everblight and Cryx recently with HoMachine. However the fact was my hobby budget at the time didn't allow me to make a significant first purchase towards the completion of the faction and therefore stopped me from going for it, because putting it bluntly I wouldn't have been able to purchase enough stuff to have significantly changed my hobby time. So what am I trying to say? Well what I'm trying to say is that being a faction whore is possibly an addiction of sorts... no I'm saying it is an addiction!

Humans by our very nature have learned to hoard stuff and gather things, its part of our behaviour patterns we've developed over thousands of years of evolution. Except it was useful thousands of years ago as we hoarded food, wood and other useful things to keep us alive. I'm not too sure toy soldiers and board games fall into the same category and its clear that my own behaviour is very reminiscent of a shopaholics, spending money, but spending it on things that will give me that 'maximum hit'... so do I have a problem? Well yes I do if I can't afford this 'habit' and I continue to try and spend money I don't actually have. I guess I'm about to find out because I'm unemployed and broke and there are toys I want, can I resist? Only time will tell I guess. Peace out!