Well, I think after a few days I have a pretty fair sampling of what the desires of the readership are.
For the record, Dark Eldar and Imperial Guard were the runaway favorites. Dark Eldar are currently in the lead by two votes, and probably for good reason, but I would say they are "within the margin of error."
So ultimately it is left to me to decide. I am pleasantly surprised that you all voted for the same two armies that I had in mind going into this. Pretty nice to know we are all on the same wavelength there.
In the end, I have decided to go with Guard. There are a few reasons for this. I know that Dark Eldar will probably sell a bit better and ultimately I would take home a bit more. I have to balance that, however, with the enjoyment that I will recieve from the project, in the building, painting and playing aspects.
I have wanted to do a Guard army for a good long while now, but never had the "Army Seed" that was required, or the 400 bucks that it would take to do it right from the ground floor. It has been such a huge effort getting to the point where I have an ALMOST playable Nids army that I can't even imagine trying to piece together an entire Guard army one trade at a time, one eBay at a time... yuck.
So this is a great opportunity.
But there is one final reason which in the end is much much more important to me: my dad.
My dad really got me into this hobby, when you really think about it. He was an aviation and modelling nut from the time HE was a kid. He never got into the sci-fi/fantasy stuff, no, and even to this day he looks at all my wierd models a bit strangely. But my god can that man model. He produces, hands down, the finest scale models I have EVER seen, including models seen at shows and in photos. My dad is the best modeller I know.
So from a VERY early age, I was cutting plastic, painting wings, mixing my own washes and learning how to dry brush. I grew up with that. And yes I have a few childhood memories of spilling non-water-soluble paints on my walls and carpet... yeah that sucked.
Anyways, my dad still models, although not as frequently as I'm sure he would like. There was a several month period where he didn't really do ANYTHING. But currently he is remodelling (heh) an entire room of his house to be his "hobby station" and TV room, and he is excited to get back into it.
Knowing that my dad is such a military buff and modelling nut, I really hope to be able to work with him on this. In particular I want to make sure that I have Vendettas and Vehicles in the army that we can paint and weather together in a "realistic" military style. I can't think of anyone better to help me with that aspect of the project, and I can't think of a way I would rather spend my weekends than modelling scale military aircraft and vehicles (even if they have lascannons instead of .50 cal machine guns) with my dad.
I intend to give this a "pseudo" WWII look, though that doesn't necessarily mean all Olive Drab. I REALLY want to do nose art for the Vendettas. In the scale modelling community it is pretty common to create your own decals and print them. I hope at least one of them can be a semi-skantily clad Sister of Battle riding a Missile. Not "realistic" for the 41st Millenium (can we say "heresy?" lol), no, but funny and cool.
Anyways, that's where my thoughts are at the moment. I'll let you know as I continue to make progress. List to come.
