40k is my illness

I don't know why but sometimes 40k is like the plague.

I mean, I know that I'm the personality that gets behind something and is 110% into it, but that other things end up suffering.

All hobbies of course require a certain amount of time you put in to it. Are you logging in every night to play a game? Do you spend every waking moment at home painting models? Or do you need 6 hours a week to get together with the buds and throw dice to get your fix?

I can't really have more than one obsessive hobby at a time, there just aren't enough hours in the day. Maybe it's WoW for while, then it's AD&D, then it's Neverwinter Nights... at the moment I'm on the Blood Bowl kick. I don't necessarily have to stop entirely doing other things, but my devotion and attention span between my various hobbies are always quite disproportionate and, further more, ever shifting.

So for awhile now I've been hooked on 40k and the problem is the astronomical cost of 40k.

Ok, sure, WoW is not cheap when you add it all up. I paid for two accounts for what, 3 or 4 years? That's a lot of coin... but it feels spread out. 40k has a lot of upfront costs, and one could argue continuation costs as well.

I suppose with 40k you do have something in the end that is tangible... so maybe that counts for something. Not that I could ever imagine selling my armies... but things like say, Blood Bowl, are a buy it once for $50 and get hundreds of hours of (questionably enjoyable) play time. :)

Anyway the point to this rant is from time to time I feel like getting another army. The last time I bought an army was my Templar and it was very much on a whim. I didn't do a lot of research, I didn't think of how I would put it together. I saw a lot on ebay for a good price and, bang, new army. I do enjoy playing them and have had a lot of fun working on them so it isn't all bad. Of course since I bought that first assortment I probably have dropped another $300 on more models to get the army I want.

Plus paint.

Plus a bag to carry them of course.

Not long ago I was feeling the illness to buy a 4th army and was thinking Daemons, focusing on the Tzeentch flavor. It is one of the two armies our small gaming group doesn't have yet (DE being the other). I actually put a serious bid on a non assembled Tzeentch lot but the price got too high for my liking. Somehow going through that bidding war was like a catharsis of sorts and my 'fever' broke.

Well my illness is back: I want another army. It started this time when our group was talking about making a non 'standard' but competitive Chaos army. In other words trim down the lash/plaguemarine/oblit in your chaos lists.

So again I'm thinking Tzeentch themed chaos army. There are of course Pros and Cons to leaping into this.

Pro
-Cool minis and low model count. The 4th army should really try to be my showcase army. My tau are not so good looking, my Templar have come out nice but are all repainted over someone elses crap job, and my orks look good...but aren't anything special. I want to really try to step up my painting and modeling with the next army and that means buying the minis new and not rushing through it.
-Nobody in our area plays a Tzeentch themed chaos.
Cons
-Nobody in our area plays a Tzeentch themed chaos because they are not nearly as good as the typical chaos list. I'm not sure I can put something together that will really be as flexible to take on nob bikers, TH/SS Termies, and seer councils (not to mention uber chaos).
-We already have two chaos armies in our small group, and a metric asston of people play chaos at the local tournaments.
-I already have one meq army, but I have 2 xenos armies so... at least this would be a shooty meq...
-Money. I can try to squeeze out a $300 army but that is still a good chunk of coin. Plus I'll probably need more paint. Plus a bag, or at the least foam. Plus I really want stand out bases this time, so that is probably going to tack on a ton of money too.

So the cons outweigh the pros for sure. I know I should just keep plugging away with my other armies, and I want to work on this board project.

But the illness, it's got a hold of me, and I don't know if I can shake it.