A new plan to stem the tide of Gamer ADD

I think many people know the pains of gamer ADD.  You play your first couple of games with your new army, you’ve painted a unit or 2 when something else catches your eye.

That random jack would be fun to paint, check out that tier army, I’ve got a really cool idea for X army, these new bases I found would look really cool with army X.

And these are just within a single game, like Warmachine.  What about when those other miniature games catch your eye, or you’re tempted to paint up those models for that cool board game.  Miniature games aren’t the only ones to suffer from this problem.  I have real troubles playing all the way through a long video game.  Many people think that 10+ hours game story in a game is a good thing but it doesn’t work for me, I just don’t sit all the way through it.  This is another reason I love the episodic games by Telltale Games, I can play through an episode in one sitting and have a sense of accomplishment.  But I digress…

I’ve currently declared that Retribution are my next army after having played Cryx for so long.  Vying for their attention include but are not limited to the following:

• Battleboxes I’d like completed including
  • Khador
  • Legion
  • Skorne
  • Trolls
  • Circle(not yet purchased)
• Other armies I own but have only gotten various progress in
  • 25 pt Cygnar force
  • Many Legion beasts and Rhyas and eThagrosh
  • Various additional Cryx models
  • Random Skorne models
  • Random Troll models
  • Bastions I bought to try out the plastic models
• Armies I’d like to paint but have not yet purchased
  • Circle Construct army
  • Searforge Commission models
  • Gators!!!
• Board Game Pieces
  • Descent
  • Shadows over Camelot
• Other miniature games
  • Malifaux
  • Dystopian Wars
  • The thousands of Warhammer and Warhammer 40k models I have that keep calling to me

This isn’t meant to brag about how many models I have as I know there are many people out there with many more than I.

I think many people have this problem to one degree or another and there’s nothing wrong with buying models just because they’re cool.  The problem occurs when this stops you from achieving your desired goals.

I think that I did a really good thing in telling myself that my goal with my Cryx was to just get it painted.  I wouldn’t paint them like garbage, but I wouldn’t obsess over everything.  I painted them in ways I knew would be quick and look good on the table.  I endeavor to only play painted with my Cryx in tournaments.  If I wanted to play with something in a tournament, I needed to paint it.  I now have a bag filled with a painted army I can bust out at any time.  I will continue to add models to the army as I want to play with them, but it’s largely on the shelf for the time being.

With my new project, The Retribution, I’m not sure I want to take quite the same road.  I’d like to spend a little more time on them and document them with painting guides.  The tedium of this combined with all of the above distractions I didn’t have quite so many of when I got all gung-ho into Warmachine and Cryx mean I have to contend with gamer ADD.

I have decided to embrace it.  I will paint 1 part of my Retribution(1 unit, 1 jack, 1 group of solos or 1 warcaster) followed by 1 ‘other’ thing.  This could be some models from a board game, an equivalent unit from another Warmachine/Hordes army, or an equivalent unit from another game.  I think that it is okay to do multiple units from The Retribution if I’m feeling inspired but not the other way around.

The first thing to be painted will be my Retribution Chimera, since it will be used in many of my Retribution armies.  I’ll let you know what comes after that.

What do you think people?  Anyone care to join me?