After a tactical blunder I had a khorne champion turn around to face his death; 20 kroots with a handful of dogs. He had a powerfist, so they got to hit him first. 16 wounds. 16 saves. 4 kills. A squad of fleeing kroots. He chased down every single one (rolled higher on the pursue roll-off, so they all died). Mounted that bastard on a mountain of skulls and kroot heads. People love it.

I once had an Imperial Guard soldier with a grenade launcher who was the last surviving member of his squad. He faced a greater daemon of Khorne in close combat and defeated it/ him. I later changed his stance in such a way that he was leaning on his gun, smoking a cigar, while standing on a broken Khorne symbol. He was infamous and it added such a great deal of character to him. I even turned the encounter into a short story which I posted on my army building blog on a forum.

I once noticed the Tau grenade looked a lot like a poke'ball, so i've got a fire warrior by the name of Shas' Ketchum he has never died in battle against the poke'nids, and dreams of catching them all.

0:29 "I'm not a great painter." You're not fooling anyone, you rock!

"Every time he comes out on the board, its tickle time" now i need a chaos lord with lightning claws

I can't stress this sort of thing enough to new 40k/AoS players. Whether it's giving the single surviving Chaos Cultist from a squad of 25 a few more details or painting some anti Dark Eldar propaganda on the side of a Leman Russ after it demolishes several units of the spooky space elves, it really does bring you closer to your army and makes the game more fun to boot!

My warboss is called George Orkwell

I have a Space Marine Chaplain, named Chaplain Bob. His wargear consists of a jump pack and a plasma pistol. I cannot for the life of me, think of a time when Chaplain Bob has ever survived a game. He will go gung-ho into combat with his jump pack and die immediately in hand to hand combat. Or attempt to fire his plasma pistol, miss and get shot down with return fire... or fail his shot and die of the plasma pistol exploding. I love that idiot.

Coming from a mostly RPG background, I'm glad that personalizing the "hero" characters in my army isn't as weird as I originally thought.

While none of my Death Korps get names, being goons, they do get medals for heroic deeds, so far I have 6 guys who have earned medals. -one guy who got my teams only objective, by himself in a 4000 point apocalypse -one guy who got a victory point for charging a flying hive tyrant -one guy who made 7 saves against marines in CC -3 guys who passed a heroic leadership and managed to tie some gaunts for several more turns.

My minis have to earn their names. Whenever one does something particulalry bad ass he gets a name, its painted on his base, and is written in the sagas of the company. For example Hale (normal space marines) single handedly survived a round of shooting from an ork squad of boys, and not only stopped the warboss, but slew him in single combat. edit: they are also imune to repaints

I had an imperial guard sergeant in a small campaign at my "local" GW store. In the final battle of the campaign his squad had lost six guardsmen from some ork shooting. He and his three guardsmen charged the enemy warlord, an ork warboss who had been going around with his power claw, smashing up my chimeras. They killed him without loosing a single guardsman. The sergeant got a promotion and is now a company commander.

My Tau started with a Green/White paint scheme. As time went on and epicness happened I started giving them small markings in yellow. Things like a crisis team melting some terminators into a pile of goo, my gun drone that killed a terminator in close combat, my pathfinders that pinned down a unit of Eldar the whole game. Things like that. Just subtle reminders of the good times.

Uncle Tickles? That should raise some alarms...

I have a space marine Shotgun Scout that was the only model in that unit to get a kill on a group of Necrons. From that day on he was known as Kyle Reese...

"Im a grown ass man, playing with toys... BUT.... it keeps me off the street."

Until this last year, my SoB force had a priest with eviscerator (Inquisitor Heirophant model) that had never actually died. He had been run off the board, survived until the end of game, won, and at one point tanked 18 wounds against a barrage weapon with his rosarius. I never named him, but I wrote ETERNIA on the side of his chainsaw. He finally died to the claws of a gaunt, which was embarrassing considering his legendary ability to survive.

I screwed up the paintjob on one of my terminators and he came out kinda glittery. My friends nicknamed him Edward. The necron army of one of my friends is also collectively named Arnold.

I totally agree with this! I was missing a 'favourite' when playing necrons so I painted one of their faces white so boom hes a proxy captain.

2 years late on this video, haha. I have a Tie Fighter from the X-Wing Miniatures that I call Derpy and painted bright orange after a series of games in which it refused to die, despite uncharacteristically inept piloting and merciless targeting by my opponents, until it caused the death of 2 or 3 of my opponent's ships. Derpy's legacy lives on to this day.

Personally I love doing this kind of thing. I still remember all the stories that relate to some of the models that would otherwise just be another bit of plastic. My favourite example was a space marine seargent who commanded his squad to run a mighty 1" twice in the same game. After that game he became known as old one leg for his affinity with only ever running 1 inch.

Yep, everyone eventually gets these stories surrounding various miniatures in their army. They are fun little stories that really add to the hobby. I had a 40k IG sergent. I gave him bionics and his squad got slaughtered by some orcs. Back in those rules the bionic guy would tip over and get back up on a 6. Well, he got back up and charged the orcs from behind and got some kills in. Orcs struck back and killed him. Tipped over and I rolled another 6 next turn! Charged in and killed some more orcs. This happend 1 more time! Combied with a couple heavy bolters whittling down the orcs, he eventually wiped out the squad. Afterwards, he got a Cape and a bolt pistol. Eventually I got some bits for an actual bionic arm and power sword. This guy served as my colonel a few times as well. Had a few more stories as well.

This is entirely what was awesome about Necromunda, way back in the late 90s. I had an Escher gang, fielded with a few hired guns (I think they were called Bounty Hunters?) converted from the models that came in the box set. Over time, my models were nearly all converted, with the unusual weapons I had acquired, along with the battle scars they had picked up over time. There are rumbles on the interwebs that Necromunda is coming back, this is great news.

Hahaha! “*vroom vroom* *pew pew*” a single chuckles tear ran down my cheek. Great video.

In 2nd ed 40K, I once had a stormboy blind throw a krak grenade over a wall, and kill Marneus Calgar. When I dug out the stormboys to play 5th ed, I gave the Drillboss a modified jumppack and a blue powerfist. Spoils of war.

My ork warboss single handedly took out a tyrannocyte in 1 or 2 rounds of combat, from that game on he's been called "Da Ball-krusha" xD

I had 4 warriors of Minas Tirith from Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game with bows and they were able to pull of amazing shots and kill a lot of the major units of the other guy's force. So afterwards I painted them up special to remember that they were the sharpshooters of my force.

I've called my Khorne prince "Choppah" because I was losing a game badly and he came in, killed a full unit of 7 terminators, 10 vanguard, a chapter master and a Razorback. By far my favorite model now

+1 for this idea. Seems to work best on regular units in my opinion. I've got a marine with a melta that was painted up as a blood angel and threw him in with my ultramarines to make up some points with the intention of repainting later on. He sat in the middle of the table with mortars, 4 squads of guard infantry and 3 heavy weapons shooting at him for 3 turns and didn't die. He was henceforth dubbed "Redguy" so now he's the only ultramarine allowed to be red and every battle that he survives to the end he gets some more bling on him. Also note he has no special rules or anything he's literally just a marine with a meltagun. But because he's now legendary in our group and I've noticed it has a psychological effect on other players. Because they'll either steer clear or gun for him much the same way as a special character or big bad vehicle.

My AdMech Sicarian Infiltrators have prosthetics, run really fast and shoot people, so i named the Princeps 'Oscar Pistorius' haha

Personalization is something that has grown from wargaming as far as I know. Robert Lewis Stevenson had names for a number of his wargaming figures when he played with his (stepson/adopted son.) Many wargamers call their main figures by names. I even name my regiments, not historically, as I don't like to be pinned down by history, but by my life experience as I was in the US Army for a number of years. I even name many of my GI Joes by unique names.

I made a custom Space Marine chapter to personalize my 40K minis. They're called the Exterminantes Astartes. They were formed by placing millions of Imperial Guard survivors of Tyranid and Necron invasions through the Primaris Marine program, churning out the best 1,000 of them into an elite extermination force. Their job is to 'scrub' planets clean of any Tyranids or Necrons with the help of Imperial Guard, and sometimes other low ranking Chapters. They're looked down on a lot as essentially being Guardsman pretending to be real Marines by many Astartes chapters, but they're also known by the Adeptus Ministorum for their efficiency at wiping every single hostile from a planet at any cost. Whether that cost be to shoot all civilians who are suspected of being underground Gene Stealer Cultists, to fill every cave system with explosives, or completely destroying the surface of the planet miles deep, reducing the planet to a radiation soaked wasteland. They'll often cleanse worlds of little tactical value, on the grounds that they don't wish to give their enemies anywhere to breed or regroup. The army itself is mostly Primaris Marines, Hellblasters, and Rievers, with Dreadnaughts and Repulsers, but I play with an Ally detachment that has some Guardsmen, and Heavy Weapon Teams. The paint scheme Is Green and Iron with dark brown brown and bright red accents, and their shoulder pads have skull insignia on them. My friends and I play with custom rules for custom chapters. The Exterminantes Astartes have a rule called "By any means necessary" Where if a Primaris Marine takes a fatal blow by a non-Imperium unit, they can roll a D10, and on a 10 they are allowed to throw a Grenade before they die.

Creative and fun. More of that in every game sounds like a win to me.

I have a space-marine scout sergeant that killed a carnifex in solo melee. I gave him a power fist and the fex just whiffed on his attacks, and the scout sergeant beat him to death. He's remembered fondly.

When I finished painting my new Foetid Bloat Drone, I decided that her name was Susan.

"Dirty Dick" sounds more Slaanesh than Nurgle

Great article - thanks for making me realise that I'm not alone in giving my characters personality! Tony

I had a Chaos Space Marine with the Banner of Despair who survived every single game I played him in, even games when I lost my entire force (excluding him of course)

Great video! One of your best. I had a warrior of arnor from lotr sbg. He held off a whole warband on his own. As a reward, after the match I added a bear decal to his shield and he was given the nick name Turgon the Bear. And right as rain, every time he hits the table everyone always comments, here comes the Bear! Perhaps its just psychological, but I'm pretty sure personalized minis perform better in game ;)!

I named one of my space marines with a plasma cannon the ''aimer'' because we were just learning the rules and i'm like: this guy is going to shoot that guy... 2 hours later we figured out how to resolve the shooting phase. i was like yeah he had been aiming for 2 hours, So his name is the AIMER!!!

I am all for table top being more RPG like and less 'i must win'. also Chimera: kai-me-rah

I have a space marine biker that doged every rail gun shot from hammer heads while taking down a krut squad. He then came into range of 30 tau fire warriors and died. He now has veteran Armour and a chain sword

Yeah, I absolutely get it! It makes stuff so much more fun. Whenever I bring out one of my Shas'UI's, one of the store-managers instantly goes 'there is Ram'bo!' since the little Fire warrior managed to 6/6/6 one of his flyers.. And I have the same for other models. Context and lore for your army (or, armies) completely rocks.

I have one Chaos Space Marine with a heavy bolter named Norris, who managed to survive, alone, 2 rounds of loyalist fire from a Predator and at least 2 regular squads. In only my second game ever. In my first game ever, my CSM start collecting box (minus half of the marines) vs Orks, things were going well for me, so my opponent's warboss shot one of his buggies in an attempt to blow it up. It worked. He also blew up the buggy next to it, destroying my Helbrute and several marines, plus some of his own troops. His models were all inherited and quite vintage. The two standout characters from his main squad were Buttslider, who modelled doing an action movie slide with both guns blazing, and Golden Boy, who had dwarf-esque armour plated gold. They didn't do much, but we look forward to the future adventures of Buttslider and Golden Boy.

This X 1000. I'm a hobbyist writer as well as a geek for Star Wars, Warhammer 40k, and real-life history, among other things. While I haven't officially gotten into 40k yet (ordered a squad of Chaos Space Marines yesterday), I've been playing Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures with my cousin and a family friend. I painted some of my ships, and am actually working on a backstory for them; I've even started considering making special pilot cards for their ships (we play casually, so we're playing around a bit with the rules). For me, giving a bit of story for each of my characters gets me more invested in the game than ever. It's a creative outlet for me and helps me take my mind off things. I'd say if you're the type to do this, then by all means, do it! Just keep in mind that some people you play against aren't really interested in any of that, and are only there to play the game.

My two best examples are after playing a few times, my two friends I play with started to call my white furred fang leader biscuit because one of them said the shade of white I used looked like the inside of bread, and now even after I've used a different model to represent him, and the white is a bit more pure he's still Fang Leader Biscuit. And my friend has a Blissbarb archer who he refuses to actually use the bow with, and always immediately moves into melee with my biggest monster unit. He always immediately dies, but we started calling that unit badass because he's just so brave.

I think I understand what you guys mean. When I was a child (well, more like teenager, about half the age I'm at now) My friend and I were playing HeroQuest, like we did a lot back in those days. When the 4 heroes came into a room with a treasure chest my friend had placed it with the lock to the wall so the hinges were facing the heroes. then came the famous quote of the dwarf "Barbarian, you don't open it this way, you open it that way". Later in that game, after hacking and slashing an entire corridor of skeletons we wanted to enter a room. When it was the dwarfs turn, we found that he was still standing next to that treasure chest, even though he had killed a fair share of the skeletons as well. The HeroQuest model of the dwarf is hanging with his elbow on his axe, so this added to the effect. Now more then 15 years later that silly remark still surfaces each time we play!

I favor making dramatic death noises too. "Gasp, choke, dramatic death" Squadmates: "Oh, no, they killed Kenny!" (or, "They shot Bob!", etc.).... Basically, insert your favorite movie quote here.

I have binged on, I think, most all of your videos over the past two days. Absolutely love the content you're putting out, superb work.

I've just entered the hobby via Star Wars Legion and I totally agree. Its those one or two guys in your army which make for a great story.

Thus begins the tale of Ludwig von Kleinenschwantz, the Empire general ..

I nicknamed my Herald of Khorne "The Falconer" cause he punched a Valkyrie to death once.

Randy sounds like a champion of Slaanesh :p. On the topic at hand, I have a group of Man O' War Shock Troopers that have withstood almost every attack when they Shield-Wall. I gave them the name 'Olga's Iron Wall', and replaced the leader's head with a female model's head, hence Captain Olga, and her stout Iron Wall :)

My Thousand Sons Pre heresy army has its individual fellowship insignias on their shoulder pads and I took the extra step of making personalized decals for their names, as well as their Fellowship (Company) along with their individual ranks (Legionary, Sergeant, Captain, etc on their bases. So each model in that 1000 point army has an identification on their base. To add to the theme, the decals have the Caslon Antique font which is the standard gothic font for 40k.

I love your attitude towards gaming. The hobby is richer for your involvement. I feel like the rise of tournament play in RPGs is breeding a certain power player, net list, win at all cost mentality that can often detract from the main reasons many of us got into gaming in the first place. To make friends and have fun. When I got into gaming 30 something years ago all we had were pencil paper and coins but the gaming community was more like a family. While I am constantly impressed and excited about many of the developments within the hobby (great miniatures, scenery, a huge variety of games) It saddens me that this dynamic seems to be slipping away. Competitive gaming is fine as long as all parties can conduct themselves with respect and good sportsmanship, but there is so so much more to the hobby, and you sir are a shining example of that fact. Thank you for your videos, much love. ⚔️

Couldn't agree more. I have a Space Wolves army that I named to a man. Although they only got a name if they survived a game. Also, if they were MVP they got a prefix or suffix to help me remember their saga. Anvindr Squad Botherer who held up a Dark Angel tac squad single handedly for 3 turns. Helbjorn the Steady who weathered an entire Guard army's wrath for a turn... It soon became my favourite army to play even though I have better painted and more competitive lists.

I completely agree with you about putting the personal touches on your main characters or even squads. I use to play Warmachine back in college and I am starting to get back into war gaming now that my son wants to start. I have always like the concept of changing the names of my commanders and putting a spin on the units that I have on the field, because like you said, it personalizes your army to you. My Warmachine army was Khador and I changed all the names and looks to make it more German then Russian. People did recognize when I pulled curtain characters out and it made me feel more connected with my army because of it.

adding a narrative between local players builds that community so much! I love calling out shooting at someone's favorite piece. or two heroes going 1v1.

Great post! When the group I was in was big into 15mm napoleonics, we even had certain battalions that had back stories/certain guns that were really good at counter-battery fire and even now, over15 years later we still laugh about those famous units ... personalization of your favorite miniatures/units goes a long way towards making an already memorable hobby even MORE so. Hell, because of this hobby I’ve made & kept friends from 6th grade til now- and we’re both over 40! So glad I found a book as a kid and it got started from there... Battlegaming...by Terrence Wise. I’ll never forget it and recently bought a really nice copy on eBay!

I always love naming my guys, i'm glad it's a real thing to do! It always makes me feel more attatched to them and care more about how well they do and if they die. Makes games a lot more fun

I have a few special Necrons. First, an Overlord named Crotekh, who is missing an arm. It snapped off at one point while going home after a game with an IG friend of mine. It was after Crotekh was ambushed by an assault squad of Space Marines. (He played IG with that one assault squad.) The next is a pair of Immortals, named, "The Bruiser Brothers." When piecing the kit of Immortals / Deathmarks together, one would never glue right, another got crushed, one was assembled as a Deathmark, and the final two were Immortals. They're designed to be the body guards of Crotekh, and were named after the two Barons of Hell in DooM's Phobos Anomaly level, as those two were my most reliable damage dealers in my small squad combat games. Lastly, came Joe, the chronically depressed Necron. He earned the name when he was the last model in the entire army that still stood. (A few squads fighting, annihilation rules, essentially.) He was unpainted at the time, and he still isn't to this day. He managed to survive 23 wounds by just reanimation protocols alone.

I've gotten so much enjoyment from this channel. Thank you!

captain slaughters rejects was such a good series, deffy and dreddy were pretty hilarious. beyond the few roleplaying games i was dragged into i havent really ever named any of my models, alot of them already have names from being from space hulk or dark vengeance, i should probably contemplate naming some for fun

Also Uncle Tickles is awesome. Nice job on the paint job AND the name.

I know this is a rather small thing, but my buddy used to run Crimson Fists. I'm an ork player, so not only do I usually lose games anyway because we're underpowered, but I also didn't have enough boyz. One time, I bubblewrapped my meganobz with boyz and by the time they reached his marines, the boyz were gone but the meganobz were fresh. Backed against their own tanks, his marines had nowhere to go and were slaughtered. I don't think I won that game but that little moment was a victory to me. I added blood to their killsaws after that.

My friend has a habit of naming his miniatures, named figures are always the first to go for him

Commander Doomblade, was but a humble fire warrior till he slew some of the Emperor's mightiest warriors, 3 Black Templar Terminators, in close combat single-handedly. He is much honoured and revered among the Fire caste but is seen as a freak by the more "traditional" Tau as he does not abhor close combat, but rather relishes in it.

This video is 7 years old. This is the one that I clicked "subscribe".

One of my first kit bashes was using an arm from a space marine biker and putting it on a tactical marine and gluing a pistol on his sideways turned hand. In a battle I had him as a sternguard and he killed 5 kabalite warriors in melee combat (morale fail). There he stood alone to run off into the fray. From then on I've always called him Brother Leroy (Jenkins). "Ohh, here's Brother Leroy, now you are in trouble. He's ready for the killshot." Started my love of customization and kit-bashing.

I remember watching a miniwargaming battle report and a certain squad of necron warriors got caught in combat with an AdMech unit and would not die. The AdMech unit looked like it was going to just wipe out the warriors on the second turn they were in close combat but one of the warriors went several turns making his saves or reanimation rolls. In the middle of the battle report they painted that warrior's head gold for successfully tarpitting that AdMech unit for almost the whole game. That's the kind of story that you remember that gives your models character.

That's great. I have an armored sentinel I painted to be a rusted out wreck. I over did the washes and the wet look earned it the name "Old Drippy"

I came back to this video because I remembered about a character I made, he was a Space Marine. I wanted to give him a differently colored purity seal for each time I won a match against a different army. But then, I never ever won a single match, so...

I run a Dark Angel army from Warhammer 40k and as I was painting my tactical squad, I accidentally painted metal on his beak on the helmet. So I decided to color that part of the helmet silver, and thusly Silver Beak was created. He's just a normal Dark Angel from the 5th company with basic wargear. But why not have fun with characters ay?

7 years later...the Vroom Vroom still speaks to me.....Thanks for the laughs Unc!!

Narrative gaming is by far more enjoyable. I used to be the tourney guy and that got real old years ago. Every model having a personal touch makes the painting, building. and basing so much better.

Name him Dag, Death and Glory

Love it man! I do the same with my bretonias, I have family lines who bring their own retinue of men at arms, bowmen and lesser knights. It is cool to have fictional brothers fighting on the table together, warbands from different places in the realm coming together, maybe having some whiped out even, or some heroic bowman who deserves a better paint job after landing the killing blow on a monster of some sort. It is just another element that makes wargaming fun, and in my mind more realistic!

I completely agree with this video. This is the point of wargames in my opinion! It's not like a deep strategy game or something that you're trying to master the mechanics of, I mean how could it be? Everything is determined by dice rolls. Go play Starcraft or Go if you want a deep skill-based experience. The magic of these games is giving in to the randomness and seeing what kind of story that randomness paints for you. Did that guy take on a squad of whatevers against all odds? Did that dude win a 1v1 against a Bloodthirster? Does that tank keep blowing up the first time it gets shot no matter what every single game you field it? That's where the fun comes from. It's in the same spirit as Dungeons and Dragons. It is a narrative experience, a multiplayer story building game, and personalizing your army adds so much more flavor to all of it.

Oh my god i absolutely love this holy shit. So yhea uncle tickles slayed this army of tyranids once, it was pretty dope.

Great video. I liked all your ideas and your figures.

The real draw for Blood Bowl is you have this for your whole team.

Back in seventh ed. Of 40k, a tyranid trygon managed to get behind my lines and charge at my already wounded Autarch. Miraculously, not only did my Autarch hit and wound in overwatch with his fusion pistol, he then finished off the trygon in melee. Since he was unpainted at the time and had the Firesabre relic, I decided to model flames on his sword with green stuff. It honestly came out pretty good once it was painted.

Haha. Good one. I gave names for my entire Dark Legion army in Warzone (1st ed). One squad of Necromutants had German soccer player names. They were good:). It certainly adds flavor to the game.

I got a single Hormagaunt, or a stabby-gaunt, called Trippy. He is the first model I've ever put together, and it is very easy to pick him out from the crowd for I, in my excitement of putting together my first model, cut him out of his sprue incorrectly and had to glue him back. Doing so left him much lower, therefore it looks like he's tripping among the hoard, hence the name. Don't worry, it's more of a hobble as he leads the charge to get some crunchy marines.

I have 3 Space Wolves, the McFurries, Ferguson McFurrie the Elder, the second, and the younger. They sort of happened by accident when I was building them, but I went with it. Also my 10 man squad of Sky Claws, who's leader is armed with a thunder hammer and storm shield, once took out a Nemesis Dreadknight in hand-to-hand combat, they all died too, but so did the dreadknight. I'm quite fond of that whole squad.

I had a Tau gundrone that once ran down and killed Tranzyne the Infinite and his posse of seven by himself. We don't talk about that drone anymore.

I have a nob that ended up with the name Rippa Snappa. Was playing, essentially, Kill Team or Skirmish in 7th ed - using the Space Hulk tiles. My shop has a narrative campaign going and my orks thumped a few smaller Roks and some Boardin' Rokkits into the side of the local Iron Hands Battle Barge. The Boyz rampaged, and at one point an Iron Father Terminator came rolling around a corner and started mopping the floor. I had a Nob subbing for a Shoota Boy (not even with a Big Shoota) for some reason or another. But either regard, I had that one take a pot shot because after the Terminator's 2+ save and such saved him from ignorable threat, the next round spent killing the one boy would keep the terminator from chasing the rest down the corridor around the corner for just that much longer, to give us time to get to the goal room, the engine room. Rolled a 5 and a 6 for hits. Rolled two sixes for two wounds. Opponent throws snake eyes on a 2+ save. Throws snake eyes for his Iron Crown or whatever it was that let him re-roll (probably a Feel No Pain or other cyborg bonus, I forget, I don't roll Marines). We all stared dumbfounded at the luck. We all agreed that day that Shoota Boy became a Shoota Nob, the youngest of his kind (ergo Rippa Snappa) and my opponent/buddy gave me a terminator helmet bit which I promptly turned into a trophy hanging from his belt with a slugga hole in one of the eyes of the helmet, with old blood dried around it.

Fantastic video!

Whenever I get a new unit for HORDES I wait until they kill something cool, then I base their bases off of it, like my skinwalker unit with limbs of cygnar trenchers scattered about! Personalizing miniatures is easily one of the most rewarding parts of the hobby.

Personalizing is not as hard as some may think. A person below in the comments mentioned Necrons. I personalized mine with different paint schemes, bases that made it look like dark mud, different colored rods in the weapons...and pirate gear. Yes, I have Pirate Necrons.

Great video. Enjoyed this a lot.

When I painted my first Necron warriors, I wrote little pseudo-Egyptian names for them under their bases. Since my Necron rod sprue came a little deformed, I wound up with one guy who didn't have a rod in his gun, and named him the dumbest name I could think of. I've since forgotten it, but he was a cool little dude.

I had a regular ass spacemarine who got purity seal everytime he killed a notable unit or did something good. Definitely made playing a lot more enjoyable!

Nice video! I am glad I am not alone in this personalisation. However, I personalize my minis in a little bit another way - I play oldschool Mutant Chronicles Warzone, and my primary faction is Imperial (strong british ww1 and ww2 feeling). So when I am painting squads, I try to paint markings of real british units on them (like 2nd batallion of Parachute regiment for my Blood Berets paratroopers or Durham Light Infantry for my squad of Reglulars) or I create new units, inspired by British army and mottos of its units (like my 10th Regiment of Golden Lions "The Old Tenth"). I even try to give my armylists names inspired by british units, operations or motts (like "Operation Slapstick" or "Fortune Favors the Brave" (motto of Yorkshire Regiment) or "The Royal Irish Rifles"). I try to match these names to the playstyle of armylis, so I have army list named "Market Garden" which is full of paratroopers and so no. Sometimes, finding the right name takes me almost same time as building the roster... :D But I like your ideas about customizing miniatures with war trophies. Recently, I started to write down kills and deaths of my minis, so the war trophies is something I'll consider. And I have to think about names of my whole new ALEPH miniatures :D

This video may be from 2013 but it’s still a very useful video to look back upon TODAY IN 2021. I agree with everything you said in this video. By the way I just love the name uncle tickles.

I am liking the jovial names for the forces devout to Nergal..

I like to play very small but very efficient army's, I always carry with me some tape, and when a figures does something impressive or remarcable I use my tape to tag them, when I get back home I give them personality according to what they've done, it's really good when you know your army so well that you can feel a connection to some figures, really is something you should try

I have a blood angel marine who is older than I am and he had one arm. Then I knocked him off a table when I was painting a different marine and his other arm fell off. I took him to my friend's house one day for a friendly match. We decided that he was equipped with a bolter. About halfway through the game he was left as the sole survivor of a squad. A genestealer squad came into a trench he was in and he fought them off and made them flee. The second I got home I put some das modelling clay on his stumps, cut 2 paperclips in half and stuck them on. I then cut the barrel off of his bolter he originally had painted it gold and attached it to one of his arms then stuck a broken techmarine's loading arm claw on the other. He is now the feared marine "Dravus the skull bearer"

I don't play Wargames, I DM for several groups playing 5e. The miniatures used are pretty interesting in their sculpt; spanning from the D&D boardgames to the Pathfinder booster packs to the beautiful sculpts of the CMON boardgames. Only when a particular PC or NPC does something jaw dropping or becomes loved by the table, do they earn a well-detailed and meticulous paint job. But other accessories are added to the base miniature, without over complicating it, to give it its own personality. Those miniatures become synonymous with their NPC's or PC characters. I agree completely that the fun part of working on miniatures is the work, not particularly adding them to the table... though it feels good to get compliments on the miniature when they hit the table.

I play Space Wolves, and I have a Wolf Guard model that I pretty much always use that is equipped with a Thunderhammer snd storm bolter on a power armour marine. thing that makes him stand out is the giant pink mohawk.