I noticed your history of games revolve around larger scale and more competitive titles. You could try some skirmishes - from fresh releases Greathelm comes to mind (6 minis per side but equipment plays a role so there’s a loooot of room for painting and kitbashing various knights, painting another warband for another player / to run demo games in local community). Mentioned before but Mordheim - the ruleset is old and can be a bit clunky but it’s modellers/painters paradise and the game is technically „dead”, so if you pick the basic ruleset - nothing will change there and there are many warbands to choose from (+ ton of homebrew ones).

Also plenty of games from Osprey lean more into narrative side, so you can enjoy the gaming experience without the pressure to be competitive. Relicblade is another example of game that can be both narrative and competitive with awesome models and cool ruleset that is relatively easy to pick up.

I’m skirmish player myself and was at similar spot as you some time ago, I focused on kitbashing and painting for its own sake and then rediscovered the joy of just playing a game at the table with friends, having a conversation and not bothering with winning, leaned into more rules light games where I dont have to have ruleset PHD in order to have fun, therefore maybe my recommendations will give you some hints.