Building an Army

Sorry it's been so long since I last posted anything.  It doesn't mean that I have been idle, simply that I have been too distracted and busy to post here.

Today, I am going to talk about the process of building a new army, and how it differs from some of the other types of Hobbying that we do, and maybe think about some of the mistakes that I have made in the past, and some that others make, and how I have tired to avoid them.

So, my first question is, what do I mean when I talk about building an army.  Usually, when we talk about building an army in this hobby, we are talking about building a force for whatever game we are planning to play.  That is not what I am talking about today.  I play a lot of skirmish games, with about a dozen models a side.  That, to me, is not an army.  That is a force, or a crew, or a side.  Even some of the more middle sized skirmish games, things with 60 or so models a side, i wouldn't really put in here.  When I talk about building an army, I'm talking about games with 100's of models on the table.  Things of the scale of the old WFB, or Black Powder.  Games where we are talking about big forces on big tables fighting big battles.  I firmly believe that these are different enough to the other games that they deserve to be talked about separately.

This is the sort of scale that would probably be as small as I would call an "Army" (With thanks to Adam and his 15mm ADLG 100 Years War armies)

So, now we know what I mean by an Army, lets start talking about how I go about building one, and look at what I have done so far.

What to build

Choose something that you are going to enjoy for a long time.  Building an army is likely going to be a longish term project.  You are looking at painting 100's of models for this, so you need to make sure that it is something that is going to hold your interest in the longer term.  There is no point in picking something that you are not going to want to touch again in a fortnights time.  That way lies wasted money and energy, and unfinished projects.  It may be obvious, but it probably bears stating explicitly right at the beginning.

(I have chosen to build a War of the Roses force.  I like my medieval history, and it's a period that has interested me recently, with a number of books and TV dramas firing up my enthusiasm.)

Once you know what period you are going to play , you need to pick a scale.  Sometimes this is easy, and sometimes it can be more difficult.  Often, your choice will not just be based on what you want to play, but also on factors that you can't control.  You may need to work around not just what you want to play, but also what models are available for your period, what the rules you want to use expect, and sometimes how much time you have.

This is also a time where it can sometimes help to follow the crowd.  It's often worth finding out what other people are doing in the period you want to play.  This is not a skirmish force, this is an army.  Unless you have unlimited time, patience and resources, you may well not want to build multiple forces for this.  When I am playing smaller games, I don't mind if I end up having to build both forces for the table.  Its a small number of models.  When I am building an army, well, that's a much bigger deal if I have to build 2 armies in order to get a game.  If everyone else is playing in 6mm, it makes it much harder to get a game with you 54mm force, and you might want to think about whether you want to at least move a little closer to a common standard.  You may decide to go it alone, but you should at least consider it.

(In this case, I have chosen 28mm.  The models are available, and are beautiful.  The group I play with have all recently started 28mm Medieval armies from about the same period, and the main rulesets I play to use (Swordpoint and Dragon/Lion Rampant) are all written with 28mm in mind)

It's also worth thinking about basing at this point.  Write a list of all of the games you may either now, or in the future, want to play with your army, or models from it.  Then write down their basing requirements.  Base your units on the base that will allow you to play the most systems, or failing that, base them individually, and have a plan for how you will group them for each game.

(I have gone with a mix of 20mm square single basing, and 40mm 3/4 man bases.  The 20mm ones can be grouped into 40mm bases for swordpoint.  The 40mm ones let me put three models on them for open order bases.  In either case, I have enough 20mm bases that I have enough single figures to build the force I plan to take for Lion/Dragon Rampant.  If saga ever releases a medieval period book, then by 20mm bases will be legal for that as well)

How Accurate is Accurate Enough

This is a question that mainly, but not exclusively, applies to Historical games.   After painting a group of Knights, and showing them to my painting group, I got asked "Do you want me to critique these with my gaming hat, or my historical hat on"  And I think that is a perfectly valid question.  Only you know what level of historical (or fluff) accuracy works for you (and to a lesser extent your group).  You should try to make sure that once you know where that line is, you stay on the correct side of it for you.  Part of this is doing your research, and part of it is knowing what compromises you will and won't make.

Interestingly, this also applies to adding fantasy "bits" to your forces.  For example, my Saga Vikings are going to have Werewolves as Beserkers, and my Napoleonic Skirmish force may well have a Jonathon Strange figure fighting with them (Counts as a Cannon!!!!)

(I have decided that my force is going to be based around the forces that were at the 1st Battle of St. Albans.  I will have models representing all of the commanders that were there, and try to represent the troop types as well.  I am happy that I will probably have a different ratio of Billmen to Bowman than was represented at the battle, and I am also happy that I may include some units that strictly speaking weren't there.  I will however try to avoid too many of these.  I'm also aware that I may have some Blackadder themed models built for this.)

Have a plan

This is something that I think really helps when building an army.  Knowing what you want in your force can really help to make it a reality.  Building an army is a big undertaking (I know, I keep saying it), and it is easy to get distracted from the point.  There are loads of really lovely models out there, and it is natural to want to buy them, paint them, and make them yours.  Unfortunately, that can often mean that you have an army that has lots of really fun things in it, but is lacking in the stuff that actually does the work, the core of the force.  This means that you can end up doing lots of work, and still not having an army you can use.

It's also worth having some way of tracking your progress against the plan.  I have a spreadsheet, that has my army list on it, and a little square for every model I need to paint for that list.  When I finish a model, I change the colour of the square.  It means that I can see at a glance exactly what is painted, and what I need to paint.  It also stops me getting excitable, painting all 24 Men at Arms (exciting knight types), and then realising that I still have a HUNDRED. IDENTICAL. ARCHERS. TO. PAINT.

Who knew, a Medieval English army needed more than a few Longbowmen

(I have a plan.  The aim is to build a 1,250 point swordpoint force that I can pick models from to then use for Lion Rampant as well.  I have written a 500 point list, and listed everything that I need for it.  I've worked out how many of what figure I need, and bought appropriately.  There is a spreadsheet, which tracks exactly what I need, how many of them are bought, built, painted etc.  I can see my progress at a glance, and see easily what I need to buy next)

Work Small and Lay Down a Marker

My current 500 point force which will be my first step has about 100 figures in it.  If I built and readied 100 figures all at once, I would never get them finished.  The mass of Grey plastic on the shelf would become overwhelming, and the sheer scale would intimidate me into never starting.  I know, it's happened before.

Batch working gets stuff done.  Doing all of the red on those HUNDRED. IDENTICAL. ARCHERS. all at once is the quickest way to get them painted.  Don't be fooled, it IS quicker.  Mind numbing, but quicker.

The way I have gotten around this is partial batching.  I have almost built all of the archers.  I put the arms on, and then I stopped.  This means that most of the build is complete.

When I am ready to work on my next models, I pick 4 of them out, and I put their heads, and any other bits onto the part assembled models.  Then I paint them (more on this in a moment), complete them, and then move onto the next 4 models.  This way, I have managed to get some of the benefits of batch assembly, without having that awful line of assembled grey plastic models staring at me.

When it comes to deciding what to build, I am a firm believer in laying down a marker.  Making a statement.  In an old white dwarf, Nigel Stillman said that the first model you paint should be a leader or standard bearer.  He's right.  Generic infantryman Bob painted up standing there could be anyone.  He could be a lone sellsword, or a man running away, part of a ragtag skirmish force.  Anyone.  But if I put a standard there, it is something else.  A standard says "THIS is a unit.  This is part of an ARMY".  He may be alone, but as long as there is a standard, there is a unit.  That's why I start with command figures and standards for all of my units, before I start adding the infantrymen.

See, my raised hand means I am either leading my troops, or, as my wife suggested, waving to my mum

(I've been less good at this one.  My Men at Arms have a command stand, but my archers and Billmen don't yet (but that's going to change very soon))

Painting

Here is where I might need a soapbox when I am finished.  Remember YOU ARE NOT PAINTING A MODEL YOU ARE PAINTING AN ARMY.

Look at that statement again.  You are painting an army.  Therefore, everything that you do with your brush should be aiming to make your ARMY look better.

I have the luck to know some painters who just make me want to hang up my brushes.  People whose work I look at, and I just go wow.  They are the best FIGURE painters I know.  I can't hold a candle to them, and that's ok.

I will probably annoy them now, but very few of them have good looking ARMIES.  There individual models are amazing, but they spend so long on figures, that they despair of ever having a unit finished, much less an army.

Now this is a blessing, and a curse.  When they do finally finish an army, it will be a work of true art, that will blow anything I paint away.  But currently, I shall hold onto my moral high ground.

Who you calling "Neat"

These are some of my archers.  Washes, drybrushes, and not much else in the way of detailing.  Individually, they are, at best, neat.  But when ranked up with their fellows, and looked at from gaming distances, they look good.

Better than the sum of our parts

Character models can, and should, have more detail lavished on them.  These are the models that people are going to pick up and look at closely.  Archer 41 from that unit of 50, probably not so much.

In Summary

In summary, building an ARMY is a different process from building a smaller skirmish force, and needs to be approached in a different way.  But at the end of that process, you should end up with a unique and beautiful thing that can be used for lots of games for years to come.