How do!
So, just posted up in the Mythbusting thread, and felt inspired to offer a practical example of how you might go about gathering up an army.
This is loosely based on the example set down in the really rather wonderful Sigmar's Blood, and it will require some volunteers!
Why based on Sigmar's Blood? Because it offers a different take on building up your army of either [url=http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440005a&prodId=prod2340 004a]Vampire Counts[/url] or [url=http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440005a&prodId=prod2340 002a]Empire[/url]. I've cunningly linked to examples of the 'finished product' when listing the army names. Ain't I a clever one!
So if you've clicked on the link, you may be wondering 'but Mr Mystery, those armies are over £250 each, how in the name of Khorne's 27' of throbbing angry gristle is that easing us in?' Well, I'll tell you. The campaign book introduces those armies in bite sized chunks, starting with the armies respective Batallions.
The lesson here, and something I'm growing increasingly fond of is having an end product in sight, and otherwise not worrying about whether the army is 'game legal' as you progress toward the final brushstroke on the final model of the final unit. What's important is that by the end of the affair, the overall force does match up with the army listing restrictions.
Each scenario presents a battle scroll, adding additional units, and usually adding the previous scroll/scrolls to ensure progressively bigger games.
Now, outside of this book you'll need to do a little extrapolation, as those who opt to take part will need to work without carefully, cunningly written Battle Scrolls. Therefore, I propose that whilst I'm being lazy and taking on Vamps inline with Sigmar's Blood (already bought the Batallion, as I'm running through it with local manager), others come up with their own full army list, before breaking it down into a 4 month 'purchase 'n' paint plan', ideally keeping the monthly expenditure as even as possible.
This will lead to similar states, where no army is exactly game legal. But the important part is that you can still play with it, introducing new unit types and character classes each month, so you learn the system one element at a time, and get used to playing progressively larger games.
So, who else is up for joining me? Whilst you decide, I'm off to run around my back garden, which is in fact a Victorian Cemetery Garden, and then once done, use the inspiration of mildly bothering the departed to build those 20 skellingtons! And possibly the Corpse Cart.