Assembling the troops - a community guide for newcomers/returners.

[Mr Mystery]

How do, and how do indeed!

So, End Times is a bit special yes? Certainly seems to be threatening just the shot in the arm Warhammer has needed.

But not all of us currently have standing armies, and if we do, they might not be for the force we want to lead into The End Times. Example? I have a lot of Ogres. And I loves them. But I'm throwing my bones to Nagash, and picking up my nascent VC army.

Of course, Warhammer is a fairly model intensive game, and depending on how you go about it, your force's money cost can spiral quickly. So I thought we could have a crack at putting together a community guide on approaches to getting from nowt to glory with the minimum of fuss.

For me?

I'm going back to Sigmar's Blood, an excellent example to my mind of how to build up either an Empire or Vampire Count army over a period of time, by simply buying, building and painting one battle scroll at a time. By the end of it, you end up with a decently eclectic army formed from most of the options from the relevant armies. Also helps the battle scrolls are roughly cost equivalent to one another, so budgetting is pretty straight forward!

So, it does say community in the title. Chip in folks!

And some music to set the mood....

[Cap'nSmurfs]

I like to start with characters and big models. Usually those are what's got me excited about an army in the first place. Obviously the advent of Unbound in 40k and now the End Times in Warhammer has helped this along; now I can run Logan and my Grey Hunters together alongside my Eldar, or play a small-points game of Warhammer and not have to leave my Dreadlord on her Dragon at home.

At the moment, I want to do a VC army which will be the core of an Undead Legion. I like Neferata (and her massive hat), so I might start from there. But, equally, I'm in the middle of a big move at the moment, so I'll be holding off right now - which might mean that in a few months, when I'm more settled, there'll be more End Times books out, more models, and my mind has changed completely. Who can say!

[Morgrim]

I like many of the special units Vampire Counts have but I dislike their troops, which is the main reason I decided against picking it up. I currently have a small Lizardman force that is basically a unit of saurus with spears and a unit of skink skirmishers with blowpipes. I haven't actually played fantasy in years, any suggestion what I should do next? I'm thinking of getting a stegadon.

[eldargal]

Finishing off my unfinished Coven Throne and then waiting for my Nagash and latter Neferata to arrive (and the book, sigh).

Using End Times is clearly a good way of getting into WFB cheaply and easily. You can get an army now with tour boxes of troops and a character or two.

Stegadons are nice. No idea how effective they are but they look pretty so whatever, I'd get one.

[Katharon]

I can say for a fact that, as long as you don't mind non-GW miniatures, then there are tons of options from Warlord Games and Perry Miniatures. Most of the gentlemen that did the early sculpts for GW now work for Warlord Games and the Perry Twins own their own company, obviously, so you still get a fair amount of awesome detail -- sometimes more so than GW's. Size comparisons are only slightly off, with most 28mm from Warlord and the Perry twins being true 28mm, while GW's 28mm is "Heroic scale".

I calculated it up and I could get the following from the Perry Twins: 60 knights, 90 spearmen, 60 handgunners, and 60 crossbowmen; all for $320. The same amount from GW would cost $956. Now, that's for a very large 3,500K army list. For a decent 2,000 Point army list it would be cheaper. I plan to combine the cheaper core troops from Warlord Games & Perry Miniatures -- while getting my Lords, Heroes, and war machines from GW itself.

It's the cheapest and easiest solution I could find.

[Mr Mystery]

All valid!

I use GW stuff because I tend to game in GW stores a lot. But there's certainly nowt wrong with using other manufacturers. After all, a Medivealish looking Spearman in 28mm won't look out of place.

Another top tip from me? When playing Undead, don't worry about your Skellingtons actually being Skellingtons. There's little reason one couldn't use say, Bretonnian Men-At-Arms to represent Spear wielding Skellingtons with shields - all in the paint job. They'll be distinguished from the stinky Zombies by dint of actually being armed and armoured.

Likewise Spirit Hosts - they're like the natual doom for all 'grab bag' models you might pick up at a bootfair.

[eldargal]

Yup VC are actually great for being able to use basically any models you want. Paint 'em up like zombies, convert them with zombie parts or just paint them all ghostly.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

Yeah, that's great advice. I've always seen - going back to 98 - great conversions and paintjobs for Undead armies. There was a nice undead Bretonnians one in one of those ancient White Dwarfs, back when they used to do the two-page spread of a store's best army.

I need to come up with a Theme for mine. I want to do Neferata and her coven, or a part of it; have a few of my own characters to lead the army in non-End Times games (or leading detachments of a larger host in campaigns), and bring the Queen of Mysteries herself out for titanic struggles. This will mean a lot of conversions; I think I can use some leftover Dark Eldar parts to produce some cool armoured Lahmians (because misandry is cool!), but there's also the Lhamaean model, with a little conversion.

Beyond that, I'm torn on whether I want Tomb Kings or VC. I like Tomb Guard better than Grave Guard aesthetically; the latter more mechanically. But the basic TK skeletons are horrible. Decisions, decisions...

Basically, I'm going to do what I always do: look at the models, decide what I like, decide on a theme, write a few characters, and then collect to that broad plan.

[Mr Mystery]

One of the joys of Silver Pinnacle is that rules or not, it's a great excuse to mix and match the model ranges.

I doubt many, if indeed any, would object to Tomb Guard standing in for Grave Guard. They're nigh on identical, and certainly stand out enough for your opponent to know precisely what he's facing.

Man, I need to cracking and get those Skellingtons built up! Got 20 on sprue as is....

[Katharon]

I do wish that there was a viable option for mass skellingtons from other manufacturers. There are a few nice ones, but they are always in small numbers and expensive. Same for a lot of the other fantasy races (elves, dwarves, etc). Work with what you can and do what you want. As long as the weaponry and such is WYSIWYG, then meh, don't sweat the smaller details.