variety within armies and units - discussion, opinions and stuff

[tom ndege]

Those of you who have taken a look at the (at the moment) last page of my block might have recognized, that I have my own special opinion on variety in armies and units alike. As I think this might be a fruitful topic for some general discussion and I don't want to spam my own painting block I now open a new thread. To make an easy start I added a poll with some rudimentary statements as options. I expect far more opinions on a topic like this. (well as many as armies out there...) so post your thoughts and opinions below!
Oh and remember that this is nothing about wrong or right... Just interesting conversation about a painting and conversion related topic...

 

[Acrocanth]

I like to make my units unique but have themes running through some of them. So the skinks on my ripperdactyls and my stegadon are both teal and yellow but in different ways. For example.

 

[NIGHTBRINGER]

Interesting topic. I don't think there is a right amount. Each hobbyist will have a personal preference, which makes things interesting in my opinion. I can easily envision a highly uniform army looking great, just as I can envision a highly varied army working well too.

As such, I chose "the right amount is what's important!" And I'd say the right amount is variable between hobbyists, armies and even across time.

 

[Acrocanth]

Oh I'll also say I'm hugely in favour of not painting every animal/monster the same. Within a group of animals is fine (ex terradons in a unit) but between different animal types is silly (I'm looking at you age of sigmar -seraphon book with your white purple tyranid dinosaurs).

 

[Warden]

I like having each unit unique, but keeping an overall "theme" to the army so it looks unified on the table. Having individual models within a unit wear the same color scheme makes it easy for setup/cleanup too, you can always tell which models go with which unit.

Heraldry wise aside, in terms of Lizardmen I have taken this concept and applied it to the individual units in the style of the sacred spawnings out of the old army book. Each of my saurus and skink units is mostly green/lighter green in color (I always preferred green scales than to blue, orcs be damned!) with extra markings to designate each squad for a particular Old One. This way, the red units were dedicated to Sotek, the yellow to Tlazcotl, and so on. This allows the army to still look relatively similar, but also capture the bright and multicolored-look from the artwork that I liked.

Spoiler

Oh I'll also say I'm hugely in favour of not painting every animal/monster the same. Within a group of animals is fine (ex terradons in a unit) but between different animal types is silly (I'm looking at you age of sigmar -seraphon book with your white purple tyranid dinosaurs).

I agree, I feel some of the artwork is lacking. I would prefer to see more dino color-schemes that mimic the lizards, reptiles, or even the frogs found in nature.

 

[Phoedinn]

I like to make sure that I keep a uniform paint scheme across all my models. Every monster, Lizatrad, and Weapon need to be painted with the same colours throughout (With a special colour scheme chosen for each "type".) I do like to give my heroes unique colours though to give them the feel of the pale lizards in the book.

One thing to do like to do though is make sure that every model in a unit has its own unique configuration of parts! Especially when it comes to the pre-posed models, I think it looks really odd to have two that look EXACTLY alike. If I don't the clones stick out like a sore thumb :S

 

[Lawot]

Big fan of variation by unit. It keeps new possibilities for color schemes open, it fits the fact that there are different species in the army, and even the fact that Lizardmen emerge from Spawnings makes it fitting for units to match each other but vary from unit to unit. Plus I like the look on the field when you can see your blocks vary in color.

 

[Crowsfoot]

We are all pre conditioned to accept a coherent appearance straying away from this can cause confusion so no matter how much you want a unit to be unique it will always have a coherent aspect.

Getting the balance right is were your personal creativity and acceptance comes into play, I like to use 5 colours and I will stick to that through out a complete army were possible, others will use as many colours as they like but keep one apect the same giving that coherent look.

Which is right? Both are and that is the beauty of this hobby you are never wrong in the colours and schemes you choose.

 

[NIGHTBRINGER]

Which is right? Both are and that is the beauty of this hobby you are never wrong in the colours and schemes you choose.

Well said!

 

[Bowser]

I like to think that as long as you have a reason for it, (rag tag militia, chaos inspired madness, last saurus of a bunch of spawnings coming together to form a new unit, etc) then there should be no complaints. I like to think completely uniform is great for strictly regimented armies, but I would prefer the full metal jacket approach, maybe paint a peace symbol on the helmet, or give them a codename on their chest. Is that a lot more work? Yep. Is it worth it? I think so. But each player brings the charm to their own army. I have played against some of the most gorgeously painted models, but enjoyed a tabletop paint job with some creative variations far more than a technically great paint job.

 

[Warden]

Which is right? Both are and that is the beauty of this hobby you are never wrong in the colours and schemes you choose.

truth.

awesome part of the hobby!

 

[Chicken Lips]

I hope I didn't really rock the boat too much with my comments in your other blog earlier.

I prefer some variation between models, but I always try to keep a theme apparent (not something like "each model has a gold bracelet"). I start off by selecting 3 PREDOMINANT colors to run throughout the army and then make variations to each unit and smaller variations between each model. I do it that way because that will be the viewing perception of each individual who stops to look at my army. They will glance over and take in the overall picture (main color scheme), then as they move closer and pay more attention to the details, those minor variations will become more apparent.

Take pointillism for example. You begin by seeing an overall picture (as with "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte") and as you move closer, you start to see the parts that make the whole. It's a beautiful cohesion, but it takes a very strict order to keep it from becoming meaningless chaos.

Now, I also have 8 very large armies and I don't want any two looking the same. That also plays a huge role in my painting decisions. It makes it much easier for me (and my friends) to be able to tell them apart. (I hate having to answer apparent questions like, "No, that's a Dwarf and that's an Elf".)

I also pay as much attention to the army's fluff as possible. I see the Lizardmen army as being one of those "middle-ground" armies that could go either way. They can look completely different or be uniform. I preferred to make mine different from unit to unit, but largely the same within the unit. I also like to make my leaders readily apparent.

Which one is the unit leader here?

This is just what I prefer. I'm really glad that people have different painting styles and methods. It keeps things fresh and gives new avenues of thought that might not have occurred otherwise.

Thanks for making this thread, Tom!

 

[DeadlyRecluse]

I feel like it's important to balance the uniformity in your army, otherwise it's starts affecting gameplay. On one end of the spectrum if everything looks identical in paint scheme it becomes very hard to separate units from each other and becomes confusing, on the other end if everything is completely different then it's neighbour you end up losing models somewhere in and amongst the sea of multicoloured lizards. I like having a set of two or three colours that are shared throughout my infantry, and have my HQs and special units stand out a little more. It's definitely a matter of personal taste but I find that I get frustrated constantly having to ask my opponents what every thing is just because they decided they wanted to play blue man group space marines or rainbow bretonnians

 

[n810]

Units in my army have the same color pastern as others of the same species...
but I don't use exactly the same paints, like all of may saurus are blue with
dark blue shading and light blue and white hightlights, but the actual exact color is mostly random.
one out of lazyness and two because it makes them look a bit more natural.

 

[Crowsfoot]

But we all agree on some sort of cohesion through our armies and that we cannot get away from and why should we as that is what makes you feel a part of your army.

No matter what colours you use or what scheme you choose at the end you have to feel that your army is a part of you otherwise what is the point, I keep trying to break away from the way I paint my models but they just don't look right so I think deep down we all have a personal preference we cannot shake, I tend to copy other styles but they always become mine purely by the context in which I paint.

Probably the most satisfying aspect of this hobby by a country mile.

 

[tom ndege]

You didn't do any harm to my block, @Chicken Lips. I just thought it was a topic of more general interest... Actually I have to thank you for replying there... Otherwise I might not have opened this thread.

So my take on variety (for my army) is quite complex (see my block for closer description )
I have the plan for an army consisting of three forces coming from three spawning pools or cities... Or being memories of three different star masters as the"modern" version... The result are three different skin colours. One for each Slann/pool... This colour is fixed for all units of that force and only varies in shades of the colour... In one force the painting schemes vary from unit to unit. Each unit has it's unit colour, used on certain bits like shields standards helmets etc... Most leaders stand out by conversions and slightly different painting... There are some things that are repeated within the whole army. For example leaders having a red throat or standard bearers having a blue colour where it usually does not belong... Oh and the riding saurus who also have a bluish colour (sacred spawning...) the variety between saurus individuals is greater than between skinks of a unit (fluff reasons) therefore the variety between the units is bigger. Don't know about the monsters yet... Those coming in packs will have a quite similar appearance I guess and the single ones... Well there will be two quite different bastiladons...
One thing that is also present in almost every unit is my tricolore... Red gold and green... Some parts of the standards and characters' shields is always in these colours...