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Welcome to the Wargames
Beginners Page - Page 4
Army Composition
Now comes the fun part. Get hold of a reference book for your chosen army (or an order of battle which outlines each unit in the army - these can be found all over the internet). This should contain lists of battalions or units which make up your army. You need to decide what army units you will have in your army.
One common mistake is to buy the guard or elite troops first, the majority of wargamers have done this at some point. These just sit around until you have finished painting the more common units. An example of this is the French Old Guard, while they were great to paint they were committed only to a few battles throughout the Napoleonic wars compared with a regiment of Fusiliers (or Line troops).
I will eventually include a few small army lists you can use to begin building your army. These are by no means comprehensive, but they will give you an kick start if you don’t want to sift through books at the moment.
Figure Size
This is probably one of the easier choices to make. There are five categories of figure sizes, these are 5mm, 10mm, 15mm, 20mm and 25mm. The two most popular sizes are 15mm and 25mm (although 20mm is becoming more popular especially with WWII figures).
The figure scales all have thier advantages and disadvantages. The smaller figures lose some detail because of size, they are fairly cheap and larger scale battles can be fought because of this. The larger figures look good once painted, but are more expensive and therefore smaller battles are generally played.
At the end of the day, figure size is personal choice. There is no right or wrong, you can have exciting battles with all figure sizes!
Choosing You Rules
Yet another choice needs to be made regarding rules, and believe me there are hundreds of different sets out there! Since you have made your decisions on an army and the size of figures you want to collect, you would think that it is just a matter of picking the relevant rule book.
It almost is, but not quite - You still have to decide what command level to play on. You could choose to play at skirmish level (which has small forces on each side and focuses on individual tactics), Battalion level, Brigade level, Divisional level through to Corps Level (focuses on Divisional tactics).
Check out our rules summaries in the beginners section.
Why does this matter you ask? Because it will determine the number of figures you need. The rules will state a figure scale (such as 1 fig = 60 men), if a Napoleonic battalion has 540 men, this would equate to 9 figures on the wargames table.
As a final note, there are many sets of rules published on the internet for free - have a look around, you may find a set you like.
Buying & Painting Your Army
By now, if you have followed the steps above, you should have picked an army, researched the units it had, decided on the figure size and a set of rules. You now have a choice, buying painted figures or buying unpainted figures.
Obviously, buying painted figures is going to be more expensive (you can pay anywhere from 55p to £4 per figure), the results look good though and your army will be finished much quicker. The other way is to buy unpainted figures (ranging from around 12p to 80p per figure) and paint them yourself. You would be surprised at the results which can be achieved by "non-artistic" people, such as myself.
Figures can be bought from hobby shops, at the yearly conventions, by mail order from a catalogue or on-line using our shopping facility. I have used them all and have always had fast and friendly service.
To help you paint your army, I suggest buying a specific painting guide or a source book (such as those from the Osprey range with colour plates of the soldiers). Believe me, they are invaluable.
In Conclusion...
Whilst the building of an army is lots of work, it is very exciting and enjoyable as well. To see a unit go from little lumps of grey metal to an Austrian cuirassier regiment or Alexandrian Hypaspists gives an immense feeling of achievement. This is crowned the first time you use your troops on the wargames battlefield.
Above all, have fun with wargaming. It’s up to you if you want to play the skirmishes in Vietnam, recreate the tank battle at Kursk, re-fight the battles of Waterloo/Trafalgar or recreate the battle of the Pelennor Fields from Lord of the Rings. Your now the General, it’s your decision.....
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