What's a reasonable army?

[Secaucuscollector]

As you all know, DST/AA are realeasing army builders with the rest of the minimate waves. I currently have 4 Vault Guard minimates and I'm aiming for 5, but I dont know if that's a good army. What's a good amount of vault Guards/ AIM Soldiers/ Skrulls/ Shiled Agents for a legit army?

[Docholliday666]

10 of each is respectable.

[karamazov80]

An army isn't legitimate to me unless it is at least 25 strong.

[vbpanizzi]

How many are in a battalion?

[buttheadsmate]

How many are in a battalion?

It varies.....more than a thousand less than fifteen hundred (British) ,300-1200 (US) etc.etc. .....not too specific ..enough for a good punch-up.

If however we are talking 'Minimate army' there is only one worth talking about....my FCBD 2005/2009 army. Now that ,my friends, is one 'f&c$ off' army perhaps only rivalled by my Suncoast Cylon army....... although my X3 Phoenix variant army is coming along nicely :biggrin:

Forgive me I just can't resist it sometimes.

[Rheul]

I for one believe that when displaying a collection less is more. But then again, I have 11 cylons on display with at least 10 more in "the bin". As cool as 100 Stormtroopers look standing in formation, I think most of the time its a bit much. It all depends what works for you. I think five is respectable.

[boyd]

I go with four members for my army builders, mainly because I don't have display room for a larger army.

[Twisted Two-Face]

Well i know i always get two regular packs and a variant, so i usually end up with three. If i like the "team" associated, i'll go for more. For instance, being a Battlestar junkie, i love MANY Cylons on my shelf. It just looks imposing. Then theirs Vault Guards, who i plan on buying LOTS of when they hit LCSs, just because i want squads of "unarmores" guards wityh one big, mean Suited-up guy behind each squad. I'll do the same with HYDRA, being my favorite evil organization.

It just depends on what you like. Whether it's three on a scouting mission, or twenty glaring down The Avengers, an Army is an Army to the end.

And i'm in a JROTC Unit, so i can say that.

[Nessex]

As Twisted Two Face said, it comes down a lot to how much you like the team/character that you are amy building.

I only have 2 skrulls led by a Super Skrull & 4 AIM agaents. . . however, i intend to buy as many Multiple Men as i can get my hands on (hopefully about a dozen at some stage)!!!!

[dr baghead]

My thoughts on Army Building is it works best as a "V"

Example:

O___O

_O_O_

__O__

where in the O's are figures and the __ is space. I find it's the most economical for shelf space and looks most the imposing. So I have 5 Gorilla Grodds (repainted to be generic Gorillas) arranged like that.

Now sometimes those builder figures relate directly to named characters.

In that case I arrange them like this if the characters are a true "army":

O___O

_O_O_

__X__

But if the builders are more of a "bodyguard" or something with a smaller amount I go with this:

O_O

_X_

Where in the X is the named character (ie-from the army set up X is Nick Fury, and the O's are SHIELD agents. I can't think of any existing examples for "bodyguard", but for me I have the Penguin set up with his two "Kabuki Twins" behind him and Playboy Tony Stark has two Vault Guards with him as well.)

If it's a team the builders relate to I like this:

O_____O

_O___O_

__X_X__

___Z___

Where in the Z is the leader, X would be second in commands, and the O's are the Goons (My case would be a set of Customs I'm working on of All-Star Joker being Z, one of the X's being that weird unnamed Nazi Chick from ASB&R/DKR and 4 Octopus Goon's to be a celebration of Frank Miller's awesomeness, the other X is Harley Quinn, is even though she's not in any of Frank Miller's Bat-books yet you can't have a Joker without Harley!.... A Sane person's analog to such might be Z= KingPin, X= Bullseye and Jigsaw, O=Random Thugs)

And in the case of SUPER large team displays it would go like this:

O____________O

[Team Display]

The example would relate to for example the Hell Fire Club (probably set up in a 'V' themselves with 2 guards flanking them) or Sentinels standing at either side in back of an entire set of X-Men (probably not in a V)

So I guess what I was saying was:

5 is ideal for a stand alone army.

4 is ideal for an army with one leader

2 is ideal for bodyguards/implying their presence within a larger group.

of course I'm probably wrong about all this.

Edited November 4, 2009 by dr baghead

[TBT!]

My Definitive answer....

ALL OF THEM!

T.

[Dio]

It really depends on the organization. I need as many as it takes to recreate a scene in the comics XD (If any of you have read Identity Disc starring Deadpool, Sabretooth, Bullseye, Vulture and Juggernaught, then you know that I need hundreds of AIM agents XD)

[SouthFLGuy]

I was able to build my AIM army up to about 10 figures, but that was due to them being available at toysrus. I would like the same number of Hydra soldiers. Vault Guards are a set i'm not interested in much. I have a group of 3 skrulls to be led by super skrull. I hope to get at least 4 Kree Soldiers to be led by Captain Marvel. I'll take as many multiple men as I can get, but would prefer at least 4. Still unsure about the Sentinel.

[blacksun1520]

My army size is determined by how much extra mate money I have. By default, I will always have 2 of each army builder, one from the standard pack, and one from the variant. But to go beyond that, I don't typically have the extra cash, so all my armies are rather pitiful at 2, except for the extra AIM goon I have acquired. This does not apply to my modern cylons though, as there are different variations that I had to have, and others that I have won through contests, or received as freebies, so this "army" currently stands at a whopping 7

BS

[drgnrbrn316]

My Marvel armies usually fall in at around 4. I order a case of everything that gets released, which translates to 4. I haven't had the luxury of getting any new Marvel stuff in at TRU, so I haven't been able to inflate the numbers that way, since its hard enough to track down the new stuff without worrying about getting the repeats.

I do have a pretty healthy army of Cylons though. I bought a case of the single packs, several of the box sets from FYE/Suncoast/Whatever, plus a case of each wave, which nets 4 more Cylons each time they popped up. Couple of the mortar pack ones from the exclusive, plus I was able to get my hands on three of each set that hit TRU, so more there. Needless to say, the humans are screwed in my version of BSG.

Terminators, I have multiples of the TRU sets, multiples of the AFX set, multiples of the LCS sets, plus a case of the single packs. Again, the humans are screwed.

To answer the question, it all depends on what you want the army for and how much you're willing to spend to get it. If you're just putting them in display cases, you can get by on just one. If you play with them or make action scenes to display your figures, you'll be wanting more, which is where the cost comes into play.

[boyd]

Reading through this thread really makes me wonder why army-builder box sets haven't come out yet. There seems to be the demand for it.

[minijeff]

Reading through this thread really makes me wonder why army-builder box sets haven't come out yet. There seems to be the demand for it.

while we think it sounds good DST has to get Marvel to think that as well...I am keeping my hopes up especially with the upcoming multiple man and sentinel releases

Jeff of the Miniacs

[drgnrbrn316]

Q&As on the matter suggest that it isn't a licensing issue so much as DST doesn't think they're doing as good as we seem to think they would.

I suppose that makes sense. I wonder what percentage of sales goes towards people who just display figures and thus wouldn't need more than one or two of any particular character, what percentage buy one of a figure because they look cool but don't realize that they're an army building person, and what percentage buy for display or play purposes that actually want a large army.

Who is to say a kid isn't picking up the Vault Guard, thinking he's an awesome green Iron Man without knowing that a small army of them guard a prison called the Vault?

[maxcarnage]

i would say 3-5 on the low end. if you have more it looks super cool but i am pretty happy w/ @ least 3.

for example:

i have 4 old cylons (1 gold 2 silver and a black) that looks cool dispalyed and going in to battle.

i have 5 razor cylons (2 gold [each variation] 3 silver [again variation] and again looks cool displayed or fighting

BUT i only have 2 Gul Dukat (what the hell am i supposed to do with that!) it is not an army it is barely a scouting party

just remember it does look cool the more you get:

[Valo487]

Personally I'll be happy with around 4 Vault Guards, 6-8 SHIELD Agents. Skrulls can vary because they're shape-shifters, and combined with the four Skrull heads in the Secret Invasion set you can have as many Skrulls as you want, just some would either be half changed or using another character 'mate as a Skrull currently transformed.

I'd like around 10 AIM agents, and 4-5 Multiple Men. The Sentinels look awesome, but they're so small I won't know for sure until I have one in hand. However, I plan to army build HYDRA like they're a cure for a disease.

[rx78jj]

I personally have a minimum of three army builder figures each. Like it has been said before, for the most part its cus one would like the army builder figure and two, because you need to get the variant the army builder comes with. DUH.

[Mystery Man]

I'm just now getting my 2nd skrull in the mail. Man, I need more o' these dudes.

[Cappy]

Well, 3 just looks like a handful of guys, call it a squad.

You need 5 or 6 to get that crowd feel, and they will definitely fill a picture.

But maxcarnage's pic points out the relative clause: if the army is going up against a team of heroes, you'll need to definitely out-number the good guys... say 2-1?

Edited November 5, 2009 by Cappy

[mtd20_2000]

I try to have 5 or 6 of the army builders.

So far I have 6 A.I.M. agents, 6 Skrull's, 5 S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, & 1 Vault Guard.

I'll get four more Vault Guards when the series comes out and i can not wait for the Hydra's! (At least 6 of those)

[Twisted Two-Face]

This brings up another point i think could be addressed. What do we all feel about the sameness of the faces of army builders?? I mean, sure a platoon of SHIELD soldiers looks good at first, but when ya notice they look like they were born at the same time, it gets a little distracting. Perhaps they army-crawled out of the womb?? (joke: killed.) :/ That's another reason i like my army builders packaged with human characters (with pupils, too). You can just get a quick head swap. I really wish DST would give us some head variety, like maybe a double-face AND extra head, guranteeing at least three different people in our ranks.