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So this is going to be my attempt to document and explain my creation of a Mercenary platoon, both for practical playing and fluffy completion. I'll try to keep the rambling down to a minimum despite my brain works like a Rube Goldberg machine.

So to keep my thoughts focused I'll be trying to break the updates into one of several catagories

1) Model/Unit update, this will include photos, a fluffy introduction and exposition about the model, the actual game mechanics/representation behind the actual model(s), if need be how it fits within the overall theme and organization of the army (both fluff and mechanics wise). Generally this will be a single completed model or the entire unit. I don't normally see the point of doing single models of units unless there is something very special about the model.

2) Works in Progress, okay I'm bad at these because I normally try to just knock them out and don't document along the way like I should. But I'll try, normally however this will only be done for larger models or models where I'm doing extensive work to the model.

3) MISC topics, since this will be about the creation, documentation, and posting of my work there are bound to be various misc. ideas or topics that pop up from time to time when dealing with such an project. This might be specific techniques, paints&parts, photography tricks, post processing of the photos, etc

Lastly, although it'll be posted firstly, will be a discussion on how I plan to organize this endeavor in terms of fluff and rules.

So this is the post where I'm supposed to explain what I'm trying to do, so let me start off with a designer's statement,

In this project I'll be attempting to create a unique mercenary force where the models/units are and decisively different and distinctly my own yet unified by a common theme derived from both my interpretation of unit organizations as depicted within the fluff of the iron kingdoms as well as a the mechanics of fielding a viable battle force in an actual game.

How does one develop an army based off the unit organization as depicted by the fluff. Well first one needs to find the fluff on unit organization, luckily this is included into nearly every faction book PP puts out. The examples I'll be using are from Cygnar (pg 17), Khador (pg 19), and Ord (iron kingdoms RPG - Kings, Nations, and Gods pg 271). In the Cygar and Khador faction books you'll notice each platoon/force is composed of 6 squads, each squad led by a Sgt, and the entire platoon/force led by a Lt. In Ord a platoon is made of 5 squads, each squad led by a Sgt, and the entire platoon led by a Lt. Yay, PP did all the work for us I just need 5 or 6 full sized squads (depending on how I'm basing the military structure) and a Lt. Option. Sounds all too neat to me, and it is. To field a Long Gunner platoon you'd need (6) full sized squads and (1) officer unit attachment, this would come out to be 62pts and require you to field three times the normal unit allowance of long gunners. Obviously this doesn't work for building a game viable force.

Doing a little research online you will quickly find that most modern armies do not field platoons anywhere near the size listed by PP. In fact most platoons are roughly 20-30men including officers. In addition most platoons are not made of 6 squads but are most commonly composed of 2-4squads, exact number and size of squads vary of course.

Now looking at 3 full sized squads we see our overall point size drop down to where it can be fielded in a 35pt game and the issue with unit allowance becomes far more manageable.

For example:


As you can see this general approach works well enough and can be applied to any army with a little fudging here and there. As such it give me the basis to approach my own mercenary force. First off as my mercs are not regular military I have no need to stick to 3 full sized squads, this helps as most of the units available to a mercenary force are character units and so the idea of a 'full strength' unit doesn't necessarily apply. Now most of the mercenary character units all have unit officers to start with I wont be needing any Officer UAs (not that I have any to choose from), but do have a large number of mission specialists (Solos) to choose from to help flesh out the army.

So my 35pt mercenary platoon should look little something like this:


I tried to keep the rambling under control, and did some heavy editing to do so. But I think I managed to get my thought process about how I'm building the platoon clearly enough. Next post will include what actually will be included into the platoon and why.

Seems like a lot of hubbub for nothing.


That's basically any 35pt list in outline form.

I doubt you could fit that outline into a 50 point list.

Most units are 6-8 points depending on the size. Most heavy jacks are 8-9 points, with only a few being 6-7 points.

I mean, don't get me wrong. I love fluffy army builds, but with how much you are digging into the organization of a platoon, I can tell you that while I was in the army, squad and platoon size differed depending on the specialty of that squad/platoon. Mortar Squads were smaller in our platoon, motorpool platoons varied in size. All kinds of nonsense. That, and we are talking about a game that has anywhere from guys with swords and shields, wizards, cavalry, guys with guns and axes, wildmen with bows and muskets. That, and the size of a platoon has varied throughout history.

Just find what you want to do with your army, make a list and convert it up. Don't give yourself bogus restrictions that will hamper the enjoyment of your project on the table top.

IMO, build your company outside of the rules of the game, but with in game units/models. Then when you go to make a list bring some of them along and those happen to be the ones assigned that mission, caught in that part of the battlefield, etc.

It allows you lots of creativity in creating your company, but also makes creating lists really easy.

I did something similar with my old 40K Marines. I was working on an entire company, but I never played them all at once. I'd only play part of them based on the points level, mission, etc.

Mordekiem has the right idea organize all you want outside the actual game with the fluff. But build and play the game as the game with the forces that work well together.

Okay so after a little break, life happened, I'm back and ready to bore people some more.


First off apparently I wasn't clear as to what I was doing. I'm making a fluffy platoon, what that means is I'm trying to make an actual platoon as based on the description out of one of the books. So for example, let us turn to pg 24 of the Cygnar faction book, there it details the 'North Guard Gravediggers' or in other words the 95th trencher company. So since I'm working on a platoon (not a company), I'd select a platoon such as the 1st led by a Lt. Theo Boyd. It's made up of trenchers, only trenchers, all the time trenchers. So when I field the 1st platoon of the 95th company, 3rd division, 1st army; its the same platoon of trenchers all the time. I dont say well I want to field my 95th company, 1st platoon; but I want to substitute a unit of long gunners in for a unit of trenchers. Nope, if you field a particular platoon it's a particular platoon and that is what I'm trying to do with this little project.


Okay so to keep this from being too boring (and I finally have some stuff painted and photographed), lets get onto the good stuff.


The Warcaster- Faro Vasicar (aka Drake McBain)