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Ignoring practical concerns like rules, opposing players and difficulty in creating it what army would you make?

I am already ignoring many practical concerns of playing historical samurai by using them as a fantasy army. If money was no option I would create it almost entirely from steel fist samurai and get them to custom sculpt me an uesugi kenshin. I would also get a takeda army to apples them.

The reason I choose samurai is due to the unique armours the crazy colours and the fact they are fun to paint even if they are really difficult to paint.

What about you. If you could put together any historical army from any period no matter how well known or obscure what would you go for? Are their current sculpts you would use if so share them or is their a sculpted who's style you think would look great for said army? Please share.

Since you stole my thunder by saying samurai, I'm going to have to say early Roman Republic. I like the eclectic, pseudo greek/latin composition of the armies.

40mm Hittites, Egyptians, Mittani and Assyrians. I want chariots and want them to be big.

40mm also tend to have realistic proportions, so their foot print doesn't have to be that much wider than 28mm, so I wouldn't need a ridiculously huge table.

I'd paint them up in a heavy black line style where each colour is wet blended in oils up to a really bright colour. And I'd use some realistic metals like Alclad II brass for all the bronze.

The barrier to realizing this dream? I don't think 40mm late bronze age miniatures actually exist. So I'd have to get the sculpting and casting all commissioned.

Interesting question...

One of my choices is under way at present, 3btn Royal West Kents from 1940. Im doing them in 20mm as my grandfather served in them till evacuated at Dunkirk.

After that, I guess my other dream armies would be a Taiping Rebellion force, unmatched for colour and variety, an 18th century Ottoman Turkish force, again due to colour and troop variety. For an entire period, I'd love to invest myself fully in the Indian Mutiny. My first love of wargaming.

Since I have several historical armies, both from the Roman era and two from the English civil war and the 30 year war my choice would at the moment be an army of Mongolian horsemen, preferably in 28 mm and made by Warlord games if they ever get around to making such an army.
The barrier beside the obvious lack of models I want for said army is the sheer amount of cavalry I would need to paint, and having painted some 100+ horses & riders for my Pike and Shot armies alone I feel like a another heap of horses migth break the fun, and make me dropp it all and not pick it up again at a later point in time.

I'd like to eventually put together a couple generically Semitic armies as well as an Egyptian army, as I have alot of material to cover ancient "Middle East" battles, but no matching models.

Would also eventually like a couple multi-use Greek armies and a Persian army for the same reason.

I know it's a bit cliche, but 2nd SS in western Europe, COVERED in that damn spring pea dot camo that I can't paint for the life of me!

15mm, individually based, with no 2 miniatures the same. A full platoon including all available platoon support.

Not much to ask for really.........damn pea dot.

 Musashi363 wrote:
Since you stole my thunder by saying samurai, I'm going to have to say early Roman Republic. I like the eclectic, pseudo greek/latin composition of the armies.

You can say samurai too if it's what you prefer. What draws you to them? What kind of army would you want? Lots of armour? Lots of unarmored guys?

I'd say 6mm Napoleonic, you can have massive ranked horse and musket battles.

 sing your life wrote:
I'd say 6mm Napoleonic, you can have massive ranked horse and musket battles.

I never thought I would like 6mm scale but after getting hold of some 6mm samurai I love them.

Currently considering doing Hussites for SAGA.

Lego army is an interesting way to go. Let us know if you go for it,

An Aztec warhost would be neat, very colourful too.

 ProfessionalAmateur wrote:
An Aztec warhost would be neat, very colourful too.]

These models from Wargames Foundry, while a bit on the expensive side, have caught my eye in the past: http://www.wargamesfoundry.com/our-ranges/aztec-and-inca

Having really enjoyed the Tyrant novels likely have to be either the Scythians with Greek Mercs or Romans

+10 for the Hussites!

Me, I'd go for a Thematic Byzantine army at its height with heavy Catophracts and ranks of infantry.

Heavy armor samurai of course.... Though I do love me some ashigaru. Now the question is which time period. Some mongolian invasion era samurai with those huge wide brimmed helmets and tachi or sekigahara era samurai. I can't decide. Also +10 for Hussites.

I went for the Sengoku era Samurai personally (mostly perrys). I have a few Heian era Samurai from the Assault group too just to paint some models of that style.

Steel Fist are planning on making several Daimyo from the battle of Sekigahara and have already made a few including Ishida and Ieysu.

Some really cool suggestions here guys, would never have thought of Aztecs for example

My current non-WW2 period underway is the Second Afghan War. Interesting comparison to recent events in that area. Plus I finally get to paint a unit of Bengal Lancers.

 carlos13th wrote:

 sing your life wrote:
I'd say 6mm Napoleonic, you can have massive ranked horse and musket battles.

I never thought I would like 6mm scale but after getting hold of some 6mm samurai I love them.

I'm not particularly into 6mm miniatures, I just want thousands of soldiers on the tabletop

I have always wants a Pyhruss of Epirus army. Basically a greek general that challenged the early Romans. He won several battles so "convincingly" that it coined the term Pyrrhic Victory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrhus_of_Epirus

I didnt know that Easy. Thanks for sharing.

One of the nice things about historicals is that there is so much choice and variety of figures on the market that you can get nearly any army you want in nearly any scale relatively cheaply.

So for example I have the following armies:

15mm American Civil War Federal
25mm Wars of the Roses (Duke of Norfolk's retinue)
25mm Aztec
15mm Inca
15mm Early Imperial Roman
15mm Old/Middle Kingdom Egyptian

(I won't list fleets of which I have several.)

The pride of my collection though is my 1809-12 Napoleonic Russian Army in 6mm. It consists of about 200 infantry, cavalry and artillery bases, plus generals. This allows me to play a multiple-corps Russian army in most big scale rule sets.

For example, two brigades of Kurassiers.



Napoleonics is an attractive genre for a number of reasons. The wars spanned the known world, taking place over 30 years. In tactics there were no super weapons and no significant technical advances, but the art of strategy and operations moved forward significantly. Above all, the range of uniforms and in particular millinery has never been equalled before or since.

The Russians fought throughout the Napoleonic Wars on one side or another with varying degrees of competence. However the 1812 campaign was the beginning of the end for Napoleon's Empire, one of the great epic struggles of history, and a great subject for wargamers.

Its a wierd period where they gave up almost all forms of personal defence - not even helmits (*) and in battles seldom used cover whilst advancing in brightly coloured uniforms.

(*) I think just some cavalry regiments had them and/or breastplates but no one else?

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The wars took place over 30 years.

I thought the war was only from about 1794 to 1815 [21 years] and didn't get very big until 1799.

 sing your life wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The wars took place over 30 years.

I thought the war was only from about 1794 to 1815 [21 years] and didn't get very big until 1799.

When were the proxy wars between us and France in India?

I though that was during the different 7 years war in the 1750s.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Its a wierd period where they gave up almost all forms of personal defence - not even helmits (*) and in battles seldom used cover whilst advancing in brightly coloured uniforms.

(*) I think just some cavalry regiments had them and/or breastplates but no one else?

Those formations were their defense. Consider that:

1) Cavalry can ride down any individual acting alone
2) Muskets have a pretty short effective range
3) Gun powder weapons make most metal armour useless
4) Firearms of the time could only be loaded while you were standing
5) The bayonet allows any formation of people with muskets to also be spearmen as needed
6) There are no radios to send orders, so you have to use a combination of signals, musicians, messengers and regulating battalions.

The horse & musket era is not an era where people are dumb and don't get it that you want to get out of the way of bullets and fight in loose formations. They were making the exact right move for their combination of technology and lack of modern communication systems. There are three inventions that drastically changed warfare: shell casings (which allows breach loading and magazines), smokeless powder and the radio. Without these three (or so) inventions, the Napoleonic era's troop formations likely represent the most intelligent approach possible.

The cuirassier cavalry that maintained their breast plates did so because of their tendency to fight with other cavalry who had sabres and spears. It was a distinct advantage on the defense to have a brigade of cuirassiers able to threaten any cavalry that might approach your lines or try to get at your artillery. The cuirassiers could also be useful at breaking a formation of infantry that was either caught off guard, having just fired their muskets at someone else or who had been sufficiently demoralized with musket or cannon fire. Or caught in the confusion of a powder smoke haze.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Saf2BBdJ4Yc#t=3m30s

Now imagine instead of a few hundred reinactors, you have multiple battalions of 600+ men firing as the lines meet. Lexington in 1775 was tiny compared to something like Leipzig, which had over 600,000 people present. And no radios.

I am in no way any kind of expert but................

1) Cavalry can ride down any individual acting alone
Thats always been the case - they are usually only truely effective against broken or undisciplned troops?

2) Muskets have a pretty short effective range
Most missile weapons do? I guess the difference is that everyone has them at this point and requires less training and skill than bows

3) Gun powder weapons make most metal armour useless
Hmm metal armour can be bullet or arrow proof but its expensive. But helmets and/or body armour would have likely reduced casulties?

4) Firearms of the time could only be loaded while you were standing
Same as bows really

5) The bayonet allows any formation of people with muskets to also be spearmen as needed
true

6) There are no radios to send orders, so you have to use a combination of signals, musicians, messengers and regulating battalions.
Again thats always been the case? Ancient battles were often very large scale affairs....?

I'm sorry, but dealing with each point individually will get in the way of understanding. You're missing the forest for the trees.

This move away from armour progressed from the pike & shot days for good reasons. Weighing down your battalions with hardened steel armour and helmets would have been very stupid. Even if a breastplate stops a musket ball, the person would likely be knocked out of the fight with cracked or bruised ribs anyway.

It was far more important for the center, flank and grenadier companies in a battalion to be easily identifiable by the shape of their hat and the colour of their plume than giving them all bullet proof helmets that likely won't work at keeping people in the fight.

In the Thirty Years War (ended in 1648), you had soldiers that look like this:



50 years later, you have something like the Great Northern War and soldiers looked like this:



Do you think they're stupid? That they stopped using heavy, hardened armour for no good reason?

Go back and look different factors and think about how they might work together rather than taking them separately and nitpicking them. I'll add another, which is an expansion on 3) above:

7) There's a big difference between an arquebus and a later musket.
.