Largest possible army?(Collector's perspective)

[Gandalf the Gay]

When the new Empire book came out, I found myself making an armylist that would encompass all the models I wanted to get. I did not think much about the effectiveness of the army, but almost exclusively on the models I wanted in it, while maintaining the look of a balanced army(and keeping it legal, rules-wise).

160 infantry, 15 cavalry, 8 characters(including a Beast wizard mounted on a horse), two pieces of artillery, a hurricanium and a griffon later, I'm at 3000 points(no magic items) and I do not feel like I have exhausted the painting and modeling opportunities of the Empire army(this is all theoretical, btw).

My Chaos army is about 2000 and there are still plenty models I want to add to it.

However, I have been writing lists to try to figure out the next army to collect, and many of them fall short of even 2000 points. My Necromancer VC armylist is barely 1500pts and I am out of units to add to it. In my opinion, Wood elves and Beastmen have similar limits.

So I ask, what army has especially large or small limits from an army collectors point of view?
This is of course extremely subjective, but lets discuss it.

[Graxy]

O&G. The army isn't great but it has so much variety and options, for collecting, they're amazing. I'm not even a collector and I have about 5000+ points of them, just from buying stuff to try it out

[calnen]

orcs and goblins can be huge. Just through a long period of collecting the various choices, I've got around 300 orcs of various flavours, a similar number of goblins, and there are 6 or so pages of support choices in the army book to go with them. Trying out things like chariot-heavy armies boosts your collection very quickly, of course. For what it's worth, the biggest army I've ever fielded was an infantry-heavy 8000 point list. I'm sure others here have played much bigger than that though.

[DaemonReign]

My legal Daemon Army is ~30000points.
The Empire player in our group can field about 10000pts.
Same with the Dwarf-player, and the OnG collection we have together.
Currently working on getting our Dark Elves and Vampires up to the 10k Mark as well.

I find games of 6k and up to be vastly superior experiences compared to the 'normal' game sizes. You might not believe it, but it's well worth the time and effort to buy&paint all those models. 8th Edition really shines once you break into that domain.

[Axeman1n]

I'm pretty happy with the high points totals on my Ogres. It seems like I've only just touched the surface of the collection and i'm already up over 4k.

[RanaldLoec]

My empire army encompasses

560+ infantry

92+ knights

16+ fast cavalry

12 demi gryphs

14 warmachines including 40+ crew

2 stanks

36+ character models

18,000 point legal.

Chaos is touching 16,000

And Woodelves at 8500.

For size and cost my empire is easily the biggest.

[yabbadabba]

From a collectors point of view Empire can be very silly - not only are there lots of choices but you can repeat them for each of the city states and Elector Counts, throwing in the Arch Lectors of Ulric and Sigmar and the various Knightly Orders. Lots of replication in army stats, very little replication in visuality.

[Gandalf the Gay]

And Woodelves at 8500.

I would love to hear about your wood elves. Is it all 6th ed models or older too? How did you manage to make such a large collection without getting bored with them?

[Plexi]

I would love to hear about your wood elves. Is it all 6th ed models or older too? How did you manage to make such a large collection without getting bored with them?

8500 is fairly easy to do when your units are so overpriced, .

Seriously though, I'm at about 12k of WE with a mix of older models and newer. If you just stick with an army instead of hopping over to the 'new hotness' you tend to get a rather nice collection rather quick.

[DivineVisitor]

When my Empire is finished im looking at them being 15k with my secondary armies of Lizardmen and Slaaneshi Daemons at 5k each.

Lords/Heroes:
Karl Franz

Templar Grand Master of the Knights of the White Wolf
Templar Grand Master of the Knights of the Gold Lion

Arch Lector w/War Altar

Amber Wizard
Amethyst Wizard
Bright Wizard
Celestial Wizard
Gold Wizard
Grey Wizard
Light Wizard
Jade Wizard

Captain of the Empire w/BSB
2 Captains of the Empire

5 Warrior Priests

5 Witch Hunters

6 Engineers

Core:
49 Halberdiers w/FC, 20 Halberdiers, 6 Archers
49 Halberdiers w/FC, 20 Halberdiers, 6 Archers
49 Spearmen w/FC, 20 Halberdiers, 6 Archers
49 Swordsmen w/FC, 20 Halberdiers, 6 Archers
20 Handgunners w/FC, 10 Crossbowmen, 10 Crossbowmen
20 Handgunners w/FC, 10 Crossbowmen, 10 Crossbowmen
20 Knights of the Gold Lion w/FC
20 Knights of the White Wolf w/FC

Special:
49 Greatswords w/FC, 9 Swordsmen, 9 Swordsmen
20 Reiksguard Knights w/FC
3 Demigryph Knights w/FC
3 Demigryph Knights w/FC
6 Pistoleers w/FC
6 Pistoleers w/FC
6 Outriders w/FC
6 Outriders w/FC
50 Flagellants w/FC
2 Great Cannons
2 Mortars

Rare:
2 Celestial Hurricaniums
2 Luminarks of Hysh
2 Hellblaster Volley Guns
2 Hellstorm Rocket Batteries
Steam Tank w/Hochland Long Rifle

Monsters from the Imperial Zoo:
Imperial Dragon (Emperor Dragon)
2 Griffons (inc Deathclaw)
2 Pegasus

Allies:
Dwarf Daemon Slayer
49 Dwarf Slayers w/FC

High Elf Prince
11 High Elf Shadow Warriors w/Walker



Even this is small compared to some armies though.

[DaemonReign]

When my Empire is finished im looking at..

Respect!
That just looks all awesome because I assume it's practically all painted too.

[DivineVisitor]

Respect!
That just looks all awesome because I assume it's practically all painted too.

I wish! Built just about all of it but Il not find proper time to get down to painting till im on holiday.

[Evil Hypnotist]

Sorry to head a little off topic but just wondering how all the people with tens of thousands of points store it all, do you have them out, in boxes, in carry cases, do you store them ready for battle? My 10k WoC are stuffed into 2 carry cases and a stacking crate, my 5k Daemons in 2 packing boxes, only my 50 strong Khorne marauder unit is ready to go, the rest take an age to get ready before a game.

[yabbadabba]

At the moment my shopping list is about £700 to finish off my army. By then it will be obscene though

[DivineVisitor]

Sorry to head a little off topic but just wondering how all the people with tens of thousands of points store it all, do you have them out, in boxes, in carry cases, do you store them ready for battle? My 10k WoC are stuffed into 2 carry cases and a stacking crate, my 5k Daemons in 2 packing boxes, only my 50 strong Khorne marauder unit is ready to go, the rest take an age to get ready before a game.

I bought two of these:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Brand-New-...#ht_1182wt_917

Worth every penny, dont wanna think about having to take them apart when i move house though. However i suspect it'l be easier than it looks. Nothing was stuck together. All screws which would be easily loosened.

Even big enough to stick a Thunderhawk Gunship in!

[TheDarkDuke]

For my personally armies I have no issues getting them to 3000 points with what I want (High Elf, Ogre Kingdoms, Vampire Counts) I could easily go higher with High Elf. Ogres and VC I would have some core repetitiveness which would maybe bore me but lots of options in the special/rare/zombie dragon to add so wouldn't be too bad. My 4th army is Clan Pestilence, and they are pretty much capped at 2000 points. I "could" do some crazy count as stuff or start adding a bunch of slaves/clan rats but that is a lot of boring imo. So all in all I think it really depends on the army you like and the way you think of them. My brother easily as 4000-5000 of Lizardmen, Dark Elf and Orcs and Goblins and use to have the same in Chaos but the split has him at 2000 WoC and bored beyond belief with them and 2000 Beastmen and bored.

I think you have to break it down in an army book to succeed well like:
Lots of Lord/Hero options/big points costs
Core variety/higher points cost
Special variety
Rare variety/points cost

I see Orcs and Goblins as probably the easiest to get "out of control with" and into high points value. Empire are probably a second. Then just due to points cost and variety High Elf, Dark Elf, Lizardmen and Ogre Kingdoms are in a second grouping imo.

The armies where it really would be a whole bunch of repetitiveness and painstaking work at this point to start "running out of options/too much repetitiveness etc" I think you have too look at over 3000 points. The above listed I think can hit 3000 with ease. I will say all armies can hit 3000 without too much trouble, but the above can get there without much effort. So 5000+ range would be a good size to say "am I bored, am I really just doing the same thing, am I doing anything actually new or different in the army". The rest of the armies struggle in this range too not included the same 200 core troops, 50-100 special troops again, oh 3 more cannons/monster etc, but are all the same and not really doing anything new, exciting but just making the 2000 or 3000 point army look bigger.

[Lorcryst]

When my Empire is finished im looking at them being 15k ...

Very impressive list !

Just a small nitpick tough, Slayers are currently limited to 30 per unit ... so your huge horde of Slayer isn't legal

I'm looking at a similar number of models for my Night Goblin army, but since gobboes are cheap, I think I'll max out at roughly 7K (including 4 Mangler Squigs, 4 Giants and plenty of Squigs, Herds and Hoppers) ...

I had a 5K Chaos Army before The Split, now I have almost 2K4 of Mortals, roughly 1K5 of Daemons and maybe 1K4 of Beastmen ... and also the start of a High Elf collection (~3K at the moment).

I sold most of my Dwarves, only keeping a small 1K list made of Battle for Skull Pass models, ditto for my Skavens (only kept the contents of the Island of Blood set, so maybe 750 points), and I still have bits of Empire left from the 6th ed starter set.

So, that's roughly twenty years of collecting on a very limited budget, and even then the size grew beyond my expectations ...



But after all that, I think that the "best collectable army" award goes to the Greenskins, lots and lots of variation with the different kinds of greenies, even more variation with the weapon loadouts in the same unit entry, LOTS of scope for convertions, and big/huge units look nice too !

[DivineVisitor]

Very impressive list !

Just a small nitpick tough, Slayers are currently limited to 30 per unit ... so your huge horde of Slayer isn't legal

Never said anything about legal

[DaemonReign]

Sorry to head a little off topic but just wondering how all the people with tens of thousands of points store it all?

How this off topic?

Shelves. Many of them. From floor to ceiling. And then little 'filing-cabinetts' inside some of those shelves for little models that arn't too tall or pointy.

[decker_cky]

My beastmen would easily top 10k. Tons of that is the increase in mino cost from last edition to this edition (20+ metal minos, 10ish current scale ones) which realistically won't make the army. There's always next edition. Otherwise, there's things like expanding so you can fill your core with centigors, having options for 5-6 chariots, taking a second horde of bestigors, filling out 2 big blocks of ungors, the ridiculous amount of extra gors you got both in the old herd box and in the new battalion, etc.. Add in characters (beastmen regularly will use 4 shamans, and when you replace a few with nicer models that gets you a lot of shamans), etc.. Oh, and 20 or so spawn for the old Morghur list. That 10k total is also with only 3 monsters available. Someday I'll probably fill out the list so I can have 2 ghorgons, 2 cygors, 2 giants or 2 jabbers.

Filling out any army can get to ridiculous army sizes. When you start thinking of all the possible playstyles you'd want to play with an army, then have a new book come out and you need other new units, it adds up pretty fast.