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Ideal Unit sizes (painting advice)
Topic Started: 13th March 2012 - 07:07 AM (246 Views)
punkskum


Hey all
I'm a new player and I've just received a motherload of Skaven figures to build an army with
Included in my set are
130 IoB clanrats
150 old edition clanrats (these would work as slaves? If so what size unit would you run slaves in?)
30 plague monks (painted but may redo if necessary)
15 jezzails
12 ogres

Since I'd like within each unit to be painted the same colour, what do you suggest this to be? Units of 25, 30, 35, 40...
Should the plague monks stay all the same colour (ie in a unit of 30?)
Jezzails are in units of 5 usually, correct?

Also, and just as advice, do weapon teams form units (yup, I'm THAT green on Warhammer!)
ie mortars, throwers ect....are are they individual units?
Thanks
Squeek squawkkk
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Rageaholic
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Its difficult to give a "fixed" unit size. Since you will likely run different size units in different point games.
That said you can apply some common sense here I guess.

Clanrats: I would say a minimum size of 30 but going to 40 or 50 in bigger games is reasonable, with 130 I would split them 3 ways and make 2 units of 40 and 1 unit of 50.

Slaves: minimum is likely to be 40. you want to always have more ranks than your opponent so 50 or even bigger is not unreasonable. with 150 I would do 3 units of 50.

Plague monks. Small games you might get away with 20, but certainly no less, so keep them as a unit of 30.

Jezails: units of 5 I think? no expert here so maybe units of 3 could be better. I would be less concerned about having these different colours as they are more individual than big ranked up units. I guess I would paint them as 3 x 5, but I doubt you would ever run that many jezails in a single game unless you had a very specific purpose in mind for them.

Ogres: these are largely flesh toned so I would probably paint them all the same, if you really wanted to split them then 2 x 6.

Weapons teams are "attached" to a clanrat or stormvermin unit, so they can use their leadership/rank bonus if they stay within 3", but they aren't ranked up with the unit and you don't use units of weapon teams. You could paint them to match a parent unit, or not as you liked really.

Not sure which old clanrats you are looking at so using them as slaves may be viable, they may fit better as clanrats. I would suggest going through all your models and picking out the most "slavey", so unarmoured or particularly ragged ones to use as slaves and better armoured ones for clanrats, without worrying too much about whether they are old or new models.


Having said all that, remember these are skaven not man-things or pointy ears, with their proud martial traditions and uniforms, so I'm not convinced the units all looking the same really fits, I'm painting mine various colours but keeping all the shields for each unit the same as I think that gives a more Skaveny appearance, while still tying the units together to some extent. Of course these are your models so feel free to ignore me on this, if you want them looking the same do it.
Edited by Rageaholic, 13th March 2012 - 08:31 AM.
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Nurglitch IX
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punkskum
13th March 2012 - 07:07 AM
Since I'd like within each unit to be painted the same colour, what do you suggest this to be? Units of 25, 30, 35, 40...
Should the plague monks stay all the same colour (ie in a unit of 30?)
Jezzails are in units of 5 usually, correct?

Also, and just as advice, do weapon teams form units (yup, I'm THAT green on Warhammer!)
ie mortars, throwers ect....are are they individual units?
I'd use the above since you can always run 23 of your 50 'Red Shirt' Clanrats, but it's rather tough to run 35 of your 30 'Blue Shirts'.

Also, since what they're holding and wearing is slightly more important that what color they are, I'd start by going through and sorting all the rats by "slave - not slave" ignoring the Generation of the model.

As for Weapon Teams. The answer is "Maybe". and I appreciate how useless that is.
When buying them for a game during arming building, consider them 'part' of the parent unit.
When playing with them on the board, they score and act as thier own unit.
When valueing them, I recommend comparing them to Magic Items rather than War Machines.
When painting them (whcih I suspect is why your asking) I'd do them in 'unit' colors to match thier parent unit. One of the cooler samples I saw over the the Army Diary thread (great place for painting ideas) was to do the front rat as a Clanrat from the parent unit, and make the rear rat a slave unit. I'd do this fo rthe Jezzails as well, gun guy gets 'clan' colors, shield guy gets slave color.
Edited by Nurglitch IX, 13th March 2012 - 04:53 PM.
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punkskum


Thanks for the replies, guys
Given I play quite a lot of Kings of War, as well, I've settled on this - eight units of 20 Skaven (IoB) split in painting in four blocks of 40 - 20 spears, 20 hand weapons.
This way I can put them together as one unit of "blue" skaven of 40 or any other combination.
I think the front ranks are the most "telling, so even if I do 50 or 60 in a regiment in Warhammer it's the front say 20 that'll give the weapon and colour theme for me. After that it all just looks like ragged masses of brown with silver anyway.
"The slaves I'm painting all the same, there are too many of them to do much more than that and I do think it's the "look" of three regiments of 50 that's key more than anything else.

I'll follow your guidance on the weapon teams and ogres/brutes though. Go the individual route and call it a day.
Cheers!
S. :rogre:
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