"How many figures for an army?" Topic

Okay, just curious what the mindset is as to how many figures make a reasonable wargaming army with a few options. Absolutely in no way is this a rule specific question. It's more about a reasonable number of figures to paint before getting into a game. I will say I'm not interested in skirmish level gaming so the really small numbers answers will be missing the mark. Primary interest is 1700 to 1900 but mostly the middle hundred years, more or less, of those two hundred years.

Thanks for your input, folk.

(And my condolences to all, even those who voted for it, re: the whole Brexit shenanigans. looking like it's going to be really expensive in a lot of ways)

I don't really see how you can call it an army with less than 150 figures or so for a battle. I think a reasonable number is something more like 300 or more a side but with less than 150 figures a side it doesn't look like much of a battle. This is in 28mm.

In 16 figure units that give you about 7-8 infantry units, some cavalry and an artillery piece at 150 figures. Not really enough to qualify as an army but you might get by doing a smaller battle.

It does to varying degrees depend on the rules. For the DBX type of rules an army maybe 2 or 3 dozen figures. If you are gaming at 1:10 a small army might be 200-300 figures.

200 castings.

I build most of my historical "armies" for Neil Thomas rules. So 2-4 castings to a stand. 2-4 stands to a unit. Generally 10-20 units, including options, per "army".
So 100-150 castings is probably normal for these rules.
Plus the basing is pretty generic enough to use in other rules with little trouble.

2-300 for horse and Musket. 100+ with 10+ vehicles for more modern eras

I would think scale makes a huge difference. A 6-10mm Army probably doesn't begin to look decent until above 500 figures. My 'in process' Sassanid Hail Caesar Army in 6mm has over 700 figures and I still need a bunch more cataphracts at 18 per base.

15's would require more than 25-28's as well but less than 6-10's.

200-300 I guess.

Almost all my armies are built with the ability to field all options on a list. Almost every army is 500-600 figures.

What Saber6 said.

Using my own situation as an example.

I am a solo gamer, so I have to produce both sides for any action. Skirmish is not my choice so I've settled for small Division sized forces.

Napoleonic are typically four to five 16 figure battalions, two or three eight to twelve figure regiments, two to four guns and appropriate chain of command figures. In total about 150 figures PER SIDE. Scales mainly 1/72 and 28mm. That's plenty for me to paint and more than enough to push around a table-top.

Forces are chosen preferably from OOBs ending up 'typical' rather than 'exemplar'.

36 or more.
There is no argument here, there is a law (specifically the laws of the Anglo-Saxon king Ine):
'By "thieves" (Peofas) we mean men up to the number seven; by "a band" (hloo) from seven to thirty-five ; by "an army" (here) above thirty-five'

In 15mm most of my armies up to and including WW1 are about 160 figures plus equipment pieces. WW2 onwards about 70figures plus equipment. This is all very specific to my 15mm adventures and would not aply to any other scale I might try I am sure?

martin

Ican only go by what I personally think of, it would be around 100 plus. Taking sp2 spanish

A skirmish force game however a base force is around 50-60 however to give options for gaming I picked up 2 units of militia, a guerrilla force and 2 units of grenadiers to give flexibility for games, scenarios. I may add a gun and unit of cavalry.

So in total my "army" will when painted consist of 150 figures plus command elements etc.

Whilt not an army it is a cohesive force beyond a basic skirmish force and can morph as a small brigade in other sets of rules if needed where 24/30 figure units are battalions

For "proper battle" Wargames I look at how many figures will work on a table.

So for a table with some terrain – maybe 25-30% cover – I find that the following works:

Start with figure scale – say 15mm
Depth of line infantry – 2 figures
Width of single figure base – 1/2 inch
Width per figure in line – 1/4 inch
How many line infantry will fill the width of my table
6 foot table = 72 inches, 4 figures per inch = 288 figures.
Figures per infantry unit – 24
Units – 12
Assume foot, horse, gun units have similar frontages.

So army size is 12 units for 15mm on 6 foot table
When deployed they won't stretch in line across the table, second line, reserve etc will spread them out.

12 units would be my core force for this size of game.

Add extras for variety I would go for about 350-400 in 15mm. About 2/3 of that for 28's.

So many variables- rules, scales, era etc.
My DBA "armies" (10mm and 15 mm)are between 30 and 60 figures. On the other hand my 10mm army for William's Wars is already up 240 cavalry and 350 infantry and I have only actually done the Dutch and Danish contingents at the Boyne, still have all of the British infantry and most of their cavalry to paint and base and then it's on to the Jacobites.
In 28 mm I have a Parliamentary army of around 60 cavalry and 150 infantry; quite big enough to refight Montgomery, Middlewich etc. at 1 figure represents between 10 to 20 men.
We are currently playing out the Battle of Neerwinden1693 in 10mm. Even using a scale of 1:50 figures to men we have about 1000 allied and 1600 French figures on the 7x5 table.

DBN uses basic armies of 12 'elements', with a couple of basing options:

Line infantry: single-ranked at 4 figures per base, or double-ranked with 8.
Light infantry: single-ranked at 3 figures per base, or double-ranked with 6.
Light cavalry: 3 figures per base
Heavy cavalry: 4 figures per base
Artillery, foot: gun & 4 crew per base, horse: gun &. 3 crew per base
And some specialist units with 2 figures per base.

Taking – for the sake of argument – a French Peninsular army: 129 figures (plus a 'camp' or 'baggage train' stand) would get you the 19 elements needed to make every possible force composition from the army list, using double-ranked infantry.

Somewhere around 1000 figures might satisfy my visual definition for an "army" not that I have anywhere near that number. My largest group of figures is a Roman legion with just over 500 3mm figures. I usually game small unit actions or skirmish with miniatures. Really do not think the average gamer has space for, time to paint, or budget to do an actual army. I know their are exceptions and clubs where multiple members can contribute units may be different.

If you want to war game with armies I go with board games.

Well it may not be rules dependent but it will be size dependent. 10mm will need lots more than 28mm. A smallish force in my 10mm stuff will be 500 odd figures. I've never fielded anything close to that in 28mm.
A substantial army in 28mm may need several players to run it.
By happy coincidence I picked up the latest copy of Miniature Wargames today and it includes Pt 1 of Henry's report on the Ayton weekend game. My, rather modest, contribution was about 200 – 300 figures.

Medieval army: 16 pieces. Guess the ruleset?

Chess

Many thanks for all of the constructive responses so far. I am well entrenched in 15 mm – so those comments are very pertinent but other scale focused comments are useful.

To add another dimension to the question, perhaps, but what if the goal is three players per side – does that mean tripling the total number of figures?

Part of my motivation for the question is to "retrench" to a more reasonable number of figures. I will keep a collection or two of "over the top" numbers but I want to dial down everything else.

Again, thanks for all the useful input.

79th FTW!