"How long to get a playable force?" Topic

How long should it take to get a playable force assembled and painted for a game?

Let's say you've decided to play Spearhead and your "army" has 20 models. If you take 4 hours to assemble and paint it, is the 80 hours a long time or not?

A FULL army? At least a year, and that's being optimistic.

I'm not taking 4 hours per model for a game. I'm also not playing Warhammer, so maybe my perspective is different.

Figuring out what's going to go with what -- assuming interchangeable parts on sprues -- will probably take 30 minutes. Cutting out and gluing together will probably require 5 minutes per model, or 100 minutes.

Spray primer: About 60 minutes, including: set up work space, arrange models, spray, rearrange, spray the new angles, and dry between coats. I'm doing something else while they're drying, but the question was how long from start to finish, not how much billable time.

Spray base coat: About 30 minutes because no set up.

Paint other colors (gloves, boots, weapons, faces, etc.): About 5 minutes per model, so 100 minutes. It's an assembly line, so all faces get done at once, then all weapons of the same type, then all gloves, etc. By the time I'm finishing the last face, the first one is dry and I can start weapons, etc. So I make no provision for drying time in this analysis. Set up and take down time is negligible.

Wash: About 2 minutes per model, so 40 minutes.

Dry brush: About 2 minutes per model, so 40 minutes.

Bases: I usually paint all bases dark gray and add some splotches of tan and lighter gray. That seems to blend in or at least look OK in any environment. About 2 minutes per model (all dark gray, then all tan, then all lighter gray), so 40 minutes. (I don't have enough experience with using clear bases to estimate the time for that method.)

Spray fix: About 30 minutes, including taking down the work space.

Storage: About 10 minutes (assuming that I have a box fairly ready to use, which I usually do).

I add that up to 480 minutes, or 8 hours, from start to finish. That's 24 minutes per model. Someone please check my math.

Does that sound reasonable and doable? I've never actually measured it, and I don't think I've ever tried to get a platoon or section completely ready from start to finish all at once.

If I were going to that, I think that I would spread it over 2 days, just because I have other things to do besides my hobby all day (yet another reasons that retirement is looking better and better). So in answer to the original question, "How long to get a playable force?", I would say about 2 days.

How long is a piece of string?

Depends entirely on what sort of force for what sort of game we're taking about.

FWIW, the quickest I've painted a playable force from scratch is probably a DBA army I painted in 2 weeks back in 2008. No real idea how many hours of actual painting I got in during those two weeks.

The Sun King and I seem to have very different notions of "a playable force" and I'm not sure His Majesty grasps the concept of a long time.

For a 2mm army suitable for a 2'x2' board, an evening to file and otherwise adjust the figure blocks, 15 minutes the next morning to prime, the next evening to paint, the following morning to matte, and the next evening to glue them to bases--maybe six hours over three days. Finding suitable rules and terrain-making might be longer. Not long.

For two horse & musket armies of 300+ castings each, maybe a year or two of evenings and afternoons as time and money become available. Not long if you enjoy the process--and have the money.

Listening to someone at work spend your lunchtime making you listen to a subject you don't care about and which will never be of use to you--roughly 45 minutes, which is a VERY long time. If it's a useless (to you) college course you have to pass to graduate, the time stretches almost to infinity.

Warhammer Spearhead I'm assuming, not Spearhead the WWII game?

There are some great videos about speed painting GW figures, using all the various "contrast" paints out there.

My Ancients armies of 150-200 figures taken about one hour per figure all told, but that 150+ hours will probably take about a year ! Their opponents may well take another year.

Those Warhammer models are lovely. They are so good they shouldn't be rushed, especially as they are possibly the only good export product that Blighty pushes out nowadays.

Last time I went to the WH shop in Manchester my mate estimated one of the large models (GBP100.00) would take at least a month to assemble and decorate; the staff concurred.

Just considering different colourways for the weapons, armour, and accoutrements could take a very long time, especially after following youtube tips and suitable procrastination.

Of course, if you don't love your models then just glue them up and treat them to a quick spraying from a rattle-can. Base them on musty old beer mats cut raggedly with a rusty pair of scissors.

Don't be surprised if they don't fight very well for you.

Spearhead the Arty Conliffe game? Microarmor, give me an hour after I prime them.

Warhamster Spearhead? Last Warhammer stuff I did was a pile of Nids with speed paints, call it 5 minutes per figure and half of that is assembly, priming and basing. That's what they made the paints for, after all.

Normally, I take 25 minutes a figure for 28mm, 10 for 15mm, except guys in modern uniforms then about 5 minutes each.

Define "should'.

15mm DBA army of about 50 figures, 2 weeks if I crank at it most every night. Some have been started some 20+ years ago…

28mm The Silver Bayonet 8 figures, or Mean Streets 9–12 figure street gang: also 2 weeks.

28mm Never Mind the Naginatas (Billhooks), about 150 figures per force, Ikko-ikki (not a lot of finicky detail) should be table-ready in about 8 months if I keep plugging steadily at it along with other projects. Cranking away non-stop on 150, that just don't happen here.

It really depends. When I had a hard deadline, such as having all of the necessary troops for a convention game that I was running, vs leisure painting during the non convention season and filling out my inventory? I am amazed at how many troops I can do quickly when I have a hard deadline.
With a hard deadline, I have painted about 50 28mm Celts or a 15mm battalion of engineers (about 50 figures and assorted vehicles) in less than a week. Recently I painted a Trench Pilgrims warband in under two weeks. Deadlines definitely help

If I decided to play Spearhead, that means someone else is setting up and providing the forces, so:

0 min +/- 1 hour

I usually paint in bulk and have several projects going. Depending on how uniform the groups are, I can get 20 painted in four fifteen minute segments, or an hour a piece or more.

WWII:

WH40K

My recent 20mm Persian Army took me about three weeks to prep, paint and base, including a conversion job on one of the scythed chariots. Two A4 box files full of figures and Cavalry, I can't be bothered to count them, but maybe a hundred Infantry and sixty cavalry, plus three chariots. Probably more I fantry than that.

Block paint, washes and pain pens for detailing (all those spots and stripes!). An hour or two a day so I guess that is around 30 hours total?

But sometimes I'll spend a week just on one model.