The Tale of Four Armies interest gathering.

[Larkyn]

For the year of 2018, I'm going to attempt a new plog challenge, the Tale of Four Armies. The basic idea is paint an army every quarter, and by the end of the year, you should have 4 armies done.

 

I.E., January 1 - March 31: Army 1

 

April 1 - June 30: Army 2

 

July 1 - September 30: Army 3

 

October 1 - December 31: Army 4

 

 

I'm wondering if anyone else is interested in trying this with me, as unmotivated as I am, I'm not sure I'll be able to keep up with it, but if I have a support group to fall back on, I'm sure I can manage.

[Kinstryfe]

I'm slightly interested, but 4 full armies in a year seems kind of ambitious. Are you talking like 1000pt armies, or Marine companies? I know a lot of painting logs in this format seem to follow more than a 3 month approach to accommodate even slower painters. I have a fairly ambitious project I've been working on, and having a goal for motivation to paint it in sections may be useful, though I'd just end up painting 4 army sized chunks of a giant army.

 

I like the idea, but just wonder if it isn't a little ambitious painting wise (not to mention $-wise if people don't have 4 armies already lying around).

[Major_Gilbear]

I'd agree that if by four armies you mean four subfactions or related armies (Harlequins, Eldar, Dark Eldar, and Ynnari for example) it would be reasonably possible, especially if you kept each force to about 500pts, and the goal was to combine them in varying proportions to play games with at the end.

 

But four fully-different armies, of 1000pts each or more, is a pretty tough challenge for even the most motivated of painters.

 

Now, I'm not saying don't go for it, but I am saying this will take some serious willpower to see it through and I'm not sure (m)any will make it to the end.

 

Maybe if you set the goal as two armies, each at least 500pts, and totalling at least 1500pts together, that would be more doable. Not only would you have twice the time to paint them in, but it would potentially be much more affordable for other participants too.

[Larkyn]

Yeah, thinking about it, maybe four full armies might be too much for most (probably me too).

 

We could change it to four 500-750~ point Patrol detachments. Something up to 1,250 points, for those willing to make the most of it.

 

That would be better $ wise and time wise.

[Kinstryfe]

I believe a lot of the Tale of X projects tend to run monthly, in chunks. Enough time to get something painted, but not so much that people forget about it. Maybe even start it as something like a 2000pt(?) goal, painted in chunks over several months? I'm sure someone who's participated in one before may have better insight than I, though.

[Larkyn]

250 points a month, for the quarter, would see 750 points per quarter. 1,500 per half year, 3,000 points in the year. That could be something we go for. Either 4 small armies, 2 1,500 point armies, or one large army, or anything in between. This project would be flexible enough to accommodate people who don't want to spend a load of money, just simply a Start Collecting box, and a handful of other things; to those willing to go all out for a full 3,000 point force.

[Dosjetka]

I could be interested but it's the one-year commitment I'm wary of simply because in the past it's been difficult for me to commit to even one-month-long events...

 

EDIT: I have a suggestion. Perhaps you could start with doing this as either a three-month or a six-month event and see how it goes. If it goes well, prolong it by another six months (with the option for people to drop out and be replaced by new people) and if it doesn't work out, lessons will be learned and you should still have something to show for your participation even if you didn't get as far as you wanted to. :tu:

Edited October 23, 2017 by Chaplain Dosjetka

[Larkyn]

Hmmm...How about we just make it Quarter 1 just to start, from January 1 to March 31. We see how that goes, and if people have made progress, we can work out if we continue or not? Make it the 250 points a month, and plan to have 750 points by March 31?

[Dosjetka]

Works for me. :tu:

 

I've got some Tyranids I was planning on starting in December but I have no problems with pushing that back a month to be able to use them for this.

[Larkyn]

I've got lots of mini projects thanks to my newest Story Plog, so working on several forces next year will be good for me, so hopefully it gathers a lot of momentum.

[Dosjetka]

How many people do you want involved in this, ideally?

[Larkyn]

I'm thinking between 5 and 10. Keep it a small number, but enough people to keep up the motivation. A small enough number would allow us to keep up a PM chat, and the content thread. 

 

Although, I wouldn't be opposed to an even smaller number too, and turn it into a more narrative-driven project. I'm a huge fan of fluffy plogs, which is what I'm leaning towards in my Darkness Within thread, so if people would be interested in something like that too, I'm down.

[Focslain]

I'm interested in anything that keeps me painting. Once you get the rules down I'll be up for it. 

Personally I actually tried something like this a few years back where I would work/play with one army per 3 months. Gave variety and helped my cycle play time between my near dozen armies. 

[Larkyn]

So, how's this work for everyone:

 

Paint 250 points a month for the year of 2018.

Each vow does not have to be the same faction as the month before (faction ADD), it only matters that you paint.

 

Basic Vow: 250 points in a month.

Commander Vow: Paint 500 points in a month.

Warlord Vow: Paint 750 points in a month.

Lord General: End the Tale with an army painted during this even totaling 1,000 points or more.

 

If unit or model is over 250 points (land raider, repulsor, titan), either can vow Commander, or complete it over two months.

 

This gives people enough freedom throughout the year to work on whatever they please, as we'll be looking at quite a few new codices throughout, and I know quite a few people suffer from Hobby ADD like me.

[Focslain]

Sounds good, since this is starting January that gives me time to catalog what new stuff I get over the holidays and break it down to 250 pts chunks.

[Major_Gilbear]

I think painting 250pts of Guard every month would defeat me (a squad of ten is only 40pts...!).

 

If the army "value" isn't important (as you won't likely be playing each other at the end), why not make it one Force Org slot each month? That way participants can pledge more if they want, and you don't lose people who fall behind one month (which is inevitably what always happens).

[Mileposter]

250 points a month is an extremely tall order in quite a few circumstances. I mean, sure, defeated easily by a single model for some units, but seems to get strangled when you start talking about Troop slot things. Nids. Guard. Orks. Eldar. Even Space Marines would need to do 20-25 regular Bolter TacMarines to hit the mark, which could be very rough for some participants like myself.

 

The Force Org slot a month seems far more manageable. Allows you the chance to double up or get a head start if you're doing one of the units that is easy, but gives you the leeway to not panic when you have to get 30 Daemons done to hit 250pts/1slot.

[Focslain]

250 points a month is an extremely tall order in quite a few circumstances. I mean, sure, defeated easily by a single model for some units, but seems to get strangled when you start talking about Troop slot things. Nids. Guard. Orks. Eldar. Even Space Marines would need to do 20-25 regular Bolter TacMarines to hit the mark, which could be very rough for some participants like myself.

 

The Force Org slot a month seems far more manageable. Allows you the chance to double up or get a head start if you're doing one of the units that is easy, but gives you the leeway to not panic when you have to get 30 Daemons done to hit 250pts/1slot.

 

In the case of the horde armies, yeah getting 250 is a bit rough if you are only doing a single choice. But if you do a squad then a transport or vehicle then your good. Marines aren't too hard as a tac squad can run ~180 easy if you get a special weapon, heavy weapon and the sgt has an option or two.

[Mileposter]

 

250 points a month is an extremely tall order in quite a few circumstances. I mean, sure, defeated easily by a single model for some units, but seems to get strangled when you start talking about Troop slot things. Nids. Guard. Orks. Eldar. Even Space Marines would need to do 20-25 regular Bolter TacMarines to hit the mark, which could be very rough for some participants like myself.

 

The Force Org slot a month seems far more manageable. Allows you the chance to double up or get a head start if you're doing one of the units that is easy, but gives you the leeway to not panic when you have to get 30 Daemons done to hit 250pts/1slot.

 

In the case of the horde armies, yeah getting 250 is a bit rough if you are only doing a single choice. But if you do a squad then a transport or vehicle then your good. Marines aren't too hard as a tac squad can run ~180 easy if you get a special weapon, heavy weapon and the sgt has an option or two.

 

This is great in terms of thinking about what's possible in a vacuum - but may not be possible depending on the army people are building. Since the stated goal is to build a fieldable working army, it's worth considering in both contexts.

[Kinstryfe]

The first "tale of..." I'm aware of back in the 90s in White Dwarf was actually organized around money. Each player got a certain allotment each month to spend toward their army, with the goal being having a usable army by the time it was all over. That may be a way to keep it "fair", basing it all on one type of currency as an equalizer. That way the 40pt guard squad and a 130(?)pt tactical squad are rated as closer to equal at $29us to $40us. Each participant got to keep any change to spend in the future and round out those months, and the end result was 4 usable armies. Maybe some currency value would make more sense than using the points values?

 

This may keep it closer to equal for everyone, with the emphasis being on building a usable army rather than building XXXpts of army. Some things may need to be slightly adjusted, but pretty much every unit entry has a GW kit that could give us it's value in currency. If people run conversions, we could just base it on the standard kit (i.e. 10 heavily covered Black Dragons assault marines just count as the cost of the 10 assault marines, without worrying about the bits added on).

 

Just an idea that may avoid months where one person paints two figures, and another paints 65 Guardsmen.

 

I may also recommend running it for maybe 6 months first, them a second if it's successful. It's a lot less of a commitment than a whole year.

[Major_Gilbear]

The first "Tale Of..." was organised around a budget, as Kinstryfe correctly points out. However, as somebody who was in their teens when this came out, I remember the monthly budgets were set rather above what I got in terms of allowance; the article therefore failed to help me get stuck in with a similar project myself because I simply didn't have the money.

 

The other issue with using money rather than points or Force Orgs is that armies with lots of models are still penalised if the goal is to have a playable army at the end. A 10-model Tactical squad is £25 (and has lots of options), whereas the equivalent Guard squad is £18-25 (and has very few options); and the points difference still makes getting a playable Guard army at the end difficult to acheive within the same budget compared to the Marines. It's another reason why Marines are popular armies in an expensive hobby!

 

Therefore, I think you need to either restrict what the scope is ("Marine armies only"), or accept that not all the armies may not be full playable forces ("paint one unit or Force Org slot a month), or just accept that some armies will just make harder choices for the challenge (swarm armies, especially those painted up in a more usual/traditional way) and will most likely lose people along the way.

 

Ultimately, I think having something to show every month and completing the challenge is more important that getting a playable force at the end. Whether 50 Marines or 50 Guard are painted at the end of six months, it still means that everybody got a good chunk of miniatures done.

 

I also think using Force Orgs (and perhaps participants can choose between a Patrol, a Brigade or a Battalion) helps to ensure that people end up with a nice-looking collection at the end. You could also have a tiered completion too; bronze if you complete the mandatory slots, Silver if you complete more, and gold if you complete the whole chart. The tiers could be overlaid onto a badge showing which Force Org chart you participated with.

 

Anyway, just some more thoughts. :)

[Kinstryfe]

I agree with the Major. It's sort of an impossible problem. If points, horde armies are sort of penalized. Detachment charts may be a good compromise, especially as you can kind of fudge it a little. (That's not a unit of 30 Conscripts, it's 3 naked guard squads...).

[Dosjetka]

Major: I do like your idea of going with one of the Detachments but what about for people, like Larkyn, who'd like to swap army every month? Also where did the ranking thing come from? If we run with it, I suggest the following:

• [Tier I / Bronze]: At the end of the x months, the participant has painted at least one unit per month;
• [Tier II / Silver]: At the end of x months, the participant has painted enough units to complete at least the minimum requirements for a Battle-Forged Detachment OR has painted two units per month;
• [Tier III / Gold]: At the end of x months, the participant has painted enough units to complete a full Battle-Forged Detachment (all slots filled) OR has painted three units per month;
• [Tier IV / Platinum]: At the end of x months, the participant has painted enough units to complete at least one full Battle-Forged Detachment (all slots filled) and one Detachment with the minimum requirements OR has painted four or more units per month.

Thoughts?

[Kinstryfe]

I think there's something to be gained by keeping things simple. A tiered system seems unnecessary, imho, if the main goal is simply /to paint a bunch of models reliably across several months/. For example, I took part in a painting event that lasted a couple months some years ago at a GW store. It was organized around the then force org chart, where the goal was to have a couple units painted a week, but the end goal to win a prize was to paint a complete force org chart (basically equivalent to a a batallion minus some elite slots), and it worked out pretty well at the time.

 

Just my opinions, but I would advocate for something like:

 

3 month run time to start, and run longer or again if it is successful. This keeps commitments manageable for everyone, as well as letting people swap out armies now and then if they want.

 

Goal after 3 months of having a battle-forged detachment (or more) painted and based, with at least one non HQ/Character slot painted each month. Alternately, maybe 2 non-character units per month if people really don't want to work around a detachment.

 

That would give both structure, but also flexibility every 3 months to change up if people want, and removes some of the discrepancy between horde and elite armies (30 Termagants can be slotted as 3x10 units, for example).

 

Just some ideas, but I do think less can be more, otherwise rules and regulations can start bogging things down.

[Major_Gilbear]

As you might have realised, I have been thinking about the structure of many of these events for some time. It just happens that Larkyn's post has triggered my putting some of these thoughts down!

 

Many people seem to have plenty of time, but not much in the way of money/models/resources. Many others are in the opposite situation, where they have the money and a mountain of models, but lack the free time. I myself have transitioned from the former into the latter, and so I see both sides quite well.

 

Of course, there are still many more who are rather more practical in what they buy vs what they paint! However, for particular events like these, I always feel they're not aimed at people who don't struggle to complete units one way or another, which is somewhat ironic as they are usually the participants who actually complete the events.

 

Anyway, as Kinstryfe says, the goal is to get stuff finished. That's built, prepped, based, and painted.

 

What has defeated me in all the events that I've taken part in (over various forums and many years) is that I am very slow. From opening the blister to a fully-finished model might take me at least 15 hours. A squad of ten models is therefore a pretty big commitment for me. I spend about about 10 hours a week painting, so it might take me several months to complete one squad. I have recently been working on improving speed (at the cost of quality), and managed to get a unit of 20 models built and painted in about 4 months this year. Even so, whilst this is my own issue, I also realise that I'm not alone.

 

Where many of these challenges fall down in my experience is that at some point after the first 6 weeks or so, some people fall behind. They don't catch up before the next month, and fall behind further. At that point they are out of the challenge. If a challenge starts with 10 participants, you'll be lucky to see ~4 actually finish it.

 

So it got me thinking, and the answer came to me whilst playing a computer game where you get achievements. Specifically, the achievements fall (to me) into four categories: those that everyone gets just by playing and completing the game, the easy ones that you'll probably get as long as you're aware of them and make sure you snag them along the way, the harder ones that require some effort but are doable with a little focus, and the finally the ones that require you to grind all the fun out of the game until you can't stand the thought of playing any more.

 

Now, what this can offer is pretty straightforward; participants can choose a Force Org that reflects what they feel they can accomplish for their time/funds/resources, and they only have to complete the mandatory slots by the end of the period (say 3-4 months). This is like playing the computer game on easy/normal/hard and getting the game completion achievements at the relevant level. Next, there is the option for anyone who wants to do more than the mandatory slots. Pretty simple, and this equates to the achievements that require a bit of focus to get. Finally, those who want to max out their chosen Force Org Chart can do so (if they want to and can), and this equates to the top tier of achievements - they require a lot of focus and effort, and whilst not impossible, they are not completed by most people.

 

What this means is that somebody could complete the event with an HQ and two Troops choices, and get a badge for it. Somebody else can also participate and paint a much bigger force, and get a badge for it. In the end, both have participated, both have completed, and both have achieved "success" in getting models painted. I feel that getting completed and successful participation is important (i.e., the ultimate goal), rather than everybody following on the same rails and most of them never finishing. I mean, if the participants aren't playing games against each other at the end, does the size of the force at the end really matter for purposes of the challenge?

 

It may be that what Larkyn has in mind is quite different, and perhaps I should save these ideas for a different future event. Even so, I still it's worth considering, as it's pretty difficult for most of us to paint an army in one year, never mind to do so on a strict timetable.

Edited November 11, 2017 by Major_Gilbear
Spelling