If I had a job (and opponents), I'd start collecting a new themed army. I don't know what kind of army I'd have, but to me, fluff is nearly as important as the game itself. Themed armies are the best way to mix both.

Some people don't give a damn about fluff, though. And it's proven that themed armies are not as efficient in battle as balanced ones. Unless your army is themed around a Skryre engineer's force or the duke of Parravon's knights.

I believe there are many ways to theme an army some that are effective in battle and some aren't. I, for one, love to theme. Why bother playing the game if not for the stories and the figures that represent them? Without the models and the fluff its just rolling dice; go play craps.

I dont have loads of written fluff but my O&G army is very specifically 'Badlands nomadic' and I have names for my characters etc. I have an overall colour theme so my army ties together, visually, quite nicely

My Woodies are still small in number but I'm treating that more as an 'art' thing. Loosely based on a Celtic/British tribal genre (tattoos are dark blue wode); but mostly I am basing my colour theme on Autumn and trying to use Pre-Raphaelite and Alan Lee colouring themes

Its subjective, but if you look at my Great Stag in the painting forum you'll see what I'm trying to do. Browns, Russets, gold, burgundy... luxurious and wealthy looking; but pale skinned and menacing. My Wild Hunt is going to be my centrepiece.

Color themes are of course part of what makes a themed army, but it's not the only thing. What's important in a themed army is a choice of units based on your army's fluff. Like, for example, an all-mounted army of Greenskin raiders, a Tzeentchian force in which every single unit and character has the Mark of Tzeentch or a Wood Elf warband that uses only Forest Spirits.

Themed armies tend to be limitating, but it must be very interesting to field. If I had a high amount of money to spend for an army, I'd probably make a Slaaneshi daemonic legion (even though SoC is over). Or, with a reasonable budget, maybe a Dark Elf defensive army or a High Elf cavalry force.

I think you have the very narrow idea that to have a themed army one must only include certain units from their list and exclude others. While this is how some people (including me) theme their armies there are many other alternatives.

Example #1: a normal empire army but converted it into a chaos worshiping cult, an Arabian convoy, or a Pirate Gang.

Example #2: a normal beastmen army but instead of goat heads have cat heads.

Example #3: one of the most easily to theme armies, ogres, are usually comprised similarly but have the potential to be modeled with a pirate theme, ninja theme, chaos, etc. All of which use similar army list choices but could be themed quite differently.

I just want you to realize that it is quite easy to theme an army using conversions, painting, and bases. Personally I really love to drive home the point of my theme so there could be little doubt therefore I try to use every aspect of my army to drive home the point (painting, converting, army choices, etc).

I have chosen similar army choices in my two different dwrf armies but they will hopefully will look quite different on the board. It isn't the armylist choices that make them so divergent it is how I choose to paint and convert the two different Karaks.

Of course, and that's equally cool. But colors alone are not enough. The convertion job must be something pretty serious to qualify it a themed army. Like those undead High Elves and those Cathayan-themed Brets that GW showed on their website some time ago. The fluff must also be original.

w00t! Ninja's with an Initiative of 2!

Just kidding. Ogres have indeed good converting possibilities.

Of all the ninja wannabe races they aren't the most adept of ninja, very beverly hills ninja. :P

I have both a tzeentchian beastmen force aswell as a tzeentch SoC legion :).

At the moment I'm making a themed army of dwarf phantoms. ^_^ ;)

I always wanted to convert some 'Savage Orc Wifes!", lol, hair in rollers, wearing aprons, wielding rolling pins and frying pans, using snotlings to look like orcy children lol... but the O&G fluff does'nt allow for female orcs... apparentally orcs are fungus; shame that, could off been really funny.

VC are very easy to theme, just pick a particular race to animate the dead of, as it were. There's pretty much something in every other army that can be translated over to VC army choices, so it's not really necessary to pick an inferior army to theme properly. I made a stab at theming my army on undead dark elves. I'm quite happy with how they turned out, but I'm no Golden Daemon winner. The Empire themed undead in the VC army book is a good example, and there are pics of a pretty cool undead orc army floating somewhere around the interweb.

Cheers,
DLJ

Don't be too modest. Your undead Dark Elves are excellent work by any standards.

That must have been expensive to make... How many points can you field?

Not too expensive, the only additional costs were a couple of boxes of Dark Elf warriors. Plus the Black Coach, which was surprisingly pricy... I can make 2750 pts at the moment, but when I finish my zombie dragon I should be able to boost that to about 4000. Not that I'll ever play a game that big, of course.

Cheers,
DLJ

Do you have some picture of this army? I would like to see them^_^ .

There's a link to pics in my sig, m'lord.

Cheers,
DLJ

Aaghhhhhh! we hates it we hates it!!!


(&^$(^%(*^P(&(P^*^%(&%&*!!!!!!!!!


PahhhhHHH!

hu, i've already seen them a while back i think. I really like the blackcoatch.

Well, I did say they were nothing special, though I am proud of my "surfboard of doom"....

Lovely comments from Burp about my complete lack of painting skillz as always! :rolleyes:

Cheers,
DLJ

It would be nice but I just cannot be bothered. I play what works well and what is fun to play with. The closest I get to a theme is my chaos gothic fleet being named after (mostly) French foods. The aim being to set the steak tar tare (I know its not origionaly French) alight.

Nothing to do with your painting skills, everything to do with being beaten 2 - nil!

Cardiff Carnage will change all that! :o)

It would be fun to make one, but it's the time, money and converting skills thing that puts me off a bit. I might make a small force for the Nemesis crown campaign though...

Wait, by phantoms do you mean ghosts or guys in purple spandex?

I mean ghosts, dwarfs in purple spandex is yust to disturbing.... <_< .

hehe

well i've decided to do a themed Knight army for the Nemesis war. I will use the bretonnian list and background and army list for the army will be arriving shortly in the bret section! The army will be inspired by the bunch of thugs and brigands called the teutonic order!