How to build a Best painted army: Part 1

Over the next couple of weeks I would like to bring you a series of articles on how to win a best painted award. This wont be an article on how to win a tourney nor how to build a competitive army list (That one is for Ado to write). And this article won’t really be army specific. What I will bring you is some general tips that will greatly increase your chances of wining best painted army.

Now don’t worry that your not a golden daemon level painter (This could help but would take too long to finish and army) You will need to know how to paint and do conversion though so if this is a problem for you then I would suggest you work on those skills first.

So here is a list to get you started and we will develop this list as we progress along.

1.      The Theme. The first thing you will need is a theme. A theme you say don’t we need an army first. My answer is not necessarily. The last warhammer army I finished was a Spartan army. I could use it as A high elf army, Dark elf army and Chaos army as well as use it in ancients as a Spartan army. I developed the theme first then applied it to an army list.

2.      Show pieces. These will be some models that stand out from the crowd. These models will require special love and attention in order to really show them off. An example of one of these could be your general or war engine but don’t get them confused with the next item on our list

                       Paymaster                                                                         High elf Noble

3.      The centre piece. Much like the “show pieces” the “centre piece” requires allot of attention. It will also be the biggest model in you army so will take the most time. This piece doesn’t have to be one single model though. In the case of the Spartan army I had one unit attacking a Minotaur and this was my centre piece. In my Ogre army I had a unit of two Rhinox riders that really stood out. The whole idea of the centre piece though is to get the affect of

       "Dood, you have to come look at this model in this army". If you are hearing that then you got

        it right.

4.      Eye catchers. In each unit you need a few little details that when people have a second or third look they will notice the extra details. In my Ogre army I had a unit of Gnoblars riding toy ponies. Then behind then I had Gnoblars clapping coconuts together and then some guy carrying stuff and then the guys carrying all the luggage. Little things like this just give people a reason to hang around longer and look at your stuff. When it comes to voting on the best painted these things will stick in their minds when two armies are close to being selected.

5.      Taylor your army selection to pick the theme or get creative with you conversions. When I was playing Ogres I picked Bretonnian as my theme. I was originally going to make a Monty Python version of the Guy on a toy pony and the coconut guy but I thought it was too cheesy for a real Bret army but Once I saw this guy

I knew what I wanted to do. So I picked my theme then my army based on one guy. Anyway after a few games I needed some fire power so I wanted to add some lead belchers except they didn't fit in with the Bret theme. So I modelled them on the Archers with Braziers and flaming arrows and problem solved.

Ok thats it for today. In part 2 I will look at the first topic The Theme

I'll update this with pics later.