Topic: Question: Ranking with Characters

[Jmash]

Right, apologies for the very basic, beginners question here but something has been bugging me.

How do you go about setting up your rank and file when you add extra character models to a unit?

Where I'm coming from is; if I have a nice tidy unit of say 20 halberdiers but I want to tag a Captain and/or a Warrior Priest to it, I then have a block of 21 or 22 infantry which is then an awkward number, so how do you line them all up in a neat and consistent way???

Do people just end up with a weird odd-numbered not-quite-full rank at the back or is this where people get creative with 'unit fillers' etc?

[Naitsabes]

either you plan those tidy block while list building (so 19 halberdiers because you intend to add a character upon deployment) or you live with the messiness of life and have an incomplete rank in the back (per the rules you are supposed to put the trailing models in the middle of the incomplete rank as much as possible).

Theoretically you could include some number of empty, flocked bases to round out the unit if that is less offensive aestethically for you. just make sure your opponent understands, because unit filler in the classical sense means bases without (or with less) proper models standing in for proper models

also no amount of tidyness survives contact with the enemy 

[Jmash]

 

I could never bring myself to only use 19 guys to leave space for a character!? They come in boxes of 10! ... or 16...

Sooo ultimately just do whatever makes me happiest??? 

The plan in the long run is probably to 3D print some movement trays for display purposes so as long as I plan ahead for however many will be there inclusive or exclusive of characters, then I can round out the aesthetics however I want to...

[Fidelis von Sigmaringen]

What Naitsabes said: no amount of tidiness survives contact with the enemy.  Whatever you try, you will have to accept that in the end. Hence, you may as well accept it from the start.

[Jmash]

Well admittedly they're only ever going to sit in my display case so they can stay as tidy as parade day forever and always, hence why I want to get them right!

[Zygmund]

If you only do the unit for display purposes, I'd do a six-wide, four-deep unit of 24, so 22 halberdiers and the two characters.

Larger frontage = more to look at.

Also one less extra halberdier to paint compared to a 5 x 5 = 25 strong unit.

How you add those two halberdiers is up to you. This could be a small 40mm x 20mm unit filler.

-Z

[Rowsdower]

My army is so big its needs officers/characters to keep the semi-literate peasantry in order