December 2005 - Where has the Theme gone?

Two hobbyists are chatting to each other about the armies they’re collecting. “What’s your theme?”, says the first. “Well, I’m collecting an all mounted armoured Marine army, with only infantry, transports and tanks. It’s like a blitzkrieg army so I’m not taking anything that walks or flys”, the other replies, “How about your’s?”. “Oh, I’m collecting an Ork army that’s lead by a Warboss who’s had a lobotomy and is actually controlled by his Painboy by remote control. So all of the orks have antenna and gadgets so they can be controlled”. A third hobbyist walks in at the end of the conversation and asks, “What are you blokes talking about?”. “We’re talking about our armies themes, what’s your army’s theme?”. The third hobbyist stood thinking for a second and then answered, “I haven’t really thought about it, but if I had to have one, it would probably be Enter Sandman by Metallica…”.

Basecoated Kroot	Highlighted Kroot	Not quite finished

Theming an army is a funny thing. It has become an almost standard requirement at tournaments as you tend to score points for it. It’s also a really fun way to do something different with an army. The problem with scoring it is there’s different ways to do it. I think there’s three main ways people theme armies.

The first is limiting their army selection, like the blitzkrieg bloke in the story. These armies generally maximise a certain selection i.e. tanks, and minimise others i.e. Assault Marines, Landspeeders. The theme is the type of battle the army can engage in.

The second is visually representing a story in your miniatures, like the Ork bloke. These armies have a story about the general/ main unit/ entire force i.e. Lobotomy Ork, which is then represented on the models through painting and modelling i.e. antenna and gadgets. The theme is how the army looks and the story it tells.

You can also do both of these together, limit you army selection and visually represent a story. These are the most specialized armies, like the Major Power Chaos Space Marine armies or the Eldar Craftworld armies.

Both of these forms of theming require a lot of planning and forethought, as well as dedication to not deviate from the plan. I’ve done quite a few armies in this manner and it’s a good challenge to build and play.

Finished Kroot	The Complete Squad	Piranha and Devilfish

The third way is what I’ve done with my Tau army. You stick to the codex description of the army! Making a generic, good looking army that doesn’t have a story or a limited selection, but just sticks to the principles laid down in the codex. I started out with the idea of doing a Water caste envoy insertion force that is all mounted. This was a limited selection with a story theme, and I even started modelling bodyguard for the envoy (the Fire Warriors with ribbons in a shielding pose) and I bought the tanks. But there are two main things that stopped me doing this.

One, I prefer painting infantry to tanks and I was kidding myself thinking I’d paint six in a year!

Two, I’m having a great time painting and trying out different troop types and I actually want at least one unit of everything out of the codex to play with. In the future I can see this army getting q u i t e b i g ! ! !

So this month I painted a unit of 10 Kroot and 3 Krootox to go with the Kroot Hounds from last month. I must say the Kroot plastics are in my top three favourite plastic kits ever! They are so full of character and little bits to paint. Bonza fun. I also started another Devilfish and my Forgeworld Piranha, which I notice will be in the new codex...