Mate your videos are great! And I totally agree, I make a lot of smaller armies and try to make moc’s around them. I really also enjoy making small background stories for the factions and bringing those stories to life
@jorisbuis2006 thank you for watching them! My biggest castle so far only needed a little over 10 soldiers, more would've been nice but definitely not necessary! Do you write lots of lore?
Same, none of my armies are bigger than 30 troops. Most currently orbit around 5 - 10 Minifigs. I'd probably get way more if the prices on PAB hadn't risen for Minifig parts.
If you don't, in 2024, replace the light bluish gray bracket connector in 8978 Skrall with a red one and throw in an axle and piece 42135 Technic, Axle Connector with Axle Hole to mount the shield perpendicular to his hand's axle holes then I don't even want to talk to you...
Why do I army build? I do it because it's fun and it speaks to my inner kid who always dreamed of having a massive Lego army to fight with. I used to have huge wars with my fantasy era and kingdoms minifigs all the time. This is the reason I still collect and army build, it's just fun for me.
Same. My main reason for army building is I grew up on those old stop motion war series, and always wanted my own little army. Despite always wanting to try stop motion animation, I've yet to get around to it. I've dabbled in Moc building as well, but none that use my armies yet. For the most part, I do it now because I like making tiny armies without the hassle of painting for hours on end.
It must be a generational thing, I'm slightly older but just like when I was a kid, I build my own designs and then add minifigures where necessary. A lot of it was building big spaceships or castles, the minifigures were only there to combine with it, not as a thing on their own.
I think it is definitely a combination of that feeling when you finally complete that last baseplate and see your army come together and thinking about how seven year old me would have been blown away by my collection and army’s now
Ever since I re-joined the Lego community somewhere in December, I've been trying to wrap my head around why armybuilding is a thing and why so many (especially in the Star wars / clone war theme) do it, or did it in the past. Ofcourse the visual aspect is easy to understand, having a bunch of guys all lined up, armed and ready to go. But I think another part of it is that it is a version of the creative process with Lego that is not too intense on the creative part, but still satisfying as well. I notice that once I get a new Lego kit, it doesn't take me long at all to dig into it and finish it over the following days. Even a custom Moc from rebrickable, if I know I have all the parts, it is coming together relatively quick. However, for my own builds, that takes planning, it takes multiple bricklink orders and whatever I can scrounge of PAB. Most of the parts I need to get when the project is already in the early building phase, so it can take a while until things come together. It also takes mental effort and creative problem solving. I have several builds that have been taken apart and modified multiple times to create a specific goal. For example, a large truck that I designed was simply way too large for it's trailer, so I rebuilt and redesigned the whole thing 4 studs shorter and 1 and 2/3 stud lower to fit better with the trailer length and height. While I don't intend to post this comment as a way to look down on armybuilding, I do think that part of the hobby has none of these issues of having to overcome obstacles and invest creatively. It is just the enjoyable process of putting stuff together which you like and the result is almost immediately visible. Just like building something from instructions, it is a less demanding, but still satisfying process that doesn't take as much time or effort. (or searching for specific parts that you know you have)
As a child I would have battle after battle with the few Lego clones I had available. Now I have adult money and I still catch myself occasionally army building for a play battle that will never come 😞
As a Kid I never had much figures of a specific faction and I had to be very creative. Which really sucks, when I started my big MOC with round about 15 years. A big castle with 3 of the old raised baseplates every one like a small castle where the enemies have to battle their way, with a cave harbour underneath - a really big height of 18 bricks for the third baseplate +additional 10 for the Walls and another round about 10 for gatehouse and 2 towers. But when I finished, I realized that none of my factions had enough members to use this "monster" Now I can MOC for/with the kids and with all the different armes we colected over the time we have enough soldiers/peasants for every Type of castle or town 😉👍
The point of army building is that you have an army of men ready to defend you and your house whenever your not looking at them because Toy Story logic just became real 5 seconds ago
idk if you're already familiar with it but the "legodnd" community on reddit has some really cool ideas on there. I remember scrolling through it for ideas a couple years ago
My brother and I have been thinking about doing this! We already play TTRPGs and have been looking for an excuse to collect LEGO again, so I think this might mesh perfectly.
Hahaha, Loving your videos man! I army build because of many reasons: I love history and Lego is a great way to bring a bit of that past into the now. I also just love any and basically all stories and the figs really make it whole when having a setup with them battling it out. Last but most important, is that me and my extended family Lego geeks have created a massive dice game to play. There's been a bunch of changes, but that's half the fun. Having different factions roll dice to "accurately" fight it out, while accounting for as many possibilities as we can and keeping it realistic is always a great way to spend some time.
It all started as a child in the 80's, having various sets from different themes, never having enough figs from my favourite faction to play and battle with. My family never spent "the big bucks" on the larger Lego sets, so I grew up playing with a lot of the smaller sets. I would spent hours looking at the Lego catalogues and dreaming about all the sets I wish I could have but never did. Now as an adult I can buy exactly what I want and don't need to rely on Christmas or my birthday. Often times Lego sets lack enough minifigs for sufficient play/display and army building not only fixes that problem but adds a touch of realism by having a significant presence on a battlefield as it would in a movie or scattered around any given build. It's also very fun to mix and match weapons, helmets, armour, etc to build different classes of troop types (halberdiers, swordsmen, axe-men, archers, heavy cavalry, light cavalry, etc). The more you have of each particular troop type, the better they look when grouped together, at least it does to me. On top of that, you can build specific champion/character figs to lead the behind legions of each class and/or mass army as a whole. When you see it all together it's just so satisfying to look at!
I have a crazy range of themes/topics that I would army build for. For a while, I had a clone army, Galactic empire army, a samurai army, debated doing a knight/medieval army, and a Napoleonic army. I definitely relate to your stance on to use them for moc building purposes.
For me, army building is what makes the heroes genuinely stand out. I see so many collections from LEGO, to Mega and gunpla and I just see the *same* thing everytime with flagship set and important figures of characters from the show or series, and very little in the way of an actual obstacle or threat to overcome. Like they say, you can’t have light without some shadows, some darkness, so when I see someone’s collection and it actually has some variety aside from “Here are the 20 main characters from the game” it’s fun to imagine what happens on that little shelf lol
Great video! Love your MOCs! Very creative. I have to start my comment with three traits about myself: (1) I’m lucky, (2) I’m a jerk, and (3) I’ve got unlimited funds because I trade on the market. So here’s my perspective… (1) I only build Castle/Fantasy, the rest is trash to me, treasure to whomever the farquaad else. (2) I only build MODs and MOCs, 99.9% of Lego sets are junk designs, there have been a select few that have absolutely changed my world, of which I am grateful for, the rest I buy for parts, I don’t display shite. (3) I only build villages, buildings that belong in a village, fully enclosed, modular, all to the same scale. (4) “A place for everything and everything in its place.” That means every Minifigure has a bed, every cart has a shed, every horse has a stable, a nest for every bird, every cow, chicken, pig, whatever, has a stead. Each character is special and deserves their own unique place, I’m not looking to “dehumanize” every figure/animal for some sado-narcissistic delusional obsessive compulsive grandiose waste of money. If I don’t have a place for the figure/animal it stays in its parts bin until I finally build its place. (5) I get really disgusted and pissed off when I see 100, 1000 Minifigure “armies” in mindless rows and columns on baseplates. What a waste of parts and money, and, mind you, I have unlimited money at my disposal. Mindless! But to each their own… just keep those mindless army builders away from me, and those massive tabletop builders too. That bothers me too. 😂
Personally as a teenager it’s difficult to get things I want, like specific sets or pieces. So for me my personal enjoyment that comes from army building is to make a new faction or trooper and see where I could use them in my builds or just have them sit somewhere in my bedroom. I enjoy army building to get large quantities of minifigures, but I’m still just starting my Lego castles collection slowly but surely collecting minifigures I could use in my Mocs.
Something i want to add, with army building. I generally am satisfied. I mean sure i always want -more- soldiers, etc. But things can be more or less done, and I'm happy with how my heavy cav look and my light cav look etc. Trouble i have with most mocs is im never satisfied. My pirate ship doesn't have enough rooms, theres no storage, the cannons are too close together, the castle doesnt have a blacksmith inside, the stable only holds 2 horses but a stable this size should hold dozens, the walls are to think to be realistic etc etc etc. Play scale (outside of the actual blacksmith set which is hilarious because it often gets its only real 'ding' against it for being to big for the other scales to look right next too) is fine but often sacrifices a lot of 'realism' for it. Yes your 'grand imperial ship' has 4 guns instead of 68. yes, theres no barracks in your castle, yes the viking village doesn't have any buildings for drying and smoking, etc. and thats fine, there has to be compromises. But with army building i can have my cake and eat it too. I dont have to wrestle with what am i gonna sacrifice for space. My army is my army, the size is realistic to its relative size. now if i ever work on a diorama and start to deal with the logistical train features that might start to happen, but i never feel like im ever 'compromising' with what i have and what i want. I want more archers? I'll buy them. It'll look fine. If i want another room on my castle? Might have to redesign the whole entire tower and it still might look right and even then i'll be missing out on something thats important to have but i left out
yall clone army builders should play star wars legion, you can get hordes of clones for a fraction of the price and actually get to use them in a tabletop wargame
No need to insult what other AFOLs do. I, too, like making MOCs and am glad you have discovered how fun it can be. But army building is fun for others and can greatly enhance your MOCs. It gets attention, warranted or not, which is something much needed to get viewers. Ryan at MandRproductions, whom you showed in your video, has made big $$ in part due to his army building, the "waste of money," as you put it. He's made enough to buy himself a house. Other folks, such as you until recently, enjoy collecting sets, something that I don't "get." But I still find it fun to see what other people have on display. To each their own.
I do something that you could call reverse army building. I collect vikings, but I like building unique characters, so whenever there is a viking adjacent part that I don't have, I'll consider buying it on bricklink if I can afford it. I guess it suits vikings very well since they most likely didn't look very coherent irl, but finding just the right pieces for a character is so fun in general. I feel a sense of satisfaction when all the pieces create a sense of unity, like you're getting a sense of their personality and tenperament from their carefully chosen parts. You can make characters look rough around the edges, fair and dainty, violent, righteous, a trickster, etc. There is no end to the fun you can have, and I need a larger viking village...
Very good topic and new subscriber to your channel. Love the aspect of building armies and especially when you make MOC. Id love to make a big clone army or stormtroopers army but my problem is space so I try to make squads of 8 troopers but over the years snd many Star Wars sets later I have more clones and stormtroopers all over my collection 🤣 they are simply scattered on the shelves. Thanks for the video Greetings from 🇨🇦
The reason I started army building was to use for miniatures war gaming. Don't have much time for that these days but I still like to increase the minifig count of official sets (9 soldiers isn't quite enough to defend the lion knights' castle, and 3 falcon is especially not enough to besiege it) and collect cmf factions that don't have their own sets so I can use them to populate MOCs that I haven't actually gotten around to building...
The reason I do it is simple, I need addition clone troopers and droids so I can have the implications of a larger scale battles for my stop motions. Even then though, I doubt I’d need more than 10-12 figures per faction class as I can easily do some camera tricks to make it look like a hundred.
I only got into army building recently, but as soon as a got a group of vikings, I saw what a great opportunity it was, to create a world full of MOCs that I can construct societies off of. It would be so cool to have multiple fortresses with their own factions.
Cool video! I recently got into Lego and it’s been fun to try and make little factions and do world building. I used to make videos about Conan exiles where I would try to make factions and lore and have them fight eachother but I want to try and do that now with Lego and stop motion. I also think it’s nice because custom minifigures and moc stuff is so fun and good for the brain haha
I have kind of similar idea, spent a lot on PAB to get those amazing chainmails and stuff, and made a faction of my own, now i will be gathering parts for some time to build them a castle
The same reason it’s cool to look at a Lego model of the millennium falcon or Venator, its cool to look at a Lego army of knights or clone troopers etc. like with any collection, it’s fun to add just a little bit more to something that you’ve been putting an interest into over time.
I started Lego in the mid 80s, when I was a kid, and I never really got out of it. I think there was one year in High School where I was super focused on school, so had to take a break from hobbies, so no new sets in 1996, but ever since then I've gotten sets every year
I say, to each their own, even if I don't relate to whatever joy people may get out of army building at all. Well, all right. Many decades ago, me and a friend would make short stop motion films. Usually medieval battles using whatever was available to us at the time. They were small scale. Like 10 knights on each side so I do get it if folks need armies, bystanders and whatnot for things like web video projects.
After the Lion Knights Castle (which I haven't bought yet), I decided to go back to Lego to finally reach this childhood goal of having a Lego "society" (like s city of medieval village). Then I discovered eBay and decided to buy all the old sets that I've always wanted, even though they are from the "large brick" era. Now I'm cumulating bricks, sets and mini figs tô create my own medieval village, and one of my inspirations are your videos. . . . Though my bank account kinda hate you 😂
I'm probably not the right person to answer the question "Why do you army build?", because (at least for now), I really don't. However, if I ever do start buying figs separately, it'll definitely be for MOCs, placing hundreds of figs on baseplates is really unappealing to me, I don't quite get why people do that. There are some exceptions, I think ShyTime's army is fantastic (appart from the figs having flesh tones lol) The only faction I have a substantial amount of figs is the original vikings, and that's only because my father bought the chess set back in the day.
I’m currently buying Endor speeder chase dioramas to use for my castle faction MOCS and think they look great. Adding more ferns and leaves but it’s a really quick and simple way to display a couple of mounted knights and 2 or 3 infantry walking through the forest to meet their enemy. Reversed one of the diorama builds so the opposing factions could face each other.
a great reason to army build that i use all the time is to get a lot of background charecters for my stop motions because i have found that the key to making a stop motion battle feel like it actualy is a battle and not a small fight is the amount of minifigs in the same shot.
I army build partly because I do genuinely play with my Lego. Part of it is to satisfy my inner child to actually have a moderate size army instead of like a "big" battle being the same 10 guys fighting each other with one or two main characters lol. Army building with castle as well allows some customization. I can outfit a kingdom's knights to have guardsmen, footmen, archers, crossbowmen, halberdiers, and knights with them all having small distinctions in their armor/equipment. It helps to create a world that feels more immersive. I'm 22 years old and I genuinely do love to play with my Lego. It's basically my avenue of storytelling, instead of myself writing a fantasy novel for example, which I find very boring and tedious, I can basically use the Lego to create characters and act out events and interactions, have characters form complex relationships and personalities, anything. That being said, there's a limit to which I'd army build. Like, 20 ish is really good for generic troops, a bit more can lend to more customization or just boosting numbers. I do think it's really unnecessary and kind of a waste when someone will have like 100-200 of the same clone trooper for example lol.
That is honestly the problem with my Lego collection. I can't stand having an original Lego set on display😂. In fact, all things from my Lego collection are MOCs, and that is why I also absolutely hate when people see Lego just as an investment reselling shit on the Internet. I know my collection is basically worthless, but not to me and maybe my future kids, who knows.
Personally I find the process of building up an army of troopers/ grunts pretty satisfying especially with the intention of populating a Moc, scene within an animation or just setting up an all out war in your house so you can finally satisfy your younger self. However recently I’ve tried to dial it back a bit as I feel it gets to a point where it’s a tad unnecessary to have an absurd amount when you can only really use a few at a time. Plus that money can then be used to build a new group of guys lol
I used to spend all of the money I made as a kid on those plastic toy soldiers in those variety bags at grocery stores, and my favorite thing was setting them up in massive scenarios in our back yard making dirt islands with a small shovel and filling the spaces inbetween with water from a garden hose. Now I spend way more adult money on toy soldiers with joints and I don't even have a place to put them. Oops. But seeing so many in one place reminds me of my armies as a child.
As a faction wizard I know it is very important to have at least one, strong army - whether it is a republic, empire, Dragon Masters or Policemen, it doesn't really matter
Although I'm still bad with letting go of mixing parts from sets to make MOCs, I still love playing with the minifigs and the sets they come in. It's a toy, display is nice and all, but I also want to play with my LEGO and bring them wherever I go. So, that's what I do with my LEGO clone army.
Honestly, I kind of have the same reason as you. I'm a huge lego star wars fan and I have a lot of them displayed in my shelves. I would like to create mocs for all the figures and vehicles, but I unfortunately not have enough pieces and I won't disassemble my sets for pieces because I really like them. Still, I have some mocs and I'm working on one right now so I'm happy.
Im actually a mega bloks/construx collector myself. I used to collect based on childhood nostalgia but over the years it has become the fuel for my world building. Now in the process of writing a book that can fully explore this world I have created with my own imagination!
This is a good reason to army build, and I can totally understand. As long as the figures aren’t rotting on a baseplate collecting dust, army building is completely fine.
For me the idea came much later when I wanted more sailors for the Imperial Flagship (10210). The initial mini-fig count wasn't enough to actually "man the ship" so when Eldorado came out and saw they were providing pieces via Pick-A-Brick, I knew I wanted to get more despite the difference in jacket color. Saw videos of people army building (mainly clones) and it expanded from there when I discovered MOC instructions to make the ship bigger
I’d say the dream is to create a HUGE moc. I’d like to to build a massive layout of clones invading a fantasy kingdom landscape, just merge everything togethwr
I have very rarely kept a Lego set built in it's original form. Probably because I grew up as poor as a person can be and still have Legos. Since creating things was always my attraction to it, I would always be tearing things apart and making something new. Almost never taking a picture of it or anything like that. I gave into the idea that Legos were for kids when I was in highschool, but I got back into Legos again in my mid twenties. Ever since getting back into it, I have two main interests: mocs and fully fleshed out boardgames. Definitely not just for kids
one of mine is i was working on making a lego boardgame with fighting against armies and kingdoms. The progress has been slower then i would like but there are a lot of lion knights and Black Falcons as well as a sizable dwarf army and a small group of undead im working on.
I feel like it helps populate some sets, especially medieval themed ones. Personally I wish it were more affordable to army build, and that there were a decent selection of figures as well.
I like the idea of doing custom army building. I’ve got a couple different factions of sci-fi soldiers designed from my own imagination using existing parts, and while their numbers are currently quite small, I do plan on expanding their numbers significantly at some point. I’d like to one day build a large cyberpunk city where these soldiers serve as a military police faction keeping order, and as an elite faction that protects the wealthy elites who run the city.
Since I'm on a pretty restrictive budget and don't have the space for huge armies, I've instead gone in a slightly different direction: The "Lance fournie" or "equipped lance" is a French military term dating from the 15th century, and was built around a fully armoured, mounted knight and their personal retinue. As a base, you had three members. The Knight on their warhorse, a sergeant-at-arms (also mounted), and a page or squire who acted as a support. From there, a particularly wealthy knight might be also accompanied by a number of crossbow or spearmen, never exceeding nine men total. These were often wealthy freemen from their lands who could afford their own weapons, and exchanged military service for tax breaks. A Lance Fournie takes up way less space than an army - I've yet to need more than a single 16x16 plate to display them, and allows me to diversify my collection greatly into gathering as many different factions as possible. I feel this has a few advantages over standard army building. It reduces the 'fatigue' that comes with seeing or building the same thing over and over again. It also adds variety for MOC's and worldbuilding - suddenly, each knight has their own history, iconography and flair. Also works great for building skirmish wargames around, which is something I'm working on bit by bit.
I like to make stories and Mocs with my figures. Mostly fantasy is fun to use. However I sometimes struggle with blending classic yellow figures and fleshtone figures but its still fun to make a bunch of armies
Because we didn't have enough figs when we were kids and now we have the money, opportunity (PaB, Bricklink) and space to actually have enough figs to make battles?
I don't necessarily build clone "armies", rather I build fireteams of around 4 to 8. Collect enough clones to make a few fireteams based on different regiments and you have a small clone army. Currently, i've done this with standard shinies, shock troopers, 332nd, and 501st, and the 212th.
Here's me, first I love building stuff and having big numbers of figs (around per kind 30 with clones and as much as possible with castle) let's me do that without worrying about the moc feeling empty, second they look cool when together on a baseplate and such, three I love coming up with different units for my castle armies and that's why I am getting as much of those figs as I can find a use for, btw my mocs aren't of big quality so i always try to make up for it with size so more figs helps with that tho I am in the process of gathering parts to improve my builds soon
I used to army build Lego clones, stormtroopers and droids as a kid, but as I got older I switched over to Halo Mega, and now my ultimate goal is to create a MOC/Diorama that incorporates lore accurate Military organization structure, for example, Four marines to a fireteam, 40 marines to a platoon, etc. I'd like to have a full Company of Marines, all either engaged in combat or just onboard a Cruiser doing whatever.
When I was young I often made armies of the lions and black falcons using any extra city figure part to have matching sets of color patterns. I had incredibly entertaining and immersive experiences playing with those as a kid with battles and sieges that literally lasted for days but always felt short of figurines. Now my son is playing similar stories and it must be part childhood projection but I'm making sure he has armies of whichever faction or time he wants to play in. Which means, castle armies, star wars armies, ww2 armies etc. :P For me what is currently called moc building has been a replacement for so many types of toys I did not have growing up as a kid. Just making it out of the lego I didn't feel I missed out yet gained a lifelong hobby that I can now enjoy with my son.
Basically same reasons as you, I buy the figures to add to my Mocs. Need a big army for a big battle, but I would never buy thousands of the same figure.
I mainly don't army build cause of money, but honestly having 10/15, figs is enough for my mocs, i get it if your making a giant moc, but in general army building isnt very nice
For some things you just need the numbers, for a gang, a clone army (if you're a Star Wars fan), ... What makes it less dull is customising the minifigures so they are not just copy-pasted and soul-less
Im too late in the medieval game to army build castle factions, so Lion Knights it is. But I do "collect" several clone trooper units consisting of 5 troops each. If Lego provides the minifig, I'll get it. If not, I'll get custom printed on genuine lego. And I almost ALWAYS get CAC helmet and Brickarms blasters even on the real lego minifig. It just looks better. As to the why? It gives me a smaller side hobby to go along with the main Lego theme. One that I have a connection to from my younger years.
I'm army building to establish a large force to put in a possible Stop Motion series I want to make eventually! Plus... they're castle figs and I SOOOOO miss the theme! Lol
I see army building as just another way to enjoy Lego. It need not be the only one or overtake everything else. You can still build official sets and put together some MOCs alongside that. Provided you've got the time and money to do all that.
I don’t have any castle, just Star Wars, but if anything it makes a lot more sense to build armies of 20-50 figures in Castle theme due to these reasons (for me): 1) No figure needs to be the same, castle theme has a wide variety in weapons, shields and even armour. Star Wars does not. 2) You need your foot folk. And your knights on horses. I have 120 clone troopers that I use in a MOC but they’re certainly never on “display”.
@Goldfyre how do u feel about knock off lego? I was always against it but i wanted to create a star wars the old republic moc and there is no good minifigure of 90% of the characters from the game. Have u ever considered getting them? Im curious about your opinion
I do it to get unique figures from each clone legion and I get castle figures to make a lego dnd campaign, so I’ve been collecting castle stuff to make a custom campaign.
I don't army build and I've never seen the appeal. I have limited space so that restricts the ability to do it even if I wanted to anyway. I collect Lego but I do it in a more display/representative way. For instance, I bought the Lion Knights castle because it was an anniversary set for 1 thing and because it was such a detailed, well thought out, and impressive set. I had some Lego castle sets when I was a kid and still have them, largely in storage now, but loved the look of the new castle. I still don't feel the draw to army build but I did supplement what the set came with via a couple of pick a brick purchases. I picked up a few extra forest men, some more horses, and a couple more knights. I use them to fill out the castle and give it just a little more life than what comes out of the box. For me it's more about using my Lego displays to represent my interests. I play strategy games. When I'm playing a medieval themed one, the Lego Castle is like a real life counterpart that I can see and touch which to my (special little weird) brain, makes it more enjoyable. When I play a Star Wars strategy game or space themed game in general, my Star Wars Lego sets accomplish the same goal. I hope some of you relate to what I'm talking about. Otherwise I'm going to feel like the weirdo in his own little corner. lol Then there's also the money factor to consider. While I love Lego, I don't love their current business practice of maximizing the dollar amount they can charge while catering nearly exclusively to nostalgia hooked adults like myself. For my own bank account and mental health, I have to remind myself that I don't NEED a big, new, beautiful set simply because I love the Lord of the Rings movies. I can appreciate big sets but I don't need to OWN them all. Same with army building. It's impressive to see a whole table filled with clone troopers but I don't need that in my own house. I'd rather have a cool ship or a unique castle on display that I really like than 100-500 of the same minifig. But the reason I felt like sharing this was to encourage you all to enjoy Legos, if you're here watching this video, you probably already do, but please be responsible about how you do so. Don't let FOMO make you go broke. Enjoy your hobby as a fun thing that makes you happy.
I also army build to make Mocs like clone bases but when I was younger my dad and I had battles that involved dice rolling and other rules and over time my brother and I have added rules mechanics and structure to our game we use loads of minifigures in these Lego Battles and it’s a sort of TTG we play now
When I army build it's mostly to get a hoard of canon foulder for the heroes to face of against like the cover of Fall of the Foot Clan on game boy. Battle Droids are great for this.
I remember as a kid I got 2 of the same lego set, for my birthday. And my mom was confused like, "why are you okay with having 2 of the same 🤨?" She had no idea what my dreams were. Having multiple of the same lego castle sets was awesome. You could build...an army! Especially the smaller siege engines. But also like that little tiny boat with 2 lion knights. I could play out a raid. Or use the parts for something else and keep the figures as part of the army.
I have 2 of the tiny boat, at least 2 or 3 of the crossbow cart. And also 2 of the mobile javelin. It really made lego so much more fun for me as a kid. Now as an adult I do not buy that much of castle since there isn't much. But I got every set that came out the last few years and ordered extra soldiers to populate my castle and increase the falcon forces.
I like putting the army in formation and the feeling of owning a physical army. I feel like spending money on physical toy seems more tangible than spending money on games buy weapons or skins.
Like someone else said, it speaks to my inner child and feels fulfilling by doing something he couldnt, usually for financial reasons. But ngl its different than before since as a kid i thought it'd be cool to have thousands of clones, but you see it as an adult on yt and it just looks like a waste of space and time having to set them all up. I ended up deciding for both the sw and castle themes im capping my minifigs at a couple hundred, which will be broken into smaller factions. Ik its not for everyone but I dont have space for mocs currently and im sitting on a bunch of unopened sets 😂🤷
I'm an Afol...an Older one at that. I'm 50 yo. I collect Lego Star Wars, Original Trilogy only. And Lego LOTR / The Hobbit. I Army build to the extend of serving my shelve size displays / Landscapes. I buy sets to integrate them into my shelve Moc displays , or sometimes for figs and/ or pieces. I d9nt think i have more then 20 of any One figure. Prolly have the most of standard Storm Troopers and for Lotr, Elves. Because i love Elves in that Franchise.
I want to get into brick filming and I want to have giant armies of Black Falcons, Traditional Crown Knights, and Green Dragons fighting in a beautiful scene
I army build to get girls 😏
underrated strat
Yeah because she is gonna think you have so much money because how big the army’s are
@@DoublePack337 Then she would be wrong, as all the money is tied into those figures already, there is no money left.
@@pinobluevogel6458 nah there isn’t any money left even worse. He is in Lego debt
Ah, so you put plenty of female minifigures in there?
I prefer to have a lot of different factions with 5-20 soldiers than a crazy amount of one army
Mate your videos are great! And I totally agree, I make a lot of smaller armies and try to make moc’s around them. I really also enjoy making small background stories for the factions and bringing those stories to life
@jorisbuis2006 thank you for watching them! My biggest castle so far only needed a little over 10 soldiers, more would've been nice but definitely not necessary! Do you write lots of lore?
Totally agree
Same, none of my armies are bigger than 30 troops. Most currently orbit around 5 - 10 Minifigs. I'd probably get way more if the prices on PAB hadn't risen for Minifig parts.
Nice vids
I've never understood people who wouldn't modify their sets. Like bro thats what lego is about, the modularity
If you don't, in 2024, replace the light bluish gray bracket connector in 8978 Skrall with a red one and throw in an axle and piece 42135
Technic, Axle Connector with Axle Hole to mount the shield perpendicular to his hand's axle holes then I don't even want to talk to you...
Why do I army build? I do it because it's fun and it speaks to my inner kid who always dreamed of having a massive Lego army to fight with. I used to have huge wars with my fantasy era and kingdoms minifigs all the time. This is the reason I still collect and army build, it's just fun for me.
That speaks to me so much 👌
Same here man. 31 y/o speaking. 😅👍🏻
Same. My main reason for army building is I grew up on those old stop motion war series, and always wanted my own little army. Despite always wanting to try stop motion animation, I've yet to get around to it. I've dabbled in Moc building as well, but none that use my armies yet. For the most part, I do it now because I like making tiny armies without the hassle of painting for hours on end.
It must be a generational thing, I'm slightly older but just like when I was a kid, I build my own designs and then add minifigures where necessary. A lot of it was building big spaceships or castles, the minifigures were only there to combine with it, not as a thing on their own.
@@pinobluevogel6458 agreed 👍 but you can't deny that a pase plate of the same figures is so satisfying
As a middle ages fan i love alot of minifigures with armor and weapons
I think it is definitely a combination of that feeling when you finally complete that last baseplate and see your army come together and thinking about how seven year old me would have been blown away by my collection and army’s now
I think having the lego army that you always wanted as a child is a BIGGGG part of army building as an adult
Ever since I re-joined the Lego community somewhere in December, I've been trying to wrap my head around why armybuilding is a thing and why so many (especially in the Star wars / clone war theme) do it, or did it in the past. Ofcourse the visual aspect is easy to understand, having a bunch of guys all lined up, armed and ready to go. But I think another part of it is that it is a version of the creative process with Lego that is not too intense on the creative part, but still satisfying as well.
I notice that once I get a new Lego kit, it doesn't take me long at all to dig into it and finish it over the following days. Even a custom Moc from rebrickable, if I know I have all the parts, it is coming together relatively quick. However, for my own builds, that takes planning, it takes multiple bricklink orders and whatever I can scrounge of PAB. Most of the parts I need to get when the project is already in the early building phase, so it can take a while until things come together.
It also takes mental effort and creative problem solving. I have several builds that have been taken apart and modified multiple times to create a specific goal. For example, a large truck that I designed was simply way too large for it's trailer, so I rebuilt and redesigned the whole thing 4 studs shorter and 1 and 2/3 stud lower to fit better with the trailer length and height.
While I don't intend to post this comment as a way to look down on armybuilding, I do think that part of the hobby has none of these issues of having to overcome obstacles and invest creatively. It is just the enjoyable process of putting stuff together which you like and the result is almost immediately visible. Just like building something from instructions, it is a less demanding, but still satisfying process that doesn't take as much time or effort. (or searching for specific parts that you know you have)
I make armys to populate my castle. It is broing to display an army and never youse them
“We build our armies, and then our armies build us”
Goldfyre, 556 bc
As a child I would have battle after battle with the few Lego clones I had available. Now I have adult money and I still catch myself occasionally army building for a play battle that will never come 😞
As a Kid I never had much figures of a specific faction and I had to be very creative.
Which really sucks, when I started my big MOC with round about 15 years.
A big castle with 3 of the old raised baseplates every one like a small castle where the enemies have to battle their way, with a cave harbour underneath - a really big height of 18 bricks for the third baseplate +additional 10 for the Walls and another round about 10 for gatehouse and 2 towers.
But when I finished, I realized that none of my factions had enough members to use this "monster"
Now I can MOC for/with the kids and with all the different armes we colected over the time we have enough soldiers/peasants for every Type of castle or town 😉👍
The point of army building is that you have an army of men ready to defend you and your house whenever your not looking at them because Toy Story logic just became real 5 seconds ago
Honestly the greatest answer here
I use my lego army for playing tabletop games
idk if you're already familiar with it but the "legodnd" community on reddit has some really cool ideas on there. I remember scrolling through it for ideas a couple years ago
have you played star wars legion?
Same here!
My brother and I have been thinking about doing this! We already play TTRPGs and have been looking for an excuse to collect LEGO again, so I think this might mesh perfectly.
Hahaha, Loving your videos man!
I army build because of many reasons: I love history and Lego is a great way to bring a bit of that past into the now.
I also just love any and basically all stories and the figs really make it whole when having a setup with them battling it out.
Last but most important, is that me and my extended family Lego geeks have created a massive dice game to play. There's been a bunch of changes, but that's half the fun. Having different factions roll dice to "accurately" fight it out, while accounting for as many possibilities as we can and keeping it realistic is always a great way to spend some time.
It all started as a child in the 80's, having various sets from different themes, never having enough figs from my favourite faction to play and battle with. My family never spent "the big bucks" on the larger Lego sets, so I grew up playing with a lot of the smaller sets. I would spent hours looking at the Lego catalogues and dreaming about all the sets I wish I could have but never did. Now as an adult I can buy exactly what I want and don't need to rely on Christmas or my birthday.
Often times Lego sets lack enough minifigs for sufficient play/display and army building not only fixes that problem but adds a touch of realism by having a significant presence on a battlefield as it would in a movie or scattered around any given build. It's also very fun to mix and match weapons, helmets, armour, etc to build different classes of troop types (halberdiers, swordsmen, axe-men, archers, heavy cavalry, light cavalry, etc). The more you have of each particular troop type, the better they look when grouped together, at least it does to me. On top of that, you can build specific champion/character figs to lead the behind legions of each class and/or mass army as a whole. When you see it all together it's just so satisfying to look at!
I have a crazy range of themes/topics that I would army build for. For a while, I had a clone army, Galactic empire army, a samurai army, debated doing a knight/medieval army, and a Napoleonic army. I definitely relate to your stance on to use them for moc building purposes.
For me, army building is what makes the heroes genuinely stand out. I see so many collections from LEGO, to Mega and gunpla and I just see the *same* thing everytime with flagship set and important figures of characters from the show or series, and very little in the way of an actual obstacle or threat to overcome. Like they say, you can’t have light without some shadows, some darkness, so when I see someone’s collection and it actually has some variety aside from “Here are the 20 main characters from the game” it’s fun to imagine what happens on that little shelf lol
Great video! Love your MOCs!
Very creative.
I have to start my comment with three traits about myself:
(1) I’m lucky,
(2) I’m a jerk, and
(3) I’ve got unlimited funds because I trade on the market.
So here’s my perspective…
(1) I only build Castle/Fantasy, the rest is trash to me, treasure to whomever the farquaad else.
(2) I only build MODs and MOCs, 99.9% of Lego sets are junk designs, there have been a select few that have absolutely changed my world, of which I am grateful for, the rest I buy for parts, I don’t display shite.
(3) I only build villages, buildings that belong in a village, fully enclosed, modular, all to the same scale.
(4) “A place for everything and everything in its place.”
That means every Minifigure has a bed, every cart has a shed, every horse has a stable, a nest for every bird, every cow, chicken, pig, whatever, has a stead.
Each character is special and deserves their own unique place, I’m not looking to “dehumanize” every figure/animal for some sado-narcissistic delusional obsessive compulsive grandiose waste of money.
If I don’t have a place for the figure/animal it stays in its parts bin until I finally build its place.
(5) I get really disgusted and pissed off when I see 100, 1000 Minifigure “armies” in mindless rows and columns on baseplates. What a waste of parts and money, and, mind you, I have unlimited money at my disposal. Mindless!
But to each their own… just keep those mindless army builders away from me, and those massive tabletop builders too. That bothers me too. 😂
MOC building helps me stay engaged in the hobby
couldn't agree more. I'd probably fall out of the hobby if i didn't get into moc building
Personally as a teenager it’s difficult to get things I want, like specific sets or pieces. So for me my personal enjoyment that comes from army building is to make a new faction or trooper and see where I could use them in my builds or just have them sit somewhere in my bedroom. I enjoy army building to get large quantities of minifigures, but I’m still just starting my Lego castles collection slowly but surely collecting minifigures I could use in my Mocs.
Great Video! I don’t do much army building but I think that the appeal of it is that it’s nostalgic and doesn’t take up too much space!
1:47 yo that's me
Something i want to add, with army building. I generally am satisfied. I mean sure i always want -more- soldiers, etc. But things can be more or less done, and I'm happy with how my heavy cav look and my light cav look etc. Trouble i have with most mocs is im never satisfied. My pirate ship doesn't have enough rooms, theres no storage, the cannons are too close together, the castle doesnt have a blacksmith inside, the stable only holds 2 horses but a stable this size should hold dozens, the walls are to think to be realistic etc etc etc. Play scale (outside of the actual blacksmith set which is hilarious because it often gets its only real 'ding' against it for being to big for the other scales to look right next too) is fine but often sacrifices a lot of 'realism' for it. Yes your 'grand imperial ship' has 4 guns instead of 68. yes, theres no barracks in your castle, yes the viking village doesn't have any buildings for drying and smoking, etc. and thats fine, there has to be compromises. But with army building i can have my cake and eat it too. I dont have to wrestle with what am i gonna sacrifice for space. My army is my army, the size is realistic to its relative size. now if i ever work on a diorama and start to deal with the logistical train features that might start to happen, but i never feel like im ever 'compromising' with what i have and what i want. I want more archers? I'll buy them. It'll look fine. If i want another room on my castle? Might have to redesign the whole entire tower and it still might look right and even then i'll be missing out on something thats important to have but i left out
yall clone army builders should play star wars legion, you can get hordes of clones for a fraction of the price and actually get to use them in a tabletop wargame
No need to insult what other AFOLs do. I, too, like making MOCs and am glad you have discovered how fun it can be. But army building is fun for others and can greatly enhance your MOCs. It gets attention, warranted or not, which is something much needed to get viewers. Ryan at MandRproductions, whom you showed in your video, has made big $$ in part due to his army building, the "waste of money," as you put it. He's made enough to buy himself a house. Other folks, such as you until recently, enjoy collecting sets, something that I don't "get." But I still find it fun to see what other people have on display. To each their own.
I didn't insult anyone in this video? If anything i was making fun of myself lol
I do something that you could call reverse army building. I collect vikings, but I like building unique characters, so whenever there is a viking adjacent part that I don't have, I'll consider buying it on bricklink if I can afford it. I guess it suits vikings very well since they most likely didn't look very coherent irl, but finding just the right pieces for a character is so fun in general. I feel a sense of satisfaction when all the pieces create a sense of unity, like you're getting a sense of their personality and tenperament from their carefully chosen parts. You can make characters look rough around the edges, fair and dainty, violent, righteous, a trickster, etc. There is no end to the fun you can have, and I need a larger viking village...
Very good topic and new subscriber to your channel.
Love the aspect of building armies and especially when you make MOC.
Id love to make a big clone army or stormtroopers army but my problem is space so I try to make squads of 8 troopers but over the years snd many Star Wars sets later I have more clones and stormtroopers all over my collection 🤣 they are simply scattered on the shelves.
Thanks for the video
Greetings from 🇨🇦
The reason I started army building was to use for miniatures war gaming. Don't have much time for that these days but I still like to increase the minifig count of official sets (9 soldiers isn't quite enough to defend the lion knights' castle, and 3 falcon is especially not enough to besiege it) and collect cmf factions that don't have their own sets so I can use them to populate MOCs that I haven't actually gotten around to building...
Me and my friends build armies and castles and then we make a huge war (and yes there are rules in it) 😅
Do y'all use wargaming rules, or have y'all created your own? :0
@@Sanguivore our own
@@apolonio-ku5hf Very cool!
@@Sanguivore thanks!
@@apolonio-ku5hfreally? Explain pwease 😢
The reason I do it is simple, I need addition clone troopers and droids so I can have the implications of a larger scale battles for my stop motions. Even then though, I doubt I’d need more than 10-12 figures per faction class as I can easily do some camera tricks to make it look like a hundred.
I only got into army building recently, but as soon as a got a group of vikings, I saw what a great opportunity it was, to create a world full of MOCs that I can construct societies off of. It would be so cool to have multiple fortresses with their own factions.
Cool video! I recently got into Lego and it’s been fun to try and make little factions and do world building. I used to make videos about Conan exiles where I would try to make factions and lore and have them fight eachother but I want to try and do that now with Lego and stop motion. I also think it’s nice because custom minifigures and moc stuff is so fun and good for the brain haha
I have kind of similar idea, spent a lot on PAB to get those amazing chainmails and stuff, and made a faction of my own, now i will be gathering parts for some time to build them a castle
Your video ideas are so original and amazing!!
The same reason it’s cool to look at a Lego model of the millennium falcon or Venator, its cool to look at a Lego army of knights or clone troopers etc. like with any collection, it’s fun to add just a little bit more to something that you’ve been putting an interest into over time.
Would be so fun to see you revisit that first medieval moc with your improved building techniques!
I started Lego in the mid 80s, when I was a kid, and I never really got out of it. I think there was one year in High School where I was super focused on school, so had to take a break from hobbies, so no new sets in 1996, but ever since then I've gotten sets every year
Just play Construct and Command and you'll have a true reason to army build!
I say, to each their own, even if I don't relate to whatever joy people may get out of army building at all.
Well, all right. Many decades ago, me and a friend would make short stop motion films. Usually medieval battles using whatever was available to us at the time. They were small scale. Like 10 knights on each side so I do get it if folks need armies, bystanders and whatnot for things like web video projects.
After the Lion Knights Castle (which I haven't bought yet), I decided to go back to Lego to finally reach this childhood goal of having a Lego "society" (like s city of medieval village). Then I discovered eBay and decided to buy all the old sets that I've always wanted, even though they are from the "large brick" era.
Now I'm cumulating bricks, sets and mini figs tô create my own medieval village, and one of my inspirations are your videos.
.
.
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Though my bank account kinda hate you 😂
I'm probably not the right person to answer the question "Why do you army build?", because (at least for now), I really don't. However, if I ever do start buying figs separately, it'll definitely be for MOCs, placing hundreds of figs on baseplates is really unappealing to me, I don't quite get why people do that. There are some exceptions, I think ShyTime's army is fantastic (appart from the figs having flesh tones lol) The only faction I have a substantial amount of figs is the original vikings, and that's only because my father bought the chess set back in the day.
Moc minifigures is addictive and got me hard, fantasy and medieval just so good
I’m currently buying Endor speeder chase dioramas to use for my castle faction MOCS and think they look great.
Adding more ferns and leaves but it’s a really quick and simple way to display a couple of mounted knights and 2 or 3 infantry walking through the forest to meet their enemy.
Reversed one of the diorama builds so the opposing factions could face each other.
That’s why I get warhammer as there are actual rules for my stuff lol
a great reason to army build that i use all the time is to get a lot of background charecters for my stop motions because i have found that the key to making a stop motion battle feel like it actualy is a battle and not a small fight is the amount of minifigs in the same shot.
I army build partly because I do genuinely play with my Lego. Part of it is to satisfy my inner child to actually have a moderate size army instead of like a "big" battle being the same 10 guys fighting each other with one or two main characters lol. Army building with castle as well allows some customization. I can outfit a kingdom's knights to have guardsmen, footmen, archers, crossbowmen, halberdiers, and knights with them all having small distinctions in their armor/equipment. It helps to create a world that feels more immersive. I'm 22 years old and I genuinely do love to play with my Lego. It's basically my avenue of storytelling, instead of myself writing a fantasy novel for example, which I find very boring and tedious, I can basically use the Lego to create characters and act out events and interactions, have characters form complex relationships and personalities, anything.
That being said, there's a limit to which I'd army build. Like, 20 ish is really good for generic troops, a bit more can lend to more customization or just boosting numbers. I do think it's really unnecessary and kind of a waste when someone will have like 100-200 of the same clone trooper for example lol.
That is honestly the problem with my Lego collection. I can't stand having an original Lego set on display😂. In fact, all things from my Lego collection are MOCs, and that is why I also absolutely hate when people see Lego just as an investment reselling shit on the Internet. I know my collection is basically worthless, but not to me and maybe my future kids, who knows.
It's all fun and games til Doctor Strange gets involved in it. (If yk yk)
I just like having an awesome looking army of lego mini figures with weapons and armor.
Personally I find the process of building up an army of troopers/ grunts pretty satisfying especially with the intention of populating a Moc, scene within an animation or just setting up an all out war in your house so you can finally satisfy your younger self.
However recently I’ve tried to dial it back a bit as I feel it gets to a point where it’s a tad unnecessary to have an absurd amount when you can only really use a few at a time. Plus that money can then be used to build a new group of guys lol
I build armies for scale and I just love it.
Well i army build for Mocs like you said and also something I call the impulse when you see a Lego fig and you just need it for your army!
I love your castle moks and I think you should make a mok for your clones❤❤❤
For me, stop motions simply look better when there’s a lot of mini figures that there’s meant to be a lot of
I used to spend all of the money I made as a kid on those plastic toy soldiers in those variety bags at grocery stores, and my favorite thing was setting them up in massive scenarios in our back yard making dirt islands with a small shovel and filling the spaces inbetween with water from a garden hose. Now I spend way more adult money on toy soldiers with joints and I don't even have a place to put them. Oops. But seeing so many in one place reminds me of my armies as a child.
As a faction wizard I know it is very important to have at least one, strong army - whether it is a republic, empire, Dragon Masters or Policemen, it doesn't really matter
Although I'm still bad with letting go of mixing parts from sets to make MOCs, I still love playing with the minifigs and the sets they come in. It's a toy, display is nice and all, but I also want to play with my LEGO and bring them wherever I go. So, that's what I do with my LEGO clone army.
Honestly, I kind of have the same reason as you. I'm a huge lego star wars fan and I have a lot of them displayed in my shelves. I would like to create mocs for all the figures and vehicles, but I unfortunately not have enough pieces and I won't disassemble my sets for pieces because I really like them. Still, I have some mocs and I'm working on one right now so I'm happy.
Im actually a mega bloks/construx collector myself. I used to collect based on childhood nostalgia but over the years it has become the fuel for my world building. Now in the process of writing a book that can fully explore this world I have created with my own imagination!
This is a good reason to army build, and I can totally understand. As long as the figures aren’t rotting on a baseplate collecting dust, army building is completely fine.
For me the idea came much later when I wanted more sailors for the Imperial Flagship (10210). The initial mini-fig count wasn't enough to actually "man the ship" so when Eldorado came out and saw they were providing pieces via Pick-A-Brick, I knew I wanted to get more despite the difference in jacket color. Saw videos of people army building (mainly clones) and it expanded from there when I discovered MOC instructions to make the ship bigger
I’d say the dream is to create a HUGE moc. I’d like to to build a massive layout of clones invading a fantasy kingdom landscape, just merge everything togethwr
I have very rarely kept a Lego set built in it's original form. Probably because I grew up as poor as a person can be and still have Legos. Since creating things was always my attraction to it, I would always be tearing things apart and making something new. Almost never taking a picture of it or anything like that. I gave into the idea that Legos were for kids when I was in highschool, but I got back into Legos again in my mid twenties. Ever since getting back into it, I have two main interests: mocs and fully fleshed out boardgames. Definitely not just for kids
I play tabletop wargames with mine, along with some friends. It gives my army building some purpose and direction
That's what we army build for too!
one of mine is i was working on making a lego boardgame with fighting against armies and kingdoms. The progress has been slower then i would like but there are a lot of lion knights and Black Falcons as well as a sizable dwarf army and a small group of undead im working on.
I feel like it helps populate some sets, especially medieval themed ones. Personally I wish it were more affordable to army build, and that there were a decent selection of figures as well.
I like the idea of doing custom army building. I’ve got a couple different factions of sci-fi soldiers designed from my own imagination using existing parts, and while their numbers are currently quite small, I do plan on expanding their numbers significantly at some point. I’d like to one day build a large cyberpunk city where these soldiers serve as a military police faction keeping order, and as an elite faction that protects the wealthy elites who run the city.
Since I'm on a pretty restrictive budget and don't have the space for huge armies, I've instead gone in a slightly different direction:
The "Lance fournie" or "equipped lance" is a French military term dating from the 15th century, and was built around a fully armoured, mounted knight and their personal retinue.
As a base, you had three members. The Knight on their warhorse, a sergeant-at-arms (also mounted), and a page or squire who acted as a support. From there, a particularly wealthy knight might be also accompanied by a number of crossbow or spearmen, never exceeding nine men total. These were often wealthy freemen from their lands who could afford their own weapons, and exchanged military service for tax breaks.
A Lance Fournie takes up way less space than an army - I've yet to need more than a single 16x16 plate to display them, and allows me to diversify my collection greatly into gathering as many different factions as possible. I feel this has a few advantages over standard army building. It reduces the 'fatigue' that comes with seeing or building the same thing over and over again. It also adds variety for MOC's and worldbuilding - suddenly, each knight has their own history, iconography and flair. Also works great for building skirmish wargames around, which is something I'm working on bit by bit.
I like to make stories and Mocs with my figures. Mostly fantasy is fun to use. However I sometimes struggle with blending classic yellow figures and fleshtone figures but its still fun to make a bunch of armies
Because we didn't have enough figs when we were kids and now we have the money, opportunity (PaB, Bricklink) and space to actually have enough figs to make battles?
You should make a moc for your clone troopers in your castle style of building
Looking forward to your Raven castle MoC! :)
I don't necessarily build clone "armies", rather I build fireteams of around 4 to 8.
Collect enough clones to make a few fireteams based on different regiments and you have a small clone army.
Currently, i've done this with standard shinies, shock troopers, 332nd, and 501st, and the 212th.
Here's me, first I love building stuff and having big numbers of figs (around per kind 30 with clones and as much as possible with castle) let's me do that without worrying about the moc feeling empty, second they look cool when together on a baseplate and such, three I love coming up with different units for my castle armies and that's why I am getting as much of those figs as I can find a use for, btw my mocs aren't of big quality so i always try to make up for it with size so more figs helps with that tho I am in the process of gathering parts to improve my builds soon
LEGOs work shockingly well for tabletop wargaming
Second this!
I used to army build Lego clones, stormtroopers and droids as a kid, but as I got older I switched over to Halo Mega, and now my ultimate goal is to create a MOC/Diorama that incorporates lore accurate Military organization structure, for example, Four marines to a fireteam, 40 marines to a platoon, etc.
I'd like to have a full Company of Marines, all either engaged in combat or just onboard a Cruiser doing whatever.
I like to build mocs and also set up battles. I army-build so I can set up huge battles if I want. I also love seeing them all set up together
When I was young I often made armies of the lions and black falcons using any extra city figure part to have matching sets of color patterns. I had incredibly entertaining and immersive experiences playing with those as a kid with battles and sieges that literally lasted for days but always felt short of figurines. Now my son is playing similar stories and it must be part childhood projection but I'm making sure he has armies of whichever faction or time he wants to play in. Which means, castle armies, star wars armies, ww2 armies etc. :P For me what is currently called moc building has been a replacement for so many types of toys I did not have growing up as a kid. Just making it out of the lego I didn't feel I missed out yet gained a lifelong hobby that I can now enjoy with my son.
Basically same reasons as you, I buy the figures to add to my Mocs. Need a big army for a big battle, but I would never buy thousands of the same figure.
I mainly don't army build cause of money, but honestly having 10/15, figs is enough for my mocs, i get it if your making a giant moc, but in general army building isnt very nice
For some things you just need the numbers, for a gang, a clone army (if you're a Star Wars fan), ...
What makes it less dull is customising the minifigures so they are not just copy-pasted and soul-less
Im too late in the medieval game to army build castle factions, so Lion Knights it is.
But I do "collect" several clone trooper units consisting of 5 troops each.
If Lego provides the minifig, I'll get it. If not, I'll get custom printed on genuine lego. And I almost ALWAYS get CAC helmet and Brickarms blasters even on the real lego minifig. It just looks better.
As to the why? It gives me a smaller side hobby to go along with the main Lego theme. One that I have a connection to from my younger years.
I love army building but I also like small armys
I'm army building to establish a large force to put in a possible Stop Motion series I want to make eventually! Plus... they're castle figs and I SOOOOO miss the theme! Lol
As a kid I wanted huge armies for huge battles. I can’t stop nowadays
I see army building as just another way to enjoy Lego. It need not be the only one or overtake everything else. You can still build official sets and put together some MOCs alongside that. Provided you've got the time and money to do all that.
I don’t have any castle, just Star Wars, but if anything it makes a lot more sense to build armies of 20-50 figures in Castle theme due to these reasons (for me):
1) No figure needs to be the same, castle theme has a wide variety in weapons, shields and even armour. Star Wars does not.
2) You need your foot folk. And your knights on horses.
I have 120 clone troopers that I use in a MOC but they’re certainly never on “display”.
@Goldfyre how do u feel about knock off lego? I was always against it but i wanted to create a star wars the old republic moc and there is no good minifigure of 90% of the characters from the game. Have u ever considered getting them? Im curious about your opinion
I do it to get unique figures from each clone legion and I get castle figures to make a lego dnd campaign, so I’ve been collecting castle stuff to make a custom campaign.
I don't army build and I've never seen the appeal. I have limited space so that restricts the ability to do it even if I wanted to anyway. I collect Lego but I do it in a more display/representative way. For instance, I bought the Lion Knights castle because it was an anniversary set for 1 thing and because it was such a detailed, well thought out, and impressive set. I had some Lego castle sets when I was a kid and still have them, largely in storage now, but loved the look of the new castle. I still don't feel the draw to army build but I did supplement what the set came with via a couple of pick a brick purchases. I picked up a few extra forest men, some more horses, and a couple more knights. I use them to fill out the castle and give it just a little more life than what comes out of the box. For me it's more about using my Lego displays to represent my interests. I play strategy games. When I'm playing a medieval themed one, the Lego Castle is like a real life counterpart that I can see and touch which to my (special little weird) brain, makes it more enjoyable. When I play a Star Wars strategy game or space themed game in general, my Star Wars Lego sets accomplish the same goal. I hope some of you relate to what I'm talking about. Otherwise I'm going to feel like the weirdo in his own little corner. lol
Then there's also the money factor to consider. While I love Lego, I don't love their current business practice of maximizing the dollar amount they can charge while catering nearly exclusively to nostalgia hooked adults like myself. For my own bank account and mental health, I have to remind myself that I don't NEED a big, new, beautiful set simply because I love the Lord of the Rings movies. I can appreciate big sets but I don't need to OWN them all. Same with army building. It's impressive to see a whole table filled with clone troopers but I don't need that in my own house. I'd rather have a cool ship or a unique castle on display that I really like than 100-500 of the same minifig. But the reason I felt like sharing this was to encourage you all to enjoy Legos, if you're here watching this video, you probably already do, but please be responsible about how you do so. Don't let FOMO make you go broke. Enjoy your hobby as a fun thing that makes you happy.
I also army build to make Mocs like clone bases but when I was younger my dad and I had battles that involved dice rolling and other rules and over time my brother and I have added rules mechanics and structure to our game we use loads of minifigures in these Lego Battles and it’s a sort of TTG we play now
When I army build it's mostly to get a hoard of canon foulder for the heroes to face of against like the cover of Fall of the Foot Clan on game boy.
Battle Droids are great for this.
I remember as a kid I got 2 of the same lego set, for my birthday. And my mom was confused like, "why are you okay with having 2 of the same 🤨?" She had no idea what my dreams were. Having multiple of the same lego castle sets was awesome. You could build...an army! Especially the smaller siege engines. But also like that little tiny boat with 2 lion knights. I could play out a raid. Or use the parts for something else and keep the figures as part of the army.
I have 2 of the tiny boat, at least 2 or 3 of the crossbow cart. And also 2 of the mobile javelin. It really made lego so much more fun for me as a kid. Now as an adult I do not buy that much of castle since there isn't much. But I got every set that came out the last few years and ordered extra soldiers to populate my castle and increase the falcon forces.
I had a few “battle packs” in the 90s… LEGO needs to give us some modern Castle Battle Packs!
I like putting the army in formation and the feeling of owning a physical army. I feel like spending money on physical toy seems more tangible than spending money on games buy weapons or skins.
Like someone else said, it speaks to my inner child and feels fulfilling by doing something he couldnt, usually for financial reasons. But ngl its different than before since as a kid i thought it'd be cool to have thousands of clones, but you see it as an adult on yt and it just looks like a waste of space and time having to set them all up. I ended up deciding for both the sw and castle themes im capping my minifigs at a couple hundred, which will be broken into smaller factions. Ik its not for everyone but I dont have space for mocs currently and im sitting on a bunch of unopened sets 😂🤷
I'm an Afol...an Older one at that. I'm 50 yo. I collect Lego Star Wars, Original Trilogy only. And Lego LOTR / The Hobbit. I Army build to the extend of serving my shelve size displays / Landscapes. I buy sets to integrate them into my shelve Moc displays , or sometimes for figs and/ or pieces. I d9nt think i have more then 20 of any One figure. Prolly have the most of standard Storm Troopers and for Lotr, Elves. Because i love Elves in that Franchise.
I'm a military history enthusiast and making coherent forces pleases me. I also build my own stuff and like to have armies to populate it.
Someday I really wanna start a Castle collection... so expensive though!
I want to get into brick filming and I want to have giant armies of Black Falcons, Traditional Crown Knights, and Green Dragons fighting in a beautiful scene