Variety 101

This is a post mostly directed at newbies dealing with the topic how you bring variety into a unit with many models that look the same.

Like in the earlier days of GW, Privateer Press still has many metal models and they don't come in a big variety as the only variety you get is what the original sculptor sculpted. This is far inferior to GW's modular plastic kits where everything fits together interchangeably so your variety is not limited by the number of molds the company has, but by the number of bits in your pocket.

Luckily in the case of Privateer Press, there are some kits that allow for a certain variety and this article is about how you get the most out of it. There are only two steps to follow:

1. Unpack all the bits and cluster the same bits into individual groups.
2. Start building your models by making sure that no model gets the same combination of bits from the individual groups.

In the two pictures above you see the max unit of Kriel Warriors I am currently building. I bought the unit box with six warriors plus two blisters with two warriors each plus the UA for a total of twelve. Now the neat thing is that the blisters have two many heads and shields (three of each for only two models), so there is our gate to more variety.

Step 1 - group your bits

In the picture above you can see that I made three piles for the three types of shields I have, so did I for the heads, arms, and weapons. I also glued the torsos onto their bases already and sorted them, too. For example, in the back of the center of the picture you can see four torsos (2+2) that are exactly the same.

Step 2 - avoid doing the same combination twice

So I have four torsos and I could potentially give them the same weapon (e.g. hammer) and shield (e.g. the kind with the chain mail hanging down) as I have enough of everything. However, then I would end up with minimally two models looking the same as I have only three types of heads for four models, so one kind of head has to be used minimally twice. Therefore, as I know one head has to be used twice, I make sure when glueing things together that one head gets the hammer and the other head of the same type gets the sword. The same strategy applies to the shields, so by combining heads, weapons and shields properly I won't have two models that look exactly the same while the entire group still will have a certain uniformity - which isn't necessarily bad, though, since these are just foot soldiers and not rock stars who want to be individually adored.

My point is that you can't do this type of systematic variations if you don't properly lay out all the bits first and check how many various combinations you have to come up with. If you just take bits out the box and start to glue everything together as you unpack it, you may end up with several models that will look exactly the same and therefore rather boring.

Greygore Boomhowler & Co. The same models are front-left with back-right plus  back-left with back-center. These models are also in the blisters you can purchase to boost that unit to a max of ten, so you end up with 4+4 models looking the same.

Think of Greygore Boomhowler & Co. where you can't really swap anything - you have four unique models in that group of six and two "filler" models that look just the same (which seems to be a general strategy for Privateer Press how they sculpt units of six). Boring, boring, boring. And it gets worse if you purchase the two blisters to have a max unit of ten as those blisters contain the models that you already have twice in your unit of six. In other words, out of ten models, four and four models will look the same in their sculpts. The only thing that can still save you here is if you paint them differently.

In case of an emergency

Privateer Press always includes a unique head that you won't find twice for the unit leader - so if you are in a very desperate need for some variation, you can glue the leader's head onto an ordinary grunt and take the grunt's head to glue it onto the unit leader's torso.

My daughter wanted to take a picture for the blog, too.