Is it just me or is Army building really really expensive?

[AmperZand]

I started collecting History (fantasy, mythology, historical etc) minifigures back in 1993 as an offshoot of my interest in D&D. As a result, I've always been more interested in individual heroes than massed ranks (D&D for anyone who doesn't already know is centred on individuals, not armies). So my collection emphasises variety, not uniformity. That's in no way a value judgement: I very much enjoy seeing the armies of other collectors and even have one army - of Uruk-Hai - myself. But for the most part my 'armies' are themed groups of heroes, not rank and file soldiers.   

[Alcarin]

On 4/16/2025 at 12:27 AM, AmperZand said:

I started collecting History (fantasy, mythology, historical etc) minifigures back in 1993 as an offshoot of my interest in D&D. As a result, I've always been more interested in individual heroes than massed ranks (D&D for anyone who doesn't already know is centred on individuals, not armies). So my collection emphasises variety, not uniformity. That's in no way a value judgement: I very much enjoy seeing the armies of other collectors and even have one army - of Uruk-Hai - myself. But for the most part my 'armies' are themed groups of heroes, not rank and file soldiers.   

Yeh thats 1 way to go at it true :) 

[imposter]

You could listen this....

[Rjbricks]

Have to be honest, I’m not entirely sure what to do with my figs now. Started building a few years back and enjoyed collecting individual elements that I’d piece together and finding bargains on eBay/facebook.

Then I started collecting sets and all the figures went into the ‘armies’ and I’ve got about 1000 little figures in plastic bags in the loft.

At some point I’ll have to write it all down so that my family know to match figures with sets in the event of my untimely demise, otherwise they’ll be selling golden knights and MVR goats for 99p on eBay…

[Agent Kallus]

On 4/23/2025 at 5:07 AM, Rjbricks said:

 they’ll be selling golden knights and MVR goats for 99p on eBay…

Would that be so bad  you won't miss them anyway!!

( Don't worry I'm not planning on planning your untimely demise just for goats!)

[MAB]

5 hours ago, Agent Kallus said:

Would that be so bad  you won't miss them anyway!!

( Don't worry I'm not planning on planning your untimely demise just for goats!)

Unless they are planning to be buried/ cremated with them! Now I wonder if anyone has ever done that. 

[Agent Kallus]

Like the pharaohs of old.

 

[Blazej_Holen]

On a slightly different note - does anyone have experience with KTown Bricks? I consider myself as a “purist” and only customized accesories or figs in my collection are from CultBricks, who I consider as a best quality third-party source… But I recently visited KTown Bricks eshop and find some of theirs custom printed medieval torso very likeable and interesting. Also I like some of their polearms (not swords etc) which looks Lego(ish) enough… But before I made purchase (its expensive as hell) I was wandering what are your experience with those custom larts and prints?  
 

thanks in advance :)

[zoth33]

2 hours ago, Blazej_Holen said:

On a slightly different note - does anyone have experience with KTown Bricks? I consider myself as a “purist” and only customized accesories or figs in my collection are from CultBricks, who I consider as a best quality third-party source… But I recently visited KTown Bricks eshop and find some of theirs custom printed medieval torso very likeable and interesting. Also I like some of their polearms (not swords etc) which looks Lego(ish) enough… But before I made purchase (its expensive as hell) I was wandering what are your experience with those custom larts and prints?  
 

thanks in advance :)

I've never personally ordered from thembut they seem to have comparable prices to brickwarriors who has some good quality stuff.  I just can't personally justify paying $28 for one figure.  But the weapons look nice.  In my experience the face prints of some of these 3rd party sellers don't look that good and do look cheap in hand.  The torso's seem ok for $7.50 a piece but still pretty expensive and Ktown is from canada so I don't know what the shipping costs would be to you that would also be something to consider.  I have bought several weapons from third party sellers like brickwarriors and they are really good quality but some weapons handles are a little big and will stretch out minifig hands and damage them so the best thing I can say is do as much research as possible look up reviews and hopefully that helps.  

[Westbrick]

9 hours ago, Blazej_Holen said:

On a slightly different note - does anyone have experience with KTown Bricks? I consider myself as a “purist” and only customized accesories or figs in my collection are from CultBricks, who I consider as a best quality third-party source… But I recently visited KTown Bricks eshop and find some of theirs custom printed medieval torso very likeable and interesting. Also I like some of their polearms (not swords etc) which looks Lego(ish) enough… But before I made purchase (its expensive as hell) I was wandering what are your experience with those custom larts and prints?  
 

thanks in advance :)

I’ve ordered from them a few times and find it similar to cultbricks. Delivery costs (to UK at least) are very high though!

[DaleDVM]

Army building for current figures is not all that bad.  Army building retired and rare figures is expensive AF.

Take collecting slow...  The only advice I can give at this point for collecting older factions is to have patience.  I started collecting LEGO in 1992 as a young adult.  Over my 30+ years of collecting, I was able to obtain large armies of 100+ figs for just about, every faction LEGO has ever made.  Yes, I have about 150 black knight figs.  I only have a couple dozen of the pre 1984 classic castle guys.  I have all of those early sets, but didn't collect any extra figs from that era.  To be honest, I never really liked those figs much anyway.  In 1985 the figs improved greatly IMHO.

If you really really want to collect older factions, get involved in the community.  Go to LEGO shows and/or contact people online.  Collectors will sell at some point... none of us are going to live forever.  Most of the people I know with the largest collections are older fans.  You might be able to buy in bulk from someone retiring in the LEGO community.  Even among AFOLs, army collectors are a rare (and some would say, strange breed).  If you buy an entire army all at one time you will likely get a decent discount.  One day, I will likely sell my entire collection of castle and fantasy figs.  I have about 8000 castle military, and 1000 civilian figs.  I also have about 4000 castle adjacent/fantasy figs consisting of Vikings, Dwarves, Trolls, Nexo Knights & Ninjago baddies as a compliment to my castle armies.  I certainly do not want to sell well over 13,000 figs individually on Bricklink.  That would just be more work than I can stomach.  So one day, I will figure out an average cost and sell the lot for a discount to some LEGO castle fan with an adequately sized bank account.  Or... I may have to sell it faction by faction.  I certainly will not sell them individually.  

Luckily, I did get a lot of the original Black Falcons, Lion Knights, Black Knights, and Forestmen in the early 90's.  Most of my older figs are from the sets I collected back when those sets were on store shelves.  I was able to get 1980s retired sets in the 90's without much of a markup.  However, I also acquired quite a few "classic" figs on Bricklink as well.  To this day, when I place an order on Bricklink for parts I need, I usually will buy any random old castle figs people have for sale. People will frequently sell 1 or 2 figs for a decent price.  It is the people who have a lot of a certain fig that ask much higher prices...  Since I am already paying for shipping, (for the parts) the figs are just a bonus.  Do this for a few years and you might be able to get smaller squad sized units to add to your current larger armies for variety and or individual characters.

Personally, I find the hardest figs to acquire are civilians.  My MOCs are huge and I do not tend to build battles.  Any city should have more civilians than soldiers, so I actually army build medieval civilian figs as well.  Thank goodness for PAB.  I order torsos and legs for civilians in counts of 100 or more each time a new one comes out.  There is not a lot of variety.  We really only have the recent offerings, a few scattered old noble folks, and then civvies from the 2007 fantasy era.  Plus the odd Jedi, or other theme torso that works for medieval townspeople.  

Good luck.  Remember, when figs are not available, save some of your money for a future bulk purchase.  You never know when someone will sell their collection.

[Triceron]

For me, army building is overrated.  I bought 20+ Lion Knights parts on PAB, and they're still in a box.  I have up to 50 of em left with no where to display.

My average number for new minis is 3-7, average new faction army between 5-11.  Any more and they get shelved in bins.  The only exception has been my Fright Knight army, because I added every horror themed mini to make a halloween-esque monster mash.

I only plan to get 3-4 Kraken, Snake, Griffin and Horse knight torsos and shields, and just mix and match with whatever to make mini army displays.  It's going to get increasingly expensive as time progresses, demand rises and whatever real life economic factors like inflation/supply/tariffs making it harder to get stuff in bulk at a reasonable value.

Edited May 20 by Triceron

[MAB]

11 hours ago, Triceron said:

For me, army building is overrated.  I bought 20+ Lion Knights parts on PAB, and they're still in a box.  I have up to 50 of em left with no where to display.

My average number for new minis is 3-7, average new faction army between 5-11.  Any more and they get shelved in bins.  The only exception has been my Fright Knight army, because I added every horror themed mini to make a halloween-esque monster mash.

I only plan to get 3-4 Kraken, Snake, Griffin and Horse knight torsos and shields, and just mix and match with whatever to make mini army displays.  It's going to get increasingly expensive as time progresses, demand rises and whatever real life economic factors like inflation/supply/tariffs making it harder to get stuff in bulk at a reasonable value.

I'm similar in that my biggest MOCs tend to be usually 64x32 so I find 16 of any faction is enough to depict a battle in that size. Although most of my MOCs tend to be smaller vignettes about 16x16 or 32x16 and there usually 4-6 of each is enough. I usually aim for about 20 to future proof against breakages or increased desire.

I once collected over 100 Roman soldiers and never used more than 16 at a time. So sold off the excess when prices shot up.

[DaleDVM]

16 hours ago, Triceron said:

For me, army building is overrated.  I bought 20+ Lion Knights parts on PAB, and they're still in a box.  I have up to 50 of em left with no where to display.

My average number for new minis is 3-7, average new faction army between 5-11.  Any more and they get shelved in bins.  The only exception has been my Fright Knight army, because I added every horror themed mini to make a halloween-esque monster mash.

I only plan to get 3-4 Kraken, Snake, Griffin and Horse knight torsos and shields, and just mix and match with whatever to make mini army displays.  It's going to get increasingly expensive as time progresses, demand rises and whatever real life economic factors like inflation/supply/tariffs making it harder to get stuff in bulk at a reasonable value.

You are 100% correct.  Army building is overrated.  It is expensive.  Most of my collection rarely sees the light of day and just takes up space. 

But, it still is kinda cool seeing massive armies on occasion.  I can't really explain it...

[TeriXeri]

18 hours ago, Triceron said:

For me, army building is overrated.  I bought 20+ Lion Knights parts on PAB, and they're still in a box.  I have up to 50 of em left with no where to display.

My average number for new minis is 3-7, average new faction army between 5-11.  Any more and they get shelved in bins.  The only exception has been my Fright Knight army, because I added every horror themed mini to make a halloween-esque monster mash.

I only plan to get 3-4 Kraken, Snake, Griffin and Horse knight torsos and shields, and just mix and match with whatever to make mini army displays.  It's going to get increasingly expensive as time progresses, demand rises and whatever real life economic factors like inflation/supply/tariffs making it harder to get stuff in bulk at a reasonable value.

Same here, I got like a bunch of figures from sets, since 2016, and the only thing I ordered so far via PAB were some horses, and while those new Kraken and Gryphon figs, and new Classic space colors are nice, I don't just care about it as a set itself.

Currently mainly looking at sets, in particular sets that are retiring this year. 2026 might have a lot of potential for at least 1 big new Icons type Castle set as sets like Viking Village, Lion Knight's Castle, Medieval Town Square are all retired by then.

If I really want to see 1000s of knights / archers etc, I load up a Total War game, (currently Warhammer 3) to see massive armies of varied infantry ,cavalry, archers, artillery and monsters etc.

Edited May 20 by TeriXeri

[Shroffy123]

1 hour ago, DaleDVM said:

You are 100% correct.  Army building is overrated.  It is expensive.  Most of my collection rarely sees the light of day and just takes up space. 

But, it still is kinda cool seeing massive armies on occasion.  I can't really explain it...

I enjoy seeing massive armies. Your crown knight build is still the most impressive I've seen.

 

[MAB]

There is obviously a difference based on the size of display. If displaying a large diorama at a convention then chances are you need a big army whereas displaying typical MOCs that fit on shelves at home, you can get away with far fewer figures especially bearing in mind that often you'd have at least two factions if it was a battle type scene.

I don't know where the crossover between the two is ...  maybe it is the point when you go from measuring in studs to measuring in feet or metres!

Some of the large convention sized displays people have are amazing and need big armies to look good, but even then the display itself has to look good and not just be loads of troops aligned on a plain grey baseplate that looks more like a vendor's stock than a display.

[DaleDVM]

18 hours ago, Shroffy123 said:

I enjoy seeing massive armies. Your crown knight build is still the most impressive I've seen.

 

That is very kind of you Shroffy.  I am working on the display right now.  At Brickworld Chicago this year the first half of the display will reach the limit of its length at 30 feet.

4 hours ago, MAB said:

There is obviously a difference based on the size of display. If displaying a large diorama at a convention then chances are you need a big army whereas displaying typical MOCs that fit on shelves at home, you can get away with far fewer figures especially bearing in mind that often you'd have at least two factions if it was a battle type scene.

I don't know where the crossover between the two is ...  maybe it is the point when you go from measuring in studs to measuring in feet or metres!

Some of the large convention sized displays people have are amazing and need big armies to look good, but even then the display itself has to look good and not just be loads of troops aligned on a plain grey baseplate that looks more like a vendor's stock than a display.

MAB, I can't really use my display as an excuse for the size of my castle armies.  My addiction to building armies happened before I slowly made a place to display them.  If I want to be nice to myself, I can say I had a lot of forethought.  But mostly,  I just really liked them.  I will note: I was smart enough to know that they would definitely be a great investment.  That is, if I ever sell them while I am alive.  If not, my heirs will make some money.  I imagine the value of my figs has at the very least tripled since I got serious about it 18 years ago.

So...  How does one become a big army builder?  By accident usually.  For those who are interested...

Just for perspective, if you think army building is expensive, and it can be, at 36 baseplates long by 4 baseplates wide, my display now has over $1200 of baseplates in it.  I am laughing right now, but maybe I should be crying.  The fact is.  Army building might be the most expensive aspect of LEGO collecting.  But we all know, collecting retired anything in this hobby is very costly.  And even just acquiring parts to build with adds up quick.  I often abandon a project I want to do because of rare retired parts that are too lavish for my taste.

That said, my display has grown to have somewhere around 1200 figs on it.  The only faction where I have a ton of figs displayed is the Crownie's since it is their city they have around 400ish army figs represented.  However, since the city is holding a tournament I have around 10-15 figs from every human faction fighting in the tournament itself, populating in the tent area, sitting in the stands watching, and walking about the city.  There are about 50 or so trolls being brought in as prisoners as an obvious group of bad guys.  Now that I think about it, the actual largest "army" is the civilians.  There are about 500 of those on the display as well.  

The fantasy era brought me out of a dark age, which was triggered by the Fright Knights and Knight's Kingdom I.  Eww!  When I started building my display in 2007, Crownies were the new thing, and they were readily available.  I will admit, back then, I had no idea that I was going to build such a large display.  I collected a large army because I could afford to, and I am one of those rare breed of people who like seeing large armies.  Since I hadn't bought LEGO in many years and with the introduction of the new light grey, I bought multiples of all of the fantasy era sets for figs and for parts.  When it came to figs, the chess sets back then were an incredible buy.  They retailed for $50 here in the USA and had 24 figs in them.  Now, mind you, 8 of those were black skeletons, but still at roughly $2 per fig it was a steal.  Later I picked up a few more chess sets at $35 when they went on sale.  Those days are sadly gone.  However, I ended up with over 500 Crownies, and I will likely need to buy more to populate the second half of my build. Ugh...  I could have used more forethought!

Once you get one faction with that many figs, the situation snowballs, (in my sick mind anyway) and you want your other factions to have large numbers as well.  After all, 25 soldiers are almost unnoticeable when put next to 500.  So...  I went back and started adding to my classic figs from the 80's and 90's to get those factions up to at least 100 figs each.  Luckily figs were much cheaper back then on Bricklink and I also absorbed a few collections from other retiring castle fans.  Since then (2007 to now), getting decent sized armies while the figs were current, hasn't really been a problem.  Unfortunately for me, I did not use PAB until very recently.  From 2007 until 2014, I mostly got my figs up from sets and battlepacks.  Obviously, after that we had 8 years of nothing but CMF's which were their own challenge to army build with.  But, I fondled bags for years to add 25, 50, even 100 of the castle and castle adjacent CMF's to my collection.  Nowadays, I buy some CMF's at the LEGO store, but I just use brute force to buy CMF's on Bricklink.  I am too busy/old to go to 20 stores buying them out of the best figs.  CMF collecting has been rather brutal to be honest.  

The good news is that with PAB and LUGbulk purchases, getting masses of faction torsos, legs, shields, etc. has gotten easier than ever.  The problem over the last decade has been getting a variety of figs.  Lucky for us all recent news has solved that problem as well.  Looking forward to building armies with the 4 new factions.  Next year I will have another 1000 figs to store. 

Come to think of it...  I might need a new house.  And that sounds expensive too...  Good luck collecting to everyone!

 

[Yoggington]

@DaleDVM Do you have a flickr or any digital home of these armies? You've piqued my interest.

[Shroffy123]

Is bricklink an affordable way to build armies and get parts? I've never used it. I dont know why I am hesitant to purchase from the site.

[DaleDVM]

4 hours ago, Yoggington said:

@DaleDVM Do you have a flickr or any digital home of these armies? You've piqued my interest.

I went onto the site and updated my Flickr for the first time since 2012.  LOL!  God I am getting old.  I put some descriptions in for clarity on the factions represented.  I added in some castle adjacent/fantasy figs into a couple of armies.  

Sadly, I have never had my army collection out after 2008.  By 2009 my display was getting large and I didn't want to take up too much room at a convention.  However, you can see my collection in summer of 2008 at Brickfair DC when I did take pictures.  This is when I had about 3/5 of my Crown knights and the majority of my figs from the factions that existed at that time.  Since then, some of the factions have grown considerably.  Especially those that were re-released.  Note: these photos were actually taken at the same time the Fantasy Era Trolls rolled out as an enemy to the Crownie's in 2008.  Woah...  That is a while ago, before I even knew what Bricklink was.  My collection was around 2000 medieval military figs at this point, about a year out of my dark ages.  And then...  things got a little nutty.

I hope this link works for anyone who wants to look.
 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/28077643@N08/

[Artanis I]

13 hours ago, Shroffy123 said:

Is bricklink an affordable way to build armies and get parts? I've never used it. I dont know why I am hesitant to purchase from the site.

It used to be! It's still a far better option than ebay these days. (I got a lot of great vintage stuff quite cheap from ebay early on, back when online sellers were just people trying to get rid of old stuff. These days most sellers are people that just bought stuff to sell it for profit later.) Probably the cheapest way to collect for army building (for old stuff) is from local people selling bulk lots, but that requires chance, and many people don't have that chance. If you want to use a deliberate plan for collecting, then Bricklink is the easiest method.

If you're looking to get new stuff however, then some folks find Pick a Brick to be a useful solution. You can get all that new stuff through Bricklink too, if it's more convenient for you that way (it is for me).

I discovered Bricklink in 2004 (late in my dark ages), and promptly bought a bunch of vintage Space minifigs!

[Black Falcon]

On 5/22/2025 at 12:03 AM, DaleDVM said:

I hope this link works for anyone who wants to look.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/28077643@N08/

Impressive collection. And just reminds me how much better the second part of Knights Kingdom II was compared to the first, more colourful one - especially in the minifigure design. 

[DaleDVM]

1 hour ago, Black Falcon said:

Impressive collection. And just reminds me how much better the second part of Knights Kingdom II was compared to the first, more colourful one - especially in the minifigure design. 

Thanks.  I agree 100%.  Jayco and the knights he came with are jelly bean nightmares.  His "unit" mostly came from the chess set. 

However, the KKII guys had less flashy colors, mixed in some silver, copper, grey and black, and had some of the best heraldry in LEGO history.  I didn't really collect armies of KKI.  I got the figs from sets.  However, the KKII guys were worthy of making units of them.  Getting even what I had of them was difficult because nobody collected them in numbers.  These guys were available is so few sets, which in their own right were so unpopular, during a time the LEGO corporation was on the ropes.  So, I was getting 1 or 2 from here and there.  The shipping was the real killer.  

I really like these shields from KK2.

 

 

I wish they would put silver, and copper/brassy colors back into their heraldry and minifig design.  It really looks great IMHO.

In addition this Harry Potter shield was so cool I made a unit of guys with it as well.  
 

 

It reminds me, of how few factions we had available from the 70's, 80's, and 90's back when I started collecting.  If you look at the shields available on bricklink by the year they are released from 1978 to 1999 there was less than 1/2 of a  page of shields and several of those were the early ones with stickers.  From 2000 until now, there are 4 and a half pages of shields, even if a couple of pages are from other themes.  Many are useful in a medieval setting.  

It is unfortunate that the number of actual banners or flags representing a faction is miniscule compared to the number of shields we have been offered.  

[Black Falcon]

7 hours ago, DaleDVM said:

Thanks.  I agree 100%.  Jayco and the knights he came with are jelly bean nightmares.  His "unit" mostly came from the chess set. 

However, the KKII guys had less flashy colors, mixed in some silver, copper, grey and black, and had some of the best heraldry in LEGO history.  I didn't really collect armies of KKI.  I got the figs from sets.  However, the KKII guys were worthy of making units of them.  Getting even what I had of them was difficult because nobody collected them in numbers.  These guys were available is so few sets, which in their own right were so unpopular, during a time the LEGO corporation was on the ropes.  So, I was getting 1 or 2 from here and there.  The shipping was the real killer.  

I really like these shields from KK2.

Actually, what you a referring to was both KKII - KKI is actually a total unrelated subtheme of castle and noone knows why they choose the same name for them.  But anyways, the theme lasted for three years, with in the first years the knights having shields like your  dragon shields, though they didn´t really look great. The second year they used the standard shield, which was also used for the unicorn in the third year, which was when they introduced new knights and factions to the subtheme - but yeah, aside from the buildable knights there were only 4 sets - and strangely an additional bigger set, which wears the same Logo, but is actually a KKI set....