Mixing factions

[JPinoy]

How's this for a mixed army?

A fraction of my army from 2004. There are 1,236 minifigs divided into several nations, but grouped together to make a nice pic.
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d152/Peoples_General/LEGO/111_ancientarmies_update-header1.jpg

[rogue27]

When I build something, I mix and match figs and equipment as needed to create the look I want, but I keep the old and new grays apart.

[lord_of_orks]

It all depends on what I'm building. With orks,forest men,or wolf pack I give them all kinds of shields,weapons,and armor it makes them look more like a band of out laws that have stolen there gear from lots of other places

[JoshWedin]

With orks,forest men,or wolf pack I give them all kinds of shields,weapons,and armor it makes them look more like a band of out laws that have stolen there gear from lots of other places

I do the same thing with these factions, especially the forestmen and the pack. I try to give them enough similar items and colors to make them cohesive, but mix up stuff to give them that ragtag appearance, as you can see in these two pics.

Forestmen:


Wolfpack:


Josh

PS. I don't have pics of my Ork army...

[Velliscig]

I create my own factions, which are in no way correlated to Lego's. I just mix and match body parts, colours, and equipment etc. until I get what I want... So personally, I would say it is definitely best to mix and match all the old and new, although, sometimes it just feels nice to keep some originals as they are, like a few Knights Procession or Dark Forest figures..

[Ser Loktar]

Hey all still breathing,
I have a rather unique problem in that I'm partially color blind, and as such I have a hard time telling the 2 greys and browns apart, unless there`s perfect lighting. However I`m something of a purist and a KKII hater so I don`t want to see old greys and new browns on the same mini. So I end up making various minis (knights, footmen, archers, peasants, and the like) in both old and new palettes.
I`m not quite picky enough to outright segregate but most new palette minis occupy my new palette builds while the majority of my collection (old palette) occupies most of my shelf space as it`s own entity.
So I guess I do separate, just not intentionally.
I do have a unit of 35 freeriders which I strive to keep less than uniform, and while most are old palette minis, I happily threw in individual KKII heraldry and colors to diversify the knights and houses present, though they still suffer from `about a dozen dragon` syndrome.
I also have a complementary 15 man unit of foreign mercs utilizing my 1 elephant, 1 camel, and kudu,(SP) which again benefits from both eras. Gotta love a little ethnicity right. Such Brave Companions
All in all I can appreciate both sides of the fence,
My major pet peeve is seeing BFs on blue DK bardings, I go without bardings if TLG didn`t make one for said faction, and RKs on CRU bardings, c`mon sure they`re both lions but they look nothing alike...
Okay sorry to rant, I`m just anal obsessive about factions and colors, I`ll only use 2-3 colors per mini (a base metal grey or black, and a trimming, heraldry tone or 2) It can get hard finding old lgrey swords and lances everytime I get a new FK fleur-dé-leis torso, plus a nice generic FK barding, and a horse, and an old lgrey visor, dios mios Where my money go
Off topic much, I go sleep,
Stay good all,
Ser Loktar

[insurrection]

I think the old figs can go well with new ones, the important differens between pre and post KK2 are the face prints, and I try to replace all my old heads with new ones anyways.

Here is my Wolfpack figs togheter with MMV-peasant torsos, a Pirate and a PoP-torso. I'm quite found of how well they all go togheter:

[Sir Prog]

I keep my post-KK2 figures separate from my pre-KK2 figures. I don't think the styles match. I'm working on a story to explain the difference. As for the KK2, I keep them in a ziplock baggie and rarely do anything with them. Makes me wish I'd saved my money and not bought those sets.

Steve

Posts like these never get old, LOL, ...and are commonplacely predictable.

That said, it depends on your "collector personality". As a youth, some stuff always remained mixed, while newer stuff was kept separate. As an adult, I have a hard time mixing things, but an even harder time opening them. :O

[AK_Brickster]

This isn't quite on-topic, but I don't like to mix my Forestmen and Wolfpack factions together as some of you have said you do.
To me, the Wolfpack are the scourge of medieval society. True outlaws who are happy to pillage the innocent, but generally too cowardly to attack the king's armed convoys. The Forestmen are the "Robin Hood" type of outlaw. Loved by the serfs and hated by the establishment. They protect the townspeople from raids from orcs and Wolfpack (who do not have a direct alliance, as I envision the orcs as a murderous horde, hungry for blood of any man ) and also "rob from the rich to give to the poor." I've also added a small contingent of centaurs to the Forestmen ranks, as I see them as friends of woodland creatures.
Centaur

If I'm making "good" and "evil" armies, any Dragons, Fright Knights, etc are combined vs. Falcons, "Lion"-factions, etc. Trolls/Orcs, Forestmen, and Wolfpack don't have allegiance to any side, and stay out of organized conflicts, although I guess the Wolfpack's loyalty is always for sale to the highest bidder. (Don't expect them to lead the charge or stick around when the going gets tough, though!)

Anyway, that's basically my 2-cents worth on this topic. Hope you enjoyed! lol.

[Velliscig]

One thing I've been thinking of doing, is taking the Wolf Pack torsos I've been hoarding and making them into an organized faction - meaning, not a mercenary/outlaw horde, but using their parts as part of an new order I've been creating... not sure yet, though.

[Hoboman]

One thing I've been thinking of doing, is taking the Wolf Pack torsos I've been hoarding and making them into an organized faction - meaning, not a mercenary/outlaw horde, but using their parts as part of an new order I've been creating... not sure yet, though.

Sort of like an "Order of the Wolf"? Make Wolf shields and banners etc?

[SEdmison]

Well, force-feeding the bricks to your younger sibling is wrong. But apart from that, you're golden.

Hmmm. You haven't met my younger sibling, or you might reconsider whether that's an absolute truth....

[CVfan13]

Florestmen

Haha, this immediately made me think of little green men running around with flowers!

Anyway, I'm kind of an anomaly here (apparently) in that apart from my complete classic sets, I don't actually create real "factions" for my MOCs. The way I used to create things and play with them was through creating several individual, personalized characters. There was always a "good" castle, guarded by some kind of neutral group of soldiers (or usually, some incarnation of the Lion/Crownie knights) and if there was an opposing army of some kind (because there was usually some kind of all-powerful magical bad guy, who at one point was Dracula ), they were usually made up of randomly gathered misfits and outlaws (though post-KK2 era was influenced by an evil scorpion army).

I haven't really made a MOC since then, so when I create something new (which is hopefully soon, when I'm done obsessing over completing my classic sets) I might try to create some mixed factions (probably with all post KK-2 figures, since my classics are all serving another purpose).

[SEdmison]

Anyway, I'm kind of an anomaly here (apparently) in that apart from my complete classic sets, I don't actually create real "factions" for my MOCs. The way I used to create things and play with them was through creating several individual, personalized characters.

I don't think you're necessarily an anomaly in that regard. Personally I have built MOCs or scenes or dioramas with very distinct faction lines, and I've done others that were more like you're describing, with one clearly identifiable side representing law and order being attacked by a ragtag bunch of mixed rabble.

I agree with the sentiment that there is no right or wrong way to build with LEGO generally, and that there is no right or wrong way to handle factions specifically. The way I look at it, the "right" thing is the thing that gives you the most enjoyment with the stuff that you have. Let's face it: Not everyone has the funds to have armies of hundreds of soldiers on each side of a battle, complete with full uniforms and accoutrement. If you have those kinds of numbers, and the feeling you're going for in staging a battle is for it to be epic in scale and waged between die-hard armies, then having lots of identical troops might be the "right" answer. If you have smaller numbers of troops, you can put together smaller scenes or battles, or you can opt to combine smaller groups to get the numbers you need.

An aside: For anyone out there lamenting not having tons of troops but wanting to do something interesting, spend some time looking at the LEGO vignette boards. For them, less is more. They're all about showing an interesting scene with a small budget of parts and things going on in that scene. You don't make a great vignette by throwing numbers of parts at it; that's for sure. Get some inspiration, and then think how you can do something interesting. It could be having your mage make a great discovery, or messing up a spell and accidentally transforming his familiar. It could be a forestman getting his cat out of a tree. It could be a battle between your epic hero and your little brother's epic villain. You don't have to have lots of troops to make those things work, and those kinds of scenes can provide more enjoyment to a builder or a viewer than an otherwise random staged battle with lots of troops.

So what I would say in response to the original question is that the right way to deal with factions is the way that suits the project you're building, the scene you're staging, or the game you're playing.

[SEdmison]

If I'm making "good" and "evil" armies, any Dragons, Fright Knights, etc are combined vs. Falcons, "Lion"-factions, etc. Trolls/Orcs, Forestmen, and Wolfpack don't have allegiance to any side, and stay out of organized conflicts, although I guess the Wolfpack's loyalty is always for sale to the highest bidder. (Don't expect them to lead the charge or stick around when the going gets tough, though!)

Okay, with my admonition that there is no "right" or "wrong" answer to this question firmly in mind, I will say that I see some conventions, and that those conventions can be useful when builders want to collaborate for big, multi-MOC displays like BrickCon. That is, if you and I link our MOCs together, I think to a viewer it's nice if that implies a little bit of implied continuity. If your castle knights are the defenders of the realm and then on the very next baseplate my castle knights are rampaging and pillaging, I think that reinforces the idea that these are separate things that have just been glued together by happenstance.

So, having said that, do we see enough commonalities to establish some sort of (ideally simple to explain, understand, and implement) made-up back story for the factions? Take for example the shared fantasy world of the Forgotten Realms in Dungeons and Dragons or the Star Wars universe. In the Forgotten Realms, there are some factions like the Harpers or the Red Wizards or the drow with some well-established traits, which are generally reinforced and explored throughout the individual novels from individual authors, but there is still enough room for someone like Salvatore to come along and have a signature character who is a good drow ranger who lives on the surface. That character is successful because he plays against type. Similarly, in Star Wars, we all know that the stormtroopers are, generally speaking, the combat troops for the Empire, but that doesn't stop an individual author from having an individual trooper with his own views.

I think we could, if there were consensus, establish some similar kinds of general factions and their values and dispositions toward one another without stepping on individual builders' abilities to build their own MOCs that use the figures differently. Do others on the board see value here, or does that come across as too stifling?