The Plan: Part IV

Implementation

(See Part I of this series here)

With such a large and ambitious project, I needed very careful planning and clear goals in order to ensure that it was implemented. Again I was inspired by Olicanalad, who planned out his Punic Wars project by buying a big "pile of lead," and then painting small chunks or lots of his "lead-pile" within a set period of time, in order to complete the project within two years.

With a plastic-focused project like mine, it takes a bit more time to complete a group of miniatures due to the increased construction time. With metal figures, most of the time the only construction required is some cleaning of flash and basing. With plastics, heads, weapons, arms, shields, all have to be attached to the central body (some manufacturers even produce separate torsos and legs as well). This generally means much more detail and customizeability, but the trade-off is much more scraping and filing of mold-lines and attaching of very small components. 

Turning this...

In addition, I intended from the start to paint to a "showcase" standard, rather than a "battlefield" standard, despite the fact that I intend to use the collection for wargaming, because I enjoy painting and improving my skills by challenging myself with the ambitiousness of my painting. So I knew that getting about 1,000 figures, mostly plastic, built, painted, and based, would take a good deal of time. 

...Into this takes time (both pics courtesy of Victrix Ltd.)

Since budget is also a concern, rather than buying the entire heap of figures in one go and completing them over time, as Olicanalad did (for the most part), I decided I would purchase the armies in blocs defined by price (rather than number of figures). My initial target was to purchase $100-$150 blocs of figures, then construct, paint, and base the whole lot in a three-month period, and then buy the next bloc.

In this way I can space out my spending and gradually build up the armies over time. I can also buy one or two units for two or more of the armies in one bloc, allowing me to maintain project-motivation by giving me more variety of figures to work with (painting 240 Phalangites in a row being far more demoralizing than, say, 12 Companion cavalry, 40 Phalangites, and 40 Iberians, for instance). This will also allow me to complete small armies that can fight battles for skirmish games or smaller-battle systems (like Warhammer Ancient Battles) while working towards playing the big, cinematic battles, like Cannae or Raphia, that are the final goal of the project.

Warlord Games' as-yet unreleased Armoured Indian elephant

This gradual purchase and completion schedule will also allow me to work while I wait for some items that I require but are as yet unreleased (such as Victrix's plastic Macedonian cavalry, African elephants, and conversion sprues, Warlord Games' Indian elephants, etc.), and, of course, to cross my fingers and hope that currency exchange rates become more favorable.