Army-building



Army-building is a nickname for the fan tendency to amass large numbers of generic or mass-produced characters (for example, COBRA soldiers or Star Wars Stormtroopers) with the intent of displaying them as an imposingly large cohesive unit. Some army-builders have hundreds of figures, arranged in elaborate dioramas or military-style formations.

The practice is somewhat less-common in Transformers fandom than in other fandoms, primarily due to the relative lack of mass-produced, identical, "generic" units, with the Vehicons being perhaps the most well-known exception. Other popular army-builder figures include Scrapmetal, the G1 Sharkticon toy, and the Energon-series Terrorcons or Omnicons.

Some fans amass armies of non-generic characters (like the Jumpstarters), while others use multiple figures of named characters (e.g., Bombshell) to represent an army of similarly-designed drones (e.g., the generic Insecticon clones from the Generation 1 cartoon).

Of particular note is the Energon-series Omega Sentinel figure, worth mention for being the only Supreme class army builder toy.