hehehe - couldn't resist :) Seriously - why not take an image of massed troops to use as a background? One thing I have noticed (military history was my minor), is that most images of combat and fighting in the modern era don't really include more than 10 folks at a time (Even D-Day photos rarely showed more than a clump of 10-20 soldiers at any one time, and most of those exceptions were shots of the backs of helmets in a landing craft heading towards the beach...) Which era are you working on? Ancient battles, like Greece or Rome, will naturally need huge crowds in near-square Phalanx/Legion formations... and don't forget that Roman formations number exactly 100 men + the Centurion, and are perfectly square (Greek formations are kind of rounded at the flanks.) Medieval battles up to the US Civil War usually have ragged lines of men charging en-masse, with cavalry thrown in... the further back you go, the less ragged they'll look in formation. Modern battle images are usually the easiest to do, since they're broken down into encompassing squads of 5-10 men, tops. The best general Poser battle to do would involve a Naval one, say, somewhere around the battle of Trafalgar. A shot of "boarders away!", where men are assaulting one ship from another, would seriously rock. Also, naval battles by their very virtue don't require as many people filling up a scene :) I'd be real interested in seeing what eventually comes of it, if you don't mind posting the results. /P