I need help with a battle

[Baby Gary]

Hi All,
I need help with building a battle. I am playing with 4, maybe 5 player, and they are all gods that are super board so they decide to have a friendly contest over who is the best strategist. They created a demi-plane to have their armies of mortals fight it out to see who is the best tactician. they will each have an army of equal power to use (i'm going to create the armies so they are even)but what should the armies be, more specifically what should they contain?

I was thinking of just having them humans with basic (like fighter) classes, but I want to spice it up a bit, so what should I do to make this battle interesting? Also any tips on running a battle?

[Mike Miller]

I recommend finding mass combat rules. Maybe check Heroes of Battle if you have access to it. I think that book has useful info.

[Goaty14]

I personally would want to see what they do with conscripts (Which I think is in the DMG)

Conscripts are simple:
-Commoners (d4 hit dice)
-Play Dead when they perceive oncoming damage
-Some other stuff

As for running a battle; don't do it unit by unit, I have not DMed at all before, but I can see it getting very boring very quickly, just assume the PCs are high above the battleground and scale down each army to a standard square

EDIT: You might also consider allowing them different weapons to give them, and different races to use, i.e how would they use gnomes? they have less str to deal dmg, but more con to survive longer.

[Boozy]

I recommend finding mass combat rules. Maybe check Heroes of Battle if you have access to it. I think that book has useful info.

Buy IKRPG. Buy a ****load of models. Play WMH. That'll give you a tight ruleset and fantasy army fighting.

On a serious note, your players sound like they need a reset. Might be a good time to take a break, dig into the idea bag, and relaunch a new campaign, a new story arc, new characters, or all of the above.