Mass combat, favorite armies?

[Drrakerr]

My friends and I recently started a new campaign, and the GM has been open about intending to take the game into a kingdom building campaign. We know mass combat is on the table, and with that I've been looking into various armies. It's looking like a army of small animated objects is pretty sweet and decently affordable if you have the means of making them (4/BP if you can craft them, 2/BP if you're buying them). Just wondering if anyone has any personal favorites?

Ps. I know the game wasn't designed for mass combat to be a replacement for normal play, and its intentionally bare bones for that reason.

[YellowJohn]

What's the duration of Animate Object in Pathfinder? If you're having to splash out on castings of Permanency, those prices jump. A lot...

If you're looking for army inspiration, you could do worse than starting here...
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?593925-Military-Games-Act-1-the-Stand-of-300!
Act two is going on as we speak - last I saw it was on page 2 of the forum.

[YellowJohn]

(Apologies for posting twice - switching from phone to laptop)

My favorite Mass Battle unit was the Shining Axes I statted up when I ran RHoD. They were a unit of L6 Fighters who really exemplified the Dwarves resilience and discipline.
Everyone traded their Dwarven Urgosh proficiency for Dwarven Warpike, and wore fullplate. The front rank had Waraxe/Tower Shield & fought defensively, Warpikes with Reach behind them (readied against a charge) brought the pain.
Combat Reflexes, Double Team (DC, if two allies with this feat threaten you, they flank you), Backstab (DrM, If a foe you flank attacks someone else, they provoke AoO)gave them loads of bonus attacks even with Dex 12, and Expert Tactician (CAd, If you hit a foe with an AoO, all allies get +2 To Hit & Damage for one round) boosted it even more.
I also threw in Formation Expert for a bunch of small but useful bonuses, and combined with the Team Shield Maneuver teamwork benefit from PHB2 allowed any holes punched in the front line to be instantly plugged.

Alas, I never got a chance to roll dice for them, but they seemed like they'd make a VERY solid (and very spiky) anvil.

[Kaiwen]

@john Regarding Animated Objects, "A caster can use the animate objects spell to instantly create a temporary construct. A permanency spell cast upon an Animated Object makes the construct permanent; however, it can still be dispelled or suppressed by antimagic. Craft Construct creates permanent animated objects not susceptible to dispelling and antimagic."

A more economical construct army would probably be Trompe L'oeils. Their cost curve is more level (ie a low HD Trompe L'oeil is more expensive than smaller Animated Objects, but high HD Trompe L'oeils are cheaper than larger Animated Objects) and they're not nearly as modularly customizable, but they're a lot more powerful and you don't need to pay to replace them when they "die".

You might also want to take a look at the construct upgrading/modifying rules, which let you pay to add hit dice and other abilities. (And therefore feats on non-mindless constructs. Besides templates like Trompe L'oeil, there's Soulbound Dolls and 40 other statted intelligent constructs, some of which, like idols, are uncraftable.)

Edit: You can also craft clockwork familiars. I have no idea how familiar progression works without levels in a familiar-progressing class, but you can probably still use familiar archetypes. Notably, Valets double your crafting speed at first level, no progression needed, so you can make more constructs.