How much militia is used?

What you really need to do is count up the militia that all of the nations (including neutrals) have in the opening setup. Don’t forget to include any that will be built by neutrals later in the game that are already listed. Most nations will not build many more than that because other than defence they aren’t that useful. Remember that you will be using chips underneath them so you won’t need more than one sculpt per territory that you build them. Russia and the UK will build more than the others. US will likely not build any in most games. Germany’s will stay close to home. Italy will only need 5 or 6 at the very most. Japan has a lot in the opening setup and will need at least one for each of the 3 home territories. China will need one for each Chinese territory because they will only play defence most games. France and ANZAC will not need very many.

I ended up buying +30 more than the ones in the setup.
Games and strategies evolve over time, as players improve.
Militia are very useful for several nations, especially USSR.

On average look at it as how many land zones will this power probably have.
You will only have one  sculpt per zone.
Some zones will not need anything since they are surrounded by other stacks, out of reach etc.

Anzac needs few but Russia British or Germany will need more.
I have 20 for each power and color, that’s usually way too many.

Man, I played one game where I exploited the Soviet rules about land units costing -1 IPP less, and Soviet Militia moving within Soviet borders.

I saved up a lot of the Russian IPP for the first turn of war, then I bought about 50+ Militia across Russia in nearly every territory.
I combined this and kept a little bit further back from the German border.
The Militi became cannon fodder and I never took any non-militia casualties.
The German push was stalled within a couple turns and the Soviet’s kicked them out shortly after, it was grand.

The Crimson Tide Strategy. 😊