Poor mans wargames

[Aaron]

Backslider! To paraphrase a great line in the second Blackadder series, "cold is God's way of telling us to burn more cardboard wargamers!" 

[abhorsen950]

Yeahh well im now thinking of roleplaying and then ill just buy models for the heroes instead.

Thanks guys


Steve

[Trooper]

Steve, I can empathise with you entirely, at 14 I thought buying a box of Airfix plastics was a big deal, and I saved up my pennies long and hard to be able to afford stuff. Stick with it, and perhaps ask sympathetic relatives to help out with presents of cash or figures at Christmas and birthdays.  It is an expensive hobby, look at the price of paints and brushes alone, before you even get to figures. Buy carefully, and wisely, and don't over exceed your budget. I don't mean to be patronising, but I hope you stick with it. As some of the fellows have said, if its just a game you want, those cheap bags of plastic soldiers at toy shops are one alternative. Or save up a bit and buy a couple of small skirmish sides. Either way I wish you good luck.

[fastolfrus]

We run a small school club.

Most of our players are in exactly the same situation, but some are only 11 years old rather than 14.

They have only just come to terms with using proxies to supplement "proper" figures, although they are more than happy to use plastic figures, and there are a huge variety available nowadays. The younger players are more used to plastic figures than metal anyway.

We have some "club figures" that we keep in the cupboard, acquired from a variety of sources, but mostly donated - even damaged figures (especially hard plastic ones) are always welcome (we have a whole unit of one-armed Lord of the Rings orcs, no idea where their other arms went), and they help new players to bulk out forces. All club figures get their bases painted in a thick coat of burgundy "Japlac" - high gloss lacquer that makes them easy to identify and collect at the end of the game.
When Warlord Games had the free plastic figures on the cover of WI we acquired quite a few extras and used them for a club painting competition last year.

[Calimero]

I certainly might have a few figures that I could donate myself (none are here with me unfortunately) and I suspect a lot of "older" wargamers do too. You know the kind of figures that are not to today’s standard, the "true 25mm" that doesn’t fit with anything else anymore and all the ones that you "wouldn’t even take the time to put on sale"…

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one in this situation. When my nephews go to my mother’s house they run down to the basement and play with my old soldiers. They do battle with ESCI plastic, WH40K Dark Eldar and Space Marines and they throw in Action Figures and LEGO figures for good measure… the good thing is that they don’t seem to bother at all.

My older nephew is 15, soon 16, and has became quite fluent in English so I’m thinking about buying him some skirmish rules books and a box or two of plastic figures so he can start "proper" wargames.

Anyway, the whole point is, if you can donate figures to younger gamers then do so. In the long run it is helping the whole hobby.

[Trooper]

Calimero, you read my mind. After reading Fastolfrus's post that is just what I was thinking. We all have lead piles, nay lead and plastic piles that will mostly just sit around for ages. And as you say, will more than likely never get sold, either too old or just too much effort. So its a pm to Mr F for me, to see if his club is interested. Got to invest in the future.

[Aaron]

Yeahh well im now thinking of roleplaying and then ill just buy models for the heroes instead.

Thanks guys


Steve

All joking aside there are some great skirmish mini games that only require low figure counts. If you like Napoleonics for excample, "A Song of Drums and Shakos" might fit your budget and only takes 8-12-ish models per side. If you have a friend or two who are also interested you can split a couple boxes of Victrix/Perry or Italieri plastics and away you go! You can supplement them with paper soldiers to play bigger battles and add to your armies as your budget allows.


Then there are the games like Gloire (swashbuckling to AWI-ish) and "Chaos in Carpathis (horror) that straddle the fence between role playing and miniatures. Again you only need a handful (4-8) of figures per side.

Of course there is nothing wrong with role-playing either. I started with D&D myself and then slowly evolved as my lead disease really took root.

[Luthaaren Von Tegale]

I think "paper" figures are the way to go - despite what the lead mafia would have you believe.

There are a lot of companies out there that produce "pay & print" figures and quite a few that do free figs such as Junior General.
I would consider doing side or front/back view stand up figures rather than top down tiles.
If you want an example of some inspiring stuff check out http://dukebillsblog.blogspot.com/ - it's not my work I hasten to add but I think it's a great idea.

Despite the fact that I can afford the lead my current project is using Paper Figures and as I game solo they will be single sided side views which I'm drawing myself on thin card which will than be painted in acrylics- the figures are ~45mm tall.
Have a go at drawing a few figures - as a guide a figure is about 7 "heads" tall so divide your chosen height by seven - the head is between the top two, the body takes the next three and the legs the final three. For card you could use cereal packets and if you're painting with acryilics, (I use GW), then you'll need a waterproof black pen to ink in the final lines.

If you use paper figures in the size that you want in lead or plastic it'll be easy to swap in the "real" figures as and when you can - or you may find you stick with paper.

By the way - another advantage of paper figures is if you draw them yourself you can have whatever you want and not be restricted by someone elses vision - which could be usefull if you're roleplaying.

Hope the above is of help.

vT

[abhorsen950]

Cheers guys ive got a small mound of figures lying around but obviously for new projects new models and there either GW LOTR or GW WH40K I guess ill just practice painting and then start buying.

My latest purchase consisted off Perry Miniatures British Line Infantery so ill do something with those.

Thanks anyway


Steve

[Aaron]

Just as an aside, have you seen this site? http://www.freewargamesrules.co.uk/ hundreds of free miniatures rules sets. I have heard that "Chosen Men" is great for Napoleonic skirmishing.

[abhorsen950]

Cheers guys might stick with RPG'ing anyway and just save up for some decent character figures or something.


Steve

[gharak]

It really depends on what you're wanting to play.

I pretty much dropped out of mass miniture games in favour of RPG like skirmish games like .45 adventure.

I started my 1st project with 2 heroes, half a dozen mooks, and a couple of boss type enemies. The rest is all terrain which I mainly made from what I have lying around.

Me and my bro had great fun over a couple of weekends playing through the adventures (I planned enough stuff for about 5 different games) several times. In total I think I spent under £30 for everything including the rules.

I'm now owrking on sending those same heroes deep into the south american rainforest, again I've spent about £30 so far, picking up a box of wargames factory Zulus to convert to jungle warriors, a couple of D&D minis (Giant centipedes) and the rest went on terrain supplies.

So far I've got about 5 locations planned using my new terrain mixed into my existing collection. With these locations I'm betting on around 10 different scenarios without further expenditure.

Handily me and my bro only get together about once every 3 or 4 months for a session so I've plenty of time to plan and build.

If you want to do mass battle type games I'd reccomend using 1/72 plastics. You get boxes of around 48 miniatures for around a fiver. Add in some 20mm bnases and you can play WFB ancients quite easily with minimal investment (about 3 boxes a side makes for good starter games)

Hope you find what you are looking for.

[P_Clapham]

One of the finer wargames stores in Massachusetts carries a huge range of cheap plastic figures.  Some of them even at the 25 & 28mm scale.

If I couldn't afford minis I would go for the cheap plastic figures option rather than tiles. Plenty of pound shops sell toy soldiers, cowboys n indians, spacemen etc.

[pauld]

You ought to look at the Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition Roleplaying Starter set  - see it here

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dungeons-Dragons-Roleplaying-Starter-Introductory/dp/0786948205/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269011770&sr=8-1

As well as the rules (which are a good read in themselves but I have not played them yet) you get a load of heavy card stock character tokens (heroes, goblins, skeletons, bandits etc) and some really spiffy dungeon tlles (these are really good)

all for £8.99

seems just what you are looking for

[abhorsen950]

Pauld i bourght that exact set and thats what sparked the idea of tiles

Thanks guys im really looking at SOBAH and MADRG now so i might just go with skirmishing like reccomened

Cheers

Steve