One Era Gamers

[manchesterreg]

I was wondering, if anyone only plays one era say Napoleonic, and has not played any other nor would. I've been gaming since the 1960s, and have never managed to settle on one Era (nor size, rules, painted/non painted etc)

[has.been]

I've been gaming since the 1960s, and have never managed to settle on one Era (nor size, rules, painted/non painted etc)

Apart from the use of unpainted figures, I'm the same.
Alexander the Great was said to have sat down & wept when he thought there was nothing more to conquer.
If I thought there were no more:-
Periods,
Scales,
Figures,
Rules or
Paints... I too would sit down & cry.

[Belligerentparrot]

Currently me! I'm not against playing different rulesets and different periods with friends, but my own lead pile is solely focussed on gangs and other factions in a futuristic hive-world (GW's late-80s Confrontation setting).

There are several reasons for this. For various reasons (living in squats, itinerant lifestyle, then being a parent in a small central city apartment) I have needed to keep my lead pile small for a long time now. Sticking to one era really helps with that.
Perhaps less good reasons: I am an extremely unconfident painter, and it feels awkward to start a new project when the existing one is sooo very far from finished;
I have a limited hobby budget and am an avid collector of unreleased Citadel miniatures, which are not cheap (though not nearly as expensive as some ebay sellers seem to think).

I'd be interested to hear if anyone has less "external" (financial/space constraints, like me) reasons for a singular focus. 

[FierceKitty]

10mm; I'm not a millionaire, but I can afford to do all the periods that interest me.

[Kikuchiyo]

I too have settled on one scale 10mm

For the foreseeable atleast, if I ever get my games room I may go up

[ChrisBBB]

Great question, Manchesterreg! I'm close to being a One Era Gamer. Not that I wouldn't play anything other than my preferred era - I'll join in pretty much anything, including games with orcs or spaceships or both - but I am very clear about what kind of game I like best and what wars will give it to me.

Specifically: I only collect armies and virtually only ever lay on games for either nineteenth-century grand battles (corps-sized and up) or WWII (division- or corps-sized).

Why? I am more interested in the decisions that generals have to make than captains or corporals. Anything pre-Napoleonic is essentially linear warfare because weapon ranges are short and movement is slow, so the battles have no depth and are (IMHO) therefore relatively limited and dull. From the 1790s onwards, ranges are longer, movement is more fluid, so battles have depth and the decisions a general has to make during a battle - and therefore those I get to make as a player - become much more frequent and numerous and much more complex, varied and interesting.

Not every conflict post-1790 is equally interesting. WWI is anomalous as firepower becomes so dominant that it kills manoeuvre. ("Rock-paper" is a much worse game than "rock-paper-scissors".) But during the C19 and WWII, mobility, firepower and protection are in reasonable balance and create a 'holy trinity' - infantry, artillery, cavalry/armour - whose interactions are endlessly fascinating, especially once you layer on top the intricacies of evolving weapon technologies and the diverse tactical challenges those create.

Hence for the past 15 years our group at OWS has been playing on average a couple of C19 historical battles every month, often more, and with no sign of anyone getting bored or running out of battles to refight yet.

I've written some 'Reflections on Wargaming' essays that touch on this stuff. In particular, the ever-popular one on "Airing some prejudices":
https://bloodybigbattles.blogspot.com/2016/04/airing-some-prejudices-on-one.html
Others listed here:
https://bloodybigbattles.blogspot.com/2021/10/reflections-on-wargaming.html

[v_lazy_dragon]

I had a buddy that managed to stick to FIW & AWI for about 3 years, but then the spell broke and he has happily drifted since

I constrain myself to only 28mm (after brief forays to 20mm and 40mm), try to keep to a fairly universal set of scenery requirements (autumnal temperate/boreal, either Colonial American or renaissance European buildings). After playing everything from Bbonze age to post apocalypse, via colonials, cold war, moderns, Vietnam, renaissance, etc  over the last 25 years, I am now converging more on ~1600-1830's. Definitely not 1 period, but a lot of figures can get milage in different 'genres'.

[Mr. White]

Currently me! I'm not against playing different rulesets and different periods with friends, but my own lead pile is solely focussed on gangs and other factions in a futuristic hive-world (GW's late-80s Confrontation setting).

I admire this and wish I were on the same path. Do you have a link to your work on those late-80s models?

I think I'd like to solely focus on my 1/72 post-apoc setting that started as an excuse to use the late-80s Citadel Dark Future minis. However, I've been playing BB for over 30 years and have met some of my closest friends through that game, so I'll probably always have teams for it.

[ithoriel]

I am a one era, one location gamer.

The era is 1,000,000BCE to 1,000,000CE and the location is this multiverse!
 

[Belligerentparrot]

I admire this and wish I were on the same path. Do you have a link to your work on those late-80s models?

As soon as I've managed to paint a gang to my satisfaction, Lead Adventure will be the first to know about it! (So, not likely any time soon, sorry).

[WorkShy]

I'm pretty specific. Only late Antiquity to Early Medieval, so sort of 5th to 11th century. After 1066 arrives, I'm gone. It's just that period where my historical and archaeological interest lies. I even struggle to be interested in associated historical periods such as early Imperial Rome or Hundred Years war, never mind Napoleonic, WW2 or WH40K etc. Definately no guns.

I can imagine branching out into fantasy like Lord of the Rings but that's just an excuse to do more Dark Age minis vs. Orcs. I also like to be quite complete in terms of my forces. I did Late Roman for WAB so it was 24+ units, totalling 400+ minis. As a skirmish game, I'm trying out SAGA but rather than doing one faction, it's six each of 50 minis etc.

I don't really want to flit from one era/rule system/scale to another. I did consider 15mm, rather than 28mm but they'd just be too small.

[Aethelflaeda was framed]

Managed to stay in two fig sizes (15 and 28) although sorely tested.  Periods and genres are still mostly all over the place and time … but i think i can sort of dissolve it all into one:  My RPG/skirmish efforts now are set within a Doctor Who/Torchwood type of time and space traveling adventurers!  Dinosaurs on the same table as Napoleonics, Orcs, Romans, WW2, Cthulhu cultists and Sci-fi space marines at the same time are no longer an issue.

[Basementboy]

Like some others have also said, I constrain myself to 28mm figures. That’s more or less the only restriction I put on myself though, I’ve got four projects on the go right now (Imperial Romans for the Iberian Wars, Late Seleucids for Magnesia, Medieval English for Agincourt, and a war and for Turnip28.) Oh, and I’m painting minis for a D&D game I’m running.
To be honest I should limit myself more, I need to slow down

[Deedles]

I don’t have any medieval or spear chucking - too much spread for me. I am happy to play /collect anything  with a firearm. Currently invested in AWI,ACW , 19th Century colonial, WW2 , and Nam ..

[Cholmondely Percival IV]

I became interested in wargaming over fifty years ago. Focus has always been a problem but as soon as I’ve decided on a period, scale or genre I’ll post the news here.