A new class of Wargamer

I’ve noticed that when the topic of prepainted miniatures comes up, some wargamers make disparaging remarks about prepainted miniatures and how they aren’t “real miniatures” and using them in a game wouldn’t be “real wargaming.”

I do not understand where this attitude is coming from and the hobby appears to be dividing into board gamers, perpainted gamers and (according to some) real wargamers. I find this position odd since my recent trip to Fall-In had a lot of real wargamers playing 54mm WWII skirmish games using toy soldiers which are *gasp* prepainted!

The criticism of prepainted miniatures begins with the idea that the paint jobs are terrible. The miniatures that I’ve seen so far: Star Wars and Dreamblade are no contest winners; but, I’ve seen paint jobs some of the “real wargamers” put on the table and I have to wonder if the painter was subject to epileptic fits. I think much of this criticism is sour grapes from marginal painters.

Prepainted miniatures are also viewed as taking the easy way out. For me, part of the fun of the hobby is painting the miniatures; but, I’ve got more miniatures than I will ever paint in my lifetime. If I ever want to play certain periods and have armies of my own it will have to be using prepainted figures. The way I look at it, if I offload some of my painting duties using prepainted, I am likely to game more periods.

The final argument is that prepainted miniatures are promoting sweatshop labor in third world countries. I find this argument amusing considering that most gamers are not upset when the unpainted products are made in foreign lands nor do many get upset if an army is set overseas to a cheaper painting service. Perhaps the latter isn’t an issue because the figures come back hand painted.

In the end, I think it will take a while for pre-painted miniatures to catch on and those using them will have to hear the grumblings of older wargamers who had earlier starts and weren’t so lucky.

Flames of War 600 Point Games

As long as Dan and I were getting together to record All About Miniatures Episode 4, we decided to give our 600 point Flames of War armies a try. We played a Breakthrough scenario on a 4’ x 4’ table. Luckily for Dan, he was defender and his six stands had to hold off my Russian horde.

We both had some reservations regarding the 600 point games; could they be fun given the low number of tactical units? Well, having played such a game, I can safely say that the games are indeed fun. I wouldn’t want to play only 600 point games; but, they are perfect for inspiring you to see the rest of the army through to completion.

I am currently painting the Cardinal’s Guard to be the opposition to my Three Musketeers and pictures should be coming on a day or so. I also decided that the only way I would ever get a Warmaster Ancients army finished would be to have them painted; so, I sent 1,000 points of Alexandrian Macedonians to Fernando Enterprises to be painted.

One for All and All Done

There is nothing like a self imposed deadline to increase painting production. In this case it was the Thanksgiving Holiday and the spectre of time away from the painting table with relatives to get me to finish the Eureka 40mm Three Musketeers that I had started. You can see the picture below.

I also snapped a picture of the 15mm Russian buildings that I picked up from Miniature Building Authority while at Fall-In. They were running a good special and they would ship your products after the show at no cost. I like this new range of buildings and Miniature Building Authority makes a Stalingrad range that is unique in that the upper part can be removed and turned upside down yeilding two destroyed building.

Recovered from Fall In

One of the downsides of going on vacation is the amount or work and errands that need to be done when you get home. I think I finally have my head above water again and I have finally started to paint.

I wish I could say that I was painting all the new armies I brought back from Fall-In; but, the fact is that I am actually painting figures I already own! I dusted off my package of Eureka 40mm Three Musketeers and I have started painting them. There is a Fall-In connection, however, in that I plan on using the Gloire rules I picked up at the show.

As if not having enough time to paint real armies was bad enough, I picked up two Sash & Saber vignettes and I am painting them up for display only. I have started on one, the other is waiting patiently.

As always, I will post pictures once the miniatures are done.

If you're gaming you're not blogging

Today was my day to get in some games. I really enjoyed playing in a Battle of the Boyne game in which I was one of the Irish players who managed to old off the English until the end of the game. In typical convention style, I attacked every chance I got and charged whenever possible. I'm not sure if the rules really worked for a convention game in that there were entirely too many +/- modifiers; but, it seemed to have plenty of period flavor.

A nice find for me in the dealer area was David Schmid's Terrain Clearing Stand. I picked up four which would be enough for Flames of War or I could use them for 2 on 2 dogfight games as well. These are really slick. Before saying goodbye to the dealer hall, I picked up a couple of 40mm Sash & Sabre Vignettes.

It is with a heavy heart that this well be the last blod from Fall-In. My return flight is tomorrow and the family leaves bright and early for BWI. I have a few philospohical thoughts to mull over, like what makes a good set of convention rules, that should make excellent blog topics in the future.

General Pickett's Fried Chicken

The topic title came to me this afternoon when I noticed that "General Pickett's Buffet" was next to Kentucy Fried Chicken. Which means it was a busy afternoon for The General to have time to shop in the dealer area and in the touristy areas of Gettysburg around Steinwehr Avenue and Maryland Street. Two food finds are the crab cake sandwich at the hotel restaurant: the price is reasonable and it tastes great; the other was the Farnsworth House in Gettysburg. The Farnsworth House has a fine dining area and a casual tavern dining area. The food in the tavern could have been better but the price was good given the historical nature of the building.

While crusing the dealer area, I had a list of things I wanted to pick up at the con; and, of those items, only two were available in the dealer area. Undaunted and not wanting to bring all that money back home, I found several things from my "want list": Disposable Heroes, Nuts!, and General Quarters III. All these games are likely to be reviewed on the podcast once I've had a chance to play a few games.

There were a number of folks selling prepainted miniatures; but, since I flew to Fall In, I didn't even bother trying to buy painted figures. I did pick up a few miniatures: 1:6000 scale ships for the Battle of Tassafaronga (an episode 3 podcast topic) and some 10mm Zulus for what will either be another stupid project or a decent start in the colonial period. One thing a few dealers were willing to do was ship any purchases you made shipping free. I think this is an excellent idea for air travellers like me.

One thing that struck me was the sheer number of dealers selling 54mm toy soldiers. At times I wasn't sure if I was at a toy solider show or at Fall In. I need to think about why 54mm is suddenly so popular: could it be that the figures are prepainted? Perhaps it is the fact that 25mm figures cost almost as much as toy soliders anyway. I need to think about this some more and I may discuss this at a later date.

I played a game in the evening (and lost); but, that isn't new.

Fall-In Friday Morning

After getting my pre-registration materials Thursday night, I was ready to begin Fall-In in earnest on Friday; unforunately, my morning game was cancelled! This gave me some time to walk about the various rooms and take a few pictures. I have started a special album for Fall In using some of the space from the All About Miniatures show album.

As is typical at other conventions I have attended, the Friday morning start is rather low key. Next comes the shopping!

I'm leaving on a jet plane

This will be my last blog post for a while. The family is leaving for Fall-In tomorrow and until I get reconnected with the Internet I will be out of touch. I hope the Eisenhower Hotel has high speed Internet. This amenity wasn't high on my list since the Eisenhower is the location for Fall In so it wasn't like I was going to stay somewhere else.

I will try and make blog posts about the convention. I am coming loaded with all the latest electronics: laptop for Internet access, digital camera for pictures, digital voice recorder for anything I might be able to do for the podcast. Living with all this high tech gear, I decided to try and find some battlefield tour podcasts. And there aren't any! Now there is a money maker for some enterprising folks. I would even have paid for a decent audio tour of the battlefield.

In case you are wondering, I finished the T-34's. Here is a picture to keep you until I can get some Fall-In pictures on line.

Painting in Fits and Starts

One thing about spending 3 weeks or so in the UK and Ireland is that the lingo sticks with you. It took several months to stop looking for the "lifts"; and the next time someone wants a napkin and asks for a "nappy" I will likely chuckle. A good British English phrase to describe my painting of late is "fits and starts." If you’ve been reading the blog since the beginning, you will notice that the late summer months had almost no painting and then the past few weeks saw painting production at an almost manic pace.

Well, for the past two weeks or so, I’ve had zero interest in painting. Some of this must be a bit of burnout. In addition, the recent change to daylight savings time has just left me too exhausted to paint in the evening. It doesn’t help that Fall In is coming up this week and my gaming interest is largely on hold pending all the purchases at Fall In. Fall In leaves me with a bit of a predicament, however, in that I have the 5 T-34’s from my Flames of War Russian Army on the painting table and would very much like to get them finished before leaving for Fall In.

The treatment Flames of War players, I being one of them, received with the abysmal product that is Festung Europa has also sapped some of my will to finish the army. My goal is to force myself (with whip in hand) to finish these tanks before Fall In. Once I return from Fall In, I’m sure the convention will have revitalized my interest in painting and I will have a lot of new toys to paint.

Scenario or not to Scenario

One of the Mail Call questions from Epsisode 3 of All About Miniatures was why miniature gamers do not embrace scenarios in the same way board gamers do. In that show, I said I would think about it and make a blog post. So here we go.

The most obvious reason is that for a scenario to be effective you need to have all the troops outlined in the scenario. For a board game this is never a problem because the scenario that came with the game was designed to use the counters and components in the game. Miniature gamers, on the other hand, have more freedom over their collections; and, more often than not, the collection won’t match a published scenario.

When I think of miniature wargaming periods that embrace scenarios, it is usually those where the troop types are more generic: Napoleonics, ACW, ECW, etc. It’s easy to make the 14th Ohio stand in for the 7th Pennsylvania; it’s not so easy to make a Panzer III stand in for a King Tiger.

Another thing about miniature gamers is that they must make a larger emotional investment in their game than a board gamer. To a board gamer, the game is simply a collection of cardboard like any other; but, a miniature gamer must plan his army, make the purchase, and spend the time painting it. Because of this, miniature armies are often personality extensions. When I used to play 40K, I liked the idea of using lots of heavy weapons to engage the enemy at range and have only one or two dedicated strike units. Another person might like the idea of charging the whole army warband style into the enemy for the glory of hand to hand combat. This can carry into historical games in which players take the troops (up to the limits in the army list) they like which might not fit historical scenarios.

The final problem is that scenario design is like game design in that the scenario needs to be play tested (multiple times) to ensure the scenario is balanced. This means that even if the miniature gamer was designing scenarios for their friends at the club (keeping in mind the player’s collections), the game would need to be played multiple times to ensure balance. By the time the scenario was declared "complete" most players would already be sick of it.

In the end, I think scenarios have their place but the players of scenarios will tend to be those which established collections that have enough variety to be able to match the order of battle given in the scenario.