Painting
Most of the
figures we use in our games are plastic, though we have just begun to
incorporate some metal 20mm figures from Newline Designs, and as is well known,
plastic can be a problem as far as paint adhering to it for the long term. We
try and get round this by careful storage and handling of our figures, and by
sealing them with a water-based Polyurethane varnish, (at the moment we are
using Jo Sonja's Satin Varnish).
Those of us
in the group who paint use acrylic/water based paints, mostly Games Workshop
paints, (because that is what is locally available) plus some tube acrylics,
which are especially good for horses and ground-work on the bases.
We have
tried a variety of painting methods, some more time consuming than others. The
black undercoat method has been tried, and seems fine for quick results;
unfortunately it can dull down colours too much. At the present we have adopted
a white or neutral grey undercoat, often followed by "lining in" the figures
with black using a fine brush. On some figures mixing the base colour with its
complimentary colour, has achieved a more realistic shading effect. I tend to
spend a lot more time on the command base figures, as extra detail can sometimes
be lost on the tightly packed rank and file figures.
For a
fabulous site on painting miniatures try The
Miniature World of Joe Videki.
Thoughts on Budget Wargaming
Not
everyone can afford thousands of 25mm figures marching across nicely sculpted
terrain with superbly painted resin buildings; we have all seen pictures of
these games, you may have even been to a couple, but for many of us it is out of
our financial reach. So how can we play these games we enjoy so much without
putting ourselves into debt?
I
realise that these thoughts on the subject may not represent the feelings of
all, so your empathy is required.
When
we first started, the only figures we had were a few 15mm ancients from Tin
Soldier, and virtually no napoleonics. One of the guys turned up with a boxed
set of Avalon Hills "Napoleons Battles"; this contained a bunch of cardboard
troop markers and terrain features/buildings and was very handy for getting us
started. For a long time we played games that were a cross between a board game
and a tabletop game using cardboard markers.
It
really is hard to find any historical wargames stuff in Tasmania, most of our
figures have had to come from mainland Australia or overseas. There are loads of
reputable model shops that provide a mail order service; I have found F&S
Scale Models (UK) to be particularly good.
We
did have a foray into 5/6mm miniatures, and ordered a French and British force.
This scale is great for those on a budget; you can amass huge armies for a
relatively small outlay. The other bonus about this scale is that you don't
need a dedicated wargames room to play in, your dining table will do and your
army would probably fit in a shoebox.
Personally,
part of the attraction of this hobby is playing with toy soldiers, and I don't
find this smaller scale has quite the same visual appeal as the larger scales,
(I could probably be convinced otherwise).
And
so on to the "plastic fantastics"...
For
us, the only real viable alternative has been plastic 20mm figures. I guess
there are some wargamers out there who look upon these plastic armies with
contempt!
There
are more and more figures being produced for this market, especially for
napoleonics. Check out the excellent web site of Plastic Soldier Review to
get a good idea of what is out there for the wargamer. Another website worth
visiting is that of HAT industries, who are bringing out new ranges all the
time; they also have an interesting links page called "Everything Toy
Soldiers" which features some of the figure conversions possible with plastic
figures.
It
is possible to amass a decent size force for not much money with plastics, I
know some boxes of figures have their share of "daggy" poses, some of which
look physically impossible, but even they can be useful for potential
conversions.
I
have just started to supplement my British army with some splendid 20mm figures
from Newline Designs in the UK. These are metal, and provide figures that the
plastics manufacturers are not really producing at the moment.
Terrain
Most
of the games we play are conducted on our legendary green blanket, which allows
us to place objects underneath to create hills. We
have been gradually building up a modest collection of terrain items, for a long
time we only had the blanket and a couple of trees. Our local model railway shop
has proved a handy source of trees and static flock at a reasonable price. We
have a handful of Woodland Scenics trees, which look great, but are not always
the cheapest option.I
have hand made a couple of small houses, stone walls and a bridge out of DAS
modelling clay which look quite effective, other buildings are made of
cardboard, (try searching the internet for free cardboard houses). A
couple of us have created some hills out of polystyrene, filler, paint and
static flock- lightweight and inexpensive. At
this stage we are using sections of coloured card to mark out rivers.
