[Musings] Re: Overcoming hobby obstacles, Ivan on The Weasel Game
I wrote an answer to Ivan Sorensens 'What we do need is a change of ideas' on his blog The Weasel Games (also crossposted to Patreon) and decided to post it here on Skaldsdrápa due to the wall of text I accidentally ended up with..
Let me start with the age old: It's always gonna be a 'you' problem. I don't mean it in a "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" kinda way, but more in the sense that we all have different obstacles and hangups regarding the most time-consuming part of the mini-hobby: painting.
Re: Problem number 1, Too many things that do not add up to a game.
Limiting the amount of "what we get to immerse ourselves in" is good to get shit done but bad for creativity. It's great to not keep acting like a hobby-butterfly, but we might not paint at all when we are tired of the spacemens when we have just read about seamens and can't start painting/collecting them because of some arbitrary rules we have set up for ourselves. (Always paint your seamen my dudes.)
Myself, I decided to completely quit 28mm sci-fi a few years back, apart from painting whatever OOP metal I had lying about and completing said collection, mainly the original Van Saars. 28mm fantasy is still ok, mainly since I don't ever plan on doing army-level stuff in it again. Apart from that, it's a mix of everything, both scales and periods. I kinda don't have any 15mm sci-fi, which feels odd though, considering I have about 25 different ongoing projects to paint.
So why no 28mm sci-fi?
One (pretty sizeable) terraincrate less to worry about storing and updating.
Re: Problem number 2, Aiming too big.
Kinda ties in with the above for me.
Thankfully, I am only interested in games that have a finite amount of minis needed. A platoon of WW2 mens is always just a platoon in terms of numbers. A battalion of smol Great War mens is kinda just that one battalion. That Scythian light horse army will only ever need 400AP painted. (Damn Teutonic order at 400AP really means to paint up 550AP though for options, grr).
I feel that stepping away from looking at the army-games from a gaming-perspective (i.e. listbuilding/options) and adopting a view more based on historical plausibility did wonders for me. And yes, that extends to fantasy/sci-fi as well.
A squad is a squad, and a squad is never 500 individuals.
On the other hand, when it comes to the big pieces like vehicles, I again try to add a few more than I ever think I will need. Because, of course, I will need a couple lorries sooner or later. Besides, they look good in the cabinet. Best example is the ~20 extra Pz 1s I did in 6mm at one point.
Will I need more than 3, like ever? Turns out a faux-Hannut with ~150 tanks on the table was really cool. :P
This could well be its own huge paragraph, but wargamers in general have a blindspot to using sabots. We want dedicated mens for dedicated games. Lo and behold, your 15mm Jaegers on sabots apparently can be elements for [insert company level game here].
Batchpaint.
Always batchpaint.
How big should the batches be? You do you, I do a squad/group at a time. Painting models will get you nowhere. Paint armies instead, one group at a time. I promise you that you will survive.
Re: Problem number 3, Too much fuss in setting things up.
I am lucky enough to live with a wife and four beloved assholes (cats) who support my painting-hobby. As the former always inspires me to keep painting, building and evolving my setup, one of the latter steals brushes and all four at times happen to knock a paintbottle or two off the rack when they hunt flies in the summer, I have it easy.
Kinda just have to put the brushes in their printed holder on the wall-of-paints when I want a break.
Having everything set up and, as such, really no obstacles between thought and opening a paintbottle is huge. For all the various reasons that exist in the world, this is one of the biggest 'you' problems, being highly individual.
At the most basic level, a good cardboard box that is set up with everything needed, as others already suggested, is key. Back in another life when I was living with my ex-wife and the kids were young, I had close to no hobbytime and the gaming hobby was frowned upon in general. I managed to thrift a chiffonier (the british-style, foldable top dresser/table combo) which was awesome. Open the lid, turn on the desklamp and paint away for a few minutes. When the time was up, I just put the things in the drawers and folded up the table. Less than a minute setup and teardown, all that remained was a nice piece of furniture against a wall.
Don't overlook getting dedicated desklamps when trying to figure out a good setup. Cheap or spendy kinda doesn't matter, easy setup and teardown is the focus. Unless they actually are pretty enough to have set up to the side, close to the table you sometimes paint at. I always want a minimum of 2 lamps, but run 4 at my own table. While most things about becoming an old geezer are great, other things suck. :P Also, have a good plan on where to store the box/lamps/things to minimise clutter and setup.
Re: Herding cats.
Yeah, no.
MrNightmare has the right idea, and my version of the cat-thief conundrum is that I use one of the old dry-brushing brushes for that particular cat to play with when need be.
We play a game where he steals it and rolls it around on the floor; I pick it up off the floor and set it beside the paints, rinse and repeat. He usually wears himself out after 4-5 hunts.
Re: Problem number 4, Too much futzing around to actually get started on playing.
What, you guys play games?
I jest, I jest. But in all honesty, I have always looked at the game-part of the hobby quite far down on the list of why I am a miniature wargamer. Again, it's a 'you' thing. One has to figure out what is fun, and that is extremely individual. Took me around 35 years of doing the hobby to find a bunch of geezers who like to play the same rulesets/eras as me, and even then, none are really interested in ACW naval, 2mm Ancients or a (TRV KVLT) Necromunda-campaign. Not to mention a 1/72 Rapid Fire project.
Find your people, find your rules. And then circle back to 1,2 and 3 on the list and just paint the damn thing.
Re: Problem number 5, Sir Higgins is AWOL
Having to finish a game in one sitting is a thing for me as well, especially when it comes to board/hex-games. It's not feasible to lock the thiefs out of the gamingroom (permanently set up 4x6' table, did I mention the wife being awesome yet?) as it doubles as our computerroom and they always hang out with us in there. When I play mens, both solo and with the boiz, it's ok for an evening but not for days on end, especially considering that we live in a small house of ~90m2 (about 80 dishwashers in American) and they are indoor cats.
Besides, I wouldn't want to! My buddies are with me 99% of the time, just like I want to.
My plan is to build ceilingracks to be able to store ongoing games; even multipart maps should be easy to handle this way. I.e. set up your game on a sheet of ply, and then hoist said ply up and down from the racks to the actual table.
Re: Problem number 6: Not very metal is it?
Ah, the "Instagram is the bane of creativity"-part. I tend to go on rants on how, despite how much good social media has done for the hobby as we've become able to connect globally over the nerdiest of hobbies, it's also stifling on creativity for many of us. The vast majority of us compare our stuff to others, and comparison is the thief of joy. There will always be a horde of insanely talented 13-year-old savants who will paint their spacemens infinitely better than me, and I kinda don't get inspired from seeing it anymore but quite the opposite.
Ok, moving on before I accidentally write a TED talk about it...
I have found that in most hobbies, you kinda end up going full circle if you stick with them long enough. I have gone from "3 books and an ice cream tub on the kitchentable" to having built museum-worthy dioramas for gamingsetups, with Ye Oldste White Dwarf-quality tables in between. Getting a bit chiller as old age starts setting in, I am kinda back on that simple old-schooly vibe. Sure, I don't really want to use books for hills, but simple and more abstract terrain really catches my eye when going thru the daily blog-roll. The stuff Martin Goddard (of Peter Pig fame) does for terrain in his rules just pulls me in, and Tradgardsmastare over at the Tradgardaland blog are but two examples off the top of my head.
K.I.S.S. and get the thing on the table.
Re: The conclusion to part 1
To finish the wall of text I will circle back to the beginning: it's a 'you' problem. How you should solve it, well, you all individually already know the answer.
Lessen your perceived obligations to yourself and to whatever people you think you need to impress and just enjoy the damn thing.
Fuck convention, you do you. <3