Sunday 18 September 2011

The Wargaming Butterfly .

One of my greatest faults in my wargaming is that I flutter from project to project , I like painting and find it relaxing, but at times I have to much on the go .I find I am influenced by many things - what I am reading ,what I come across on the Internet , articles in magazines , new ranges of figures - the list is endless !. At the moment I have on the go  42mm Balkans Wars Imaginations , 28mm ACW, 28mm Aztecs/Conquistadors , 54mm Toy Soldiers, 28mm Napoleonics and a few 28mm Gladiators as well as re basing my 15mm Crimean figures. Once a period is up and running and has enough figures painted to game with  I tend to ease off the painting a bit and move to something else. I TRY not to have to many unpainted figure for a period waiting - with mixed success , my 42mm Imagination has been bought in and painted as it arrived so has no outstanding unpainted lead ( this is due to the cost of 42mm figures I think - I only bought smallish amounts at a time). However my 28 mm Napoleonics has a lead mountain due to the fact that I bought it in en mass using one of the Foundry deals ( cheapest way of purchasing them). What I'm gaming at the moment also influences what I paint and a successful set of rules that encourage play also is crucial. Well having got that of my chest I am no nearer solving my butterfly wargaming and is it really a problem - in the great scheme of thing - no , but at times I feel a bit guilty and have great respect for gamers that can concentrate  on only one project till its completed .


I finish with a couple of ACW photos that I  found on my computer that have nowhere else to go .


Having posted these photos I get the sudden urge to paint some more ACW  figures - oh dear !..........

5 comments:

  1. I get great joy from breaking out armies that were started 30 or more years ago and had figures added off and on ever since. Armies that I started and finished in a short period of time tend to linger and die unused or get sold off.

    Take the long term view. A wargames army is a long term indulgence to be brought out and savoured, played with and added to periodically over the years At its best, it shouldn't be a short term project to be designed, finished and then shunted off.

    Its about the journey, not the destination. Good cliche.

    Dart like a butterfly but last like a memory. That's my take at it anyway.

    Ross Mac

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  2. Show me a wargamer who is not a butterfly ... and I will show you someone who is not a true wargamer!

    I don't know a single wargamer who only has one project on the go at once, and I know some who have up to a dozen projects at various stages of development from 'just making a few notes about ...' to near completion.

    All the best,

    Bob

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  3. In truth I probably 'wallow' in being a gaming butterfly ! (can butterflys wallow ?- suspect not successfully !)

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  4. Plus la change, plus la meme choses, old fruit.

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  5. Sad to say but I had to use Google translate on the above.

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