Painting, history, oh my...!

[f2k]

Something I’ve been mulling over for the last few days...

I recently started a thread, asking if the was any interest in a Tale of Historical Wargamers. Didn’t get much of a response.

So, I wondered, perhaps I was doing it wrong?

I suggested doing a mix between a normal tale and a more historical approach. Talking not only about the models themselves but also about the history behind them.

But perhaps there’re not nearly as many history-nuts out there as I though? Perhaps simply painting and playing is more important than history?

So, I’d like to hear your take on this. Did you start playing historical simply because you liked the look of the models? Or did you start because you liked that historical period?

In any case, what’s the mix between history and modelling? Must everything be period accurate or doesn’t it matter at all as long as the unit looks cool and performs on the battlefield?

[emperorpenguin]

I saw your other thread and meant to join in. I've long neglected my Union and Confederate armies and joining a "Tale" could help force me to get them painted.

[Whitwort Stormbringer]

I totally missed the thread, oops.

I'll probably give it a skip just because most of my historical minis are much more a side project and while it would be good to have some motivation to paint them, I think that with that in addition to the Tale of Skirmish Painters they'd start to feel like a chore. I'm also just not a speed painter, so my historicals are getting a fairly lazy tabletop-standard paint job rather than the quality I'd probably like to give them, if I could devote hours to each of my 80 or so Celts.

I personally like the idea of providing a bit of historical background/context to go with the army, though. I suppose that goes for Fantasy and Sci-Fi as much as historicals, though - seeing nice minis is cool but it's more fun if they have a little bit of back-story.

[6mmhero]

Historical models got me in to wargaming, well introduced me to the concept as there was no GW around my area at the time.

I am actually very keen on the history side of things which is why FOW games can sometimes rub me up the wrong way lol.

I would be interested by the tale of painters that you have described as I am about to start painting a force for KGN.

[f2k]

I saw your other thread and meant to join in. I've long neglected my Union and Confederate armies and joining a "Tale" could help force me to get them painted.

Come on over and join us then. We accept all kinds of folks...

I totally missed the thread, oops.

I'll probably give it a skip just because most of my historical minis are much more a side project and while it would be good to have some motivation to paint them, I think that with that in addition to the Tale of Skirmish Painters they'd start to feel like a chore. I'm also just not a speed painter, so my historicals are getting a fairly lazy tabletop-standard paint job rather than the quality I'd probably like to give them, if I could devote hours to each of my 80 or so Celts.

I know the feeling.

One of the reasons I’ll probably never be a truly prolific painted is that I’m never entirely satisfied with the quality of the paint-job. I always feel like stripping the paint of and redoing the whole thing from scratch.

One of the things I need to learn is to do it “good enough”. After all, if it looks okay at 5 feet, without my glasses, and with one eye shut, then it’s good enough for the battlefield...

Or so I try to convince myself...

I personally like the idea of providing a bit of historical background/context to go with the army, though. I suppose that goes for Fantasy and Sci-Fi as much as historicals, though - seeing nice minis is cool but it's more fun if they have a little bit of back-story.

I never really found it as interesting fror 40K and Fantasy. Perhaps because all characters there seems to be over-the-top in the worts possible way. Not very inspiring...

Historical wargaming, on the other hand, is full of... Well... History. Heroic victories, doomed last stands, carnage on an unbelievable scale... It’s all there.

Historical models got me in to wargaming, well introduced me to the concept as there was no GW around my area at the time.

I am actually very keen on the history side of things which is why FOW games can sometimes rub me up the wrong way lol.

I would be interested by the tale of painters that you have described as I am about to start painting a force for KGN.

Which parts of Flames of War rubs you the wrong way?

Personally, I don’t think it’s the best rules out there (far from it, in fact) but it’s what people are playing so...

[6mmhero]

It tends to be the way it is played more than anything else. Everything always tends to be crammed on to a table etc....it is a long story lol

I know the feeling about other rules and lack of players, but I have got lucky where I am as there are a number of people who like to play blitzkrieg commander and KGN among other games.

[f2k]

It tends to be the way it is played more than anything else. Everything always tends to be crammed on to a table etc....it is a long story lol

I know the feeling about other rules and lack of players, but I have got lucky where I am as there are a number of people who like to play blitzkrieg commander and KGN among other games.

Fair enough...

I was just curious, since I’m not entirely happy about the rules myself.

In fact; I’ve been thinking about creating a set of generic rules for 15 mm. wargamming to fix those errors. That is: once I get the time to get down to it... Which is to say: never...

[sigur]

I didn't see your thread to be honest. I'd be interested but I'm not sure if I could afford yet another project at this point, especially with nobody around to play histoicals with (sometimes I think I'm becoming this really weird kind of wargamer who only plays solo). I guess there are some FoW people around my area but I'm not especially taken by neither the FoW rules nor WW2 as a theme. I'm a big ww2 buff (used to be more) but started to lose interest recently.

Anyhow, detaching the whole thing from me for a bit, I think that there are two factors that limited the number of interested people: First, I guess you should have advertised it here in the historicals section (and apologies if you did and I didn't notice). Warseer mainly draws the fantasy/sci-fi crowds of the large systems rather than historical wargamers who, like the Fallen Dark Angels, basically are scattered across all places and eras in time. Another thing is that the execution of such a thing would be a little tough to do with very loose rules like with the skirmish painters tale or the tale of boardgames painters.

Still I think it might work nicely. There are several of the FoW folks around, there's new blood in the 17th century with the recent release of Pike&Shotte, there are lots of new Dark Ages folks through SAGA, a handful of modern 20th/21st century conflicts gamers and so on.

I guess I'd try to hop on board with something at least. Maybe SAGA... probably SAGA really because that's the only thing I can see people play with me around here. Would love to try one of the Too Fat Lardies games too though.

[Codsticker]

I have a Historical project on the go right now, but I am soooo sloooow . I could probably manage a few minis a month but that would be it.

[C-Coen]

Didn't see the other thread either, might be interested but not sure if I could manage.
Probably won't enter with my ancient germanics, they're a bit too labour-intensive, but their opponents (early imperial Romans, naturally) would be quite suitable for batch painting. And I've got 100-odd unpainted lying around.
Although I don't have a particular army I wish to build (will use it for Hail Caesar!, but don't own the armylistbook - yet) I could easily form some units that make it look like an army (unit sizes in HC! are all about literally the size of the base the unit is on, not so much an exact # of models) and divide the total amount of models by 10 (with 2 joker months, as I believe it's usually done).

[Karak Norn Clansman]

I don't have a historical project at the moment, but I'd like to watch others put up a tale.

[Lars Porsenna]

I have a history degree, and was pursuing it before I knew historical miniatures (beyond model kits and GHQ 6mm stuff) existed. Of course this was in the heady days when the internet was just getting born, so I didn't have much opportunity to exploire...

I always have a historical project (or two) going: right now I'm building a model of a 1/35 PzIIIF, and tomorrow I hope to pick up a pack of PSC Panthers. But my photo skills suck, so I never post anything...

Damon.

[sigur]

Place miniature on white sheet of paper, get some kind of background or set up something to support the sheet in the back so you get a background fom that without any shadows created. Get two good lamps, set your digicam (don't use your phone. phones are not cameras, they just have them built in. That's like with the scissors in cheap swiss army knives. They may in theory work like scissors and may work okay-ish when you're on the move but there is NO reason to use them if you can get a real one) on a tripod or at least some kind of solid base, set to macro mode and autotimer and shoot. It's simple really.

[C-Coen]

Or just put your miniatures somewhere with a bit of light, take about 10 pictures from each angle (half with and half without flash), put 'em on your computer and see if some turned out ok. If not, repeat. Usually works...

[Lars Porsenna]

I took some pictures in the bathroom that came out alright...

Damon.

[C-Coen]

By the way, I've just convinced myself I will enter in this. Even if I can only keep up the first two months, that's still a bunch of models painted that wouldn't have been painted otherwise.

[Dullmohawk]

At the moment I'm doing a danish kalmar union force for whenever warlord games decides that it's time to put out a late medieval supplement for their Hail Caesar book. Over the last few years I've dabbled in pretty much any scale of historical wargaming, be it 6, 10, 15 or even 28mm, but most projects have drawn out or stalled since I had a hard time getting people into playing anything. It's the same old tale of how games like warhammer fantasy battle or 40k just appeals to people in another way that historicals doesn't.
I think a lot of folks have a hard time getting into historical wargaming especially because it seems to require a lot of insight into the period you've chosen to go with, and a lot of people just don't have that sort of time or need to dive into the dusty books at the library. There's also the problem of diving into a new period and showing it off on the internet with following commentary on the specific details of each unit, as you'll most likely have two to three people telling you what you've done wrong, and how those banners aren't the right colours for the battle you've described in your text and how the units you've spend the last two weeks painting up weren't even at Balaclava. Historians and people who's into military history are passionate, especially when it comes to accuracy, but sometimes that can be very offputting to new people, who just happen to like shiny miniatures with awesome uniforms. I'm not saying that constructive criticism is bad, but nobody like being pointed out as 'doing it wrong' - and contrary to warhammer fantasy/40k, you can get it wrong when doing historical wargaming (my 10mm wallachian medieval army is a living testimony and example of how to do historical wargaming wrong...)


For my part the jump from 'normal' wargames to historicals was quite easy, as I have a degree in history and always had a great interest in conflicts in pretty much all historic periods (except ancients...I'm not big on biblical wargaming). Personally I think the idea of a 'tale of x gamers' is a great idea, I'm just too much of a scatter-brain myself to partake in it. I usually have ten projects lying about the apartment.

[Ben]

I'm tempted by this, but I always start out really eager to do tales and then flunk it in the first month due to a combination of work, health and fluffing taking the pictures. I commute and I'm busy both days on the weekend.

I did recently buy the fireforge teutonic knights box though, and a crusader army (late 11th/early 12 century) would allow me to do a few individual units. And a box of Teutonic or Templar knights is like 500 points in Warhammer Ancient Battles.

If you allow people to do historical skirmish games, like SAGA or Old West for example, then you may get some more takers.

[sigur]

@Dullmohawk: Sure, that may be the case with many historical settings, especially Napoleonics and wars thereafter but there are SO many ressources on how to do all that and what uniforms are supposed to look like that this isn't all that much of an issue any more. Also - people probably are more willing to learn something than one might thing. When I get into a new wargame, especially when it's about historicals, of course I do research because that's a huge part of it. And it's not like in stuff like 40k you don't have to do any at all as well. I don't know, I like learning about things when getting into a tabletop wargame.

@Ben: I'm sure that skirmish games definately would be allowed. I mean you can't really be picky with a target audience that, on this forum, is rather small compared to the rest of them. By the way, what do you think of the teutonic knights? Really beautiful things, aren't they.

[f2k]

Well, a historical skirmish game is still a historical game, right? I’ve got no problem with that at all. If that’s what you want to paint and play, go for it...

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about making a “signing up” thread soon. I t seems as though there’s a fair bit of interest in historical games after all.
Only question is: what format should we use? 6 or 12 months? And when should we start? I’ve still got a few hospital visits to get sorted out, so I would suggest having the sign-up thread run through June and then start the tale in July. However, then we run right into the summer holidays and all...