Welcome to the Tale of Board Game Painters
What's it all about?
It's about taking miniature board games, painting the miniatures and posting photos of them each month in order to give and receive encouragement and motivation to finish the whole box within a realistic time frame.
Long story:
A lot of us wargamers have bought or been given some really impressive board games through the years that have had one extra special selling point; cool miniature game pieces.
These can be old classics - Heroquest, Blood Bowl, 1st ed. Space Hulk - or super detailed eye candy from the recent surge of successful boxed games - Super Dungeon Explore, Zombicide, 3rd ed. Space Hulk - or anything in between.
When we open the boxes we all dream of how awesome it will look (in just a few weeks, right?) when we've painted every single miniature to the best of our abilities. Awesome atmospheric board pieces with super realistic miniatures all over. Then a few weeks go by, sometimes a few months and for way too many of us a few years. The games are still awesome but all that paint seems to have taken the wrong turn at Albuquerque.
Enter the Tale of Board Game Painters. Now we're going to use the collective power of motivation to really get it done! Participants choose a miniature board game from their collection - one's enough for most of us; after all, they've been unpainted this long already, let's not get carried away - and paint it up in 5 to 10 batches over a period of 6 to 12 months.
How it's done:
The format has been very relaxed, and we simply get some significant amount of minis done each month - a small group of monsters or a single hero is enough - and then mark each month that we got something done.
It is however very helpful to plan the goal and organize the minis into batches, so here's an idea of how to do that:
Board games come in all shapes and sizes so we can start by deciding how long we're going to take, e.g. 6 months or a full year.
Next we split our game pieces into batches, planning to paint each batch in one month.
If you're on a 6 month plan it could be like this:
Month 1: Painting in September - show-off in Oktober
Month 2: Painting in Oktober - show-off in November
Month 3: Painting in November - show-off in December
Month 4: Painting in December - show-off in January
Month 5: Painting in January - show-off in February
Month 6: Painting in February - show-off in March - Finished Game in March!!
A 12 month plan will not be finish in March but instead continue:
Month 7: Painting in March - show-off in April
Month 8: Painting in April - show-off in May
Month 9: Painting in May - show-off in June
Month 10: Painting in June - show-off in July
Month 11: Painting in July - show-off in August
Month 12: Painting in August - show-off in September - Finished Game in September!!
You can also start a plan anytime and make it any amount of months, just as long as you're getting those minis painted.
Jokers: non-painting months
I think it's a good idea to leave room for one joker per 6 months, so those on 6 month plans split their total painting into 5 batches and those on 12 month plans split theirs into 10. This is not necessary but real life does kick in every once in a while and we wan't to be prepared.
In practice we simply mark a non-painting month red in the schedule and then move along. No one is thrown out of the tale, but they're schedule is hidden once they seem to not be returning.
As an example, here's last year's 6 month plan for Chaos in the Old World:
Batch 1: Nurgle
Batch 2: Khorne
Batch 3: Tzeentch
Batch 4: Slaanesh
Batch 5: Skaven (from the Horned Rat expansion)
Then one month out of the six from September to February I can fail as miserably as I like and still be on track.
Then in the end of each month (or the beginning of the next actually) we take photos of the month's good work, post it on that month's show off thread and give comments and encourage our fellow painters to keep on truckin'!!
This thread is for signing up!
Find an applicable board game, take out the minis and split them into little groups. Figure out how much you can do in a month and then type up the batches. Reply to this thread with the game you want to paint and, if you're prepared, also what's in each batch and how long it'll take.
Here are just a few of the awesome minis finished in the ToBGP 2011-2012:
Who's up for the challenge?
Signed up so far:
Daemonslave - Space Hulk & Warhammer Quest
EmperorNorton - Space Hulk
HereBeDragons - Home built Warhammer Quest
iamjack42 - Space Hulk
Mr Potato Head - Space Hulk
robscott5598 - Warhammer Quest, Talisman & more
Solun Decius - SDE expansions (starting January)
steevn - Space Hulk
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Originally Posted by Solun Decius
