EXPO-say: Von's Frugal Picks from the UK Games Expo

There's nothing quite like attending a gaming convention with no money to sharpen the old critical faculties and make you consider the value of the beautiful, shiny objects being paraded about before your eyes.  I'd recommend it to anyone.  Leave your wallet at home.  Take your ticket and a packed lunch.  Just look at things and think about them.  You might notice, as I did, that many contemporary RPGs are needlessly bloated behemoths that attempt to meld the best of four or more existing systems and disguise the stitches with glorious full-colour and glossy paper; you might notice that those very nice lizard-persons are glorious but at £10 for two owning sufficient numbers of them to use them in any sensible context is ludicrous; you might play and discuss the hot new skirmish game in town and finally work out how the design principles generate sales past the buy-in.  I will talk about all of these things later in my usual meta-contexty way but first I want to talk about the bargains that you might find and endorse at such an Exposition, because I told these lovely people that I would.

You might, at this hypothetical event, have a nice chat with the lads from Arkenstone Publishing, whose names are too Finnish for me to remember or spell (sorry chaps) and who are pimping out the Nordic approach to Old School Roleplaying and the rather curious Inquisitio, which reminds me of the party game Werewolf, complicated by the idea that everyone is guilty of something and some amount of guilt will come out.  They described the game as 'a race to not lose'; it sounds like it requires a lot of concentrating but apparently it's possible to play fairly randomly without paying much attention and still end up somewhere in the middle.

You might encounter the excitable Benjamin Dale of Tied to a Kite Games, who produce the marvellous old-school D&D clone Blackswords and Bucklers, which strips out the hippy fantasy nonsense and replaces it with a grubby, low-fantasy Elizabethan English vibe that's pitched halfway between Call of Cthulhu and Blackadder.  The core rules are fifty clean, accessible pages with a heavy emphasis on making the details up as you go along and not burdening the system with unnecessary personalising-my-special-snowflake cruft - the first of a range of supplements adding further classes and mechanics (usually one new class and one new mechanic per book, delivered in detail) is already out - and did I mention it's a fiver?  Five quid for a roleplaying game that won't put your back out.  Bargain.

On the subject of bargains, they also make a came called Numerix, an 'abstract chance strategy' game that reminds me of Go with dice.  It's easier to play than to explain and an explanation is helped by a picture of the board, thus:

Action shot!

Basically, the dice give you three options in the placement and moving of pieces (either place one piece on a square with that number, or move an existing piece into an adjacent square with that number).  It's up to you which of those options you take, and the objective is to enfold the other player's pieces on three sides to remove them from play.  There's a lot of control over what looks like a very random mechanic and the minimal number of pieces means it should be fairly quick to play.  Again, it's very minimalist, without any unnecessary context of the sort that gets Coop so agitated and drives up the cost of everything with the need for pictures and stories and suchlike woven around it.  The wooden one is a cautious £16, the laminated card and plastic one is a trifling £2.10!  Lovely.

In the act of endorsing Tied to a Kite, you might be noticed by Oliver Piotrowski of Table Warfare, who present themselves as the ultimate frugal miniature manufacturer.  After a good whinge about How Those Other Companies Think They Can Get Away With This, the chaps might present you with the notion of a free rules system with an open-ended time travel narrative that allows more or less any miniature or terrain to be slotted in around the Table Warfare factions.

Now with 100% more reflections of your intrepid reporter!

They also make some rather nice fantasy figures which picked up the Best New Miniatures award, and well deserved it is too.  Photographing them was a bit hard what with all those mirrors and Mr. Flash not being my friend, but I did my best.

Trust me, they're pretty.

Oh, and they price the whole lot at around £2 per infantryman and sell them in single blisters rather than the 'buy one for lots or buy more than you want' straitjacketing engaged in by other firms.  It's a small range but it's definitely one to keep your eye on.  Again, endorsed heartily.

You might, finally, pass by the Mantic Games stand and see Jake Thornton, author of Dwarf King's Hold, doing demos and explaining the future for what looked at first like a rather closeted little game.  I like the idea of Dwarf King's Hold, but I frequently find myself needing games for more than two players; while team play seems like a viable option, it's always nice to have a sense of ownership over what your little mens are doing.  Fortunately, it seems that Mr. Thornton agrees; after a similar start-up set involving Orcs and Elves, he has plans for a pseudo-roleplaying approach with named heroes and a multiplayer option involving multiple factions, all on the same dungeon-tile-based grid - part Warhammer Quest and part Song of Blades and Heroes or similar skirmish endeavour, it would seem.  Interesting stuff.  At £35 it's a little steep for a board game, and I'm not sure about replayability with six fairly tight scenarios and not much apparent randomly generated fun to be had, but I'd be interested to see how it develops and how it might synchronise with other Mantic releases (for instance, it could top up the armies from Mhorgoth's Revenge, and adding another game to your collection and adding miniatures to your armies with one purchase seems like it might have some merit).

Also, the 3:1 scale demo figures Mantic take to shows are fit.

Exeter Legionary

As regular readers know, there’s nothing I like better than getting in a car and driving up a dual carriageway for an hour to spend all day in a cattle shed with like-minded gentlemen before driving home again.  This weekend was no exception as I journeyed to the frozen north (Exeter) to participate in, and bring a bit of class to, the Legionary 2011 wargames event.


In fact, before we go too far, don't forget you can still win a copy of the latest Unseen Lerker magazine featuring my own article on Frugal Gaming, see the last post for details.  But hurry, you only have a few days left!

Anyway, this was the third year that I’ve visited Legionary, and it’s the third venue in that time.  There were a few criticisms of the layout last year for gamers (I didn’t participate in the tournament so I couldn’t say) but this year the venue was pretty good.  It was in an agricultural auction house on the outskirts of the city, though was nowhere as bad as you may imagine.  The large open space meant that all the gamers were in with the traders which created a good atmosphere and lots of people were wandering over from the trade stands to watch the games being played.

As with previous tournaments, I met plenty of people.  This included two of my Exeter twitter chums; Domonet and Wartrader (both well worth following) who turned out to nice guys rather than murderous psychopaths, which is always the risk of social networking.  Domonet and Wartrader were running a demonstration game of Infinity which looked very interesting, but I’m currently afraid of taking up another game system as I’d probably end up selling a kidney to fund my ridiculous gaming addiction.  But if you’re on the lookout for a new game then check it out and let me know what you think.  Of course I would be remiss to not give a big plug to Wartrader’s business; so have a look at that as well.

I also met James, who had made the epic journey from Surrey to compete in the competition (for my American readers; Surrey is a separate state, east of London Island, two timezones East of here.  Everyone there speaks like our Queen Elizabeth and drives around in Rolls Royces Automobiles).  It also happens that James’s wife had to travel to Exeter that weekend for work, but I’m sure that's just a coincidence.  James mentioned that he reads this blog (Hello) so I knew he was a man of taste.  As it turned out he also a great looking Warriors of Chaos force, which was one of the nicest painted armies I’m ever seen with my own eyes.  I’m sure that my pictures don’t do it justice, so take my word for it that his ‘Amy Winehouse’ champion conversion was superb. 

"They tried to make me go to the Realm of Chaos, I said 'No no no...'"

The bring and buy stall was well stocked and most things seemed to be reasonably, priced apart from the obligatory £100 copy of Space Hulk.  As it turns out, I did end up buying an original copy of the 40k Rogue Trader rulebook.  This was a bargain and was bought purely for nostalgic reasons, it was the first gaming product I ever saw and it opened up a whole new world to me!  Looking back over the badly rendered Space Marine drawings and crudely painted miniatures would have brought a tear to my eye if it wasn’t for the fact that I'd just sold my soul to Satan to learn to paint like James.

The bring and buy also featured this amazing 5ft long spaceship for £30.  File it under ‘Looks cool, but I’ve no reason or space for it’.

As for my games of Warhammer; I got beaten like an incontinent puppy at a carpet factory.  I did take a few of the enemy down, racking up a few hundred victory points from each game.  My overall ranking was the same as at my last tournament (second from last) but I feel that my game has improved massively in the last few months and I’ll be expecting a win or two next year.

Yeah, next year.  I’ll definitely be back to Legionary 2012 for more, a lot of the guys from the Cross Swords club agreed that it was a great tournament and we’ll be back next year.  Well done to all those who took part in the tournament and a great big ‘THANK YOU’ to all who organised and ran the event.

Happy Gaming.

PAW 2011 - Plymouth Wargames Show

The fantastic participation game presented by Cross Swords gaming club.

As you may have guessed from my incoherent ramblings on this blog, I’m not the best Warhammer player in the world.  However, I do enjoy the game so I decided to enter the local tournament which ran last weekend; the Plymouth Association of Wargamers annual show, (also known as PAW 2011).

After writing and submitting my 1000pt Army list a few weeks ago, I tried it out against Lawrence's Skaven and proceeded to lose at every opportunity, I wasn't filled with confidence.  We decided to take a trip to the Cross Swords gaming club to meet a few other gamers from the area and so that I'd recognise a few faces at the tournament.  Everyone at the club was friendly and we had a great night, we'll definately be going back for some more.

Goblin on Goblin action (mine are the ones being flanked)

Feeling a bit more positive about the whole thing, I went along to the tournament.  To cut a long story, slightly less long, I played all six of the scenarios from the rulebook over the weekend, reporting the result of each game in my twitter feed. 

Shortly before the army was eaten by a dragon.

Of all those games, I only won one; by crushing my opponents Chaos Sorcerer General in the first turn of the game with my Rocklobber (it was the Blood and Glory Scenario, so I instantly won!).  I’d had the first turn so my opponent didn’t even get a turn.  He didn’t look mightly impressed, but I got him a cup of tea, and we chalked it up to experience.  We wrote up our scores and then carried on the game as if it was a normal pitched battle.  Which he proceeded to win.

Goblins about to get eaten, again.

Alongside the gaming, there were a large number of traders present, as well as the bring and buy stall.  Obviously I did my best not to spend too much money, though a couple of small purchases were made, which I'll tell you about in future posts.  By far the most impressive sight of the day was the participation game put on by Cross Swords, which involved a huge castle being assaulted.  The photos don't do justice to the scale of the model and I'll direct you all to some better photographs as they become available.

This castle was huge!  Constructed from Hirst Arts blocks, it must have taken months to complete.

Overall it was a great weekend, I saw some great armies and met some great gamers.  From a Frugal perspective, it was also a success.  For £15 I had two days of gaming against a range of opponents as well as the opportunity to talk about the hobby and discuss painting and strategies with the others who were there.

Oh, just in case you were wondering, I came came 23rd out of 24 players.  Better than I expected.

Happy Gaming.

Frugal in Falkirk

Well I made it to Carronade in Falkirk on Saturday, armed with two cardboard boxes full of offerings and a bag of change. I'd forgotten how frantic the Bring & Buy section of a convention is. I arrived there just as my pitch was starting, With a 5 minute swap over time I was suprised (and jealous) of how quickly the two guys either side of me were set up, with their wares well presented to the hordes, whilst I tried to ladle the contents of my boxes onto the small space available.

The majority of the items for sale being sold for someone I knew (with a healthy commission), so as I unpacked I was gutted to know that one of my neighbours had had enquiries from someone searching their "Holy Grail" - a Call Of Cthulu core boxset, which I was putting on the table.(Thankfully he came back round again so we were all happy). The 1980's Citidel mini's (at a bargain £1) were popular and over 50 went in the hour. I'd seperated the themes into seperate boxes which really helped browsers, as well as giving a discount for large multiple buys. At the end of a frantic hour the vast majority of stock was still there, but about £100 worth of business had been done, and with so much stock being Cthulu RPG suppliments it would have taken a constant stream of Cthulu RPG enthusiasts to clear me out. So I finished the morning happy with more cash in my pocket than I arrived with, lighter boxes and having enjoyed the time chatting & haggling.

After a bite of lunch the focus moved to the other two purposes of attendance, gaming and bargains. As I had Arabiansquire with me, who had been very patient during the B&B we looked out for a game. Looking round the Participation games available, and considering what time we had left, a couple of seats were swooped on for a Magnificent Seven game presented by RAF Leuchars Wargaming Club. They always have excellently presented and thought out games every year, so I was looking forward to it. It really ticked every box in what I look for in a Convention P&P game. Gorgeous to look at, easy to pick up, fun to play and enthusiastic and friendly folk running it. We played Britt and Harry in the village square ambush, and not only did the assembled players manage to take out all the bandits (bar one), but Arabiansquire managed rack up the largest bandit count to win overall (for which the greatful villagers gave him an extra piece of "reward". Great fun. (I fact in the time it's taken me to write this report it was awarded Best Participation Game. Congratulations, well deserved)

This brings us onto the last part - swag. Now being entrenched in this frugal business I found that very little tempted my wallet. Don't get me wrong, there was loads of nice stuff up for grabs, but I kept reminding myself that I wasn't looking for it, or it wasn't a game I was playing or (more commonly if I'm honest) I still had similar unpainted items in the hobby shed. However I did pick up a bargain in the Bring and Buy in the form of a repainted car for some Necromunda action, and the buildings from the Dark World expansion Village Of Fear. I also picked up magetic basing components for the  staff, after an informaitve chat with the staff there on what I needed. I also picked up a free quality printout of the Doctor Who miniatures game intro "Battle for Canary Wharf" from a freindly fellow (sorry, I can't remember your name) promoting Crooked Dice Game Design and had an interesting discussion on Doctor Who, licensing and more.

In conclusion, a good day was had. There aren't any details of the games out on the tables because I didn't actually have time to get round and see them all properly. The selling really did put a pinch on the available browsing time. In hindsight, as I wasn't really looking to buy much I should have spent less time at the stalls and more time looking round the games, but hey-ho, there you go, Can't undo what's done! I did come out with more money than I went in with, I played a great game and I picked up a bargain. Sounds like a sucess to me.

Bring & Buy advice

In a couple of weeks (Saturday 8th May to be exact) the Falkirk Wargaming Club hold their usually excellent Carronade show. I hope to combine a clear out with hobby funding and have a bash at flogging my spare items in the Bring and Buy hall. In this show the "vendors" actually hire a section of table for a nominal sum and sell their wares themselves.

I have a selection of RPG books, old loose Citadel figures, small boxes of other mini's (Call Of Cthuhlu, Colonial, modern GW, etc)

So far my thoughts are:

1. Price the goods to make giving change easy & take loads of change.
2. Some bags probably wouldn't hurt either
3. Clearly price items - even if its a sign saying "all figures in this box £1"
4. Clearly label what's in a box - seperate out different interests - don't make folk rake through a box of Fantasy figures because you've told them there are a dozen Colonial ones in there somewhere!
5. Try to organise the layout to maximise the number of people that can get stall side.
6. Check your prices and set slightly low to sell - everyone loves a bargain!

The big thing is I've never done this before, so any advice would be more than welcome. Please leave advice in the comments section for other future entrepreneurs to take on board.

cheers now.

AK

A Day of Frugal Trading

Hello all, and if this is the first time you've visited my blog, Welcome.

I always appreciate new readers and I've hopefully gained a few more after handing out dozens of flyers this weekend. The reason for all this, as you probably know, is my visit to the Lincombe Barn Wargamers Table Top Sale yesterday. One of the aspects of my Year of Frugal Gaming was to see if I could raise money with my hobby. Not huge amounts, but enough so that my gaming, painting and modeling came close to paying for itself and my trip to Lincombe Barn was my first try at running a small stall to sell gaming items. I'd decided to try and sell some of my hand made terrain, as it's something that I've always enjoyed doing and I think that it's an area of the hobby that I'm reasonably good at. The past few weeks have been spent cutting, gluing and painting to get plenty of pieces ready, and yesterday my girlfriend and I loaded up the car and set off to Bristol.
To cut a long story short, I didn't sell as much as I'd hoped, but I had a great day. I made enough to cover my travel and entrance costs and had enough left over for a couple of cups of coffee!

Everyone I spoke to seemed really friendly and a few had even been following the blog, which was great, I spoke to a few other traders, including a house husband who makes trees whilst the kids are asleep! I think he was doing about as much trade as I was, but he seemed remarkably philosophical about the whole business. If you're out there Mystery Tree Man, drop me a line and I'll 'big-up' your products. I also spoke to Mike from the Plymouth Association of Wargamers (those guys get everywhere..) who was also selling some pieces of terrain and some minis. He was really promoting the club, so I really can't excuse not getting along there in the next couple of weeks...

So, as mentioned above, at the end of the day I had a few more pieces left than I'd thought, which means that I'll be selling them off on ebay (with some remarkably cheap postage), so I've added a link to the auctions on the right hand side of the page (over there somewhere --->). The items up for sale will be changing over the next few days, so keep checking back.

This made a bit of a mess of the sidebar so I've had a of a tidy up, adding an FAQ which gives my contact details and the information on the ongoing 'Frugal Challenge' to game and figure manufacturers. Click the link and have a look.

Remember that as well as any comments you may have on the content of the site, I'm always happy to receive comment on the layout and style of the blog as well. Though if you want me to change my background to the generic brown wargamer map style, often used in blogs, then I'm sorry, but I'm sticking with my neons!

See you next week, happy gaming!

Saturday - Finished Terrain... Hooray!

Well at long last, the train making is finished. Here are all the pieces finished and ready to go. If you want to pick one or more of these pieces up, come along to the Lincombe Barn Wargamers Tabletop Sale in Bristol on Sunday!

The prices are:

• Tanks Traps: £5
• Rocky Terrain:£4
• Buildings:£10
• Defensive Walls:£5
• Defensive Emplacements:£6

Click on the photos for larger scale photos, all the best

Dave

Thursday - Keeping Track

I mentioned yesterday that my air compressor cost a bit more than the frugal gamer will normally spend, so has my year of frugal gaming failed? Well, not really. What I've done is made a note of the cost and included it woth the cost of my materials for making all the terrain pieces that I'll be selling at the Lincombe Barn Wargamers Table Top Sale, in Bristol this Sunday.

When I decided to start making terrain pieces to sell on the day, the first thing I did was start a record of how much I was spending on materials and any tools that I bought, this running total has grown and grown as I've bought paint, glues, foamcard, and so on and so on...
However, this means that whatever sale that I make can be offset against the costs incurred and I'll be able to ensure that my my terrain making and selling hasn't ended up costing me money!

It's not very exciting and can be a bit disheartening, but It will mean that I can be certain that any profit I make can be spent on gaming without a second thought. The rest will have to go on the weekly shopping...

Monday - Asking Advice

My old Dad used to say to me 'Son, whatever you do, make sure you ask trading advice from people on the internet.'. Actually, on reflection, he said something about lifting things properly so I don't hurt my back. But I think the point stands.

Last week when I registered to attend the Table Top sale in Bristol, I though I'd place a post on The Miniatures Page, asking for advice on running a stall as it's something I've never done before. You can find the thread here.

The main points that I took away were:

• Take a lot of change
• Clearly mark the prices
• Take Bags and Wrapping
• Sell cheap!

I was also advised to take a bumbag for the money, but I think I'll give that one a miss. It'll have to be an old biscuit tin instead...

I'm very keen to sell as much of my terrain as I can, so If you're there, come over to the stall and say hello, If you mention that you read the blog, I may even give you a discount!

The start of a busy week...

Hello all,

It's been a busy week at Frugal Towers this week. As well as the usual pressures of going to work, getting the washing up done and keeping Mrs Frugal in the style to which she has become accustomed, I've been going crazy making terrain.

It's also going to be a short post today, but fear not for I'll be posting again tomorrow and the day after and the day after that... The reason for all this silliness is the Lincombe Barn Wargames Society Table Top Sale, which is being held next in Bristol next Sunday. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I picked up the new Imperial Guard Codex for 40K and I've now got the notion in my head that I need (not want, need!) to buy a Guard Army.

This presents two obstacles to my frugal mission:

1. I've already got lots of minis that need painting.
2. Buying a large army for 40K costs a lot of money

So, I decided to leave off buying my Army until my birthday (August) as this would give me time to clear my painting backlog and earn some cash to buy all those minis (and tanks!). This has given me three months to earn the money to buy the army, which brings me to the Table Top sale next weekend; I booked a place and got to work making terrain; Ruined Buildings (using the techniques I used for my Necromunda terrain), some Tank Traps and Defensive walls using moulds (mould making advice can be found here) and some Rocky outcrops made using polystrene foam.

I've almost finished them now, but I thought that in the run up to sale, I'd post every day to show you how I got on and talk about the techniques I'm using in a little more detail.

Anyway, I'd better get off, See you again tomorrow!

Magnetic Blood Bowl Bases

On Saturday I took a trip up to Exeter to attend the Legionary wargames show. It was quite a small show, but there were plenty of traders and some nice games on show. I kept true to my frugal mission and resisted buying too much, just the new Imperial Guard Codex for 40k.

My main reason for going was to attend the Bring and Buy, I didn’t manage to sell many of my goods, though I did pick up some badly painted plastic Orcs for Blood Bowl, which means I now have two teams ready to go. On the subject of Blood Bowl, when I got my Dwarf team a few weeks back I decided to put magnets under the bases and a magnet in the ball to make the ball stick to the base of whichever figure had it as they moved. I’d got the idea off the internet, but for the life of me I couldn’t find the article again, so I thought I’d write my own...

Making the base
The key to making magnetic bases is good magnets. Don’t be tempted to buy some old fridge magnets or cheap magnetic sheet, rare earth magnets are the ones to use. I bought mine from ebay; getting 100 3mm x 1.5mm magnets for £5. More than enough for my needs.

The first step is to clean your figure and attach to it it’s base as normal, here’s a slayer that I’ve got all ready, next to the magnet to show how small they are:

To help you stick the magnet, take another magnet and place it on top of the base where you want the ball to go and hold it in place with a little blu-tac. If you’re going to use a magnet within the ball as well, make sure that the polarities of the magnets will match up, you don’t want the ball flying off everytime you want to put it down! I’d recommend making your magnetic ball first and using this to hold the other magnets in place, see the method later in this post.
If you turn the figure upside down, you’ll see two spaces in the slottabase, make sure you know which one is the front of the model, generally the largest. Place a small dab of superglue where you want the magnet to go and then pop it gently into place with some tweezers, plastic are best as the magnet won’t stick to them. As you put the magnet in place, the magnet on the other side of the base will move it to the correct position and hold it in place while the glue sets.

After 10-15 minutes, gently remove the magnet from the top of the base and your magnet should be set in place. You can now attach and detach the ball from the player with ease as he moves around the pitch. To add a little more durability to the magnet, I spread a small amount of milliput around the magnet to stop it being accidently knocked off during rough games.

Making the ball
You can buy balls that are made from ferrous metal so that they will stick to magnets, and these will stick onto your bases with ease. You can also make your own magnetic balls by adding a magnet into a metal or plastic ball.

This can be quite a tricky process, as the balls are pretty small, so should only be undertaken with great care. Hold the ball tightly in a vice, surrounding it with paper first to prevent it being damaged. Drill a small hole in the base of ball, your aim here is to create a hole just large enough for the magnet. For the magnets I’m using this means holes 3mm wide and 1.5mm deep. I did this by drilling a thin pilot hole, and then widening it with larger and larger drill bits.

When you have this hole ready, test to make sure that the magnet fits before adding superglue to the hole and popping the magnet in. This is a fun step, as you’ll find the magnet keeps flying out of your tweezers and sticks to the metal of the vice! If you’ve already made your bases, you’ll have to make sure that the polarity of the magnet is correct, or it won’t stick to the bases.



When the glue has set, your ball is ready to be painted, as are your players, then they’ll be ready to hit the pitch. Or be stuck to the fridge, yes those magnets are pretty strong...



Good News!
Before starting this post this morning, I checked the Site Meter stats and found that this blog has had 10,000 visits since I started posting in December, thanks to everyone for supporting the site!

Curse you Games Workshop!!!

I have a friend who famously once said that whenever he buys anything from Games Workshop, he asks them to wrap it in porn mags so that he’s not embarrassed leaving the shop.

I think he was joking. It raises a point though, why do we hate Games Workshop?

The first issue is probably the one highlighted above; the shame. I popped into Games Workshop today while in town. But only after I’d checked up and down the street to make sure they was no-one I knew around that might see me. I was only after a few paints but ended up having a good chat with one of the guys who worked there, I left feeling a bit better about my GW addiction and stepped smiling into the sun outside. Only to have a woman walking past turn and stare at me as if I was some kind of weirdo. A grown man going into a toy shop? Disgusting!

Let’s back up here a minute though, why was I in Games Workshop buying paints anyway? Well, like many men my age (31) I was into Games Workshop product while at school (Mainly Space Marine (Epic) and Advanced Heroquest) and after growing up looked back on those days with disdain. How could I have wasted all that money? Pah! What a fool I was...

Of course, time passes and I got into playing boardgames a few years ago and then found the Games Workshop Specialist Games website. From this I downloaded the Mordheim rules, ‘just to flick through for old times sake...’ and the rest, as they say, is history.

I’ve now got gangs/teams for Mordheim, Necromunda, Blood Bowl, various paints, rules and novels and I’m being tempted by the new Imperial Guard Codex which I’m sure will lead to me spending lots of money on lots more plastic men. This is of course against my Frugal Philosophy, but I have a plan. More info in the next couple of weeks...

But anyway, the reason I don’t like Games Workshop, is because there product is so damn good. Every single thing they do; rules, miniatures, paints, terrain and ‘fluff’ (novels, etc), has been done better by other companies, but no other company does everything so well together.

So, on reflection, maybe I don’t hate Games Workshop... But my wallet may come to regret meeting them.


Plymouth Scale Model Show
Speaking of things that my wallet hates, yesterday I went to a Scale Model Show in town. It was quite a good show with lots of, erm, scale models on display and lots of stalls selling, erm, scale model kits.

I did get to speak to Orlando from the Plymouth Association of Wargamers, who had an impressive 40k demo game set up. I really must make the effort to get along to the club at some point.


So overall, the show was okay. However, the entry price was £4, which I though was pretty steep. The man at the entrance, pointed out that I could come and go all day with my ticket, but after half an hour I was done.

I did get a lot of pictures of tanks though. I thought they’d come in useful when I make my Imperial Guard army for Warhammer 40k... Curse you Games Workshop!!!

Heresy Miniatures Review - Painless Joe

After the excitement of Salute has finally died down, it’s back to actually painting the lead that I bought. The Frugal Gamer always paints or plays what he buys, remember? I’m keen to start playing blood bowl so I want to get my Dwarf team painted up, but of course this means getting my backlog of Necromunda figures cleared.
Here they are in all their glory:

From the left they are: A converted Gripping Beast Celtic warrior, Kallistra Fantasy Zombie, EM4 savage with autogun and a converted Games Workshop Empire Flagellant.
I’m quite pleased with the neon colour effects I achieved on the autogun gang member. I deliberately tried some bright colours on this mini as I want to have some bright colours on my dwarf team. So expect to see lots of trendy dwarfs in the coming weeks.

Painless Joe
The other miniature I’ve recently got painted is ‘Painless Joe’ from Heresy miniatures, which I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. I picked this mini up at Salute after seeing it on the Heresy website and thought it would make a fantastic Heavy armed with heavy stubber.

In my opinion Heresy produce some of the best miniatures on the market and Joe is no exception. The moulding is crisp with little flash or mould lines to be removed, though any present are easily cleaned off in the usual manner.

Many of Heresy’s Miniatures are multipart and Joe comes in 5 parts; main body and right leg, left leg and concrete block, minigun and hands, ammunition pack and feed belt.
Whenever I put together any multipart miniature, I always pin the joints for extra strength, which is what I did on Joe. Due to the number of parts there is a lots of pinning required; this should only be attempted by those with a little modelling experience, especially as some of the pieces are quite narrow. The only problem I encountered was fitting the feed mechanism from the ammo pack to the gun, trying to bend both ends to line up while maintaining a natural curve was tricky and took a frustrating 10 minutes.
It’s well worth the effort to get Joe assembled; he’s in an amazing dynamic pose, his trenchcoat billows naturally and the gun looks very mean. The level of detail is amazing and the sculptor has done a fantastic job giving a determined look on the face and even the sunglasses are of a modern square framed type.

The only fault I have is the lack of detail on the ammo backpack, It may have been left blank for people to add their own designs, but I would have preferred a small amount of detail to break up the expanse. Maybe two packs could be be included with the miniature, one blank and one detailed? Though that would, of course, increase the cost

When it comes to painting Joe, there is plenty to get done. I chose three main colours (purple, yellow and green - strange, I know) and stuck to them. It would be tempting to add too much colour and make to look messy. If was a little tricky accessing all parts of the miniature for painting, as the ammo belt and weapon are in the way a lot of the time, this is not a major hassle, but in future I would paint these seperately and add them on later.

I’m happy with the overall result, but this isn’t a review of my painting, it’s a review of the miniature, so lets go to the frugal conclusion...

The Frugal Conclusion
Painless Joe is an excellent example of Frugal gaming. I could have bought half a dozen cheap miniatures for the same money as for Joe, but would I have painted them all, and would they have looked as good on the table? I’m pretty certain that the answer to both these questions would be NO.

Joe costs £5, or £4 each if you buy two or more, this is not cheap, but the quality is excellent and you’ll be admiring this miniature for years to come, not bad for a fiver. I highly recommend this to anyone involved in sci-fi or modern gaming, or anyone who wants a fantastic display model. Get over there and buy one... go... go now!

It you are a manufacturer or supplier who would like to have a product reviewed, click the link on the right hand side of the page for more details on ‘The Frugal Challenge’, or send me an e-mail via my profile page.

Yet another Salute review...

Hello hello!

It feels like I haven’t posted for ages, last week’s post was a couple of days early as I was off to London for Salute. I had a really good time and it was worth the trip. I managed to hand out lots of flyers for for the ‘Frugal Challenge’ so hopefully I’ll be able to post some reviews in the near future. If you have a product that you want reviewing to bring to a wider audience (this site gets a couple of thousand hits a month) send me an email by clicking on my profile link.

Anyway, back in London I ran into an old friend of mine, Phil, who runs Forge Games, selling all sort of gaming resources, so please go over and check out his site.


I also managed to meet Neil Schuck from the Meeples and Miniatures podcast, I’m a big fan of the show and Neil was really friendly. I didn’t have much time to chat to him unfortunately and missed him later on. He was there with the Scimitar games club and their ‘Awful Green Things from Outer Space’ demo game which looked mightily impressive!



Offensive Miniatures had a fantastic range of new paras and street gangs and riot cops coming out soon that look amazing. So keep an eye out for those.



There were a wide range of display games on show, one of my particular favourites was a scenario from the second Russo-Japanese War (Summer 1939) presented by The Escape Committee the layout was mainly created by Neil who trades as The Troop of Shrewe. I had a good chat with Neil and picked up some good terrain making tips!



The British Model Soldier Society had a very nice set up, with some larger scale miniatures.

I must also mention the Combat Stress charity who were also present. For any who don’t now, I used to be in the British Army so I know people that have been affected by Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Whatever your opinion of current (or past) conflicts, I strongly urge you to support this charity. I had a good chat with the lady on the stand and grabbed a couple of leaflets on their work. Again get over to their site, check them out and donate a few pounds.

Of course, no matter how frugal I was trying to be I still had to do some shopping! Most of the bits and pieces I picked up were for Necromunda or Bloodbowl. I was very happy to finally get my hands on some D3 (a D6 numbered 1-3 twice) as I need to roll these a lot for Necromunda and It’s not easy to use D6 and divide by two if you’re having to roll ten at a time! These were sourced from Chessex, who are an excellent company I’ve met at numerous tournaments. You can’t miss them, their tables are stacked with boxes and boxes full of every dice you can possibly imagine, even some specialist dice, not list listed on their website. So if you need a dice for a specific game, give them a call and they may be able to help you out!

I also got some fantastic minis from Heresy including a mini gun wielding maniac which is so good it deserves a blog post all of its own!

Overall, all went well on the Frugal front. I went with a list (all items I would have mail ordered over the last couple of months anyway) and pretty much stuck within my budget. Pretty much...

Introducing The Frugal Challenge

It's been a busy week for gaming (surely the best kind of week?), I’ve been building, painting, converting and I’ve spent so much time adding static grass to things I’m completely flocked!
I’ve done a little bit more work on my Blood Bowl pitch, which should be finished in the next couple of weeks, so expect some photos soon.

I also added my blog to the miniwargaming 'Site Rater' engine so go over and give me a thumbs up to help raise the profile of your favourite frugal blog.

Last week I posted about the modular terrain boards I’ve been working on for Necromunda and I’ve had a few requests for better photos of the detail pieces I made, so here you go (on a 1cm grid):

The pieces from top left to bottom right are:

• 2 x Columns
• Shield Plaque
• Window Corner
• Vent
• Plaque/Street Sign
• Half Barrel
• Column Base
• 2 x Windowsill
• Small Odd Decoration

Here they are in situ:




In other news I’m looking forward to my trip to Salute next week, which brings me on to the subject of the Frugal Challenge.

The Frugal Challenge
I’ve decided to issue a challenge to all manufacturers and suppliers involved in the hobby, whether they produce boardgames, miniatures, card games, terrain or anything else for that matter. What I’m asking is;

Do your products offer high quality and good value for money?

I’ve added a ‘Frugal Challenge’ logo to the right of this page which you can click for more information.

I hope to get a good response and I’ll be talking directly to traders at Salute and trying to convince them to send through their wares so they can be exposed to a wide range of gamers (you lot!).

I’ll also be looking for people to review the products I get sent, but I’ll let you all know when I need a little help.

That’s enough for this week, happy gaming!