How many historical periods do you own? Do you play with them all or have some languished in storage for years? In essence, today's video is asking: Is there such as thing as too many historical periods for a wargamer? And does that number change over time?
"Socially acceptable number of periods"? Hmm. That really complicates the issue. I will get back to you...
ReplyDeletelol
DeleteMuch less now I am selling lots of my gaming stuff.
ReplyDeleteSometimes its necessary to rationalise a collection to focus on the bits that really excite you.
DeleteAssuming that Ancients is too broad, and a hundred + year gap between forces makes for a different period it's something like 14 distinct periods and 17 or so campaigns, from 650 bc to 1944 ad.
ReplyDeleteI've subdivided 'Ancients' into particular campaigns in my collection.
DeleteI'm pushing 60 but only have figures for five periods, two of which haven't been on the table for two years. That sounds positively inadequate compared to what others are saying :-(. I have unfulfilled aspirations to add 3 more* but I'm worried that will just dilute game time per period even further.
ReplyDelete* 4 if you count the Spanish Civil War as different from WWII.
If you play with your miniatures, rather than have collections sitting in boxes, than that can never be described as inadequate.
DeleteInterests wax and wane, fuelled and challenged by the diversity and availability of figs (and rules) that only continues to grow with internet, home publishing and 3d printing.
ReplyDeleteI think that the other key part is the interests of your gaming group, which also shift. One has to go with the flow occasionally, which leads to new adventures, sometime unplanned but necessary to keep playing the system de jour and enjoying the social aspects.
I move around a lot (every 2 years) so that can be challenging and I have more than my fair share of a single force of a matched pair that sits dormant without an opposing army at home! I also hate selling off collections because of (a) the time and effort it takes to build an army, which gets me invested in it, even if its not seen service for awhile and (b) if the period interested me once, it inevitably will again and I hate to buy and build the same army twice.
thanks for the interesting post!
I've sold old collections and nearly always come to regret the decision. I won't make that mistake again.
DeleteI avoid spear chucking era stuff - it doesn’t float my boat so that at least cuts things down. I have Old West , Sudan in 28mm that are essentially finished , 15mm WW2 Normandy being added to. 10mm ACW that can do most large battles with being added to - but I will up it in due course. 28mm Vietnam is a work in progress . I have 15mm Team Yankee being accumulated at the moment , but not started (I will probably sell off the 6mm finished equivalents!) . Club /social group plans look like some 10mm AWI next year. Most genres have had some gaming TLC this year which has been good
ReplyDeleteI think I have too many periods and too much of the same period in different scales, eg Napoleonics, WW2, Fantasy, Ancients/Dark Ages, I all have each of these in 3 scales!
ReplyDeleteThe more periods the better, it gives you a greater range/diversity of battles to fight. When turning up at Posties we often have no idea what the game will be due to his vast range of figures. Also different periods offer different scenarios. For instance Anglo-Saxon v Vikings gives the player a vast number of battles to fight plus as records are sketchy who is to say if the battle went that way or not. At the other end of the scale something like the Ango-Zulu war has only 4 or 5 major engagements to scenario all of which are well documented. Of course there is always the ficticious generic battle option, something I often use because of my limited scenery. For the record I have 8 periods/eras - Boer, 1812, early WW1, Russo-Turks, Napoleonic ships, WW1 dreadnoughts, War of Northern Aggression and Dark Ages.
ReplyDeleteI have enough to suit my time and wallet. But not enough to cover all my desires.
ReplyDeleteRichard, you are a philosopher.
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