Wargaming on the cheap?

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Doc Sammy

Doc Sammy

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I'd love to get into wargaming (specifically historical wargames, don't have much interest in WH40K or similar fare) but I'm on a fixed income and I must budget out my money carefully each month. So, naturally most wargames and actual miniatures are rather prohibitively expensive.

I'm wanting to get into wargames and I've been looking into systems that use Army Men or similar plastic toy soldiers and so far, I like what I see.

Thor Sheil's Army Men website has a neat section on wargames, with one system in particular standing out, One Man One Gun (and its medieval variant, One Man One Knight), though I've seen other free systems as well.

http://www.thortrains.net/armymen/

Anyone else have any experience with inexpensive wargames using free or cheap systems and toy soldiers as miniatures? Any recommendations?
 
I've never done anything with plastic army men, but if you're into historical gaming you just can't beat 1/72 plastic for the price. Often you can field a whole army for around twenty dollars.

http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Index.aspx

That site is the place to get info on the scale, they do reviews of most of the major sets of 1/72 figures oriented toward wargaming.

As to system, Rally Round the King is fairly cheap and plays very well solo. However it's a bit of an odd system in some respects. It has a historical army list supplement that covers just about every thing. The old WRG Ancients rules can be found free on the web, I think the first five editions are online. It's certainly old school.

What period are you interested in?
 
Arkansan said:
What period are you interested in?
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Dark Ages/Medieval, Feudal Japan, World War II, Cold War (Korea and Vietnam), and Modern.

I do have a wide variety of tastes. I'll probably start with either World War II or Medieval because I have a feeling those kinds of historical miniatures would be cheaper and easier to find.
 
Doc Sammy said:
Dark Ages/Medieval, Feudal Japan, World War II, Cold War (Korea and Vietnam), and Modern.

I do have a wide variety of tastes. I'll probably start with either World War II or Medieval because I have a feeling those kinds of historical miniatures would be cheaper and easier to find.
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There is an excellent variety of 1/72 miniatures in both the Medieval and WW2 periods. Pretty well whatever you wan in those time frames.
As to rules, Nuts! is an excellent set of skirmish rules for WW2. For Medieval you could go with Knights and Knaves for skirmish level games, http://www.hisentco.com/index.html It's a free download these days, though it was once a commercial set. Plays pretty quick which is always nice.

There is also Sword and Dagger for medieval skirmish. http://herkybird.tynesidewargames.co.uk/mediaeval.html
Those rules are free as well.
 
Arkansan said:
There is an excellent variety of 1/72 miniatures in both the Medieval and WW2 periods. Pretty well whatever you wan in those time frames.
As to rules, Nuts! is an excellent set of skirmish rules for WW2. For Medieval you could go with Knights and Knaves for skirmish level games, http://www.hisentco.com/index.html It's a free download these days, though it was once a commercial set. Plays pretty quick which is always nice.

There is also Sword and Dagger for medieval skirmish. http://herkybird.tynesidewargames.co.uk/mediaeval.html
Those rules are free as well.
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Awesome! Skirmish games are the type of wargames I'm most interested in.

Any skirmish rules for Vietnam or the Korean War as well?
 
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It's not exactly what you're looking for, but Warlord games has rules and mini ranges from the Bronze Age all the way through WW2. The models aren't bad looking and are pretty reasonable for what you get. I haven't had a chance personally to play any of their rules systems, but I had Hail Caesar recommended to me by a couple of old time war gamers.

https://us-store.warlordgames.com/
 
I've played Army Men wargames at cons. Don't remember if it was homebrew rules or published rules.

Back when 40k arrived, I had friends who couldn't afford GW figs and we played with Army Men, Legos and other toys as monsters.
 
Ill also note that , right now, the rules for both the latest edition of 40K and Warhammer fantasy (Age of Sigmar incarnation) are available as free downloads. AoS also has every basic army book from the old world available in pdf for free (including retried armies such as Bretonnia and Tomb Kings).

And some dirt cheap fantasy and scifi minis can be had from EM4 here: http://www.em4miniatures.com/acatalog/Sci_Fi.html

50 orcs or 50 dwarves for 7 pounds, "not space marines" and "not battletech mechs" for around 3 pounds a unit. Not a huge variety, but enough to get one playing.


Meanwhile, the secondary market on fantasy miniatures is a veritable goldmine, at least in my neck of the woods. Just last year I found on craigslist an ad for used Warhammer for $50. When I went to grab it, it ended up being so much I had to call a taxi to get it home. A complete dwarf, orc, tyranid, and dark eldar army, most of the original Fellowship of the Ring line, three large castles, and a variety of space marines and vehicles. I kept the castles and a few LOTR figures I liked, ended up turning around the rest for close to 1000 dollars.

In just the last month, having started a Necron army for the new edition of 40K, I basically got my entire 2000 pts from 1 "start collecting" box and $60 on Craigslist. Lots of people are always dropping out of the hobby, and willing to part with their toys for garage sale prices. If one is willing to do a little bit of work in regards to stripping paint and repairs, the hobby can be a lot cheaper than it appears.
 
TristramEvans said:
Ill also note that , right now, the rules for both the latest edition of 40K and Warhammer fantasy (Age of Sigmar incarnation) are available as free downloads. AoS also has every basic army book from the old world available in pdf for free (including retried armies such as Bretonnia and Tomb Kings).

And some dirt cheap fantasy and scifi minis can be had from EM4 here: http://www.em4miniatures.com/acatalog/Sci_Fi.html

50 orcs or 50 dwarves for 7 pounds, "not space marines" and "not battletech mechs" for around 3 pounds a unit. Not a huge variety, but enough to get one playing.


Meanwhile, the secondary market on fantasy miniatures is a veritable goldmine, at least in my neck of the woods. Just last year I found on craigslist an ad for used Warhammer for $50. When I went to grab it, it ended up being so much I had to call a taxi to get it home. A complete dwarf, orc, tyranid, and dark eldar army, most of the original Fellowship of the Ring line, three large castles, and a variety of space marines and vehicles. I kept the castles and a few LOTR figures I liked, ended up turning around the rest for close to 1000 dollars.

In just the last month, having started a Necron army for the new edition of 40K, I basically got my entire 2000 pts from 1 "start collecting" box and $60 on Craigslist. Lots of people are always dropping out of the hobby, and willing to part with their toys for garage sale prices. If one is willing to do a little bit of work in regards to stripping paint and repairs, the hobby can be a lot cheaper than it appears.
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Thanks for the information, I will keep it in mind! I'll check out Age of Sigmar.
 
Axis & Allies miniatures are dirt cheap these days and you can use them for all sorts of WWII gaming. I was at a historical miniatures gaming convention and the grognards (I mean really, guys in their 50s and 60s who'd been doing this since before D&D and viewed RPGs as "new" wargames still in the early 2000s) would buy up boxes of A&A minis to mine for infantry stands and tanks and so forth. The scale issues got better with Axis & Allies' naval addons, the Seekrieg players loved buying the ships to use in their games.
 
something that just popped in to my head...you can find 1/72 plastic soldiers - modern or whatever era - just about anywhere. Those plus papercraft tanks and so on and you can do some pretty in-depth miniatures gaming.
 
I really like Mantic as a company. Their miniatures are hit and miss, but seem to be improving. I like Kings of War, own the 2nd edition rulebook and the extra armies books, but it hasn't managed to nudge out Warmaster for my group as the go to for mass fantasy battles.
 
Yeah, they certainly seem enthusiastic as a company. The minis aren't as sharp as GW or Privateer Press, but for the price I certainly can't complain. The dwarves I've seen were a little off, but not horrible. The undead line though has been great; I enjoy the Army of Darkness/Ray Harryhausen vibe the skeletons have.
 
All good suggestions. If you poke around on wargamevault.com (the wargames side of drivethrurpg.net) you can find tons of rule sets; I was about to suggest Hordes of the Things in 6mm, but the rules no longer seem to be a free download. A pity, they're excellent mass battle rules and you can buy a decent sized HOTT army in 6mm for about $20. But due to the popularity and the similarity of units, if you stay historical you can get 25mm plastic minis from a variety of manufacturers for very cheap.
 
I picked up Hordes of the Things for $5 on the used shelf of my FLGS. Its a decent game that offers a lot of options and customization; a streamlined version of WRG's Bella-Multitudinous, that for most of the 90's was king of the historical scene. I think you can still get it through Blackhat: https://www.blackhat.co.uk/product-category/rules/
but the free version seems to have disappeared with the WRG website. It should be easy to find through (ahem) less discriminatory file-sharing services though.
 
daniel_ream said:
All good suggestions. If you poke around on wargamevault.com (the wargames side of drivethrurpg.net) you can find tons of rule sets; I was about to suggest Hordes of the Things in 6mm, but the rules no longer seem to be a free download. A pity, they're excellent mass battle rules and you can buy a decent sized HOTT army in 6mm for about $20. But due to the popularity and the similarity of units, if you stay historical you can get 25mm plastic minis from a variety of manufacturers for very cheap.
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I haven't looked into 25mm plastic historicals in a few years now, has the selection grown? I seem to recall there only being a few ranges out there. Anything I should be looking into?
 
Arkansan said:
I haven't looked into 25mm plastic historicals in a few years now, has the selection grown?
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Hellz, yes.

Juts keep in mind that you get cheap due to economies of scale, so you're not going to get the range of poses you will in fine metal castings. But since plastic historicals tend towards the massed ranks, even in 25mm, that's not as big a deal.
 
The Perry Brothers medieval plastics, I'll note, are some of the most gorgeous and customizable I've ever seen (and crazy cheap, I think I paid $30 for a box of 40 foot knights). I havent gotten any of their Napoleonic sets yet, but fully intend to do so.

Examples%20of%20painted%20foot%20knights.jpg
 
I cannot recommend highly enough Neil Thomas's book: One Hour Wargames.

You need maximum 6 "stands" per side, any number of figures on a "stand" and any size base. You can use 15mm (cheap), 1/72 (plastic cheap), hell, you can even print out paper minis and use them.

For terrain, again, you can print out areas of terrain, or cut out cheap construction paper or Hobby Lobby felt to represent forests, rough, hills. The game assumes a 3' x 3' combat area. So you can play on a kitchen table, no extra tables required.

You can play from Ancients - Modern with this ruleset.

It's very simple and games really to last an hour or so. Easy to teach and play!
 
I love me some 1/72 scale minis. But, that being said if your going cheap big buckets of 54mm Marx recasts, and free rules like FUBAR (I like skirmish level wargaming) are favorites of mine.
 
Scale is important as it will help determine the type of game you play. Most company/battalion action WW2 and Cold War games (Flames of War/IABSM) are in 15mm. Platoon and skirmish games (Bolt Action/Chain of Command) are played in either 15mm or more commonly 28mm. It also depends of the size of your play area. 28mm games normally use 4' x 6' (or larger) play area, where 15mm can be done smaller. The most common WW2 and Cold War game rules are set up for 15mm/28mm scale and there is a larger selection of troops/equipment for the two most common scales. Most newer games aren't in 20mm, but a little math and most games can be adapted. The only issue will come if you play with others. I would recommend checking out your local wargame group or hobby shop to see what people are playing in.

15mm/28mm dominates the WW2/Cold War scene and you can get yourself a company (138 soldiers) of infantry for about $30 in 15mm. $110 will get you a Bolt Action starter set with two forces and the rules.

For 28mm Medieval, Gripping Beast Plastics are inexpensive ($28 for 44 figures).

For rules, I'd suggest Flames of War for Battalion WW2 games, IABSM for Company level and Chain of Command for Platoon, Platoon +.
For Medieval, Lion Rampant or Hail Caesar are great.
 
I'll take this opportunity to once again state that Terry Gore's Medieval Warfare is far and away, by a large margin, the best game for that time period, if you want smooth fast gameplay combined with realistic outcomes. I love me some Hail Caesar, but its incredibly wonky and much more "because game" than anything resembling history. I play it when I want to roll buckets of dice and want randomness over any actual military strategy. Both games support a wuide range of scales (though with HC this is more just a list of suggestions, MW has everything from 6mm to 40mm baked into the rules insofar as the Foundry printing).
 
TristramEvans said:
I'll take this opportunity to once again state that Terry Gore's Medieval Warfare is far and away, by a large margin, the best game for that time period, if you want smooth fast gameplay combined with realistic outcomes. I love me some Hail Caesar, but its incredibly wonky and much more "because game" than anything resembling history. I play it when I want to roll buckets of dice and want randomness over any actual military strategy. Both games support a wuide range of scales (though with HC this is more just a list of suggestions, MW has everything from 6mm to 40mm baked into the rules insofar as the Foundry printing).
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I had a copy of the very well done reprint a few years back and to my regret I sold it. I really should see about getting another copy. I've still got his Ancient Warfare somewhere or another.
 
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