"Help a fellow out..." Topic

I'm away from home, family, miniatures, paints and everything for an extended period, but hankering for SOMETHING to play with, even if it's unpainted and by myself. Only conditions are it has to be INEXPENSIVE and can be played with unmounted (and *shudder* unpainted – no time to paint). I was looking at the Airfix 1/72 plastics. I know there are a lot of 1/72 plastics available and they are relatively inexpensive, so what manufacturer and sets would YOU buy in my position?

At home I have a bunch of WWI and WWII 1/72 soft plastics but can't remember what manufacturer they came from (OK, I got them something like 35 years ago or so).

From Airfix I was thinking of the Romans vs. Britons, Robin Hood vs. Sherrif, or various combos of the WWI and WWII sets, though more likely to buy medievals/ancients like the former two…

Axis and Allies miniatures? I know it's not airfix, but it is readily available.

If it were me, I'd pick up a set of free rules and track down an old army blanket for a ground cloth. Then I'd pick up a bunch of pre-painted figs from a clicky game like Star Wars. Stick to the "commons" as they are often as cheap as $0.10 USD each. And you can get a couple squads at a time – painted, based and pretty rugged. I have bought things like this:

link

Look under the "singles" categories. When i wanted lots of 6mm-ish SciFi tanks I bought the MechWarrior singles. For $50 USD I had a big army of blue vs. green in units.

Make up some terrain out of cardboard and markers or what have you and you;re off.

best of all you can throw it all in a duffle bag for transport!

Hey… plunk down the money for a copy of Command and Colors. Great game, uses blocks for units, east to learn rules, and converts to minis incredibly easily.

Best of luck with whatever you choose to do – can I suggest a PDF file of Ambush Alley or Force on Force, fun set of rules – I picked up the PDF a week ago and am pretty impressed with the rules thus far!

You can always download cheap or free paper miniatures and use those along with any of dozens of free games online.
Any type you want.

Deck of playing cards?

I've often though of getting some of these. they wouldn't require a large area and would be easy to pack up.

picoarmor.com/index.php

Definitely check out the free sets listed here:

freewargamesrules.co.uk

And if you want to go for the 1/72 plastic idea, checkout this site to find sets you'd like:

link

Many of those sets can be had from retailers like Michigan Toy Soldier Company:

michtoy.com

Have fun with whatever you choose.

Mike

Actually the card idea isn't a bad one.

I don't recall who makes these but they have been advertised on TMP.

In essence, units are printed on cards -- you can mark off boxes with a grease pencil or a 'visi' pen. (not dry erase). In essence you have an ancient's army that is contained in a deck of cards.

Yup, this was made for guys like you.

Now, if someone can recall who makes them and where you get them . . .

mjc

Caesar makes WWII partizans. A box of them and a box of Germans, and you would be in business.
Another possibility would be plastic Vikings versus whoever strikes your fancy (Saxons, Normans, Slavs, Skraelings, other Vikings). You might want to visit the Plastic Soldier Review website to see what is out there.
PigWars would work well for the Vikings.
Grelber

I spend a lot of time travelling too, and have been experimenting with a way of wargaming on a netbook. It's possible to create a virtual battle map using vector art (I use CorelDraw, but I think Open Office has a free vector graphics app).

You end up with something like this: picture

Every element (apart from terrain) is moveable and you can just save everything in place if you get interrupted. As for rules, FUBAR is good as it fits everything on one page, so no need to lug rulebooks around with you!

link

:)

1/72nd scale plastics are always good, as are 15mm troops, or the Star Wars collectible minis. I especially like the latter, since they are prepainted, and look fairly decent.

A few small spaceships, ships, or aircraft would work too, with a free set of rules of your choice.

There are some free cardboard counters as well – e.g. double-sided, standup figures for skirmish games.

2 games from slitherine software that are fun to play on laptop….and easy to always get a live opponent via playbyemail.
field of glory-ancients-medievels
battlefield acadamy- ww2

Here are the guys Quidveritas was thinking of, or at least one of them. The game is called Battleground Fantasy Warfare. There is another company that do something similar, but I don't know anything about them.
Battleground on the other hand I have played and enjoyed. It has written orders, in the form of codes marked on the unit cards so it works fine for solo play and if you find someone to play with you can teach them in fifteen minutes.
yourmovegames.com

Prince August do 80 28mm sci fi figures ( 2 forces, 40 figs each) for €10-€20, download FAD4 for free, job done.

Twisted,
I like your idea, as I have the same but I use battlechronicler.com for my solo computer games. All you need is a good set of rules, Say FUBAR and a die roller software.

Done

Noel

I believe the OP question is: which plastic miniature soldiers?

In which case the answer is: Check this out--

link

If you can get plastic figures for skirmish gaming pickup some contact cement and a couple dollars worth of pennies. Mount them to the pennies and you'll enjoy it better. Wouldn't worry about paint jobs. Toss the figures into plastic bags for easier transport. I had bought several lots of die cast tanks over the years and packed them for gaming while stationed with an armor unit. We could make a real sandtable on the ground and play or used them when we did battleplanning. One side was spray painted dark green an the other medium green.

Plastic soldier review and Michigan toy company are your friends. You can get a very wide range of stuff these days inn 1/72nd plastic. But check them out on Plastic soldier revies first, as some of them are not very good.

WOW! Didn't expect such a return on that post! Thanks for all the suggestions, guys. Over time, I'll probably try out a few of the ideas here.

Thanks again!
Meryl

Buy a second hand 1980's RISK set from ebay. You'll get c.10mm Napoleonic style infantry, cavalry and guns in six different colours, so no need to paint [unless you want to!].
Download some free rules and scenarios from Matt Fritz's Junior General website and you're ready to play!