"No, it's not the figures..." Topic

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Not that Phil is wrong, of course the figures endure.

But first is the game. Not the rules. The game. By that I mean first you must conceive of what you want to put on the table and only then can you properly collect the figures.

Otherwise who knows what you will end up. Like I did. 32,000 freak-ing figures! Not that I didn't enjoy collecting them and not that I'm not enjoying "uncollecting" them now that I've realized how crazy that was.

But, seriously, if we start with a conception of the game we want to put on the table we can much better decide what figures we will collect and do it in a more controlled and reasonable manner. And, no, I'm not the only one to go to excess – though maybe further than the vast majority went. A little excess can be good since it adds variety to our games. But too much actually gets in the way of forward progress.

Then once we have the figures and they're painted – they will endure a-la-Dutra.

Just a slightly different thought.

I like painting and collecting miniatures. If it looks cool and it's fun to paint, I'll pay it.

Sometimes I paint a few stands just to see what I can do. I don't intend to paint a whole army.

To me it is a hobby, I'm not required to be reasonable.

I would also offer that maybe the game should be based on the miniatures available. Real commanders fight with the troops available.

Not having rules for any specific period has never stopped me from buying figures for it. And thus it should be.

I think it has always been the spectacle of figures that has got me into a period, not the set of rules.

Rules might keep me playing the period…

Mike

Figures for me too….I can always adapt rules.

If starting a new project, then yes, you need to have some idea of what size of game you want to put on to decide what to buy first, but after that the sky is the limit (although again, limited by what size of games you want to run).

For me it's the figures that I find most important. If I like the figures I will buy and paint them then determine what kind of game to play. With games like DBA, Saga, Chain of Command and, others I can buy 50 or so figures and have a game. Don't get me wrong I do have larger armies for ACW and SYW but no longer am I thinking not to buy something because the project will be too big to do.

Sorry, but I'm still in the figure-firast camp. Sometimes a ruleset will drive me to buy certain figures, but largely I'm buying the figures first and then fitting them to a ruleset afterwards.

One ode to rules I will offer is that often a ruleset will cause some figures I've already purchased to move up the painting queue.

For me, it's the figures. Painting them, displaying them, owning them… the game side of it belongs to my youth. Now, I eventually get round to basing everything on DBX bases for solo gaming and just use rules as a guide.

But, really, for me it's all about:

I think you guys may be missing the point of the post. EMW isn't advocating for rules being important, but the game. If you have an amazing game in mind, that drives the choice of both figures and rules. For example, I wanted to fight the Battle Of Watling Street, so I went out and found figures and a rule set that would let me do that. If I decide that I don't like the rules (or the figures) I can change them, but the game endures.

"The Game" is not necessarily synonymous with "The Rules". They can be two separate and individually important things.

snodipous, I see your point. I would like to play the '98 rebellion in Ireland. However none of the figures I've seen have grabbed me. Rules would be the last thing to be found.

"The game" I've played for 40 years – it's still the figures that endure for me.

In my opinion, it is a combination of:

- The figures.
- The historical era.
- The game.

With no single factor consistently being the most important.

I think conceiving of the playspace, both in terms of area and time, as well as overall commitment, with a real assessment of one's own likes and dislikes, is a useful model for getting a game on the table that one can enjoy.

A point that hasn't perhaps been brought up yet is about victory conditions and scenarios. I have been enjoying playing Lord of the Rings scenarios from the GW Strategy Battle Game magazine. I've just done a 2-parter of the breaking of the Fellowship at Amon Hen where Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas try to get to Boromir who is trying to save Merry and Pippin from Saruman's Uruks. What a nail-biter!

So the story of the scenario behind the game makes the game.
Will they or won't they? The clock is ticking. That makes the game perhaps more than the rules and it definitely makes the figures come alive. It gets you thinking of the ways you could save them.

Hope you agree. It works for all periods and scales of conflict I think.

No question that the figures endure but I believe if the "game" (not the rules!) comes first it informs the usefulness of the figure. I believe grommet's reply best personifies my concept but Kropotkin is correct in the sense that finding a way to make the figures 'live' is essential to the overall game experience – and part of what gives those figures there best endurance, the memories they bring of games played and the joyful opponents (as opposed to certain other types of space occupiers) we've experienced.

Maybe someone should write the definitive work, "The Joy of Miniatures." There is a template I bought a very long time ago tucked up on a high shelf somewhere. Um, maybe not the right 'model' though. ; )

100 years from now, there will be a museum that displays figures that someone on this board painted.

There will not be a museum anywhere displaying a copy of a rules set. Nor will there be a display talking about the game being played.

The thing that endures is the important thing,

If it's not the figures, and it's not the rules, then what is "the game?"

For Lucius, any museum that might display figures, if the curator is of any real value, will try and display rules, too. And if they can, there will be photos of games played. Otherwise the figures might be nothing more than curiosity pieces. And this begs the question of whether any of the current figures out there are justified in a museum. An open question, in my mind – there are beautiful figures out there but that is not, in and of itself, a reason to use up museum space. But I understand your point – figures will exist. I once told someone my figures, if properly cared for, will be around one thousand years after I'm gone.

For OScmidt, and all other interested parties: "The Game" begins as a concept and can occur whether miniatures exist or rules exist since it can be played out within one's mind first and, theoretically if somewhat absurdly, can even be played the way I used to play chess without a board or pieces but just calling out moves to an opponent who was doing the same.

But, to be more basic, "the game" is the idea of a game, like snopidus' Battle of Watling Street, that exists before all else happens: before a figure is bought, before a rule is written, before a table is set up, before any terrain might be put together.

Think back to when you first got interested in miniatures if you can. For me it is easy, as a school kid I used to pour over the school library's copy of the American Heritage book on the Civil War. I studied those battle paintings for hours without any knowledge of 'miniatures' or rules or terrain, etc. But I knew I wanted to somehow recreate what was in those illustrations. That was the genesis of gaming for me, historical miniatures gaming in particular. Very clearly, in my mind, in this instance, "the game" existed a couple of decades before I paid much attention to figures or rules.

However, my point was that we go through some sort of similar process before we ever buy a miniature. Unless we're doing like Otto the Great and just buying figures for the sake of buying figures which is fine in and of itself but more along the lines of collecting than gaming, though the two are not mutually exclusive.

And, again, I'm not arguing against the durability of miniatures but that there is – or should be – a concept within our minds before we build a collection meant for gaming on the table. Being gamers, most of us will violate the original concept to some degree just because we like adding some miniature or other. Perhaps we do it so automatically that we don't pay enough attention to it.

Same here, I was entranced by those ACW and AWI 'dioramas' and they sparked my interest in military history in general.

The game is the experience: miniatures, period, rules, scenario, terrain, and friends all contribute to a (hopefully) memorable and enjoyable evening.