"How many projects is to many" Topic

I just wanted to get a feel for how many projects the average Wargamer has

Take care

Andy

Dozens for myself.

To me "project" sounds like a game/period/genre that I am working on but cannot yet play. So I have cops, but no robbers. In that case I have no projects.

Or if by "project" you just mean things currently somewhere between in the box and on the table (in a box; assembled; primed; base coated; painted, etc.) then I have three (15mm Vietnam, 6mm Terrain, 6mm World War 2).

If by "project" you mean a game/period/genre that I have enough to play, but am adding to it over time, although maybe not now, then I probably have 30 (although several of those are "done" and will never be expanded – such as many naval games).

I usually only do one at a time, maximum two.

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

I am working on two, AWI and ACW….that is more than enough for any one man!

My list would currently include:

• World War I Naval
  
• Age of Sail
  
• Renaissance Galleys
  
• ACW ironclads
  
• Space ships
  
• 6mm SciFi
  
• 15mm SciFi
  
• 15mm Fantasy / HoTT
  
• 28mm Lord of the Rings
  
• 15mm World War II
  
• 20mm Spanish Civil War (until I sell the collection)
  
• 15mm Napoelonics
  
• 6mm Napoleonics
  
• 6mm Seven Years War
  
• 15mm ACW
  
• 6mm ACW
  
• 15mm Vietnam
  
• 6mm World War II
  
• 15mm Old West / Plains Indian Wars
  
• 15mm Modern / Near Future
  
• 15mm Post Apocalytpic / Zombies
  
• 15mm Sedan Chair Racing
  
• 28mm Them!
  
• 6mm Skyships (Aeronef)
  
• 1/1200 Aeronef
  
• 15mm Martian Empires
  

I counted them just last week.

About a dozen "top tier". Viable now, or up & running within a year.

Another dozen second tier. Just no time for them anytime soon.

Another dozen-plus that are back-burnered for 3d10 months, or are too unstructured to bother devoting real time to.

I am down to AWI and Flames of War.
"Too many" to me means that I have so many that the "Ooh Shiny" effect keeps distracting me from getting others in gaming shape.

Depends on how you define projects. Id define it as something that takes up multiple aspects of the hobby. My current 'project' is doing a Carentan battle with Airborne and Fallschirmjager. I'm painting both sides, making terrain and buildings, doing research and designing a set of linked games. I don't think I have the focus or free time to do more than one of these at a time.

I do however paint a lot of other random stuff. I'm painting miniatures for a weekly D&D game with my kids, which doubles as miniatures for Frostgrave, I have Malifaux and Infinity on the backburner and will probably paint and assemble some more in the coming weeks, I have stacks of terrain ready to get made assembled and painted, I want to run a stompy mech game at a con in October that I've barely started on, etc… I wouldn't consider any of these projects, since I none are really organized and the work is haphazard.

I have four periods I am continuing to build. Each one has enough to play games with.

I'd say three is too many to work on at any one time but that's just me. I know some folks like to have many projects on the painting table. I have collections for nine periods, three of which I don't have enough to play a game. For me painting and collecting two projects at any one time is fine. Any more than that and I begin to feel overloaded. I purposefully keep my lead pile low.

I often wish my focus was narrower but like most of us too many things are too tempting and interesting.

I have a lot of interests and I try to stick with about 6 eras, but then I do have that new shiney condition that seems to be going around. That takes me down another path. I have actually been getting those sold off so I can just focus on the core games I really enjoy.

Too many is when I run out of space to store the stuff.

I've been there for a loooong time.

Way to many to think about.

More than I can count, even adding my toes to my fingers!

234871561506

I don't have projects but I dabble in WW2, Modern, Vietnam, and ACW, with modern naval thrown in.

As for how much is too much – no such thing unless perhaps if you are stealing to support the hobby purchases.

No limit. Gaming is part of having a love for military history. So enjoy the adventure.
It is hard to say how many articles and rule sets I have in various stages of completion. It is well over 100.

Just…one…more…

It's wafer-thin!

Yes, MY Mr. Creasote is filled to bursting with unpainted lead. The effect would be much like canister shot.

I have about 4-6 very active projects at one time. Now one of those projects might include several different armies or just one army.

I try not to work on more than one new at a time (where 'new' means not yet ready to play) but I'll extend others as I need for the next game.

I really don't want to think about it.

Working currently on Team Yankee stuff,Napoleonics on hold,Aerodrome,ditto.

I am as we speak finishing a project I began 15 years ago. That's about one of a dozen. The project requires A LOT of modelling and scratchbuilding. I will go into detail on it only to explain why. It is the artillery for my Ikean Army. Ikea is the imagi-nation version of a Turkish Army of the 18th century. The artillery consists of a line of six stands (four by 8 inches each) of what a Turkish heavy battery looked like. Each stand has a big huge gun on it, with stakes in front , one "war cart" on each front with a trestle and a swing up or down mantlet to provide cover when reloading for the crew. There are a dozen crew swarming over the gun and some jannisaries in the war cart. All of this except the figures are scratch built from balsa, stock papier mache etc., and the figures have been extensively converted to guy carring the huge shot on little carriers, etc.. Not only that the six stands from right to left show a progression of completion. The one on the right hand is ready to fire, and the stands show the progress of erection. One has the gun winched up on from the carrier on a hoist and being lowered onto the bed. Another to the left of that still has the gun on its enormous (scratchbuilt) carrier, and so on to the last one where the stakes are being placed in the ground, the war carts being pushed into position and crews digging out a pit to put the base in to hold the bed.

Before I retired last august I could only do a little effort at a time on this and the other projects which I will list below and are in a similar state of progress. I had to drive two to two and a half hours one way to and from work and that took a lot of time. Now that I am free of that I have more time. However…. as with all modellers, as you go along you begin to think of new wrinkles, new "neat0-things to add". For me, projects like painting are a breeze. It's when things get artsy and complex that the projects stack up.

Other unfulfilled but in progress work.

My Amazon Army which is part of an experimental game I am working on. It's a game where the non Amazonian forces can't win. But the Amazon army is made up of "prairie sailers" (small fighting craft powered by sail, and huge towers of wood and hide rolling voer the plain with large dinosaurs carrying them. Like turtles, when enemies approach, they crouch down and the tower is on the ground. Prewsently doing the inlaid balsa-wood for the sides and parapets, and the top hamper.

My Battlefield "Special units" on 6" diameter hexagonal stands to represent the "Headquarters," "Camp," and "Line of Retreat" as well as small dioramas on 1" by 1" stand to represent victory points on the field rather than just bland cards. These I need for six Imagination Armies. The one for Princess Trixie is a full "Berline" coach with complete interior, generals, maids, lackeys and a six horse team all on the small stand. Camp and line of retreat needing similar model treatment.

A similar bunch of stands for My Renaissance Fantasy army.In this the wife of the Elf King is imploring the King not to ride out to battle on his fabulous chariot, and is holding up their infant son to remind him of his parlous fate should the king be killed. It's modelled on the scene from Homer where Hectors wife implores him not to go out and fight Achillies.

My Line of "War Elephants" for my ancient Army of Salacia. Each one is its own comical diorama. One of the howdas on top has a hot-tub with conversions of two normal soldiers and two babes in Bikinis with a keg next to the mahout who himself is holding a rack with towels on it instead of a spike. Another elephant has an outhouse out the back of the howda, and another has a band with a platform above it with a stripper pole and stri0per-belly dancer above it.

All of these requireextensive model making from scratch and not a little bit of sculpting.

In addition my creation of new units has become more demanding. Now it is not enough to make a new unit. That new unit must have musicians and special diorama figures. Cavalry must not only have an officer and standard, but a trumpeter and kettle drummer. The Jannisary units must all have "one man bands" , accordians, a brace of wind instruments in front, cymbals betweent he legs, bass drum on the back, Xylaphone on a mast above and a jingling johnny.

The Sultans guard for the Ikean army will have about sixty pesian immortals. (all on one stand) in five ranks. The first two ranks will be fighres I have converted o officer and standard bearers, but most will be surrounded with a huge circle of feathers (real feathers cur from plumes) and all will have Banjo's. (Mummers)

So projects with me are rather complex and require a lot of work. There's about twelve others but I've given you the idea.

I'm thinking of making for the Ikean Army the Sultana's Guard. First two ranks will be like a high-stepping Las Vegas chorus line in outlandish costumes.

I'm with Thomas O – best not contemplated…

Currently:
Old West 28MM. (Have enough fig, just need more resin buildings..).
F/I 28mm (have enough to game, just working through the leas pile)
28mm Vikings/Normans/Saxons. Once again I have plenty, but I could not resist adding more Crusader miniatures.
28mm AWI (just some odds and ends that need to be finished)
Completed
15 WW II
28mm Greeks
28mm Wayne's Legion

Everything is a project.

15mm FPW – Done with the Imperial part of the war. Will start on the Republican French in the next year or two.

28/25mm AWI – Done the Southern Campaign. (Although now that I sort of know what I am doing, I may do new and more correct figures and flags.) I am done with the Saratoga Campaign. Have just started on the Trenton/Princeton Campaign. Should be ready to start gaming T/P around Christmas.

15mm ACW – Been done for many years now. Yeah!

28/25mm – Colonial French North Africa. Will probably start doing some different brand Figs and slowly replace the ones I have which I painted many years ago. My painting skills just wasn't that great. I will probably have them pro. painted. As for now I can pretty much do anything for any scenario.

28/25mm 2nd Boer War – For the most part done. Just need to add a few more mounted Boer Commandos. Perhaps a train.

15mm Napoleonics – Now that I have found a set of rules I like, I will finally get into this period with my own figures, instead of using others.

Future:

28mm/25mm German East Afrika
28mm/25mm WWI Arab Revolt
15mm Early WWI 1914-1915
20mm SCW
25/28 or 20mm WWII Skirmish (not sure what figure scale yet)
15mm East Front WWI and Middle East.
15mm ECW
SYW???

Yes, I plan to live forever. Good plan, right?

I always like reading what everyone is working on. This is fun!

A few years ago a friend on a local mailing list innocently asked the question, "what projects does everybody have going?". It took me weeks to make a list, and I was completely appalled by how long it got. Two years ago I began working in earnest to reduce my collections to only what I will conceivably play with, but that in itself is a very long project, and the list of what I have is still heinously long. Here's what I came up with after a recent update:

Naval
1/6000 WWI naval (France, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Britain, Germany, Turkey, Russian Baltic)
1/3000 pre-dreadnoughts
1/2400 WWI naval (Russian Baltic, German, British)
1/2400 WWII naval (various, lots of them)
1/2400 Age of Sail (cast as Napoleonic, used for AWI)
1/1200 ancient galleys
1/1200 Napoleonic naval
1/1200 1860s naval (ACW, plus some French 1860s naval units)
1/1200 Renaissance naval (galleys, galleons, etc. mostly Valiant, some Langton & Navwar)
1/1000 Houstons naval (a bunch of ACW, a few later ironclads)
1/600 16th-17th C. naval (Skytrex galleons, Peter Pig various, some scratch-built galleons and galleys)
1/600 ACW naval

Land
20mm Napoleonics
15mm AWI
15mm ACW
15mm Punic Wars and Diadochi
15mm British isles Dark Ages
15mm Medievals (mostly 15th C., some could also stretch to 12/13th C.)
15mm ACW
15mm FPW
1/300 WWII micro armor
1/300 Ogre miniatures (supplemented by a lot of generic 1/300 sci fi)
1/300 ECW (this actually belongs under "naval", since I bought it for landings and raids in 1/600 scale Renaissance games)

Air
1/300 WWII
1/300 Korean War

This is definitely too many, and I didn't even bother listing some of the collections that are already looking for a new home. I also left out my terrain collections, each of which is an endlessly growing project in its own right, though most of it is deliberately usable across multiple periods and sometimes multiple scales.

I try not to stop working on a project until it's playable, so every one of the above has enough painted lead to game with, but most are also accompanied by at least an equivalent amount of unpainted lead. Some projects have also been severely disrupted by rebasing or reorganization projects (like my Punic Wars collection), so aren't game-able without a bunch of work.

I hate having the same period in multiple scales, but sometimes on impulse and sometimes by gift I ended up with several naval genres in multiple scales. I resolved in early 2015 to consolidate down to two naval scales (a tiny fleet action scale and a larger "skirmishy" scale) and consolidate each era down to one scale, but have already waffled about that for practical reasons. Some scales are just too expensive or impractical for some periods, and others were acquired for a song and will never be replaced once gone (too expensive).

I also hate having miniatures projects that I never play with because I can't find rules and/or players, and an ever growing fraction of my collection falls into this category. OTOH, every once in a while I pull out something that's been gathering dust and suddenly find a bunch of new players in the area. My WWII naval collection has recently started a second life, and I have Cunning Plans™ for a similar Renaissance of my Renaissance naval collections.

- Ix

How many projects is to many ?

To derive this (let's call it T) we first ask

How many projects is enough ?

This is very simple and is applicable to most hobbies and interests

The answer is

N+1

There is some debate over what N might be and here are some ideas

• N = amount of storage space you have
• 
  
• N = amount of money you have
• 
  
• N = amount of time you have time to paint
• 
  
• N = amount of projects you can hide from your SO
• 
  

We can then apply N+1 in numerous ways to get T, for some people T = N+2, for others T=e to the power N

If you, like me, have a severe problem with "Oooh shiny" then it is likely that you don't actually remember how many started projects you ought to be working on, so we have to start using imaginary numbers

John